She did not want to marry at all.

It seemed to her that there was something amateurish in bringing love into touch with a perfectly straightforward friendship, such as hers was with Ralph, which, for two years now, had based itself upon common interests in impersonal topics, such as the housing of the poor, or the taxation of land values.
But the afternoon spirit differed intrinsically from the morning spirit.
Mary found herself watching the flight of a bird, or making drawings of the branches of the plane-trees upon her blotting-paper.

People came in to see Mr.Clacton on business, and a seductive smell of cigarette smoke issued from his room.

Mrs.Seal wandered about with newspaper cuttings, which seemed to her either "quite splendid" or "really too bad for words." She used to paste these into books, or send them to her friends, having first drawn a broad bar in blue pencil down the margin, a proceeding which signified equally and indistinguishably the depths of her reprobation or the heights of her approval.
About four o'clock on that same afternoon Katharine Hilbery was walking up Kingsway.

The question of tea presented itself.