190
PARTISAN REVIEW
sitting beside Margaret was aware of what had happened, and even
she, though obviously inclined to get up and let Sally have the seat,
respected their desire not to have a stir) .
"Amazing," Sally murmured, "how perfectly amazing!"
Margaret nodded, her eyes shining with tears, her face shining
with happiness as she felt that their meeting was, out of its pure for–
tuitousness, full of wonder and possibilities.
Holding Margaret's hand, Sally continued to smile as her mind
rattled away, remembering the hatred- nooed, forgotten, reani–
mated, forgotten, but all these years somewhere near at hand-re–
membering with immense relie:f that Margaret had said she was mere–
ly visiting; finding herself willing to encourage a superstition that had
bounded up in her that Fate was fulfilling a prophecy made when
they were girls (a view of them in funny old clothes and long hair,
sitting together
in
a window seat went through her mind) . Then she
thought impatiently, it's too silly! and said aloud, "Oh, let's get off
this car, it's so ridiculous--let's find a teashop !"
Obediently Margaret turned her head to stare out of the window,
looking for a teashop (though oughtn't it to be a tea
room?
Only the
English, she thought, spoke of shops) . Her spirit sank with dread as
she recognized Sally's old, impetuous, harried, artificially gay tone,
but she still remained fascinated by their meeting as she admitted
to herself that if Sally and their friendship with its abrupt parting,
had stuck in her mind, unresolved, she must in that case have secretly
felt all along, with excitement as well as apprehension, that they would
meet again. And
1
here they were, met: it was momentous. Suddenly
she cried in surprise, "There!" as a tearoom remarkably flashed by,
and she got to her feet, clutching her bag and book in one hand,
Sally's arm in the other, relieved that the situation had been saved
so soon.
They progressed together to the front of the car. When at last
it stopped they jumped down and began to exclaim, but they must
hurry out of the street; and on the sidewalk, as they turned again to
each other there were people busily passing, and Sally cried, "Oh
damn ... here!" and rushed down the street, into the restaurant
Margaret had found.
Margaret saw she had been lucky- it was a decent restaurant,
with the familiarity of leather nooks, white tablecloths, gentle lights,
a few people and those quiet, almost reflective, enjoying a prudent
mid-afternoon relaxation.
"At last, at last, finally!" Sally said, sitting violently down on the
leather 5eat. "Mter twenty years-is it?-we must meet in a streetcar!
