midday
Every day she spent more and more time out of doors . At home the profound silence and seeming emptiness of the house served but to intensify her craving for companionship . Her landlady , who was her own cook , never entered into conversation with her , and only came to her once or twice a day to ask her what she would have to eat . But to Fan it was no pleasure to sit down to eat by herself , and for her midday meal she was satisfied to have a mutton chop with a potato -- that hideously monotonous mutton chop and potato which so many millions of unimaginative Anglo-Saxons are content to swallow on each recurring day . And Mrs. Fay , her landlady , had a soul ; and her skill in cooking was her pride and glory . Cookery was to her what poetry and the worship of Humanity , and Esoteric Buddhism are to others ; and from the time when she began life as a kitchen-maid in a small hotel , she had followed her art with singleness of purpose and unflagging zeal . She felt it as a kind of degradation to have a lodger in her house who was satisfied to order a mutton chop and a potato day after day .