She stood still clinging
to the safe privacy of her own street and peering over into the
blaze and quiver of the tumult. In the Strand end of her own street
there were several dramatic agencies, a second-hand book and print
shop with piles of dirty music in the barrow outside the window, a
little restaurant with cold beef, an ancient chicken, hard-boiled
eggs and sponge cakes under glass domes in the window; everywhere
about her were dim doors, glimpses of twisting stairs, dusty windows
and figures flitting up and down, in and out as though they were
marionettes pulled by invisible strings to fulfil some figure.
These were all in the dusk of the side-street; a large draper's with
shirts and collars and grinning wax boys in sailor suits caught with
its front windows the Strand lamps. It was beside the shop that
Maggie stood for an instant hesitating. She could see no pillar-box;
she could see nothing save the streams of human beings, slipping
like water between the banks of houses.
She hesitated, clinging to the draper's shop; then, suddenly
catching sight of the pillar-box a few yards down the street, she
let herself go, had a momentary sensation of swimming in a sea
desperately crowded with other bodies, fought against the fierce
gaze of lights that beat straight upon her eyes, found the box,
slipped in the letter, and then, almost at once, was back in her
quiet quarters again.
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