In the meantime, we must see London together.’ She was up in her gown and making Celia tea again. Celia’s head was messy with staying up late and listening to Miss Webb and Mr Sparks argue about politics, debating with Mr Janus whether wars did or did not improve art. After the café, they had come back to the flat and talked. All of them, Celia discovered, had been at university with Mr Janus. Miss Webb had been at the women’s college but, she said, had grown so bored with women’s society after spending so much time with her father as a child that she frequented the library just to get some male company. The six of them talked a lot about university, as well as general politics, and teased Miss Webb about her campaign for votes for women. She would sigh theatrically, ‘Only Miss de Witt understands me,’ and pat Celia’s hand. The touch was like heat on Celia’s spine. Miss Webb, who was like no woman she had ever met. She lived alone in her own flat, which she said was full of books, prided herself on looking ‘smart but never pretty’, and was knowledgeable about everything from politics to what one artist in Paris said to another at an exhibition.
