Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett — Read

Elsie, straight from the street, sat down on the edge of her creaking bed on the second-floor and looked at her best boots, which had lost their polish during the course of the afternoon and were covered with dust. She had paid various brief calls, and in her former home in Riceyman Square she had taken off her jacket and put on a pinafore-apron and vigorously helped with housework in arrear. But most of the time she had spent in walking certain streets. Though she ought to have been tired -- what with the morning's labour, the calls, the episode in the pinafore, the long walking -- she had almost no sensation of bodily fatigue. Her mind, however, was exhausted by the monotony of thinking one importunate thought, which refused to be dismissed, and which indeed she did not sincerely want to dismiss.

When, on her way upstairs, she had spoken to Mrs. Earlforward at the door of the dining room, she had hoped that her employer would say: "There's someone been inquiring for you," or, "Elsie, that man has come pestering again. " But no! Nothing but a colourless, preoccupied "Good night. " An absurd hope, naturally! She knew it was an absurd hope -- and yet would not let it go. She had had the same silly hope upon entering each of the houses which she had visited. She had had it constantly as she walked the streets, examining every distant male figure. The silence of Dr. Raste had nearly killed it, but it could not be killed; it had more lives than a cat.