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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1144-0.txt b/1144-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc5b260 --- /dev/null +++ b/1144-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3708 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1144 *** + +[Illustration] + + + + +In the Cage + +by Henry James + + +Contents + + I. + II. + III. + IV. + V. + VI. + VII. + VIII. + IX. + X. + XI. + XII. + XIII. + XIV. + XV. + XVI. + XVII. + XVIII. + XIX. + XX. + XXI. + XXII. + XXIII. + XXIV. + XXV. + XXVI. + XXVII. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +It had occurred to her early that in her position—that of a young +person spending, in framed and wired confinement, the life of a +guinea-pig or a magpie—she should know a great many persons without +their recognising the acquaintance. That made it an emotion the more +lively—though singularly rare and always, even then, with opportunity +still very much smothered—to see any one come in whom she knew outside, +as she called it, any one who could add anything to the meanness of her +function. Her function was to sit there with two young men—the other +telegraphist and the counter-clerk; to mind the “sounder,” which was +always going, to dole out stamps and postal-orders, weigh letters, +answer stupid questions, give difficult change and, more than anything +else, count words as numberless as the sands of the sea, the words of +the telegrams thrust, from morning to night, through the gap left in +the high lattice, across the encumbered shelf that her forearm ached +with rubbing. This transparent screen fenced out or fenced in, +according to the side of the narrow counter on which the human lot was +cast, the duskiest corner of a shop pervaded not a little, in winter, +by the poison of perpetual gas, and at all times by the presence of +hams, cheese, dried fish, soap, varnish, paraffin and other solids and +fluids that she came to know perfectly by their smells without +consenting to know them by their names. + +The barrier that divided the little post-and-telegraph-office from the +grocery was a frail structure of wood and wire; but the social, the +professional separation was a gulf that fortune, by a stroke quite +remarkable, had spared her the necessity of contributing at all +publicly to bridge. When Mr. Cocker’s young men stepped over from +behind the other counter to change a five-pound note—and Mr. Cocker’s +situation, with the cream of the “Court Guide” and the dearest +furnished apartments, Simpkin’s, Ladle’s, Thrupp’s, just round the +corner, was so select that his place was quite pervaded by the crisp +rustle of these emblems—she pushed out the sovereigns as if the +applicant were no more to her than one of the momentary, the +practically featureless, appearances in the great procession; and this +perhaps all the more from the very fact of the connexion (only +recognised outside indeed) to which she had lent herself with +ridiculous inconsequence. She recognised the others the less because +she had at last so unreservedly, so irredeemably, recognised Mr. Mudge. +However that might be, she was a little ashamed of having to admit to +herself that Mr. Mudge’s removal to a higher sphere—to a more +commanding position, that is, though to a much lower +neighbourhood—would have been described still better as a luxury than +as the mere simplification, the corrected awkwardness, that she +contented herself with calling it. He had at any rate ceased to be all +day long in her eyes, and this left something a little fresh for them +to rest on of a Sunday. During the three months of his happy survival +at Cocker’s after her consent to their engagement she had often asked +herself what it was marriage would be able to add to a familiarity that +seemed already to have scraped the platter so clean. Opposite there, +behind the counter of which his superior stature, his whiter apron, his +more clustering curls and more present, too present, _h_’s had been for +a couple of years the principal ornament, he had moved to and fro +before her as on the small sanded floor of their contracted future. She +was conscious now of the improvement of not having to take her present +and her future at once. They were about as much as she could manage +when taken separate. + +She had, none the less, to give her mind steadily to what Mr. Mudge had +again written her about, the idea of her applying for a transfer to an +office quite similar—she couldn’t yet hope for a place in a +bigger—under the very roof where he was foreman, so that, dangled +before her every minute of the day, he should see her, as he called it, +“hourly,” and in a part, the far N.W. district, where, with her mother, +she would save on their two rooms alone nearly three shillings. It +would be far from dazzling to exchange Mayfair for Chalk Farm, and it +wore upon her much that he could never drop a subject; still, it didn’t +wear as things _had_ worn, the worries of the early times of their +great misery, her own, her mother’s and her elder sister’s—the last of +whom had succumbed to all but absolute want when, as conscious and +incredulous ladies, suddenly bereft, betrayed, overwhelmed, they had +slipped faster and faster down the steep slope at the bottom of which +she alone had rebounded. Her mother had never rebounded any more at the +bottom than on the way; had only rumbled and grumbled down and down, +making, in respect of caps, topics and “habits,” no effort +whatever—which simply meant smelling much of the time of whiskey. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +It was always rather quiet at Cocker’s while the contingent from +Ladle’s and Thrupp’s and all the other great places were at luncheon, +or, as the young men used vulgarly to say, while the animals were +feeding. She had forty minutes in advance of this to go home for her +own dinner; and when she came back and one of the young men took his +turn there was often half an hour during which she could pull out a bit +of work or a book—a book from the place where she borrowed novels, very +greasy, in fine print and all about fine folks, at a ha’penny a day. +This sacred pause was one of the numerous ways in which the +establishment kept its finger on the pulse of fashion and fell into the +rhythm of the larger life. It had something to do, one day, with the +particular flare of importance of an arriving customer, a lady whose +meals were apparently irregular, yet whom she was destined, she +afterwards found, not to forget. The girl was _blasée;_ nothing could +belong more, as she perfectly knew, to the intense publicity of her +profession; but she had a whimsical mind and wonderful nerves; she was +subject, in short, to sudden flickers of antipathy and sympathy, red +gleams in the grey, fitful needs to notice and to “care,” odd caprices +of curiosity. She had a friend who had invented a new career for +women—that of being in and out of people’s houses to look after the +flowers. Mrs. Jordan had a manner of her own of sounding this allusion; +“the flowers,” on her lips, were, in fantastic places, in happy homes, +as usual as the coals or the daily papers. She took charge of them, at +any rate, in all the rooms, at so much a month, and people were quickly +finding out what it was to make over this strange burden of the +pampered to the widow of a clergyman. The widow, on her side, dilating +on the initiations thus opened up to her, had been splendid to her +young friend, over the way she was made free of the greatest houses—the +way, especially when she did the dinner-tables, set out so often for +twenty, she felt that a single step more would transform her whole +social position. On its being asked of her then if she circulated only +in a sort of tropical solitude, with the upper servants for picturesque +natives, and on her having to assent to this glance at her limitations, +she had found a reply to the girl’s invidious question. “You’ve no +imagination, my dear!”—that was because a door more than half open to +the higher life couldn’t be called anything but a thin partition. Mrs. +Jordan’s imagination quite did away with the thickness. + +Our young lady had not taken up the charge, had dealt with it +good-humouredly, just because she knew so well what to think of it. It +was at once one of her most cherished complaints and most secret +supports that people didn’t understand her, and it was accordingly a +matter of indifference to her that Mrs. Jordan shouldn’t; even though +Mrs. Jordan, handed down from their early twilight of gentility and +also the victim of reverses, was the only member of her circle in whom +she recognised an equal. She was perfectly aware that her imaginative +life was the life in which she spent most of her time; and she would +have been ready, had it been at all worth while, to contend that, since +her outward occupation didn’t kill it, it must be strong indeed. +Combinations of flowers and green-stuff, forsooth! What _she_ could +handle freely, she said to herself, was combinations of men and women. +The only weakness in her faculty came from the positive abundance of +her contact with the human herd; this was so constant, it had so the +effect of cheapening her privilege, that there were long stretches in +which inspiration, divination and interest quite dropped. The great +thing was the flashes, the quick revivals, absolute accidents all, and +neither to be counted on nor to be resisted. Some one had only +sometimes to put in a penny for a stamp and the whole thing was upon +her. She was so absurdly constructed that these were literally the +moments that made up—made up for the long stiffness of sitting there in +the stocks, made up for the cunning hostility of Mr. Buckton and the +importunate sympathy of the counter-clerk, made up for the daily deadly +flourishy letter from Mr. Mudge, made up even for the most haunting of +her worries, the rage at moments of not knowing how her mother did “get +it.” + +She had surrendered herself moreover of late to a certain expansion of +her consciousness; something that seemed perhaps vulgarly accounted for +by the fact that, as the blast of the season roared louder and the +waves of fashion tossed their spray further over the counter, there +were more impressions to be gathered and really—for it came to +that—more life to be led. Definite at any rate it was that by the time +May was well started the kind of company she kept at Cocker’s had begun +to strike her as a reason—a reason she might almost put forward for a +policy of procrastination. It sounded silly, of course, as yet, to +plead such a motive, especially as the fascination of the place was +after all a sort of torment. But she liked her torment; it was a +torment she should miss at Chalk Farm. She was ingenious and uncandid, +therefore, about leaving the breadth of London a little longer between +herself and that austerity. If she hadn’t quite the courage in short to +say to Mr. Mudge that her actual chance for a play of mind was worth +any week the three shillings he desired to help her to save, she yet +saw something happen in the course of the month that in her heart of +hearts at least answered the subtle question. This was connected +precisely with the appearance of the memorable lady. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +She pushed in three bescribbled forms which the girl’s hand was quick +to appropriate, Mr. Buckton having so frequent a perverse instinct for +catching first any eye that promised the sort of entertainment with +which she had her peculiar affinity. The amusements of captives are +full of a desperate contrivance, and one of our young friend’s +ha’pennyworths had been the charming tale of _Picciola_. It was of +course the law of the place that they were never to take no notice, as +Mr. Buckton said, whom they served; but this also never prevented, +certainly on the same gentleman’s own part, what he was fond of +describing as the underhand game. Both her companions, for that matter, +made no secret of the number of favourites they had among the ladies; +sweet familiarities in spite of which she had repeatedly caught each of +them in stupidities and mistakes, confusions of identity and lapses of +observation that never failed to remind her how the cleverness of men +ends where the cleverness of women begins. “Marguerite, Regent Street. +Try on at six. All Spanish lace. Pearls. The full length.” That was the +first; it had no signature. “Lady Agnes Orme, Hyde Park Place. +Impossible to-night, dining Haddon. Opera to-morrow, promised Fritz, +but could do play Wednesday. Will try Haddon for Savoy, and anything in +the world you like, if you can get Gussy. Sunday Montenero. Sit Mason +Monday, Tuesday. Marguerite awful. Cissy.” That was the second. The +third, the girl noted when she took it, was on a foreign form: +“Everard, Hôtel Brighton, Paris. Only understand and believe. 22nd to +26th, and certainly 8th and 9th. Perhaps others. Come. Mary.” + +Mary was very handsome, the handsomest woman, she felt in a moment, she +had ever seen—or perhaps it was only Cissy. Perhaps it was both, for +she had seen stranger things than that—ladies wiring to different +persons under different names. She had seen all sorts of things and +pieced together all sorts of mysteries. There had once been one—not +long before—who, without winking, sent off five over five different +signatures. Perhaps these represented five different friends who had +asked her—all women, just as perhaps now Mary and Cissy, or one or +other of them, were wiring by deputy. Sometimes she put in too much—too +much of her own sense; sometimes she put in too little; and in either +case this often came round to her afterwards, for she had an +extraordinary way of keeping clues. When she noticed she noticed; that +was what it came to. There were days and days, there were weeks +sometimes, of vacancy. This arose often from Mr. Buckton’s devilish and +successful subterfuges for keeping her at the sounder whenever it +looked as if anything might arouse; the sounder, which it was equally +his business to mind, being the innermost cell of captivity, a cage +within the cage, fenced oft from the rest by a frame of ground glass. +The counter-clerk would have played into her hands; but the +counter-clerk was really reduced to idiocy by the effect of his passion +for her. She flattered herself moreover, nobly, that with the +unpleasant conspicuity of this passion she would never have consented +to be obliged to him. The most she would ever do would be always to +shove off on him whenever she could the registration of letters, a job +she happened particularly to loathe. After the long stupors, at all +events, there almost always suddenly would come a sharp taste of +something; it was in her mouth before she knew it; it was in her mouth +now. + +To Cissy, to Mary, whichever it was, she found her curiosity going out +with a rush, a mute effusion that floated back to her, like a returning +tide, the living colour and splendour of the beautiful head, the light +of eyes that seemed to reflect such utterly other things than the mean +things actually before them; and, above all, the high curt +consideration of a manner that even at bad moments was a magnificent +habit and of the very essence of the innumerable things—her beauty, her +birth, her father and mother, her cousins and all her ancestors—that +its possessor couldn’t have got rid of even had she wished. How did our +obscure little public servant know that for the lady of the telegrams +this was a bad moment? How did she guess all sorts of impossible +things, such as, almost on the very spot, the presence of drama at a +critical stage and the nature of the tie with the gentleman at the +Hôtel Brighton? More than ever before it floated to her through the +bars of the cage that this at last was the high reality, the bristling +truth that she had hitherto only patched up and eked out—one of the +creatures, in fine, in whom all the conditions for happiness actually +met, and who, in the air they made, bloomed with an unwitting +insolence. What came home to the girl was the way the insolence was +tempered by something that was equally a part of the distinguished +life, the custom of a flowerlike bend to the less fortunate—a dropped +fragrance, a mere quick breath, but which in fact pervaded and +lingered. The apparition was very young, but certainly married, and our +fatigued friend had a sufficient store of mythological comparison to +recognise the port of Juno. Marguerite might be “awful,” but she knew +how to dress a goddess. + +Pearls and Spanish lace—she herself, with assurance, could see them, +and the “full length” too, and also red velvet bows, which, disposed on +the lace in a particular manner (she could have placed them with the +turn of a hand) were of course to adorn the front of a black brocade +that would be like a dress in a picture. However, neither Marguerite +nor Lady Agnes nor Haddon nor Fritz nor Gussy was what the wearer of +this garment had really come in for. She had come in for Everard—and +that was doubtless not his true name either. If our young lady had +never taken such jumps before it was simply that she had never before +been so affected. She went all the way. Mary and Cissy had been round +together, in their single superb person, to see him—he must live round +the corner; they had found that, in consequence of something they had +come, precisely, to make up for or to have another scene about, he had +gone off—gone off just on purpose to make them feel it; on which they +had come together to Cocker’s as to the nearest place; where they had +put in the three forms partly in order not to put in the one alone. The +two others in a manner, covered it, muffled it, passed it off. Oh yes, +she went all the way, and this was a specimen of how she often went. +She would know the hand again any time. It was as handsome and as +everything else as the woman herself. The woman herself had, on +learning his flight, pushed past Everard’s servant and into his room; +she had written her missive at his table and with his pen. All this, +every inch of it, came in the waft that she blew through and left +behind her, the influence that, as I have said, lingered. And among the +things the girl was sure of, happily, was that she should see her +again. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +She saw her in fact, and only ten days later; but this time not alone, +and that was exactly a part of the luck of it. Not unaware—as how could +her observation have left her so?—of the possibilities through which it +could range, our young lady had ever since had in her mind a dozen +conflicting theories about Everard’s type; as to which, the instant +they came into the place, she felt the point settled with a thump that +seemed somehow addressed straight to her heart. That organ literally +beat faster at the approach of the gentleman who was this time with +Cissy, and who, as seen from within the cage, became on the spot the +happiest of the happy circumstances with which her mind had invested +the friend of Fritz and Gussy. He was a very happy circumstance indeed +as, with his cigarette in his lips and his broken familiar talk caught +by his companion, he put down the half-dozen telegrams it would take +them together several minutes to dispatch. And here it occurred, oddly +enough, that if, shortly before the girl’s interest in his companion +had sharpened her sense for the messages then transmitted, her +immediate vision of himself had the effect, while she counted his +seventy words, of preventing intelligibility. _His_ words were mere +numbers, they told her nothing whatever; and after he had gone she was +in possession of no name, of no address, of no meaning, of nothing but +a vague sweet sound and an immense impression. He had been there but +five minutes, he had smoked in her face, and, busy with his telegrams, +with the tapping pencil and the conscious danger, the odious betrayal +that would come from a mistake, she had had no wandering glances nor +roundabout arts to spare. Yet she had taken him in; she knew +everything; she had made up her mind. + +He had come back from Paris; everything was re-arranged; the pair were +again shoulder to shoulder in their high encounter with life, their +large and complicated game. The fine soundless pulse of this game was +in the air for our young woman while they remained in the shop. While +they remained? They remained all day; their presence continued and +abode with her, was in everything she did till nightfall, in the +thousands of other words she counted, she transmitted, in all the +stamps she detached and the letters she weighed and the change she +gave, equally unconscious and unerring in each of these particulars, +and not, as the run on the little office thickened with the afternoon +hours, looking up at a single ugly face in the long sequence, nor +really hearing the stupid questions that she patiently and perfectly +answered. All patience was possible now, all questions were stupid +after his, all faces were ugly. She had been sure she should see the +lady again; and even now she should perhaps, she should probably, see +her often. But for him it was totally different; she should never never +see him. She wanted it too much. There was a kind of wanting that +helped—she had arrived, with her rich experience, at that +generalisation; and there was another kind that was fatal. It was this +time the fatal kind; it would prevent. + +Well, she saw him the very next day, and on this second occasion it was +quite different; the sense of every syllable he paid for was fiercely +distinct; she indeed felt her progressive pencil, dabbing as if with a +quick caress the marks of his own, put life into every stroke. He was +there a long time—had not brought his forms filled out but worked them +off in a nook on the counter; and there were other people as well—a +changing pushing cluster, with every one to mind at once and endless +right change to make and information to produce. But she kept hold of +him throughout; she continued, for herself, in a relation with him as +close as that in which, behind the hated ground glass, Mr. Buckton +luckily continued with the sounder. This morning everything changed, +but rather to dreariness; she had to swallow the rebuff to her theory +about fatal desires, which she did without confusion and indeed with +absolute levity; yet if it was now flagrant that he did live close at +hand—at Park Chambers—and belonged supremely to the class that wired +everything, even their expensive feelings (so that, as he never wrote, +his correspondence cost him weekly pounds and pounds, and he might be +in and out five times a day) there was, all the same, involved in the +prospect, and by reason of its positive excess of light, a perverse +melancholy, a gratuitous misery. This was at once to give it a place in +an order of feelings on which I shall presently touch. + +Meanwhile, for a month, he was very constant. Cissy, Mary, never +re-appeared with him; he was always either alone or accompanied only by +some gentleman who was lost in the blaze of his glory. There was +another sense, however—and indeed there was more than one—in which she +mostly found herself counting in the splendid creature with whom she +had originally connected him. He addressed this correspondent neither +as Mary nor as Cissy; but the girl was sure of whom it was, in Eaten +Square, that he was perpetually wiring to—and all so irreproachably!—as +Lady Bradeen. Lady Bradeen was Cissy, Lady Bradeen was Mary, Lady +Bradeen was the friend of Fritz and of Gussy, the customer of +Marguerite, and the close ally in short (as was ideally right, only the +girl had not yet found a descriptive term that was) of the most +magnificent of men. Nothing could equal the frequency and variety of +his communications to her ladyship but their extraordinary, their +abysmal propriety. It was just the talk—so profuse sometimes that she +wondered what was left for their real meetings—of the very happiest +people. Their real meetings must have been constant, for half of it was +appointments and allusions, all swimming in a sea of other allusions +still, tangled in a complexity of questions that gave a wondrous image +of their life. If Lady Bradeen was Juno it was all certainly Olympian. +If the girl, missing the answers, her ladyship’s own outpourings, +vainly reflected that Cocker’s should have been one of the bigger +offices where telegrams arrived as well as departed, there were yet +ways in which, on the whole, she pressed the romance closer by reason +of the very quantity of imagination it demanded and consumed. The days +and hours of this new friend, as she came to account him, were at all +events unrolled, and however much more she might have known she would +still have wished to go beyond. In fact she did go beyond; she went +quite far enough. + +But she could none the less, even after a month, scarce have told if +the gentlemen who came in with him recurred or changed; and this in +spite of the fact that they too were always posting and wiring, smoking +in her face and signing or not signing. The gentlemen who came in with +him were nothing when he was there. They turned up alone at other +times—then only perhaps with a dim richness of reference. He himself, +absent as well as present, was all. He was very tall, very fair, and +had, in spite of his thick preoccupations, a good-humour that was +exquisite, particularly as it so often had the effect of keeping him +on. He could have reached over anybody, and anybody—no matter who—would +have let him; but he was so extraordinarily kind that he quite +pathetically waited, never waggling things at her out of his turn nor +saying “Here!” with horrid sharpness. He waited for pottering old +ladies, for gaping slaveys, for the perpetual Buttonses from Thrupp’s; +and the thing in all this that she would have liked most unspeakably to +put to the test was the possibility of her having for him a personal +identity that might in a particular way appeal. There were moments when +he actually struck her as on her side, as arranging to help, to +support, to spare her. + +But such was the singular spirit of our young friend that she could +remind herself with a pang that when people had awfully good +manners—people of that class,—you couldn’t tell. These manners were for +everybody, and it might be drearily unavailing for any poor particular +body to be overworked and unusual. What he did take for granted was all +sorts of facility; and his high pleasantness, his relighting of +cigarettes while he waited, his unconscious bestowal of opportunities, +of boons, of blessings, were all a part of his splendid security, the +instinct that told him there was nothing such an existence as his could +ever lose by. He was somehow all at once very bright and very grave, +very young and immensely complete; and whatever he was at any moment it +was always as much as all the rest the mere bloom of his beatitude. He +was sometimes Everard, as he had been at the Hôtel Brighton, and he was +sometimes Captain Everard. He was sometimes Philip with his surname and +sometimes Philip without it. In some directions he was merely Phil, in +others he was merely Captain. There were relations in which he was none +of these things, but a quite different person—“the Count.” There were +several friends for whom he was William. There were several for whom, +in allusion perhaps to his complexion, he was “the Pink ‘Un.” Once, +once only by good luck, he had, coinciding comically, quite +miraculously, with another person also near to her, been “Mudge.” Yes, +whatever he was, it was a part of his happiness—whatever he was and +probably whatever he wasn’t. And his happiness was a part—it became so +little by little—of something that, almost from the first of her being +at Cocker’s, had been deeply with the girl. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +This was neither more nor less than the queer extension of her +experience, the double life that, in the cage, she grew at last to +lead. As the weeks went on there she lived more and more into the world +of whiffs and glimpses, she found her divinations work faster and +stretch further. It was a prodigious view as the pressure heightened, a +panorama fed with facts and figures, flushed with a torrent of colour +and accompanied with wondrous world-music. What it mainly came to at +this period was a picture of how London could amuse itself; and that, +with the running commentary of a witness so exclusively a witness, +turned for the most part to a hardening of the heart. The nose of this +observer was brushed by the bouquet, yet she could never really pluck +even a daisy. What could still remain fresh in her daily grind was the +immense disparity, the difference and contrast, from class to class, of +every instant and every motion. There were times when all the wires in +the country seemed to start from the little hole-and-corner where she +plied for a livelihood, and where, in the shuffle of feet, the flutter +of “forms,” the straying of stamps and the ring of change over the +counter, the people she had fallen into the habit of remembering and +fitting together with others, and of having her theories and +interpretations of, kept up before her their long procession and +rotation. What twisted the knife in her vitals was the way the +profligate rich scattered about them, in extravagant chatter over their +extravagant pleasures and sins, an amount of money that would have held +the stricken household of her frightened childhood, her poor pinched +mother and tormented father and lost brother and starved sister, +together for a lifetime. During her first weeks she had often gasped at +the sums people were willing to pay for the stuff they transmitted—the +“much love”s, the “awful” regrets, the compliments and wonderments and +vain vague gestures that cost the price of a new pair of boots. She had +had a way then of glancing at the people’s faces, but she had early +learnt that if you became a telegraphist you soon ceased to be +astonished. Her eye for types amounted nevertheless to genius, and +there were those she liked and those she hated, her feeling for the +latter of which grew to a positive possession, an instinct of +observation and detection. There were the brazen women, as she called +them, of the higher and the lower fashion, whose squanderings and +graspings, whose struggles and secrets and love-affairs and lies, she +tracked and stored up against them till she had at moments, in private, +a triumphant vicious feeling of mastery and ease, a sense of carrying +their silly guilty secrets in her pocket, her small retentive brain, +and thereby knowing so much more about them than they suspected or +would care to think. There were those she would have liked to betray, +to trip up, to bring down with words altered and fatal; and all through +a personal hostility provoked by the lightest signs, by their accidents +of tone and manner, by the particular kind of relation she always +happened instantly to feel. + +There were impulses of various kinds, alternately soft and severe, to +which she was constitutionally accessible and which were determined by +the smallest accidents. She was rigid in general on the article of +making the public itself affix its stamps, and found a special +enjoyment in dealing to that end with some of the ladies who were too +grand to touch them. She had thus a play of refinement and subtlety +greater, she flattered herself, than any of which she could be made the +subject; and though most people were too stupid to be conscious of this +it brought her endless small consolations and revenges. She recognised +quite as much those of her sex whom she would have liked to help, to +warn, to rescue, to see more of; and that alternative as well operated +exactly through the hazard of personal sympathy, her vision for silver +threads and moonbeams and her gift for keeping the clues and finding +her way in the tangle. The moonbeams and silver threads presented at +moments all the vision of what poor _she_ might have made of happiness. +Blurred and blank as the whole thing often inevitably, or mercifully, +became, she could still, through crevices and crannies, be stupefied, +especially by what, in spite of all seasoning, touched the sorest place +in her consciousness, the revelation of the golden shower flying about +without a gleam of gold for herself. It remained prodigious to the end, +the money her fine friends were able to spend to get still more, or +even to complain to fine friends of their own that they were in want. +The pleasures they proposed were equalled only by those they declined, +and they made their appointments often so expensively that she was left +wondering at the nature of the delights to which the mere approaches +were so paved with shillings. She quivered on occasion into the +perception of this and that one whom she would on the chance have just +simply liked to _be_. Her conceit, her baffled vanity, was possibly +monstrous; she certainly often threw herself into a defiant conviction +that she would have done the whole thing much better. But her greatest +comfort, mostly, was her comparative vision of the men; by whom I mean +the unmistakeable gentlemen, for she had no interest in the spurious or +the shabby and no mercy at all for the poor. She could have found a +sixpence, outside, for an appearance of want; but her fancy, in some +directions so alert, had never a throb of response for any sign of the +sordid. The men she did track, moreover, she tracked mainly in one +relation, the relation as to which the cage convinced her, she +believed, more than anything else could have done, that it was quite +the most diffused. + +She found her ladies, in short, almost always in communication with her +gentlemen, and her gentlemen with her ladies, and she read into the +immensity of their intercourse stories and meanings without end. +Incontestably she grew to think that the men cut the best figure; and +in this particular, as in many others, she arrived at a philosophy of +her own, all made up of her private notations and cynicisms. It was a +striking part of the business, for example, that it was much more the +women, on the whole, who were after the men than the men who were after +the women: it was literally visible that the general attitude of the +one sex was that of the object pursued and defensive, apologetic and +attenuating, while the light of her own nature helped her more or less +to conclude as to the attitude of the other. Perhaps she herself a +little even fell into the custom of pursuit in occasionally deviating +only for gentlemen from her high rigour about the stamps. She had early +in the day made up her mind, in fine, that they had the best manners; +and if there were none of them she noticed when Captain Everard was +there, there were plenty she could place and trace and name at other +times, plenty who, with their way of being “nice” to her, and of +handling, as if their pockets were private tills loose mixed masses of +silver and gold, were such pleasant appearances that she could envy +them without dislike. _They_ never had to give change—they only had to +get it. They ranged through every suggestion, every shade of fortune, +which evidently included indeed lots of bad luck as well as of good, +declining even toward Mr. Mudge and his bland firm thrift, and +ascending, in wild signals and rocket-flights, almost to within hail of +her highest standard. So from month to month she went on with them all, +through a thousand ups and downs and a thousand pangs and +indifferences. What virtually happened was that in the shuffling herd +that passed before her by far the greater part only passed—a proportion +but just appreciable stayed. Most of the elements swam straight away, +lost themselves in the bottomless common, and by so doing really kept +the page clear. On the clearness therefore what she did retain stood +sharply out; she nipped and caught it, turned it over and interwove it. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +She met Mrs. Jordan when she could, and learned from her more and more +how the great people, under her gentle shake and after going through +everything with the mere shops, were waking up to the gain of putting +into the hands of a person of real refinement the question that the +shop-people spoke of so vulgarly as that of the floral decorations. The +regular dealers in these decorations were all very well; but there was +a peculiar magic in the play of taste of a lady who had only to +remember, through whatever intervening dusk, all her own little tables, +little bowls and little jars and little other arrangements, and the +wonderful thing she had made of the garden of the vicarage. This small +domain, which her young friend had never seen, bloomed in Mrs. Jordan’s +discourse like a new Eden, and she converted the past into a bank of +violets by the tone in which she said “Of course you always knew my one +passion!” She obviously met now, at any rate, a big contemporary need, +measured what it was rapidly becoming for people to feel they could +trust her without a tremor. It brought them a peace that—during the +quarter of an hour before dinner in especial—was worth more to them +than mere payment could express. Mere payment, none the less, was +tolerably prompt; she engaged by the month, taking over the whole +thing; and there was an evening on which, in respect to our heroine, +she at last returned to the charge. “It’s growing and growing, and I +see that I must really divide the work. One wants an associate—of one’s +own kind, don’t you know? You know the look they want it all to +have?—of having come, not from a florist, but from one of themselves. +Well, I’m sure _you_ could give it—because you _are_ one. Then we +_should_ win. Therefore just come in with me.” + +“And leave the P.O.?” + +“Let the P.O. simply bring you your letters. It would bring you lots, +you’d see: orders, after a bit, by the score.” It was on this, in due +course, that the great advantage again came up: “One seems to live +again with one’s own people.” It had taken some little time (after +their having parted company in the tempest of their troubles and then, +in the glimmering dawn, finally sighted each other again) for each to +admit that the other was, in her private circle, her only equal, but +the admission came, when it did come, with an honest groan; and since +equality was named, each found much personal profit in exaggerating the +other’s original grandeur. Mrs. Jordan was ten years the older, but her +young friend was struck with the smaller difference this now made: it +had counted otherwise at the time when, much more as a friend of her +mother’s, the bereaved lady, without a penny of provision and with +stopgaps, like their own, all gone, had, across the sordid landing on +which the opposite doors of the pair of scared miseries opened and to +which they were bewilderedly bolted, borrowed coals and umbrellas that +were repaid in potatoes and postage-stamps. It had been a questionable +help, at that time, to ladies submerged, floundering, panting, swimming +for their lives, that they were ladies; but such an advantage could +come up again in proportion as others vanished, and it had grown very +great by the time it was the only ghost of one they possessed. They had +literally watched it take to itself a portion of the substance of each +that had departed; and it became prodigious now, when they could talk +of it together, when they could look back at it across a desert of +accepted derogation, and when, above all, they could together work up a +credulity about it that neither could otherwise work up. Nothing was +really so marked as that they felt the need to cultivate this legend +much more after having found their feet and stayed their stomachs in +the ultimate obscure than they had done in the upper air of mere +frequent shocks. The thing they could now oftenest say to each other +was that they knew what they meant; and the sentiment with which, all +round, they knew it was known had well-nigh amounted to a promise not +again to fall apart. + +Mrs. Jordan was at present fairly dazzling on the subject of the way +that, in the practice of her fairy art, as she called it, she more than +peeped in—she penetrated. There was not a house of the great kind—and +it was of course only a question of those, real homes of luxury—in +which she was not, at the rate such people now had things, all over the +place. The girl felt before the picture the cold breath of +disinheritance as much as she had ever felt it in the cage; she knew +moreover how much she betrayed this, for the experience of poverty had +begun, in her life, too early, and her ignorance of the requirements of +homes of luxury had grown, with other active knowledge, a depth of +simplification. She had accordingly at first often found that in these +colloquies she could only pretend she understood. Educated as she had +rapidly been by her chances at Cocker’s, there were still strange gaps +in her learning—she could never, like Mrs. Jordan, have found her way +about one of the “homes.” Little by little, however, she had caught on, +above all in the light of what Mrs. Jordan’s redemption had materially +made of that lady, giving her, though the years and the struggles had +naturally not straightened a feature, an almost super-eminent air. +There were women in and out of Cocker’s who were quite nice and who yet +didn’t look well; whereas Mrs. Jordan looked well and yet, with her +extraordinarily protrusive teeth, was by no means quite nice. It would +seem, mystifyingly, that it might really come from all the greatness +she could live with. It was fine to hear her talk so often of dinners +of twenty and of her doing, as she said, exactly as she liked with +them. She spoke as if, for that matter, she invited the company. “They +simply give me the table—all the rest, all the other effects, come +afterwards.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +“Then you _do_ see them?” the girl again asked. + +Mrs. Jordan hesitated, and indeed the point had been ambiguous before. +“Do you mean the guests?” + +Her young friend, cautious about an undue exposure of innocence, was +not quite sure. “Well—the people who live there.” + +“Lady Ventnor? Mrs. Bubb? Lord Rye? Dear, yes. Why they _like_ one.” + +“But does one personally _know_ them?” our young lady went on, since +that was the way to speak. “I mean socially, don’t you know?—as you +know _me_.” + +“They’re not so nice as you!” Mrs. Jordan charmingly cried. “But I +_shall_ see more and more of them.” + +Ah this was the old story. “But how soon?” + +“Why almost any day. Of course,” Mrs. Jordan honestly added, “they’re +nearly always out.” + +“Then why do they want flowers all over?” + +“Oh that doesn’t make any difference.” Mrs. Jordan was not philosophic; +she was just evidently determined it _shouldn’t_ make any. “They’re +awfully interested in my ideas, and it’s inevitable they should meet me +over them.” + +Her interlocutress was sturdy enough. “What do you call your ideas?” + +Mrs. Jordan’s reply was fine. “If you were to see me some day with a +thousand tulips you’d discover.” + +“A thousand?”—the girl gaped at such a revelation of the scale of it; +she felt for the instant fairly planted out. “Well, but if in fact they +never do meet you?” she none the less pessimistically insisted. + +“Never? They _often_ do—and evidently quite on purpose. We have grand +long talks.” + +There was something in our young lady that could still stay her from +asking for a personal description of these apparitions; that showed too +starved a state. But while she considered she took in afresh the whole +of the clergyman’s widow. Mrs. Jordan couldn’t help her teeth, and her +sleeves were a distinct rise in the world. A thousand tulips at a +shilling clearly took one further than a thousand words at a penny; and +the betrothed of Mr. Mudge, in whom the sense of the race for life was +always acute, found herself wondering, with a twinge of her easy +jealousy, if it mightn’t after all then, for _her_ also, be +better—better than where she was—to follow some such scent. Where she +was was where Mr. Buckton’s elbow could freely enter her right side and +the counter-clerk’s breathing—he had something the matter with his +nose—pervade her left ear. It was something to fill an office under +Government, and she knew but too well there were places commoner still +than Cocker’s; but it needed no great range of taste to bring home to +her the picture of servitude and promiscuity she couldn’t but offer to +the eye of comparative freedom. She was so boxed up with her young men, +and anything like a margin so absent, that it needed more art than she +should ever possess to pretend in the least to compass, with any one in +the nature of an acquaintance—say with Mrs. Jordan herself, flying in, +as it might happen, to wire sympathetically to Mrs. Bubb—an approach to +a relation of elegant privacy. She remembered the day when Mrs. Jordan +_had_, in fact, by the greatest chance, come in with fifty-three words +for Lord Rye and a five-pound note to change. This had been the +dramatic manner of their reunion—their mutual recognition was so great +an event. The girl could at first only see her from the waist up, +besides making but little of her long telegram to his lordship. It was +a strange whirligig that had converted the clergyman’s widow into such +a specimen of the class that went beyond the sixpence. + +Nothing of the occasion, all the more, had ever become dim; least of +all the way that, as her recovered friend looked up from counting, Mrs. +Jordan had just blown, in explanation, through her teeth and through +the bars of the cage: “I _do_ flowers, you know.” Our young woman had +always, with her little finger crooked out, a pretty movement for +counting; and she had not forgotten the small secret advantage, a +sharpness of triumph it might even have been called, that fell upon her +at this moment and avenged her for the incoherence of the message, an +unintelligible enumeration of numbers, colours, days, hours. The +correspondence of people she didn’t know was one thing; but the +correspondence of people she did had an aspect of its own for her even +when she couldn’t understand it. The speech in which Mrs. Jordan had +defined a position and announced a profession was like a tinkle of +bluebells; but for herself her one idea about flowers was that people +had them at funerals, and her present sole gleam of light was that +lords probably had them most. When she watched, a minute later, through +the cage, the swing of her visitor’s departing petticoats, she saw the +sight from the waist down; and when the counter-clerk, after a mere +male glance, remarked, with an intention unmistakeably low, “Handsome +woman!” she had for him the finest of her chills: “She’s the widow of a +bishop.” She always felt, with the counter-clerk, that it was +impossible sufficiently to put it on; for what she wished to express to +him was the maximum of her contempt, and that element in her nature was +confusedly stored. “A bishop” was putting it on, but the +counter-clerk’s approaches were vile. The night, after this, when, in +the fulness of time, Mrs. Jordan mentioned the grand long talks, the +girl at last brought out: “Should _I_ see them?—I mean if I _were_ to +give up everything for you.” + +Mrs. Jordan at this became most arch. “I’d send you to all the +bachelors!” + +Our young lady could be reminded by such a remark that she usually +struck her friend as pretty. “Do _they_ have their flowers?” + +“Oceans. And they’re the most particular.” Oh it was a wonderful world. +“You should see Lord Rye’s.” + +“His flowers?” + +“Yes, and his letters. He writes me pages on pages—with the most +adorable little drawings and plans. You should see his diagrams!” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +The girl had in course of time every opportunity to inspect these +documents, and they a little disappointed her; but in the mean while +there had been more talk, and it had led to her saying, as if her +friend’s guarantee of a life of elegance were not quite definite: +“Well, I see every one at _my_ place.” + +“Every one?” + +“Lots of swells. They flock. They live, you know, all round, and the +place is filled with all the smart people, all the fast people, those +whose names are in the papers—mamma has still The _Morning Post_—and +who come up for the season.” + +Mrs. Jordan took this in with complete intelligence. “Yes, and I dare +say it’s some of your people that _I_ do.” + +Her companion assented, but discriminated. “I doubt if you ‘do’ them as +much as I! Their affairs, their appointments and arrangements, their +little games and secrets and vices—those things all pass before me.” + +This was a picture that could make a clergyman’s widow not +imperceptibly gasp; it was in intention moreover something of a retort +to the thousand tulips. “Their vices? Have they got vices?” + +Our young critic even more overtly stared then with a touch of contempt +in her amusement: “Haven’t you found _that_ out?” The homes of luxury +then hadn’t so much to give. “_I_ find out everything.” + +Mrs. Jordan, at bottom a very meek person, was visibly struck. “I see. +You do ‘have’ them.” + +“Oh I don’t care! Much good it does me!” + +Mrs. Jordan after an instant recovered her superiority. “No—it doesn’t +lead to much.” Her own initiations so clearly did. Still—after all; and +she was not jealous: “There must be a charm.” + +“In seeing them?” At this the girl suddenly let herself go. “I hate +them. There’s that charm!” + +Mrs. Jordan gaped again. “The _real_ ‘smarts’?” + +“Is that what you call Mrs. Bubb? Yes—it comes to me; I’ve had Mrs. +Bubb. I don’t think she has been in herself, but there are things her +maid has brought. Well, my dear!”—and the young person from Cocker’s, +recalling these things and summing them up, seemed suddenly to have +much to say. She didn’t say it, however; she checked it; she only +brought out: “Her maid, who’s horrid—_she_ must have her!” Then she +went on with indifference: “They’re _too_ real! They’re selfish +brutes.” + +Mrs. Jordan, turning it over, adopted at last the plan of treating it +with a smile. She wished to be liberal. “Well, of course, they do lay +it out.” + +“They bore me to death,” her companion pursued with slightly more +temperance. + +But this was going too far. “Ah that’s because you’ve no sympathy!” + +The girl gave an ironic laugh, only retorting that nobody could have +any who had to count all day all the words in the dictionary; a +contention Mrs. Jordan quite granted, the more that she shuddered at +the notion of ever failing of the very gift to which she owed the +vogue—the rage she might call it—that had caught her up. Without +sympathy—or without imagination, for it came back again to that—how +should she get, for big dinners, down the middle and toward the far +corners at all? It wasn’t the combinations, which were easily managed: +the strain was over the ineffable simplicities, those that the +bachelors above all, and Lord Rye perhaps most of any, threw off—just +blew off like cigarette-puffs—such sketches of. The betrothed of Mr. +Mudge at all events accepted the explanation, which had the effect, as +almost any turn of their talk was now apt to have, of bringing her +round to the terrific question of that gentleman. She was tormented +with the desire to get out of Mrs. Jordan, on this subject, what she +was sure was at the back of Mrs. Jordan’s head; and to get it out of +her, queerly enough, if only to vent a certain irritation at it. She +knew that what her friend would already have risked if she hadn’t been +timid and tortuous was: “Give him up—yes, give him up: you’ll see that +with your sure chances you’ll be able to do much better.” + +Our young woman had a sense that if that view could only be put before +her with a particular sniff for poor Mr. Mudge she should hate it as +much as she morally ought. She was conscious of not, as yet, hating it +quite so much as that. But she saw that Mrs. Jordan was conscious of +something too, and that there was a degree of confidence she was +waiting little by little to arrive at. The day came when the girl +caught a glimpse of what was still wanting to make her friend feel +strong; which was nothing less than the prospect of being able to +announce the climax of sundry private dreams. The associate of the +aristocracy had personal calculations—matter for brooding and dreaming, +even for peeping out not quite hopelessly from behind the +window-curtains of lonely lodgings. If she did the flowers for the +bachelors, in short, didn’t she expect that to have consequences very +different from such an outlook at Cocker’s as she had pronounced wholly +desperate? There seemed in very truth something auspicious in the +mixture of bachelors and flowers, though, when looked hard in the eye, +Mrs. Jordan was not quite prepared to say she had expected a positive +proposal from Lord Rye to pop out of it. Our young woman arrived at +last, none the less, at a definite vision of what was in her mind. This +was a vivid foreknowledge that the betrothed of Mr. Mudge would, unless +conciliated in advance by a successful rescue, almost hate her on the +day she should break a particular piece of news. How could that +unfortunate otherwise endure to hear of what, under the protection of +Lady Ventnor, was after all so possible. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +Meanwhile, since irritation sometimes relieved her, the betrothed of +Mr. Mudge found herself indebted to that admirer for amounts of it +perfectly proportioned to her fidelity. She always walked with him on +Sundays, usually in the Regent’s Park, and quite often, once or twice a +month he took her, in the Strand or thereabouts, to see a piece that +was having a run. The productions he always preferred were the really +good ones—Shakespeare, Thompson or some funny American thing; which, as +it also happened that she hated vulgar plays, gave him ground for what +was almost the fondest of his approaches, the theory that their tastes +were, blissfully, just the same. He was for ever reminding her of that, +rejoicing over it and being affectionate and wise about it. There were +times when she wondered how in the world she could “put up with” him, +how she could put up with any man so smugly unconscious of the +immensity of her difference. It was just for this difference that, if +she was to be liked at all, she wanted to be liked, and if that was not +the source of Mr. Mudge’s admiration, she asked herself what on earth +_could_ be? She was not different only at one point, she was different +all round; unless perhaps indeed in being practically human, which her +mind just barely recognised that he also was. She would have made +tremendous concessions in other quarters: there was no limit for +instance to those she would have made to Captain Everard; but what I +have named was the most she was prepared to do for Mr. Mudge. It was +because _he_ was different that, in the oddest way, she liked as well +as deplored him; which was after all a proof that the disparity, should +they frankly recognise it, wouldn’t necessarily be fatal. She felt +that, oleaginous—too oleaginous—as he was, he was somehow comparatively +primitive: she had once, during the portion of his time at Cocker’s +that had overlapped her own, seen him collar a drunken soldier, a big +violent man who, having come in with a mate to get a postal-order +cashed, had made a grab at the money before his friend could reach it +and had so determined, among the hams and cheeses and the lodgers from +Thrupp’s, immediate and alarming reprisals, a scene of scandal and +consternation. Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk had crouched within +the cage, but Mr. Mudge had, with a very quiet but very quick step +round the counter, an air of masterful authority she shouldn’t soon +forget, triumphantly interposed in the scrimmage, parted the combatants +and shaken the delinquent in his skin. She had been proud of him at +that moment, and had felt that if their affair had not already been +settled the neatness of his execution would have left her without +resistance. + +Their affair had been settled by other things: by the evident sincerity +of his passion and by the sense that his high white apron resembled a +front of many floors. It had gone a great way with her that he would +build up a business to his chin, which he carried quite in the air. +This could only be a question of time; he would have all Piccadilly in +the pen behind his ear. That was a merit in itself for a girl who had +known what she had known. There were hours at which she even found him +good-looking, though, frankly there could be no crown for her effort to +imagine on the part of the tailor or the barber some such treatment of +his appearance as would make him resemble even remotely a man of the +world. His very beauty was the beauty of a grocer, and the finest +future would offer it none too much room consistently to develop. She +had engaged herself in short to the perfection of a type, and almost +anything square and smooth and whole had its weight for a person still +conscious herself of being a mere bruised fragment of wreckage. But it +contributed hugely at present to carry on the two parallel lines of her +experience in the cage and her experience out of it. After keeping +quiet for some time about this opposition she suddenly—one Sunday +afternoon on a penny chair in the Regent’s Park—broke, for him, +capriciously, bewilderingly, into an intimation of what it came to. He +had naturally pressed more and more on the point of her again placing +herself where he could see her hourly, and for her to recognise that +she had as yet given him no sane reason for delay he had small need to +describe himself as unable to make out what she was up to. As if, with +her absurd bad reasons, she could have begun to tell him! Sometimes she +thought it would be amusing to let him have them full in the face, for +she felt she should die of him unless she once in a while stupefied +him; and sometimes she thought it would be disgusting and perhaps even +fatal. She liked him, however, to think her silly, for that gave her +the margin which at the best she would always require; and the only +difficulty about this was that he hadn’t enough imagination to oblige +her. It produced none the less something of the desired effect—to leave +him simply wondering why, over the matter of their reunion, she didn’t +yield to his arguments. Then at last, simply as if by accident and out +of mere boredom on a day that was rather flat, she preposterously +produced her own. “Well, wait a bit. Where I am I still see things.” +And she talked to him even worse, if possible, than she had talked to +Jordan. + +Little by little, to her own stupefaction, she caught that he was +trying to take it as she meant it and that he was neither astonished +nor angry. Oh the British tradesman—this gave her an idea of his +resources! Mr. Mudge would be angry only with a person who, like the +drunken soldier in the shop, should have an unfavourable effect on +business. He seemed positively to enter, for the time and without the +faintest flash of irony or ripple of laughter, into the whimsical +grounds of her enjoyment of Cocker’s custom, and instantly to be +casting up whatever it might, as Mrs. Jordan had said, lead to. What he +had in mind was not of course what Mrs. Jordan had had: it was +obviously not a source of speculation with him that his sweetheart +might pick up a husband. She could see perfectly that this was not for +a moment even what he supposed she herself dreamed of. What she had +done was simply to give his sensibility another push into the dim vast +of trade. In that direction it was all alert, and she had whisked +before it the mild fragrance of a “connexion.” That was the most he +could see in any account of her keeping in, on whatever roundabout +lines, with the gentry; and when, getting to the bottom of this, she +quickly proceeded to show him the kind of eye she turned on such people +and to give him a sketch of what that eye discovered, she reduced him +to the particular prostration in which he could still be amusing to +her. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +“They’re the most awful wretches, I assure you—the lot all about +there.” + +“Then why do you want to stay among them?” + +“My dear man, just because they _are_. It makes me hate them so.” + +“Hate them? I thought you liked them.” + +“Don’t be stupid. What I ‘like’ is just to loathe them. You wouldn’t +believe what passes before my eyes.” + +“Then why have you never told me? You didn’t mention anything before I +left.” + +“Oh I hadn’t got round to it then. It’s the sort of thing you don’t +believe at first; you have to look round you a bit and then you +understand. You work into it more and more. Besides,” the girl went on, +“this is the time of the year when the worst lot come up. They’re +simply packed together in those smart streets. Talk of the numbers of +the poor! What _I_ can vouch for is the numbers of the rich! There are +new ones every day, and they seem to get richer and richer. Oh, they do +come up!” she cried, imitating for her private recreation—she was sure +it wouldn’t reach Mr. Mudge—the low intonation of the counter-clerk. + +“And where do they come from?” her companion candidly enquired. + +She had to think a moment; then she found something. “From the ‘spring +meetings.’ They bet tremendously.” + +“Well, they bet enough at Chalk Farm, if that’s all.” + +“It _isn’t_ all. It isn’t a millionth part!” she replied with some +sharpness. “It’s immense fun”—she would tantalise him. Then as she had +heard Mrs. Jordan say, and as the ladies at Cocker’s even sometimes +wired, “It’s quite too dreadful!” She could fully feel how it was Mr. +Mudge’s propriety, which was extreme—he had a horror of coarseness and +attended a Wesleyan chapel—that prevented his asking for details. But +she gave him some of the more innocuous in spite of himself, especially +putting before him how, at Simpkin’s and Ladle’s, they all made the +money fly. That was indeed what he liked to hear: the connexion was not +direct, but one was somehow more in the right place where the money was +flying than where it was simply and meagrely nesting. The air felt that +stir, he had to acknowledge, much less at Chalk Farm than in the +district in which his beloved so oddly enjoyed her footing. She gave +him, she could see, a restless sense that these might be familiarities +not to be sacrificed; germs, possibilities, faint foreshowings—heaven +knew what—of the initiation it would prove profitable to have arrived +at when in the fulness of time he should have his own shop in some such +paradise. What really touched him—that was discernible—was that she +could feed him with so much mere vividness of reminder, keep before +him, as by the play of a fan, the very wind of the swift bank-notes and +the charm of the existence of a class that Providence had raised up to +be the blessing of grocers. He liked to think that the class was there, +that it was always there, and that she contributed in her slight but +appreciable degree to keep it up to the mark. He couldn’t have +formulated his theory of the matter, but the exuberance of the +aristocracy was the advantage of trade, and everything was knit +together in a richness of pattern that it was good to follow with one’s +finger-tips. It was a comfort to him to be thus assured that there were +no symptoms of a drop. What did the sounder, as she called it, nimbly +worked, do but keep the ball going? + +What it came to therefore for Mr. Mudge was that all enjoyments were, +as might be said, inter-related, and that the more people had the more +they wanted to have. The more flirtations, as he might roughly express +it, the more cheese and pickles. He had even in his own small way been +dimly struck with the linkèd sweetness connecting the tender passion +with cheap champagne, or perhaps the other way round. What he would +have liked to say had he been able to work out his thought to the end +was: “I see, I see. Lash them up then, lead them on, keep them going: +some of it can’t help, some time, coming _our_ way.” Yet he was +troubled by the suspicion of subtleties on his companion’s part that +spoiled the straight view. He couldn’t understand people’s hating what +they liked or liking what they hated; above all it hurt him +somewhere—for he had his private delicacies—to see anything _but_ money +made out of his betters. To be too enquiring, or in any other way too +free, at the expense of the gentry was vaguely wrong; the only thing +that was distinctly right was to be prosperous at any price. Wasn’t it +just because they were up there aloft that they were lucrative? He +concluded at any rate by saying to his young friend: “If it’s improper +for you to remain at Cocker’s, then that falls in exactly with the +other reasons I’ve put before you for your removal.” + +“Improper?”—her smile became a prolonged boldness. “My dear boy, +there’s no one like you!” + +“I dare say,” he laughed; “but that doesn’t help the question.” + +“Well,” she returned, “I can’t give up my friends. I’m making even more +than Mrs. Jordan.” + +Mr. Mudge considered. “How much is _she_ making?” + +“Oh you dear donkey!”—and, regardless of all the Regent’s Park, she +patted his cheek. This was the sort of moment at which she was +absolutely tempted to tell him that she liked to be near Park Chambers. +There was a fascination in the idea of seeing if, on a mention of +Captain Everard, he wouldn’t do what she thought he might; wouldn’t +weigh against the obvious objection the still more obvious advantage. +The advantage of course could only strike him at the best as rather +fantastic; but it was always to the good to keep hold when you _had_ +hold, and such an attitude would also after all involve a high tribute +to her fidelity. Of one thing she absolutely never doubted: Mr. Mudge +believed in her with a belief—! She believed in herself too, for that +matter: if there was a thing in the world no one could charge her with +it was being the kind of low barmaid person who rinsed tumblers and +bandied slang. But she forbore as yet to speak; she had not spoken even +to Mrs. Jordan; and the hush that on her lips surrounded the Captain’s +name maintained itself as a kind of symbol of the success that, up to +this time, had attended something or other—she couldn’t have said +what—that she humoured herself with calling, without words, her +relation with him. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +She would have admitted indeed that it consisted of little more than +the fact that his absences, however frequent and however long, always +ended with his turning up again. It was nobody’s business in the world +but her own if that fact continued to be enough for her. It was of +course not enough just in itself; what it had taken on to make it so +was the extraordinary possession of the elements of his life that +memory and attention had at last given her. There came a day when this +possession on the girl’s part actually seemed to enjoy between them, +while their eyes met, a tacit recognition that was half a joke and half +a deep solemnity. He bade her good morning always now; he often quite +raised his hat to her. He passed a remark when there was time or room, +and once she went so far as to say to him that she hadn’t seen him for +“ages.” “Ages” was the word she consciously and carefully, though a +trifle tremulously used; “ages” was exactly what she meant. To this he +replied in terms doubtless less anxiously selected, but perhaps on that +account not the less remarkable, “Oh yes, hasn’t it been awfully wet?” +That was a specimen of their give and take; it fed her fancy that no +form of intercourse so transcendent and distilled had ever been +established on earth. Everything, so far as they chose to consider it +so, might mean almost anything. The want of margin in the cage, when he +peeped through the bars, wholly ceased to be appreciable. It was a +drawback only in superficial commerce. With Captain Everard she had +simply the margin of the universe. It may be imagined therefore how +their unuttered reference to all she knew about him could in this +immensity play at its ease. Every time he handed in a telegram it was +an addition to her knowledge: what did his constant smile mean to mark +if it didn’t mean to mark that? He never came into the place without +saying to her in this manner: “Oh yes, you have me by this time so +completely at your mercy that it doesn’t in the least matter what I +give you now. You’ve become a comfort, I assure you!” + +She had only two torments; the greatest of which was that she couldn’t, +not even once or twice, touch with him on some individual fact. She +would have given anything to have been able to allude to one of his +friends by name, to one of his engagements by date, to one of his +difficulties by the solution. She would have given almost as much for +just the right chance—it would have to be tremendously right—to show +him in some sharp sweet way that she had perfectly penetrated the +greatest of these last and now lived with it in a kind of heroism of +sympathy. He was in love with a woman to whom, and to any view of whom, +a lady-telegraphist, and especially one who passed a life among hams +and cheeses, was as the sand on the floor; and what her dreams desired +was the possibility of its somehow coming to him that her own interest +in him could take a pure and noble account of such an infatuation and +even of such an impropriety. As yet, however, she could only rub along +with the hope that an accident, sooner or later, might give her a lift +toward popping out with something that would surprise and perhaps even, +some fine day, assist him. What could people mean moreover—cheaply +sarcastic people—by not feeling all that could be got out of the +weather? _She_ felt it all, and seemed literally to feel it most when +she went quite wrong, speaking of the stuffy days as cold, of the cold +ones as stuffy, and betraying how little she knew, in her cage, of +whether it was foul or fair. It was for that matter always stuffy at +Cocker’s, and she finally settled down to the safe proposition that the +outside element was “changeable.” Anything seemed true that made him so +radiantly assent. + +This indeed is a small specimen of her cultivation of insidious ways of +making things easy for him—ways to which of course she couldn’t be at +all sure he did real justice. Real justice was not of this world: she +had had too often to come back to that; yet, strangely, happiness was, +and her traps had to be set for it in a manner to keep them unperceived +by Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk. The most she could hope for apart +from the question, which constantly flickered up and died down, of the +divine chance of his consciously liking her, would be that, without +analysing it, he should arrive at a vague sense that Cocker’s was—well, +attractive; easier, smoother, sociably brighter, slightly more +picturesque, in short more propitious in general to his little affairs, +than any other establishment just thereabouts. She was quite aware that +they couldn’t be, in so huddled a hole, particularly quick; but she +found her account in the slowness—she certainly could bear it if _he_ +could. The great pang was that just thereabouts post-offices were so +awfully thick. She was always seeing him in imagination in other places +and with other girls. But she would defy any other girl to follow him +as she followed. And though they weren’t, for so many reasons, quick at +Cocker’s, she could hurry for him when, through an intimation light as +air, she gathered that he was pressed. + +When hurry was, better still, impossible, it was because of the +pleasantest thing of all, the particular element of their contact—she +would have called it their friendship—that consisted of an almost +humorous treatment of the look of some of his words. They would never +perhaps have grown half so intimate if he had not, by the blessing of +heaven, formed some of his letters with a queerness—! It was positive +that the queerness could scarce have been greater if he had practised +it for the very purpose of bringing their heads together over it as far +as was possible to heads on different sides of a wire fence. It had +taken her truly but once or twice to master these tricks, but, at the +cost of striking him perhaps as stupid, she could still challenge them +when circumstances favoured. The great circumstance that favoured was +that she sometimes actually believed he knew she only feigned +perplexity. If he knew it therefore he tolerated it; if he tolerated it +he came back; and if he came back he liked her. This was her seventh +heaven; and she didn’t ask much of his liking—she only asked of it to +reach the point of his not going away because of her own. He had at +times to be away for weeks; he had to lead his life; he had to +travel—there were places to which he was constantly wiring for “rooms”: +all this she granted him, forgave him; in fact, in the long run, +literally blessed and thanked him for. If he had to lead his life, that +precisely fostered his leading it so much by telegraph: therefore the +benediction was to come in when he could. That was all she asked—that +he shouldn’t wholly deprive her. + +Sometimes she almost felt that he couldn’t have deprived her even had +he been minded, by reason of the web of revelation that was woven +between them. She quite thrilled herself with thinking what, with such +a lot of material, a bad girl would do. It would be a scene better than +many in her ha’penny novels, this going to him in the dusk of evening +at Park Chambers and letting him at last have it. “I know too much +about a certain person now not to put it to you—excuse my being so +lurid—that it’s quite worth your while to buy me off. Come, therefore; +buy me!” There was a point indeed at which such flights had to drop +again—the point of an unreadiness to name, when it came to that, the +purchasing medium. It wouldn’t certainly be anything so gross as money, +and the matter accordingly remained rather vague, all the more that +_she_ was not a bad girl. It wasn’t for any such reason as might have +aggravated a mere minx that she often hoped he would again bring Cissy. +The difficulty of this, however, was constantly present to her, for the +kind of communion to which Cocker’s so richly ministered rested on the +fact that Cissy and he were so often in different places. She knew by +this time all the places—Suchbury, Monkhouse, Whiteroy, Finches—and +even how the parties on these occasions were composed; but her subtlety +found ways to make her knowledge fairly protect and promote their +keeping, as she had heard Mrs. Jordan say, in touch. So, when he +actually sometimes smiled as if he really felt the awkwardness of +giving her again one of the same old addresses, all her being went out +in the desire—which her face must have expressed—that he should +recognise her forbearance to criticise as one of the finest tenderest +sacrifices a woman had ever made for love. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +She was occasionally worried, however this might be, by the impression +that these sacrifices, great as they were, were nothing to those that +his own passion had imposed; if indeed it was not rather the passion of +his confederate, which had caught him up and was whirling him round +like a great steam-wheel. He was at any rate in the strong grip of a +dizzy splendid fate; the wild wind of his life blew him straight before +it. Didn’t she catch in his face at times, even through his smile and +his happy habit, the gleam of that pale glare with which a bewildered +victim appeals, as he passes, to some pair of pitying eyes? He perhaps +didn’t even himself know how scared he was; but _she_ knew. They were +in danger, they were in danger, Captain Everard and Lady Bradeen: it +beat every novel in the shop. She thought of Mr. Mudge and his safe +sentiment; she thought of herself and blushed even more for her tepid +response to it. It was a comfort to her at such moments to feel that in +another relation—a relation supplying that affinity with her nature +that Mr. Mudge, deluded creature, would never supply—she should have +been no more tepid than her ladyship. Her deepest soundings were on two +or three occasions of finding herself almost sure that, if she dared, +her ladyship’s lover would have gathered relief from “speaking” to her. +She literally fancied once or twice that, projected as he was toward +his doom, her own eyes struck him, while the air roared in his ears, as +the one pitying pair in the crowd. But how could he speak to her while +she sat sandwiched there between the counter-clerk and the sounder? + +She had long ago, in her comings and goings made acquaintance with Park +Chambers and reflected as she looked up at their luxurious front that +_they_, of course, would supply the ideal setting for the ideal speech. +There was not an object in London that, before the season was over, was +more stamped upon her brain. She went roundabout to pass it, for it was +not on the short way; she passed on the opposite side of the street and +always looked up, though it had taken her a long time to be sure of the +particular set of windows. She had made that out finally by an act of +audacity that at the time had almost stopped her heart-beats and that +in retrospect greatly quickened her blushes. One evening she had +lingered late and watched—watched for some moment when the porter, who +was in uniform and often on the steps, had gone in with a visitor. Then +she followed boldly, on the calculation that he would have taken the +visitor up and that the hall would be free. The hall _was_ free, and +the electric light played over the gilded and lettered board that +showed the names and numbers of the occupants of the different floors. +What she wanted looked straight at her—Captain Everard was on the +third. It was as if, in the immense intimacy of this, they were, for +the instant and the first time, face to face outside the cage. Alas! +they were face to face but a second or two: she was whirled out on the +wings of a panic fear that he might just then be entering or issuing. +This fear was indeed, in her shameless deflexions, never very far from +her, and was mixed in the oddest way with depressions and +disappointments. It was dreadful, as she trembled by, to run the risk +of looking to him as if she basely hung about; and yet it was dreadful +to be obliged to pass only at such moments as put an encounter out of +the question. + +At the horrible hour of her first coming to Cocker’s he was always—it +was to be hoped—snug in bed; and at the hour of her final departure he +was of course—she had such things all on her fingers’-ends—dressing for +dinner. We may let it pass that if she couldn’t bring herself to hover +till he was dressed, this was simply because such a process for such a +person could only be terribly prolonged. When she went in the middle of +the day to her own dinner she had too little time to do anything but go +straight, though it must be added that for a real certainty she would +joyously have omitted the repast. She had made up her mind as to there +being on the whole no decent pretext to justify her flitting casually +past at three o’clock in the morning. That was the hour at which, if +the ha’penny novels were not all wrong, he probably came home for the +night. She was therefore reduced to the vainest figuration of the +miraculous meeting toward which a hundred impossibilities would have to +conspire. But if nothing was more impossible than the fact, nothing was +more intense than the vision. What may not, we can only moralise, take +place in the quickened muffled perception of a young person with an +ardent soul? All our humble friend’s native distinction, her refinement +of personal grain, of heredity, of pride, took refuge in this small +throbbing spot; for when she was most conscious of the objection of her +vanity and the pitifulness of her little flutters and manoeuvres, then +the consolation and the redemption were most sure to glow before her in +some just discernible sign. He did like her! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +He never brought Cissy back, but Cissy came one day without him, as +fresh as before from the hands of Marguerite, or only, at the season’s +end, a trifle less fresh. She was, however, distinctly less serene. She +had brought nothing with her and looked about with impatience for the +forms and the place to write. The latter convenience, at Cocker’s, was +obscure and barely adequate, and her clear voice had the light note of +disgust which her lover’s never showed as she responded with a “There?” +of surprise to the gesture made by the counter-clerk in answer to her +sharp question. Our young friend was busy with half a dozen people, but +she had dispatched them in her most businesslike manner by the time her +ladyship flung through the bars this light of re-appearance. Then the +directness with which the girl managed to receive the accompanying +missive was the result of the concentration that had caused her to make +the stamps fly during the few minutes occupied by the production of it. +This concentration, in turn, may be described as the effect of the +apprehension of imminent relief. It was nineteen days, counted and +checked off, since she had seen the object of her homage; and as, had +he been in London, she should, with his habits, have been sure to see +him often, she was now about to learn what other spot his presence +might just then happen to sanctify. For she thought of them, the other +spots, as ecstatically conscious of it, expressively happy in it. + +But, gracious, how handsome _was_ her ladyship, and what an added price +it gave him that the air of intimacy he threw out should have flowed +originally from such a source! The girl looked straight through the +cage at the eyes and lips that must so often have been so near as +own—looked at them with a strange passion that for an instant had the +result of filling out some of the gaps, supplying the missing answers, +in his correspondence. Then as she made out that the features she thus +scanned and associated were totally unaware of it, that they glowed +only with the colour of quite other and not at all guessable thoughts, +this directly added to their splendour, gave the girl the sharpest +impression she had yet received of the uplifted, the unattainable +plains of heaven, and yet at the same time caused her to thrill with a +sense of the high company she did somehow keep. She was with the absent +through her ladyship and with her ladyship through the absent. The only +pang—but it didn’t matter—was the proof in the admirable face, in the +sightless preoccupation of its possessor, that the latter hadn’t a +notion of her. Her folly had gone to the point of half believing that +the other party to the affair must sometimes mention in Eaton Square +the extraordinary little person at the place from which he so often +wired. Yet the perception of her visitor’s blankness actually helped +this extraordinary little person, the next instant, to take refuge in a +reflexion that could be as proud as it liked. “How little she knows, +how little she knows!” the girl cried to herself; for what did that +show after all but that Captain Everard’s telegraphic confidant was +Captain Everard’s charming secret? Our young friend’s perusal of her +ladyship’s telegram was literally prolonged by a momentary daze: what +swam between her and the words, making her see them as through rippled +shallow sunshot water, was the great, the perpetual flood of “How much +_I_ know—how much _I_ know!” This produced a delay in her catching +that, on the face, these words didn’t give her what she wanted, though +she was prompt enough with her remembrance that her grasp was, half the +time, just of what was _not_ on the face. “Miss Dolman, Parade Lodge, +Parade Terrace, Dover. Let him instantly know right one, Hôtel de +France, Ostend. Make it seven nine four nine six one. Wire me +alternative Burfield’s.” + +The girl slowly counted. Then he was at Ostend. This hooked on with so +sharp a click that, not to feel she was as quickly letting it all slip +from her, she had absolutely to hold it a minute longer and to do +something to that end. Thus it was that she did on this occasion what +she never did—threw off a “Reply paid?” that sounded officious, but +that she partly made up for by deliberately affixing the stamps and by +waiting till she had done so to give change. She had, for so much +coolness, the strength that she considered she knew all about Miss +Dolman. + +“Yes—paid.” She saw all sorts of things in this reply, even to a small +suppressed start of surprise at so correct an assumption; even to an +attempt the next minute at a fresh air of detachment. “How much, with +the answer?” The calculation was not abstruse, but our intense observer +required a moment more to make it, and this gave her ladyship time for +a second thought. “Oh just wait!” The white begemmed hand bared to +write rose in sudden nervousness to the side of the wonderful face +which, with eyes of anxiety for the paper on the counter, she brought +closer to the bars of the cage. “I think I must alter a word!” On this +she recovered her telegram and looked over it again; but she had a new, +an obvious trouble, and studied it without deciding and with much of +the effect of making our young woman watch her. + +This personage, meanwhile, at the sight of her expression, had decided +on the spot. If she had always been sure they were in danger her +ladyship’s expression was the best possible sign of it. There was a +word wrong, but she had lost the right one, and much clearly depended +on her finding it again. The girl, therefore, sufficiently estimating +the affluence of customers and the distraction of Mr. Buckton and the +counter-clerk, took the jump and gave it. “Isn’t it Cooper’s?” + +It was as if she had bodily leaped—cleared the top of the cage and +alighted on her interlocutress. “Cooper’s?”—the stare was heightened by +a blush. Yes, she had made Juno blush. + +This was all the greater reason for going on. “I mean instead of +Burfield’s.” + +Our young friend fairly pitied her; she had made her in an instant so +helpless, and yet not a bit haughty nor outraged. She was only +mystified and scared. “Oh, you know—?” + +“Yes, I know!” Our young friend smiled, meeting the other’s eyes, and, +having made Juno blush, proceeded to patronise her. “_I’ll_ do it”—she +put out a competent hand. Her ladyship only submitted, confused and +bewildered, all presence of mind quite gone; and the next moment the +telegram was in the cage again and its author out of the shop. Then +quickly, boldly, under all the eyes that might have witnessed her +tampering, the extraordinary little person at Cocker’s made the proper +change. People were really too giddy, and if they _were_, in a certain +case, to be caught, it shouldn’t be the fault of her own grand memory. +Hadn’t it been settled weeks before?—for Miss Dolman it was always to +be “Cooper’s.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +But the summer “holidays” brought a marked difference; they were +holidays for almost every one but the animals in the cage. The August +days were flat and dry, and, with so little to feed it, she was +conscious of the ebb of her interest in the secrets of the refined. She +was in a position to follow the refined to the extent of knowing—they +had made so many of their arrangements with her aid—exactly where they +were; yet she felt quite as if the panorama had ceased unrolling and +the band stopped playing. A stray member of the latter occasionally +turned up, but the communications that passed before her bore now +largely on rooms at hotels, prices of furnished houses, hours of +trains, dates of sailings and arrangements for being “met”; she found +them for the most part prosaic and coarse. The only thing was that they +brought into her stuffy corner as straight a whiff of Alpine meadows +and Scotch moors as she might hope ever to inhale; there were moreover +in especial fat hot dull ladies who had out with her, to exasperation, +the terms for seaside lodgings, which struck her as huge, and the +matter of the number of beds required, which was not less portentous: +this in reference to places of which the names—Eastbourne, Folkestone, +Cromer, Scarborough, Whitby—tormented her with something of the sound +of the plash of water that haunts the traveller in the desert. She had +not been out of London for a dozen years, and the only thing to give a +taste to the present dead weeks was the spice of a chronic resentment. +The sparse customers, the people she did see, were the people who were +“just off”—off on the decks of fluttered yachts, off to the uttermost +point of rocky headlands where the very breeze was then playing for the +want of which she said to herself that she sickened. + +There was accordingly a sense in which, at such a period, the great +differences of the human condition could press upon her more than ever; +a circumstance drawing fresh force in truth from the very fact of the +chance that at last, for a change, did squarely meet her—the chance to +be “off,” for a bit, almost as far as anybody. They took their turns in +the cage as they took them both in the shop and at Chalk Farm; she had +known these two months that time was to be allowed in September—no less +than eleven days—for her personal private holiday. Much of her recent +intercourse with Mr. Mudge had consisted of the hopes and fears, +expressed mainly by himself, involved in the question of their getting +the same dates—a question that, in proportion as the delight seemed +assured, spread into a sea of speculation over the choice of where and +how. All through July, on the Sunday evenings and at such other odd +times as he could seize, he had flooded their talk with wild waves of +calculation. It was practically settled that, with her mother, +somewhere “on the south coast” (a phrase of which she liked the sound) +they should put in their allowance together; but she already felt the +prospect quite weary and worn with the way he went round and round on +it. It had become his sole topic, the theme alike of his most solemn +prudences and most placid jests, to which every opening led for return +and revision and in which every little flower of a foretaste was pulled +up as soon as planted. He had announced at the earliest +day—characterising the whole business, from that moment, as their +“plans,” under which name he handled it as a Syndicate handles a +Chinese or other Loan—he had promptly declared that the question must +be thoroughly studied, and he produced, on the whole subject, from day +to day, an amount of information that excited her wonder and even, not +a little, as she frankly let him know, her disdain. When she thought of +the danger in which another pair of lovers rapturously lived she +enquired of him anew why he could leave nothing to chance. Then she got +for answer that this profundity was just his pride, and he pitted +Ramsgate against Bournemouth and even Boulogne against Jersey—for he +had great ideas—with all the mastery of detail that was some day, +professionally, to carry him afar. + +The longer the time since she had seen Captain Everard the more she was +booked, as she called it, to pass Park Chambers; and this was the sole +amusement that in the lingering August days and the twilights sadly +drawn out it was left her to cultivate. She had long since learned to +know it for a feeble one, though its feebleness was perhaps scarce the +reason for her saying to herself each evening as her time for departure +approached: “No, no—not to-night.” She never failed of that silent +remark, any more than she failed of feeling, in some deeper place than +she had even yet fully sounded, that one’s remarks were as weak as +straws and that, however one might indulge in them at eight o’clock, +one’s fate infallibly declared itself in absolute indifference to them +at about eight-fifteen. Remarks were remarks, and very well for that; +but fate was fate, and this young lady’s was to pass Park Chambers +every night in the working week. Out of the immensity of her knowledge +of the life of the world there bloomed on these occasions as specific +remembrance that it was regarded in that region, in August and +September, as rather pleasant just to be caught for something or other +in passing through town. Somebody was always passing and somebody might +catch somebody else. It was in full cognisance of this subtle law that +she adhered to the most ridiculous circuit she could have made to get +home. One warm dull featureless Friday, when an accident had made her +start from Cocker’s a little later than usual, she became aware that +something of which the infinite possibilities had for so long peopled +her dreams was at last prodigiously upon her, though the perfection in +which the conditions happened to present it was almost rich enough to +be but the positive creation of a dream. She saw, straight before her, +like a vista painted in a picture, the empty street and the lamps that +burned pale in the dusk not yet established. It was into the +convenience of this quiet twilight that a gentleman on the doorstep of +the Chambers gazed with a vagueness that our young lady’s little figure +violently trembled, in the approach, with the measure of its power to +dissipate. Everything indeed grew in a flash terrific and distinct; her +old uncertainties fell away from her, and, since she was so familiar +with fate, she felt as if the very nail that fixed it were driven in by +the hard look with which, for a moment, Captain Everard awaited her. + +The vestibule was open behind him and the porter as absent as on the +day she had peeped in; he had just come out—was in town, in a tweed +suit and a pot hat, but between two journeys—duly bored over his +evening and at a loss what to do with it. Then it was that she was glad +she had never met him in that way before: she reaped with such ecstasy +the benefit of his not being able to think she passed often. She jumped +in two seconds to the determination that he should even suppose it to +be the very first time and the very oddest chance: this was while she +still wondered if he would identify or notice her. His original +attention had not, she instinctively knew, been for the young woman at +Cocker’s; it had only been for any young woman who might advance to the +tune of her not troubling the quiet air, and in fact the poetic hour, +with ugliness. Ah but then, and just as she had reached the door, came +his second observation, a long light reach with which, visibly and +quite amusedly, he recalled and placed her. They were on different +sides, but the street, narrow and still, had only made more of a stage +for the small momentary drama. It was not over, besides, it was far +from over, even on his sending across the way, with the pleasantest +laugh she had ever heard, a little lift of his hat and an “Oh good +evening!” It was still less over on their meeting, the next minute, +though rather indirectly and awkwardly, in the middle, of the road—a +situation to which three or four steps of her own had unmistakeably +contributed—and then passing not again to the side on which she had +arrived, but back toward the portal of Park Chambers. + +“I didn’t know you at first. Are you taking a walk?” + +“Ah I don’t take walks at night! I’m going home after my work.” + +“Oh!” + +That was practically what they had meanwhile smiled out, and his +exclamation to which for a minute he appeared to have nothing to add, +left them face to face and in just such an attitude as, for his part, +he might have worn had he been wondering if he could properly ask her +to come in. During this interval in fact she really felt his question +to be just “_How_ properly—?” It was simply a question of the degree of +properness. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +She never knew afterwards quite what she had done to settle it, and at +the time she only knew that they presently moved, with vagueness, yet +with continuity, away from the picture of the lighted vestibule and the +quiet stairs and well up the street together. This also must have been +in the absence of a definite permission, of anything vulgarly +articulate, for that matter, on the part of either; and it was to be, +later on, a thing of remembrance and reflexion for her that the limit +of what just here for a longish minute passed between them was his +taking in her thoroughly successful deprecation, though conveyed +without pride or sound or touch, of the idea that she might be, out of +the cage, the very shop-girl at large that she hugged the theory she +wasn’t. Yes, it was strange, she afterwards thought, that so much could +have come and gone and yet not disfigured the dear little intense +crisis either with impertinence or with resentment, with any of the +horrid notes of that kind of acquaintance. He had taken no liberty, as +she would have so called it; and, through not having to betray the +sense of one, she herself had, still more charmingly, taken none. On +the spot, nevertheless, she could speculate as to what it meant that, +if his relation with Lady Bradeen continued to be what her mind had +built it up to, he should feel free to proceed with marked +independence. This was one of the questions he was to leave her to deal +with—the question whether people of his sort still asked girls up to +their rooms when they were so awfully in love with other women. Could +people of his sort do that without what people of _her_ sort would call +being “false to their love”? She had already a vision of how the true +answer was that people of her sort didn’t, in such cases, matter—didn’t +count as infidelity, counted only as something else: she might have +been curious, since it came to that, to see exactly what. + +Strolling together slowly in their summer twilight and their empty +corner of Mayfair, they found themselves emerge at last opposite to one +of the smaller gates of the Park; upon which, without any particular +word about it—they were talking so of other things—they crossed the +street and went in and sat down on a bench. She had gathered by this +time one magnificent hope about him—the hope he would say nothing +vulgar. She knew thoroughly what she meant by that; she meant something +quite apart from any matter of his being “false.” Their bench was not +far within; it was near the Park Lane paling and the patchy lamplight +and the rumbling cabs and ‘buses. A strange emotion had come to her, +and she felt indeed excitement within excitement; above all a conscious +joy in testing him with chances he didn’t take. She had an intense +desire he should know the type she really conformed to without her +doing anything so low as tell him, and he had surely begun to know it +from the moment he didn’t seize the opportunities into which a common +man would promptly have blundered. These were on the mere awkward +surface, and _their_ relation was beautiful behind and below them. She +had questioned so little on the way what they might be doing that as +soon as they were seated she took straight hold of it. Her hours, her +confinement, the many conditions of service in the post-office, +had—with a glance at his own postal resources and alternatives—formed, +up to this stage, the subject of their talk. “Well, here we are, and it +may be right enough; but this isn’t the least, you know, where I was +going.” + +“You were going home?” + +“Yes, and I was already rather late. I was going to my supper.” + +“You haven’t had it?” + +“No indeed!” + +“Then you haven’t eaten—?” + +He looked of a sudden so extravagantly concerned that she laughed out. +“All day? Yes, we do feed once. But that was long ago. So I must +presently say good-bye.” + +“Oh deary _me_!” he exclaimed with an intonation so droll and yet a +touch so light and a distress so marked—a confession of helplessness +for such a case, in short, so unrelieved—that she at once felt sure she +had made the great difference plain. He looked at her with the kindest +eyes and still without saying what she had known he wouldn’t. She had +known he wouldn’t say “Then sup with _me_!” but the proof of it made +her feel as if she had feasted. + +“I’m not a bit hungry,” she went on. + +“Ah you _must_ be, awfully!” he made answer, but settling himself on +the bench as if, after all, that needn’t interfere with his spending +his evening. “I’ve always quite wanted the chance to thank you for the +trouble you so often take for me.” + +“Yes, I know,” she replied; uttering the words with a sense of the +situation far deeper than any pretence of not fitting his allusion. She +immediately felt him surprised and even a little puzzled at her frank +assent; but for herself the trouble she had taken could only, in these +fleeting minutes—they would probably never come back—be all there like +a little hoard of gold in her lap. Certainly he might look at it, +handle it, take up the pieces. Yet if he understood anything he must +understand all. “I consider you’ve already immensely thanked me.” The +horror was back upon her of having seemed to hang about for some +reward. “It’s awfully odd you should have been there just the one +time—!” + +“The one time you’ve passed my place?” + +“Yes; you can fancy I haven’t many minutes to waste. There was a place +to-night I had to stop at.” + +“I see, I see—” he knew already so much about her work. “It must be an +awful grind—for a lady.” + +“It is, but I don’t think I groan over it any more than my +companions—and you’ve seen _they’re_ not ladies!” She mildly jested, +but with an intention. “One gets used to things, and there are +employments I should have hated much more.” She had the finest +conception of the beauty of not at least boring him. To whine, to count +up her wrongs, was what a barmaid or a shop-girl would do, and it was +quite enough to sit there like one of these. + +“If you had had another employment,” he remarked after a moment, “we +might never have become acquainted.” + +“It’s highly probable—and certainly not in the same way.” Then, still +with her heap of gold in her lap and something of the pride of it in +her manner of holding her head, she continued not to move—she only +smiled at him. The evening had thickened now; the scattered lamps were +red; the Park, all before them, was full of obscure and ambiguous life; +there were other couples on other benches whom it was impossible not to +see, yet at whom it was impossible to look. “But I’ve walked so much +out of my way with you only just to show you that—that”—with this she +paused; it was not after all so easy to express—“that anything you may +have thought is perfectly true.” + +“Oh I’ve thought a tremendous lot!” her companion laughed. “Do you mind +my smoking?” + +“Why should I? You always smoke _there_.” + +“At your place? Oh yes, but here it’s different.” + +“No,” she said as he lighted a cigarette, “that’s just what it isn’t. +It’s quite the same.” + +“Well, then, that’s because ‘there’ it’s so wonderful!” + +“Then you’re conscious of how wonderful it is?” she returned. + +He jerked his handsome head in literal protest at a doubt. “Why that’s +exactly what I mean by my gratitude for all your trouble. It has been +just as if you took a particular interest.” She only looked at him by +way of answer in such sudden headlong embarrassment, as she was quite +aware, that while she remained silent he showed himself checked by her +expression. “You _have_—haven’t you?—taken a particular interest?” + +“Oh a particular interest!” she quavered out, feeling the whole +thing—her headlong embarrassment—get terribly the better of her, and +wishing, with a sudden scare, all the more to keep her emotion down. +She maintained her fixed smile a moment and turned her eyes over the +peopled darkness, unconfused now, because there was something much more +confusing. This, with a fatal great rush, was simply the fact that they +were thus together. They were near, near, and all she had imagined of +that had only become more true, more dreadful and overwhelming. She +stared straight away in silence till she felt she looked an idiot; +then, to say something, to say nothing, she attempted a sound which +ended in a flood of tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +Her tears helped her really to dissimulate, for she had instantly, in +so public a situation, to recover herself. They had come and gone in +half a minute, and she immediately explained them. “It‘s only because +I’m tired. It’s that—it’s that!” Then she added a trifle incoherently: +“I shall never see you again.” + +“Ah but why not?” The mere tone in which her companion asked this +satisfied her once for all as to the amount of imagination for which +she could count on him. It was naturally not large: it had exhausted +itself in having arrived at what he had already touched upon—the sense +of an intention in her poor zeal at Cocker’s. But any deficiency of +this kind was no fault in him: _he_ wasn’t obliged to have an inferior +cleverness—to have second-rate resources and virtues. It had been as if +he almost really believed she had simply cried for fatigue, and he +accordingly put in some kind confused plea—“You ought really to take +something: won’t you have something or other _somewhere_?” to which she +had made no response but a headshake of a sharpness that settled it. +“Why shan’t we all the more keep meeting?” + +“I mean meeting this way—only this way. At my place there—_that_ I’ve +nothing to do with, and I hope of course you’ll turn up, with your +correspondence, when it suits you. Whether I stay or not, I mean; for I +shall probably not stay.” + +“You’re going somewhere else?” he put it with positive anxiety. + +“Yes, ever so far away—to the other end of London. There are all sorts +of reasons I can’t tell you; and it’s practically settled. It’s better +for me, much; and I’ve only kept on at Cocker’s for you.” + +“For me?” + +Making out in the dusk that he fairly blushed, she now measured how far +he had been from knowing too much. Too much, she called it at present; +and that was easy, since it proved so abundantly enough for her that he +should simply be where he was. “As we shall never talk this way but +to-night—never, never again!—here it all is. I’ll say it; I don’t care +what you think; it doesn’t matter; I only want to help you. Besides, +you’re kind—you’re kind. I’ve been thinking then of leaving for ever so +long. But you’ve come so often—at times—and you’ve had so much to do, +and it has been so pleasant and interesting, that I’ve remained, I’ve +kept putting off any change. More than once, when I had nearly decided, +you’ve turned up again and I’ve thought ‘Oh no!’ That’s the simple +fact!” She had by this time got her confusion down so completely that +she could laugh. “This is what I meant when I said to you just now that +I ‘knew.’ I’ve known perfectly that you knew I took trouble for you; +and that knowledge has been for me, and I seemed to see it was for you, +as if there were something—I don’t know what to call it!—between us. I +mean something unusual and good and awfully nice—something not a bit +horrid or vulgar.” + +She had by this time, she could see, produced a great effect on him; +but she would have spoken the truth to herself had she at the same +moment declared that she didn’t in the least care: all the more that +the effect must be one of extreme perplexity. What, in it all, was +visibly clear for him, none the less, was that he was tremendously glad +he had met her. She held him, and he was astonished at the force of it; +he was intent, immensely considerate. His elbow was on the back of the +seat, and his head, with the pot-hat pushed quite back, in a boyish +way, so that she really saw almost for the first time his forehead and +hair, rested on the hand into which he had crumpled his gloves. “Yes,” +he assented, “it’s not a bit horrid or vulgar.” + +She just hung fire a moment, then she brought out the whole truth. “I’d +do anything for you. I’d do anything for you.” Never in her life had +she known anything so high and fine as this, just letting him have it +and bravely and magnificently leaving it. Didn’t the place, the +associations and circumstances, perfectly make it sound what it wasn’t? +and wasn’t that exactly the beauty? + +So she bravely and magnificently left it, and little by little she felt +him take it up, take it down, as if they had been on a satin sofa in a +boudoir. She had never seen a boudoir, but there had been lots of +boudoirs in the telegrams. What she had said at all events sank into +him, so that after a minute he simply made a movement that had the +result of placing his hand on her own—presently indeed that of her +feeling herself firmly enough grasped. There was no pressure she need +return, there was none she need decline; she just sat admirably still, +satisfied for the time with the surprise and bewilderment of the +impression she made on him. His agitation was even greater on the whole +than she had at first allowed for. “I say, you know, you mustn’t think +of leaving!” he at last broke out. + +“Of leaving Cocker’s, you mean?” + +“Yes, you must stay on there, whatever happens, and help a fellow.” + +She was silent a little, partly because it was so strange and exquisite +to feel him watch her as if it really mattered to him and he were +almost in suspense. “Then you _have_ quite recognised what I’ve tried +to do?” she asked. + +“Why, wasn’t that exactly what I dashed over from my door just now to +thank you for?” + +“Yes; so you said.” + +“And don’t you believe it?” + +She looked down a moment at his hand, which continued to cover her own; +whereupon he presently drew it back, rather restlessly folding his +arms. Without answering his question she went on: “Have you ever spoken +of me?” + +“Spoken of you?” + +“Of my being there—of my knowing, and that sort of thing.” + +“Oh never to a human creature!” he eagerly declared. + +She had a small drop at this, which was expressed in another pause, and +she then returned to what he had just asked her. “Oh yes, I quite +believe you like it—my always being there and our taking things up so +familiarly and successfully: if not exactly where we left them,” she +laughed, “almost always at least at an interesting point!” He was about +to say something in reply to this, but her friendly gaiety was quicker. +“You want a great many things in life, a great many comforts and helps +and luxuries—you want everything as pleasant as possible. Therefore, so +far as it’s in the power of any particular person to contribute to all +that—” She had turned her face to him smiling, just thinking. + +“Oh see here!” But he was highly amused. “Well, what then?” he enquired +as if to humour her. + +“Why the particular person must never fail. We must manage it for you +somehow.” + +He threw back his head, laughing out; he was really exhilarated. “Oh +yes, somehow!” + +“Well, I think we each do—don’t we?—in one little way and another and +according to our limited lights. I’m pleased at any rate, for myself, +that you are; for I assure you I’ve done my best.” + +“You do better than any one!” He had struck a match for another +cigarette, and the flame lighted an instant his responsive finished +face, magnifying into a pleasant grimace the kindness with which he +paid her this tribute. “You’re awfully clever, you know; cleverer, +cleverer, cleverer—!” He had appeared on the point of making some +tremendous statement; then suddenly, puffing his cigarette and shifting +almost with violence on his seat, he let it altogether fall. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +In spite of this drop, if not just by reason of it, she felt as if Lady +Bradeen, all but named out, had popped straight up; and she practically +betrayed her consciousness by waiting a little before she rejoined: +“Cleverer than who?” + +“Well, if I wasn’t afraid you’d think I swagger, I should say—than +anybody! If you leave your place there, where shall you go?” he more +gravely asked. + +“Oh too far for you ever to find me!” + +“I’d find you anywhere.” + +The tone of this was so still more serious that she had but her one +acknowledgement. “I’d do anything for you—I’d do anything for you,” she +repeated. She had already, she felt, said it all; so what did anything +more, anything less, matter? That was the very reason indeed why she +could, with a lighter note, ease him generously of any awkwardness +produced by solemnity, either his own or hers. “Of course it must be +nice for you to be able to think there are people all about who feel in +such a way.” + +In immediate appreciation of this, however, he only smoked without +looking at her. “But you don’t want to give up your present work?” he +at last threw out. “I mean you _will_ stay in the post-office?” + +“Oh yes; I think I’ve a genius for that.” + +“Rather! No one can touch you.” With this he turned more to her again. +“But you can get, with a move, greater advantages?” + +“I can get in the suburbs cheaper lodgings. I live with my mother. We +need some space. There’s a particular place that has other +inducements.” + +He just hesitated. “Where is it?” + +“Oh quite out of _your_ way. You’d never have time.” + +“But I tell you I’d go anywhere. Don’t you believe it?” + +“Yes, for once or twice. But you’d soon see it wouldn’t do for you.” + +He smoked and considered; seemed to stretch himself a little and, with +his legs out, surrender himself comfortably. “Well, well, well—I +believe everything you say. I take it from you—anything you like—in the +most extraordinary way.” It struck her certainly—and almost without +bitterness—that the way in which she was already, as if she had been an +old friend, arranging for him and preparing the only magnificence she +could muster, was quite the most extraordinary. “Don’t, _don’t_ go!” he +presently went on. “I shall miss you too horribly!” + +“So that you just put it to me as a definite request?”—oh how she tried +to divest this of all sound of the hardness of bargaining! That ought +to have been easy enough, for what was she arranging to get? Before he +could answer she had continued: “To be perfectly fair I should tell you +I recognise at Cocker’s certain strong attractions. All you people +come. I like all the horrors.” + +“The horrors?” + +“Those you all—you know the set I mean, _your_ set—show me with as good +a conscience as if I had no more feeling than a letter-box.” + +He looked quite excited at the way she put it. “Oh they don’t know!” + +“Don’t know I’m not stupid? No, how should they?” + +“Yes, how should they?” said the Captain sympathetically. “But isn’t +‘horrors’ rather strong?” + +“What you _do_ is rather strong!” the girl promptly returned. + +“What _I_ do?” + +“Your extravagance, your selfishness, your immorality, your crimes,” +she pursued, without heeding his expression. + +“I _say_!”—her companion showed the queerest stare. + +“I like them, as I tell you—I revel in them. But we needn’t go into +that,” she quietly went on; “for all I get out of it is the harmless +pleasure of knowing. I know, I know, I know!”—she breathed it ever so +gently. + +“Yes; that’s what has been between us,” he answered much more simply. + +She could enjoy his simplicity in silence, and for a moment she did so. +“If I do stay because you want it—and I’m rather capable of that—there +are two or three things I think you ought to remember. One is, you +know, that I’m there sometimes for days and weeks together without your +ever coming.” + +“Oh I’ll come every day!” he honestly cried. + +She was on the point, at this, of imitating with her hand his movement +of shortly before; but she checked herself, and there was no want of +effect in her soothing substitute. “How can you? How can you?” He had, +too manifestly, only to look at it there, in the vulgarly animated +gloom, to see that he couldn’t; and at this point, by the mere action +of his silence, everything they had so definitely not named, the whole +presence round which they had been circling, became part of their +reference, settled in solidly between them. It was as if then for a +minute they sat and saw it all in each other’s eyes, saw so much that +there was no need of a pretext for sounding it at last. “Your danger, +your danger—!” Her voice indeed trembled with it, and she could only +for the moment again leave it so. + +During this moment he leaned back on the bench, meeting her in silence +and with a face that grew more strange. It grew so strange that after a +further instant she got straight up. She stood there as if their talk +were now over, and he just sat and watched her. It was as if now—owing +to the third person they had brought in—they must be more careful; so +that the most he could finally say was: “That’s where it is!” + +“That’s where it is!” the girl as guardedly replied. He sat still, and +she added: “I won’t give you up. Good-bye.” + +“Good-bye?”—he appealed, but without moving. + +“I don’t quite see my way, but I won’t give you up,” she repeated. +“There. Good-bye.” + +It brought him with a jerk to his feet, tossing away his cigarette. His +poor face was flushed. “See here—see here!” + +“No, I won’t; but I must leave you now,” she went on as if not hearing +him. + +“See here—see here!” He tried, from the bench, to take her hand again. + +But that definitely settled it for her: this would, after all, be as +bad as his asking her to supper. “You mustn’t come with me—no, no!” + +He sank back, quite blank, as if she had pushed him. “I mayn’t see you +home?” + +“No, no; let me go.” He looked almost as if she had struck him, but she +didn’t care; and the manner in which she spoke—it was literally as if +she were angry—had the force of a command. “Stay where you are!” + +“See here—see here!” he nevertheless pleaded. + +“I won’t give you up!” she cried once more—this time quite with +passion; on which she got away from him as fast as she could and left +him staring after her. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +Mr. Mudge had lately been so occupied with their famous “plans” that he +had neglected for a while the question of her transfer; but down at +Bournemouth, which had found itself selected as the field of their +recreation by a process consisting, it seemed, exclusively of +innumerable pages of the neatest arithmetic in a very greasy but most +orderly little pocket-book, the distracting possible melted away—the +fleeting absolute ruled the scene. The plans, hour by hour, were simply +superseded, and it was much of a rest to the girl, as she sat on the +pier and overlooked the sea and the company, to see them evaporate in +rosy fumes and to feel that from moment to moment there was less left +to cipher about. The week proves blissfully fine, and her mother, at +their lodgings—partly to her embarrassment and partly to her +relief—struck up with the landlady an alliance that left the younger +couple a great deal of freedom. This relative took her pleasure of a +week at Bournemouth in a stuffy back-kitchen and endless talks; to that +degree even that Mr. Mudge himself—habitually inclined indeed to a +scrutiny of all mysteries and to seeing, as he sometimes admitted, too +much in things—made remarks on it as he sat on the cliff with his +betrothed, or on the decks of steamers that conveyed them, close-packed +items in terrific totals of enjoyment, to the Isle of Wight and the +Dorset coast. + +He had a lodging in another house, where he had speedily learned the +importance of keeping his eyes open, and he made no secret of his +suspecting that sinister mutual connivances might spring, under the +roof of his companions, from unnatural sociabilities. At the same time +he fully recognised that as a source of anxiety, not to say of expense, +his future mother-in law would have weighted them more by accompanying +their steps than by giving her hostess, in the interest of the tendency +they considered that they never mentioned, equivalent pledges as to the +tea-caddy and the jam-pot. These were the questions—these indeed the +familiar commodities—that he had now to put into the scales; and his +betrothed had in consequence, during her holiday, the odd and yet +pleasant and almost languid sense of an anticlimax. She had become +conscious of an extraordinary collapse, a surrender to stillness and to +retrospect. She cared neither to walk nor to sail; it was enough for +her to sit on benches and wonder at the sea and taste the air and not +be at Cocker’s and not see the counter-clerk. She still seemed to wait +for something—something in the key of the immense discussions that had +mapped out their little week of idleness on the scale of a world-atlas. +Something came at last, but without perhaps appearing quite adequately +to crown the monument. + +Preparation and precaution were, however, the natural flowers of Mr. +Mudge’s mind, and in proportion as these things declined in one quarter +they inevitably bloomed elsewhere. He could always, at the worst, have +on Tuesday the project of their taking the Swanage boat on Thursday, +and on Thursday that of their ordering minced kidneys on Saturday. He +had moreover a constant gift of inexorable enquiry as to where and what +they should have gone and have done if they hadn’t been exactly as they +were. He had in short his resources, and his mistress had never been so +conscious of them; on the other hand they never interfered so little +with her own. She liked to be as she was—if it could only have lasted. +She could accept even without bitterness a rigour of economy so great +that the little fee they paid for admission to the pier had to be +balanced against other delights. The people at Ladle’s and at Thrupp’s +had _their_ ways of amusing themselves, whereas she had to sit and hear +Mr. Mudge talk of what he might do if he didn’t take a bath, or of the +bath he might take if he only hadn’t taken something else. He was +always with her now, of course, always beside her; she saw him more +than “hourly,” more than ever yet, more even than he had planned she +should do at Chalk Farm. She preferred to sit at the far end, away from +the band and the crowd; as to which she had frequent differences with +her friend, who reminded her often that they could have only in the +thick of it the sense of the money they were getting back. That had +little effect on her, for she got back her money by seeing many things, +the things of the past year, fall together and connect themselves, +undergo the happy relegation that transforms melancholy and misery, +passion and effort, into experience and knowledge. + +She liked having done with them, as she assured herself she had +practically done, and the strange thing was that she neither missed the +procession now nor wished to keep her place for it. It had become +there, in the sun and the breeze and the sea-smell, a far-away story, a +picture of another life. If Mr. Mudge himself liked processions, liked +them at Bournemouth and on the pier quite as much as at Chalk Farm or +anywhere, she learned after a little not to be worried by his perpetual +counting of the figures that made them up. There were dreadful women in +particular, usually fat and in men’s caps and write shoes, whom he +could never let alone—not that _she_ cared; it was not the great world, +the world of Cocker’s and Ladle’s and Thrupp’s, but it offered an +endless field to his faculties of memory, philosophy, and frolic. She +had never accepted him so much, never arranged so successfully for +making him chatter while she carried on secret conversations. This +separate commerce was with herself; and if they both practised a great +thrift she had quite mastered that of merely spending words enough to +keep him imperturbably and continuously going. + +He was charmed with the panorama, not knowing—or at any rate not at all +showing that he knew—what far other images peopled her mind than the +women in the navy caps and the shop-boys in the blazers. His +observations on these types, his general interpretation of the show, +brought home to her the prospect of Chalk Farm. She wondered sometimes +that he should have derived so little illumination, during his period, +from the society at Cocker’s. But one evening while their holiday +cloudlessly waned he gave her such a proof of his quality as might have +made her ashamed of her many suppressions. He brought out something +that, in all his overflow, he had been able to keep back till other +matters were disposed of. It was the announcement that he was at last +ready to marry—that he saw his way. A rise at Chalk Farm had been +offered him; he was to be taken into the business, bringing with him a +capital the estimation of which by other parties constituted the +handsomest recognition yet made of the head on his shoulders. Therefore +their waiting was over—it could be a question of a near date. They +would settle this date before going back, and he meanwhile had his eye +on a sweet little home. He would take her to see it on their first +Sunday. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +His having kept this great news for the last, having had such a card up +his sleeve and not floated it out in the current of his chatter and the +luxury of their leisure, was one of those incalculable strokes by which +he could still affect her; the kind of thing that reminded her of the +latent force that had ejected the drunken soldier—an example of the +profundity of which his promotion was the proof. She listened a while +in silence, on this occasion, to the wafted strains of the music; she +took it in as she had not quite done before that her future was now +constituted. Mr. Mudge was distinctly her fate; yet at this moment she +turned her face quite away from him, showing him so long a mere quarter +of her cheek that she at last again heard his voice. He couldn’t see a +pair of tears that were partly the reason of her delay to give him the +assurance he required; but he expressed at a venture the hope that she +had had her fill of Cocker’s. + +She was finally able to turn back. “Oh quite. There’s nothing going on. +No one comes but the Americans at Thrupp’s, and _they_ don’t do much. +They don’t seem to have a secret in the world.” + +“Then the extraordinary reason you’ve been giving me for holding on +there has ceased to work?” + +She thought a moment. “Yes, that one. I’ve seen the thing through—I’ve +got them all in my pocket.” + +“So you’re ready to come?” + +For a little again she made no answer. “No, not yet, all the same. I’ve +still got a reason—a different one.” + +He looked her all over as if it might have been something she kept in +her mouth or her glove or under her jacket—something she was even +sitting upon. “Well, I’ll have it, please.” + +“I went out the other night and sat in the Park with a gentleman,” she +said at last. + +Nothing was ever seen like his confidence in her and she wondered a +little now why it didn’t irritate her. It only gave her ease and space, +as she felt, for telling him the whole truth that no one knew. It had +arrived at present at her really wanting to do that, and yet to do it +not in the least for Mr. Mudge, but altogether and only for herself. +This truth filled out for her there the whole experience about to +relinquish, suffused and coloured it as a picture that she should keep +and that, describe it as she might, no one but herself would ever +really see. Moreover she had no desire whatever to make Mr. Mudge +jealous; there would be no amusement in it, for the amusement she had +lately known had spoiled her for lower pleasures. There were even no +materials for it. The odd thing was how she never doubted that, +properly handled, his passion was poisonable; what had happened was +that he had cannily selected a partner with no poison to distil. She +read then and there that she should never interest herself in anybody +as to whom some other sentiment, some superior view, wouldn’t be sure +to interfere for him with jealousy. “And what did you get out of that?” +he asked with a concern that was not in the least for his honour. + +“Nothing but a good chance to promise him I wouldn’t forsake him. He’s +one of my customers.” + +“Then it’s for him not to forsake _you_.” + +“Well, he won’t. It’s all right. But I must just keep on as long as he +may want me.” + +“Want you to sit with him in the Park?” + +“He may want me for that—but I shan’t. I rather liked it, but once, +under the circumstances, is enough. I can do better for him in another +manner.” + +“And what manner, pray?” + +“Well, elsewhere.” + +“Elsewhere?—I _say_!” + +This was an ejaculation used also by Captain Everard, but oh with what +a different sound! “You needn’t ‘say’—there’s nothing to be said. And +yet you ought perhaps to know.” + +“Certainly I ought. But _what_—up to now?” + +“Why exactly what I told him. That I’d do anything for him.” + +“What do you mean by ‘anything’?” + +“Everything.” + +Mr. Mudge’s immediate comment on this statement was to draw from his +pocket a crumpled paper containing the remains of half a pound of +“sundries.” These sundries had figured conspicuously in his prospective +sketch of their tour, but it was only at the end of three days that +they had defined themselves unmistakeably as chocolate-creams. “Have +another?—_that_ one,” he said. She had another, but not the one he +indicated, and then he continued: “What took place afterwards?” + +“Afterwards?” + +“What did you do when you had told him you’d do everything?” + +“I simply came away.” + +“Out of the Park?” + +“Yes, leaving him there. I didn’t let him follow me.” + +“Then what did you let him do?” + +“I didn’t let him do anything.” + +Mr. Mudge considered an instant. “Then what did you go there for?” His +tone was even slightly critical. + +“I didn’t quite know at the time. It was simply to be with him, I +suppose—just once. He’s in danger, and I wanted him to know I know it. +It makes meeting him—at Cocker’s, since it’s that I want to stay on +for—more interesting.” + +“It makes it mighty interesting for _me_!” Mr. Mudge freely declared. +“Yet he didn’t follow you?” he asked. “_I_ would!” + +“Yes, of course. That was the way you began, you know. You’re awfully +inferior to him.” + +“Well, my dear, you’re not inferior to anybody. You’ve got a cheek! +What’s he in danger of?” + +“Of being found out. He’s in love with a lady—and it isn’t right—and +_I’ve_ found him out.” + +“That’ll be a look-out for _me_!” Mr. Mudge joked. “You mean she has a +husband?” + +“Never mind what she has! They’re in awful danger, but his is the +worst, because he’s in danger from her too.” + +“Like me from you—the woman _I_ love? If he’s in the same funk as me—” + +“He’s in a worse one. He’s not only afraid of the lady—he’s afraid of +other things.” + +Mr. Mudge selected another chocolate-cream. “Well, I’m only afraid of +one! But how in the world can you help this party?” + +“I don’t know—perhaps not at all. But so long as there’s a chance—” + +“You won’t come away?” + +“No, you’ve got to wait for me.” + +Mr. Mudge enjoyed what was in his mouth. “And what will he give you?” + +“Give me?” + +“If you do help him.” + +“Nothing. Nothing in all the wide world.” + +“Then what will he give _me_?” Mr. Mudge enquired. “I mean for +waiting.” + +The girl thought a moment; then she got up to walk. “He never heard of +you,” she replied. + +“You haven’t mentioned me?” + +“We never mention anything. What I’ve told you is just what I’ve found +out.” + +Mr. Mudge, who had remained on the bench, looked up at her; she often +preferred to be quiet when he proposed to walk, but now that he seemed +to wish to sit she had a desire to move. “But you haven’t told me what +_he_ has found out.” + +She considered her lover. “He’d never find _you_, my dear!” + +Her lover, still on his seat, appealed to her in something of the +attitude in which she had last left Captain Everard, but the impression +was not the same. “Then where do I come in?” + +“You don’t come in at all. That’s just the beauty of it!”—and with this +she turned to mingle with the multitude collected round the band. Mr. +Mudge presently overtook her and drew her arm into his own with a quiet +force that expressed the serenity of possession; in consonance with +which it was only when they parted for the night at her door that he +referred again to what she had told him. + +“Have you seen him since?” + +“Since the night in the Park? No, not once.” + +“Oh, what a cad!” said Mr. Mudge. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +It was not till the end of October that she saw Captain Everard again, +and on that occasion—the only one of all the series on which hindrance +had been so utter—no communication with him proved possible. She had +made out even from the cage that it was a charming golden day: a patch +of hazy autumn sunlight lay across the sanded floor and also, higher +up, quickened into brightness a row of ruddy bottled syrups. Work was +slack and the place in general empty; the town, as they said in the +cage, had not waked up, and the feeling of the day likened itself to +something than in happier conditions she would have thought of +romantically as Saint Martin’s summer. The counter-clerk had gone to +his dinner; she herself was busy with arrears of postal jobs, in the +midst of which she became aware that Captain Everard had apparently +been in the shop a minute and that Mr. Buckton had already seized him. + +He had as usual half a dozen telegrams; and when he saw that she saw +him and their eyes met he gave, on bowing to her, an exaggerated laugh +in which she read a new consciousness. It was a confession of +awkwardness; it seemed to tell her that of course he knew he ought +better to have kept his head, ought to have been clever enough to wait, +on some pretext, till he should have found her free. Mr. Buckton was a +long time with him, and her attention was soon demanded by other +visitors; so that nothing passed between them but the fulness of their +silence. The look she took from him was his greeting, and the other one +a simple sign of the eyes sent her before going out. The only token +they exchanged therefore was his tacit assent to her wish that since +they couldn’t attempt a certain frankness they should attempt nothing +at all. This was her intense preference; she could be as still and cold +as any one when that was the sole solution. + +Yet more than any contact hitherto achieved these counted instants +struck her as marking a step: they were built so—just in the mere +flash—on the recognition of his now definitely knowing what it was she +would do for him. The “anything, anything” she had uttered in the Park +went to and fro between them and under the poked-out china that +interposed. It had all at last even put on the air of their not needing +now clumsily to manoeuvre to converse: their former little postal +make-believes, the intense implications of questions and answers and +change, had become in the light of the personal fact, of their having +had their moment, a possibility comparatively poor. It was as if they +had met for all time—it exerted on their being in presence again an +influence so prodigious. When she watched herself, in the memory of +that night, walk away from him as if she were making an end, she found +something too pitiful in the primness of such a gait. Hadn’t she +precisely established on the part of each a consciousness that could +end only with death? + +It must be admitted that in spite of this brave margin an irritation, +after he had gone, remained with her; a sense that presently became one +with a still sharper hatred of Mr. Buckton, who, on her friend’s +withdrawal, had retired with the telegrams to the sounder and left her +the other work. She knew indeed she should have a chance to see them, +when she would, on file; and she was divided, as the day went on, +between the two impressions of all that was lost and all that was +re-asserted. What beset her above all, and as she had almost never +known it before, was the desire to bound straight out, to overtake the +autumn afternoon before it passed away for ever and hurry off to the +Park and perhaps be with him there again on a bench. It became for an +hour a fantastic vision with her that he might just have gone to sit +and wait for her. She could almost hear him, through the tick of the +sounder, scatter with his stick, in his impatience, the fallen leaves +of October. Why should such a vision seize her at this particular +moment with such a shake? There was a time—from four to five—when she +could have cried with happiness and rage. + +Business quickened, it seemed, toward five, as if the town did wake up; +she had therefore more to do, and she went through it with little sharp +stampings and jerkings: she made the crisp postal-orders fairly snap +while she breathed to herself “It’s the last day—the last day!” The +last day of what? She couldn’t have told. All she knew now was that if +she _were_ out of the cage she wouldn’t in the least have minded, this +time, its not yet being dark. She would have gone straight toward Park +Chambers and have hung about there till no matter when. She would have +waited, stayed, rung, asked, have gone in, sat on the stairs. What the +day was the last of was probably, to her strained inner sense, the +group of golden ones, of any occasion for seeing the hazy sunshine +slant at that angle into the smelly shop, of any range of chances for +his wishing still to repeat to her the two words she had in the Park +scarcely let him bring out. “See here—see here!”—the sound of these two +words had been with her perpetually; but it was in her ears to-day +without mercy, with a loudness that grew and grew. What was it they +then expressed? what was it he had wanted her to see? She seemed, +whatever it was, perfectly to see it now—to see that if she should just +chuck the whole thing, should have a great and beautiful courage, he +would somehow make everything up to her. When the clock struck five she +was on the very point of saying to Mr. Buckton that she was deadly ill +and rapidly getting worse. This announcement was on her lips, and she +had quite composed the pale hard face she would offer him: “I can’t +stop—I must go home. If I feel better, later on, I’ll come back. I’m +very sorry, but I _must_ go.” At that instant Captain Everard once more +stood there, producing in her agitated spirit, by his real presence, +the strangest, quickest revolution. He stopped her off without knowing +it, and by the time he had been a minute in the shop she felt herself +saved. + +That was from the first minute how she thought of it. There were again +other persons with whom she was occupied, and again the situation could +only be expressed by their silence. It was expressed, of a truth, in a +larger phrase than ever yet, for her eyes now spoke to him with a kind +of supplication. “Be quiet, be quiet!” they pleaded; and they saw his +own reply: “I’ll do whatever you say; I won’t even look at you—see, +see!” They kept conveying thus, with the friendliest liberality, that +they wouldn’t look, quite positively wouldn’t. What she was to see was +that he hovered at the other end of the counter, Mr. Buckton’s end, and +surrendered himself again to that frustration. It quickly proved so +great indeed that what she was to see further was how he turned away +before he was attended to, and hung off, waiting, smoking, looking +about the shop; how he went over to Mr. Cocker’s own counter and +appeared to price things, gave in fact presently two or three orders +and put down money, stood there a long time with his back to her, +considerately abstaining from any glance round to see if she were free. +It at last came to pass in this way that he had remained in the shop +longer than she had ever yet known to do, and that, nevertheless, when +he did turn about she could see him time himself—she was freshly taken +up—and cross straight to her postal subordinate, whom some one else had +released. He had in his hand all this while neither letters nor +telegrams, and now that he was close to her—for she was close to the +counter-clerk—it brought her heart into her mouth merely to see him +look at her neighbour and open his lips. She was too nervous to bear +it. He asked for a Post-Office Guide, and the young man whipped out a +new one; whereupon he said he wished not to purchase, but only to +consult one a moment; with which, the copy kept on loan being produced, +he once more wandered off. + +What was he doing to her? What did he want of her? Well, it was just +the aggravation of his “See here!” She felt at this moment strangely +and portentously afraid of him—had in her ears the hum of a sense that, +should it come to that kind of tension, she must fly on the spot to +Chalk Farm. Mixed with her dread and with her reflexion was the idea +that, if he wanted her so much as he seemed to show, it might be after +all simply to do for him the “anything” she had promised, the +“everything” she had thought it so fine to bring out to Mr. Mudge. He +might want her to help him, might have some particular appeal; though +indeed his manner didn’t denote that—denoted on the contrary an +embarrassment, an indecision, something of a desire not so much to be +helped as to be treated rather more nicely than she had treated him the +other time. Yes, he considered quite probably that he had help rather +to offer than to ask for. Still, none the less, when he again saw her +free he continued to keep away from her; when he came back with his +_Guide_ it was Mr. Buckton he caught—it was from Mr. Buckton he +obtained half-a-crown’s-worth of stamps. + +After asking for the stamps he asked, quite as a second thought, for a +postal-order for ten shillings. What did he want with so many stamps +when he wrote so few letters? How could he enclose a postal-order in a +telegram? She expected him, the next thing, to go into the corner and +make up one of his telegrams—half a dozen of them—on purpose to prolong +his presence. She had so completely stopped looking at him that she +could only guess his movements—guess even where his eyes rested. +Finally she saw him make a dash that might have been toward the nook +where the forms were hung; and at this she suddenly felt that she +couldn’t keep it up. The counter-clerk had just taken a telegram from a +slavey, and, to give herself something to cover her, she snatched it +out of his hand. The gesture was so violent that he gave her in return +an odd look, and she also perceived that Mr. Buckton noticed it. The +latter personage, with a quick stare at her, appeared for an instant to +wonder whether his snatching it in _his_ turn mightn’t be the thing she +would least like, and she anticipated this practical criticism by the +frankest glare she had ever given him. It sufficed: this time it +paralysed him; and she sought with her trophy the refuge of the +sounder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +It was repeated the next day; it went on for three days; and at the end +of that time she knew what to think. When, at the beginning, she had +emerged from her temporary shelter Captain Everard had quitted the +shop; and he had not come again that evening, as it had struck her he +possibly might—might all the more easily that there were numberless +persons who came, morning and afternoon, numberless times, so that he +wouldn’t necessarily have attracted attention. The second day it was +different and yet on the whole worse. His access to her had become +possible—she felt herself even reaping the fruit of her yesterday’s +glare at Mr. Buckton; but transacting his business with him didn’t +simplify—it could, in spite of the rigour of circumstance, feed so her +new conviction. The rigour was tremendous, and his telegrams—not now +mere pretexts for getting at her—were apparently genuine; yet the +conviction had taken but a night to develop. It could be simply enough +expressed; she had had the glimmer of it the day before in her idea +that he needed no more help than she had already given; that it was +help he himself was prepared to render. He had come up to town but for +three or four days; he had been absolutely obliged to be absent after +the other time; yet he would, now that he was face to face with her, +stay on as much longer as she liked. Little by little it was thus +clarified, though from the first flash of his re-appearance she had +read into it the real essence. + +That was what the night before, at eight o’clock, her hour to go, had +made her hang back and dawdle. She did last things or pretended to do +them; to be in the cage had suddenly become her safety, and she was +literally afraid of the alternate self who might be waiting outside. +_He_ might be waiting; it was he who was her alternate self, and of him +she was afraid. The most extraordinary change had taken place in her +from the moment of her catching the impression he seemed to have +returned on purpose to give her. Just before she had done so, on that +bewitched afternoon, she had seen herself approach without a scruple +the porter at Park Chambers; then as the effect of the rush of a +consciousness quite altered she had on at last quitting Cocker’s, gone +straight home for the first time since her return from Bournemouth. She +had passed his door every night for weeks, but nothing would have +induced her to pass it now. This change was the tribute of her fear—the +result of a change in himself as to which she needed no more +explanation than his mere face vividly gave her; strange though it was +to find an element of deterrence in the object that she regarded as the +most beautiful in the world. He had taken it from her in the Park that +night that she wanted him not to propose to her to sup; but he had put +away the lesson by this time—he practically proposed supper every time +he looked at her. This was what, for that matter, mainly filled the +three days. He came in twice on each of these, and it was as if he came +in to give her a chance to relent. That was after all, she said to +herself in the intervals, the most that he did. There were ways, she +fully recognised, in which he spared her, and other particular ways as +to which she meant that her silence should be full to him of exquisite +pleading. The most particular of all was his not being outside, at the +corner, when she quitted the place for the night. This he might so +easily have been—so easily if he hadn’t been so nice. She continued to +recognise in his forbearance the fruit of her dumb supplication, and +the only compensation he found for it was the harmless freedom of being +able to appear to say: “Yes, I’m in town only for three or four days, +but, you know, I _would_ stay on.” He struck her as calling attention +each day, each hour, to the rapid ebb of time; he exaggerated to the +point of putting it that there were only two days more, that there was +at last, dreadfully, only one. + +There were other things still that he struck her as doing with a +special intention; as to the most marked of which—unless indeed it were +the most obscure—she might well have marvelled that it didn’t seem to +her more horrid. It was either the frenzy of her imagination or the +disorder of his baffled passion that gave her once or twice the vision +of his putting down redundant money—sovereigns not concerned with the +little payments he was perpetually making—so that she might give him +some sign of helping him to slip them over to her. What was most +extraordinary in this impression was the amount of excuse that, with +some incoherence, she found for him. He wanted to pay her because there +was nothing to pay her for. He wanted to offer her things he knew she +wouldn’t take. He wanted to show her how much he respected her by +giving her the supreme chance to show _him_ she was respectable. Over +the dryest transactions, at any rate, their eyes had out these +questions. On the third day he put in a telegram that had evidently +something of the same point as the stray sovereigns—a message that was +in the first place concocted and that on a second thought he took back +from her before she had stamped it. He had given her time to read it +and had only then bethought himself that he had better not send it. If +it was not to Lady Bradeen at Twindle—where she knew her ladyship then +to be—this was because an address to Doctor Buzzard at Brickwood was +just as good, with the added merit of its not giving away quite so much +a person whom he had still, after all, in a manner to consider. It was +of course most complicated, only half lighted; but there was, +discernibly enough, a scheme of communication in which Lady Bradeen at +Twindle and Dr. Buzzard at Brickwood were, within limits, one and the +same person. The words he had shown her and then taken back consisted, +at all events, of the brief but vivid phrase “Absolutely impossible.” +The point was not that she should transmit it; the point was just that +she should see it. What was absolutely impossible was that before he +had setted something at Cocker’s he should go either to Twindle or to +Brickwood. + +The logic of this, in turn, for herself, was that she could lend +herself to no settlement so long as she so intensely knew. What she +knew was that he was, almost under peril of life, clenched in a +situation: therefore how could she also know where a poor girl in the +P.O. might really stand? It was more and more between them that if he +might convey to her he was free, with all the impossible locked away +into a closed chapter, her own case might become different for her, she +might understand and meet him and listen. But he could convey nothing +of the sort, and he only fidgeted and floundered in his want of power. +The chapter wasn’t in the least closed, not for the other party; and +the other party had a pull, somehow and somewhere: this his whole +attitude and expression confessed, at the same time that they entreated +her not to remember and not to mind. So long as she did remember and +did mind he could only circle about and go and come, doing futile +things of which he was ashamed. He was ashamed of his two words to Dr. +Buzzard; he went out of the shop as soon as he had crumpled up the +paper again and thrust it into his pocket. It had been an abject little +exposure of dreadful impossible passion. He appeared in fact to be too +ashamed to come back. He had once more left town, and a first week +elapsed, and a second. He had had naturally to return to the real +mistress of his fate; she had insisted—she knew how to insist, and he +couldn’t put in another hour. There was always a day when she called +time. It was known to our young friend moreover that he had now been +dispatching telegrams from other offices. She knew at last so much that +she had quite lost her earlier sense of merely guessing. There were no +different shades of distinctness—it all bounced out. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +Eighteen days elapsed, and she had begun to think it probable she +should never see him again. He too then understood now: he had made out +that she had secrets and reasons and impediments, that even a poor girl +at the P.O. might have her complications. With the charm she had cast +on him lightened by distance he had suffered a final delicacy to speak +to him, had made up his mind that it would be only decent to let her +alone. Never so much as during these latter days had she felt the +precariousness of their relation—the happy beautiful untroubled +original one, if it could only have been restored—in which the public +servant and the casual public only were concerned. It hung at the best +by the merest silken thread, which was at the mercy of any accident and +might snap at any minute. She arrived by the end of the fortnight at +the highest sense of actual fitness, never doubting that her decision +was now complete. She would just give him a few days more to come back +to her on a proper impersonal basis—for even to an embarrassing +representative of the casual public a public servant with a conscience +did owe something—and then would signify to Mr. Mudge that she was +ready for the little home. It had been visited, in the further talk she +had had with him at Bournemouth, from garret to cellar, and they had +especially lingered, with their respectively darkened brows, before the +niche into which it was to be broached to her mother that she must find +means to fit. + +He had put it to her more definitely than before that his calculations +had allowed for that dingy presence, and he had thereby marked the +greatest impression he had ever made on her. It was a stroke superior +even again to his handling of the drunken soldier. What she considered +that in the face of it she hung on at Cocker’s for was something she +could only have described as the common fairness of a last word. Her +actual last word had been, till it should be superseded, that she +wouldn’t forsake her other friend, and it stuck to her through thick +and thin that she was still at her post and on her honour. This other +friend had shown so much beauty of conduct already that he would surely +after all just re-appear long enough to relieve her, to give her +something she could take away. She saw it, caught it, at times, his +parting present; and there were moments when she felt herself sitting +like a beggar with a hand held out to almsgiver who only fumbled. She +hadn’t taken the sovereigns, but she _would_ take the penny. She heard, +in imagination, on the counter, the ring of the copper. “Don’t put +yourself out any longer,” he would say, “for so bad a case. You’ve done +all there is to be done. I thank and acquit and release you. Our lives +take us. I don’t know much—though I’ve really been interested—about +yours, but I suppose you’ve got one. Mine at any rate will take +_me_—and where it will. Heigh-ho! Good-bye.” And then once more, for +the sweetest faintest flower of all: “Only, I say—see here!” She had +framed the whole picture with a squareness that included also the image +of how again she would decline to “see there,” decline, as she might +say, to see anywhere, see anything. Yet it befell that just in the fury +of this escape she saw more than ever. + +He came back one night with a rush, near the moment of their closing, +and showed her a face so different and new, so upset and anxious, that +almost anything seemed to look out of it but clear recognition. He +poked in a telegram very much as if the simple sense of pressure, the +distress of extreme haste, had blurred the remembrance of where in +particular he was. But as she met his eyes a light came; it broke +indeed on the spot into a positive conscious glare. That made up for +everything, since it was an instant proclamation of the celebrated +“danger”; it seemed to pour things out in a flood. “Oh yes, here it +is—it’s upon me at last! Forget, for God’s sake, my having worried or +bored you, and just help me, just _save_ me, by getting this off +without the loss of a second!” Something grave had clearly occurred, a +crisis declared itself. She recognised immediately the person to whom +the telegram was addressed—the Miss Dolman of Parade Lodge to whom Lady +Bradeen had wired, at Dover, on the last occasion, and whom she had +then, with her recollection of previous arrangements, fitted into a +particular setting. Miss Dolman had figured before and not figured +since, but she was now the subject of an imperative appeal. “Absolutely +necessary to see you. Take last train Victoria if you can catch it. If +not, earliest morning, and answer me direct either way.” + +“Reply paid?” said the girl. Mr. Buckton had just departed and the +counter-clerk was at the sounder. There was no other representative of +the public, and she had never yet, as it seemed to her, not even in the +street or in the Park, been so alone with him. + +“Oh yes, reply paid, and as sharp as possible, please.” + +She affixed the stamps in a flash. “She’ll catch the train!” she then +declared to him breathlessly, as if she could absolutely guarantee it. + +“I don’t know—I hope so. It’s awfully important. So kind of you. +Awfully sharp, please.” It was wonderfully innocent now, his oblivion +of all but his danger. Anything else that had ever passed between them +was utterly out of it. Well, she had wanted him to be impersonal! + +There was less of the same need therefore, happily, for herself; yet +she only took time, before she flew to the sounder, to gasp at him: +“You‘re in trouble?” + +“Horrid, horrid—there’s a row!” But they parted, on it, in the next +breath; and as she dashed at the sounder, almost pushing, in her +violence, the counter-clerk off the stool, she caught the bang with +which, at Cocker’s door, in his further precipitation, he closed the +apron of the cab into which he had leaped. As he rebounded to some +other precaution suggested by his alarm, his appeal to Miss Dolman +flashed straight away. + +But she had not, on the morrow, been in the place five minutes before +he was with her again, still more discomposed and quite, now, as she +said to herself, like a frightened child coming to its mother. Her +companions were there, and she felt it to be remarkable how, in the +presence of his agitation, his mere scared exposed nature, she suddenly +ceased to mind. It came to her as it had never come to her before that +with absolute directness and assurance they might carry almost anything +off. He had nothing to send—she was sure he had been wiring all +over—and yet his business was evidently huge. There was nothing but +that in his eyes—not a glimmer of reference or memory. He was almost +haggard with anxiety and had clearly not slept a wink. Her pity for him +would have given her any courage, and she seemed to know at last why +she had been such a fool. “She didn’t come?” she panted. + +“Oh yes, she came; but there has been some mistake. We want a +telegram.” + +“A telegram?” + +“One that was sent from here ever so long ago. There was something in +it that has to be recovered. Something very, very important, please—we +want it immediately.” + +He really spoke to her as if she had been some strange young woman at +Knightsbridge or Paddington; but it had no other effect on her than to +give her the measure of his tremendous flurry. Then it was that, above +all, she felt how much she had missed in the gaps and blanks and absent +answers—how much she had had to dispense with: it was now black +darkness save for this little wild red flare. So much as that she saw, +so much her mind dealt with. One of the lovers was quaking somewhere +out of town, and the other was quaking just where he stood. This was +vivid enough, and after an instant she knew it was all she wanted. She +wanted no detail, no fact—she wanted no nearer vision of discovery or +shame. “When was your telegram? Do you mean you sent it from here?” She +tried to do the young woman at Knightsbridge. + +“Oh yes, from here—several weeks ago. Five, six, seven”—he was confused +and impatient—“don’t you remember?” + +“Remember?” she could scarcely keep out of her face, at the word, the +strangest of smiles. + +But the way he didn’t catch what it meant was perhaps even stranger +still. “I mean, don’t you keep the old ones?” + +“For a certain time.” + +“But how long?” + +She thought; she _must_ do the young woman, and she knew exactly what +the young woman would say and, still more, wouldn’t. “Can you give me +the date?” + +“Oh God, no! It was some time or other in August—toward the end. It was +to the same address as the one I gave you last night.” + +“Oh!” said the girl, knowing at this the deepest thrill she had ever +felt. It came to her there, with her eyes on his face, that she held +the whole thing in her hand, held it as she held her pencil, which +might have broken at that instant in her tightened grip. This made her +feel like the very fountain of fate, but the emotion was such a flood +that she had to press it back with all her force. That was positively +the reason, again, of her flute-like Paddington tone. “You can’t give +us anything a little nearer?” Her “little” and her “us” came straight +from Paddington. These things were no false note for him—his difficulty +absorbed them all. The eyes with which he pressed her, and in the +depths of which she read terror and rage and literal tears, were just +the same he would have shown any other prim person. + +“I don’t know the date. I only know the thing went from here, and just +about the time I speak of. It wasn’t delivered, you see. We’ve got to +recover it.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +She was as struck with the beauty of his plural pronoun as she had +judged he might be with that of her own; but she knew now so well what +she was about that she could almost play with him and with her new-born +joy. “You say ‘about the time you speak of.’ But I don’t think you +speak of an exact time—_do_ you?” + +He looked splendidly helpless. “That’s just what I want to find out. +Don’t you keep the old ones?—can’t you look it up?” + +Our young lady—still at Paddington—turned the question over. “It wasn’t +delivered?” + +“Yes, it _was_; yet, at the same time, don’t you know? it wasn’t.” He +just hung back, but he brought it out. “I mean it was intercepted, +don’t you know? and there was something in it.” He paused again and, as +if to further his quest and woo and supplicate success and recovery, +even smiled with an effort at the agreeable that was almost ghastly and +that turned the knife in her tenderness. What must be the pain of it +all, of the open gulf and the throbbing fever, when this was the mere +hot breath? “We want to get what was in it—to know what it was.” + +“I see—I see.” She managed just the accent they had at Paddington when +they stared like dead fish. “And you have no clue?” + +“Not at all—I’ve the clue I’ve just given you.” + +“Oh the last of August?” If she kept it up long enough she would make +him really angry. + +“Yes, and the address, as I’ve said.” + +“Oh the same as last night?” + +He visibly quivered, as with a gleam of hope; but it only poured oil on +her quietude, and she was still deliberate. She ranged some papers. +“Won’t you look?” he went on. + +“I remember your coming,” she replied. + +He blinked with a new uneasiness; it might have begun to come to him, +through her difference, that he was somehow different himself. “You +were much quicker then, you know!” + +“So were you—you must do me that justice,” she answered with a smile. +“But let me see. Wasn’t it Dover?” + +“Yes, Miss Dolman—” + +“Parade Lodge, Parade Terrace?” + +“Exactly—thank you so awfully much!” He began to hope again. “Then you +_have_ it—the other one?” + +She hesitated afresh; she quite dangled him. “It was brought by a +lady?” + +“Yes; and she put in by mistake something wrong. That’s what we’ve got +to get hold of!” Heavens, what was he going to say?—flooding poor +Paddington with wild betrayals! She couldn’t too much, for her joy, +dangle him, yet she couldn’t either, for his dignity, warn or control +or check him. What she found herself doing was just to treat herself to +the middle way. “It was intercepted?” + +“It fell into the wrong hands. But there’s something in it,” he +continued to blurt out, “that _may_ be all right. That is, if it’s +wrong, don’t you know? It’s all right if it’s wrong,” he remarkably +explained. + +What _was_ he, on earth, going to say? Mr. Buckton and the +counter-clerk were already interested; no one _would_ have the decency +to come in; and she was divided between her particular terror for him +and her general curiosity. Yet she already saw with what brilliancy she +could add, to carry the thing off, a little false knowledge to all her +real. “I quite understand,” she said with benevolent, with almost +patronising quickness. “The lady has forgotten what she did put.” + +“Forgotten most wretchedly, and it’s an immense inconvenience. It has +only just been found that it didn’t get there; so that if we could +immediately have it—” + +“Immediately?” + +“Every minute counts. You _have_,” he pleaded, “surely got them on +file?” + +“So that you can see it on the spot?” + +“Yes, please—this very minute.” The counter rang with his knuckles, +with the knob of his stick, with his panic of alarm. “Do, _do_ hunt it +up!” he repeated. + +“I dare say we could get it for you,” the girl weetly returned. + +“Get it?”—he looked aghast. “When?” + +“Probably by to-morrow.” + +“Then it isn’t here?”—his face was pitiful. + +She caught only the uncovered gleams that peeped out of the blackness, +and she wondered what complication, even among the most supposable, the +very worst, could be bad enough to account for the degree of his +terror. There were twists and turns, there were places where the screw +drew blood, that she couldn’t guess. She was more and more glad she +didn’t want to. “It has been sent on.” + +“But how do you know if you don’t look?” + +She gave him a smile that was meant to be, in the absolute irony of its +propriety, quite divine. “It was August 23rd, and we’ve nothing later +here than August 27th.” + +Something leaped into his face. “27th—23rd? Then you’re sure? You +know?” + +She felt she scarce knew what—as if she might soon be pounced upon for +some lurid connexion with a scandal. It was the queerest of all +sensations, for she had heard, she had read, of these things, and the +wealth of her intimacy with them at Cocker’s might be supposed to have +schooled and seasoned her. This particular one that she had really +quite lived with was, after all, an old story; yet what it had been +before was dim and distant beside the touch under which she now winced. +Scandal?—it had never been but a silly word. Now it was a great tense +surface, and the surface was somehow Captain Everard’s wonderful face. +Deep down in his eyes a picture, a scene—a great place like a chamber +of justice, where, before a watching crowd, a poor girl, exposed but +heroic, swore with a quavering voice to a document, proved an _alibi_, +supplied a link. In this picture she bravely took her place. “It was +the 23rd.” + +“Then can’t you get it this morning—or some time to-day?” + +She considered, still holding him with her look, which she then turned +on her two companions, who were by this time unreservedly enlisted. She +didn’t care—not a scrap, and she glanced about for a piece of paper. +With this she had to recognise the rigour of official thrift—a morsel +of blackened blotter was the only loose paper to be seen. “Have you got +a card?” she said to her visitor. He was quite away from Paddington +now, and the next instant, pocket-book in hand, he had whipped a card +out. She gave no glance at the name on it—only turned it to the other +side. She continued to hold him, she felt at present, as she had never +held him; and her command of her colleagues was for the moment not less +marked. She wrote something on the back of the card and pushed it +across to him. + +He fairly glared at it. “Seven, nine, four—” + +“Nine, six, one”—she obligingly completed the number. “Is it right?” +she smiled. + +He took the whole thing in with a flushed intensity; then there broke +out in him a visibility of relief that was simply a tremendous +exposure. He shone at them all like a tall lighthouse, embracing even, +for sympathy, the blinking young men. “By all the powers—it’s wrong!” +And without another look, without a word of thanks, without time for +anything or anybody, he turned on them the broad back of his great +stature, straightened his triumphant shoulders, and strode out of the +place. + +She was left confronted with her habitual critics. “‘If it’s wrong it’s +all right!’” she extravagantly quoted to them. + +The counter-clerk was really awe-stricken. “But how did you know, +dear?” + +“I remembered, love!” + +Mr. Buckton, on the contrary, was rude. “And what game is that, miss?” + +No happiness she had ever known came within miles of it, and some +minutes elapsed before she could recall herself sufficiently to reply +that it was none of his business. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +If life at Cocker’s, with the dreadful drop of August, had lost +something of its savour, she had not been slow to infer that a heavier +blight had fallen on the graceful industry of Mrs. Jordan. + +With Lord Rye and Lady Ventnor and Mrs. Bubb all out of town, with the +blinds down on all the homes of luxury, this ingenious woman might well +have found her wonderful taste left quite on her hands. She bore up, +however, in a way that began by exciting much of her young friend’s +esteem; they perhaps even more frequently met as the wine of life +flowed less free from other sources, and each, in the lack of better +diversion, carried on with more mystification for the other an +intercourse that consisted not a little in peeping out and drawing +back. Each waited for the other to commit herself, each profusely +curtained for the other the limits of low horizons. Mrs. Jordan was +indeed probably the more reckless skirmisher; nothing could exceed her +frequent incoherence unless it was indeed her occasional bursts of +confidence. Her account of her private affairs rose and fell like a +flame in the wind—sometimes the bravest bonfire and sometimes a handful +of ashes. This our young woman took to be an effect of the position, at +one moment and another, of the famous door of the great world. She had +been struck in one of her ha’penny volumes with the translation of a +French proverb according to which such a door, any door, had to be +either open or shut; and it seemed part of the precariousness of Mrs. +Jordan’s life that hers mostly managed to be neither. There had been +occasions when it appeared to gape wide—fairly to woo her across its +threshold; there had been others, of an order distinctly disconcerting, +when it was all but banged in her face. On the whole, however, she had +evidently not lost heart; these still belonged to the class of things +in spite of which she looked well. She intimated that the profits of +her trade had swollen so as to float her through any state of the tide, +and she had, besides this, a hundred profundities and explanations. + +She rose superior, above all, on the happy fact that there were always +gentlemen in town and that gentlemen were her greatest admirers; +gentlemen from the City in especial—as to whom she was full of +information about the passion and pride excited in such breasts by the +elements of her charming commerce. The City men _did_, in short, go in +for flowers. There was a certain type of awfully smart stockbroker—Lord +Rye called them Jews and bounders, but she didn’t care—whose +extravagance, she more than once threw out, had really, if one had any +conscience, to be forcibly restrained. It was not perhaps a pure love +of beauty: it was a matter of vanity and a sign of business; they +wished to crush their rivals, and that was one of their weapons. Mrs. +Jordan’s shrewdness was extreme; she knew in any case her customer—she +dealt, as she said, with all sorts; and it was at the worst a race for +her—a race even in the dull months—from one set of chambers to another. +And then, after all, there were also still the ladies; the ladies of +stockbroking circles were perpetually up and down. They were not quite +perhaps Mrs. Bubb or Lady Ventnor; but you couldn’t tell the difference +unless you quarrelled with them, and then you knew it only by their +making-up sooner. These ladies formed the branch of her subject on +which she most swayed in the breeze; to that degree that her confidant +had ended with an inference or two tending to banish regret for +opportunities not embraced. There were indeed tea-gowns that Mrs. +Jordan described—but tea-gowns were not the whole of respectability, +and it was odd that a clergyman’s widow should sometimes speak as if +she almost thought so. She came back, it was true, unfailingly to Lord +Rye, never, evidently, quite losing sight of him even on the longest +excursions. That he was kindness itself had become in fact the very +moral it all pointed—pointed in strange flashes of the poor woman’s +nearsighted eyes. She launched at her young friend portentous looks, +solemn heralds of some extraordinary communication. The communication +itself, from week to week, hung fire; but it was to the facts over +which it hovered that she owed her power of going on. “They _are_, in +one way _and_ another,” she often emphasised, “a tower of strength”; +and as the allusion was to the aristocracy the girl could quite wonder +why, if they were so in “one way,” they should require to be so in two. +She thoroughly knew, however, how many ways Mrs. Jordan counted in. It +all meant simply that her fate was pressing her close. If that fate was +to be sealed at the matrimonial altar it was perhaps not remarkable +that she shouldn’t come all at once to the scratch of overwhelming a +mere telegraphist. It would necessarily present to such a person a +prospect of regretful sacrifice. Lord Rye—if it _was_ Lord Rye—wouldn’t +be “kind” to a nonentity of that sort, even though people quite as good +had been. + +One Sunday afternoon in November they went, by arrangement, to church +together; after which—on the inspiration of the moment the arrangement +had not included it—they proceeded to Mrs. Jordan’s lodging in the +region of Maida Vale. She had raved to her friend about her service of +predilection; she was excessively “high,” and had more than once wished +to introduce the girl to the same comfort and privilege. There was a +thick brown fog and Maida Vale tasted of acrid smoke; but they had been +sitting among chants and incense and wonderful music, during which, +though the effect of such things on her mind was great, our young lady +had indulged in a series of reflexions but indirectly related to them. +One of these was the result of Mrs. Jordan’s having said to her on the +way, and with a certain fine significance, that Lord Rye had been for +some time in town. She had spoken as if it were a circumstance to which +little required to be added—as if the bearing of such an item on her +life might easily be grasped. Perhaps it was the wonder of whether Lord +Rye wished to marry her that made her guest, with thoughts straying to +that quarter, quite determine that some other nuptials also should take +place at Saint Julian’s. Mr. Mudge was still an attendant at his +Wesleyan chapel, but this was the least of her worries—it had never +even vexed her enough for her to so much as name it to Mrs. Jordan. Mr. +Mudge’s form of worship was one of several things—they made up in +superiority and beauty for what they wanted in number—that she had long +ago settled he should take from her, and she had now moreover for the +first time definitely established her own. Its principal feature was +that it was to be the same as that of Mrs. Jordan and Lord Rye; which +was indeed very much what she said to her hostess as they sat together +later on. The brown fog was in this hostess’s little parlour, where it +acted as a postponement of the question of there being, besides, +anything else than the teacups and a pewter pot and a very black little +fire and a paraffin lamp without a shade. There was at any rate no sign +of a flower; it was not for herself Mrs. Jordan gathered sweets. The +girl waited till they had had a cup of tea—waited for the announcement +that she fairly believed her friend had, this time, possessed herself +of her formally at last to make; but nothing came, after the interval, +save a little poke at the fire, which was like the clearing of a throat +for a speech. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +“I think you must have heard me speak of Mr. Drake?” Mrs. Jordan had +never looked so queer, nor her smile so suggestive of a large +benevolent bite. + +“Mr. Drake? Oh yes; isn’t he a friend of Lord Rye?” + +“A great and trusted friend. Almost—I may say—a loved friend.” + +Mrs. Jordan’s “almost” had such an oddity that her companion was moved, +rather flippantly perhaps, to take it up. “Don’t people as good as love +their friends when they I trust them?” + +It pulled up a little the eulogist of Mr. Drake. “Well, my dear, I love +_you_—” + +“But you don’t trust me?” the girl unmercifully asked. + +Again Mrs. Jordan paused—still she looked queer. “Yes,” she replied +with a certain austerity; “that’s exactly what I’m about to give you +rather a remarkable proof of.” The sense of its being remarkable was +already so strong that, while she bridled a little, this held her +auditor in a momentary muteness of submission. “Mr. Drake has rendered +his lordship for several years services that his lordship has highly +appreciated and that make it all the more—a—unexpected that they +should, perhaps a little suddenly, separate.” + +“Separate?” Our young lady was mystified, but she tried to be +interested; and she already saw that she had put the saddle on the +wrong horse. She had heard something of Mr. Drake, who was a member of +his lordship’s circle—the member with whom, apparently, Mrs. Jordan’s +avocations had most happened to throw her. She was only a little +puzzled at the “separation.” “Well, at any rate,” she smiled, “if they +separate as friends—!” + +“Oh his lordship takes the greatest interest in Mr. Drake’s future. +He’ll do anything for him; he has in fact just done a great deal. There +_must_, you know, be changes—!” + +“No one knows it better than I,” the girl said. She wished to draw her +interlocutress out. “There will be changes enough for me.” + +“You’re leaving Cocker’s?” + +The ornament of that establishment waited a moment to answer, and then +it was indirect. “Tell me what _you’re_ doing.” + +“Well, what will you think of it?” + +“Why that you’ve found the opening you were always so sure of.” + +Mrs. Jordan, on this, appeared to muse with embarrassed intensity. “I +was always sure, yes—and yet I often wasn’t!” + +“Well, I hope you’re sure now. Sure, I mean, of Mr. Drake.” + +“Yes, my dear, I think I may say I _am_. I kept him going till I was.” + +“Then he’s yours?” + +“My very own.” + +“How nice! And awfully rich?” our young woman went on. + +Mrs. Jordan showed promptly enough that she loved for higher things. +“Awfully handsome—six foot two. And he _has_ put by.” + +“Quite like Mr. Mudge, then!” that gentleman’s friend rather +desperately exclaimed. + +“Oh not _quite!_” Mr. Drake’s was ambiguous about it, but the name of +Mr. Mudge had evidently given her some sort of stimulus. “He’ll have +more opportunity now, at any rate. He’s going to Lady Bradeen.” + +“To Lady Bradeen?” This was bewilderment. “‘Going—’?” + +The girl had seen, from the way Mrs. Jordan looked at her, that the +effect of the name had been to make her let something out. “Do you know +her?” + +She floundered, but she found her feet. “Well, you’ll remember I’ve +often told you that if you’ve grand clients I have them too.” + +“Yes,” said Mrs. Jordan; “but the great difference is that you hate +yours, whereas I really love mine. _Do_ you know Lady Bradeen?” she +pursued. + +“Down to the ground! She’s always in and out.” + +Mrs. Jordan’s foolish eyes confessed, in fixing themselves on this +sketch, to a degree of wonder and even of envy. But she bore up and, +with a certain gaiety, “Do you hate _her_?” she demanded. + +Her visitor’s reply was prompt. “Dear no!—not nearly so much as some of +them. She’s too outrageously beautiful.” + +Mrs. Jordan continued to gaze. “Outrageously?” + +“Well, yes; deliciously.” What was really delicious was Mrs. Jordan’s +vagueness. “You don’t know her—you’ve not seen her?” her guest lightly +continued. + +“No, but I’ve heard a great deal about her.” + +“So have I!” our young lady exclaimed. + +Jordan looked an instant as if she suspected her good faith, or at +least her seriousness. “You know some friend—?” + +“Of Lady Bradeen’s? Oh yes—I know one.” + +“Only one?” + +The girl laughed out. “Only one—but he’s so intimate.” + +Mrs. Jordan just hesitated. “He’s a gentleman?” + +“Yes, he’s not a lady.” + +Her interlocutress appeared to muse. “She’s immensely surrounded.” + +“She _will_ be—with Mr. Drake!” + +Mrs. Jordan’s gaze became strangely fixed. “Is she _very_ +good-looking?” + +“The handsomest person I know.” + +Mrs. Jordan continued to contemplate. “Well, _I_ know some beauties.” +Then with her odd jerkiness: “Do you think she looks _good_?” she +inquired. + +“Because that’s not always the case with the good-looking?”—the other +took it up. “No, indeed, it isn’t: that’s one thing Cocker’s has taught +me. Still, there are some people who have everything. Lady Bradeen, at +any rate, has enough: eyes and a nose and a mouth, a complexion, a +figure—” + +“A figure?” Mrs. Jordan almost broke in. + +“A figure, a head of hair!” The girl made a little conscious motion +that seemed to let the hair all down, and her companion watched the +wonderful show. “But Mr. Drake _is_ another—?” + +“Another?”—Mrs. Jordan’s thoughts had to come back from a distance. + +“Of her ladyship’s admirers. He’s ‘going,’ you say, to her?” + +At this Mrs. Jordan really faltered. “She has engaged him.” + +“Engaged him?”—our young woman was quite at sea. + +“In the same capacity as Lord Rye.” + +“And was Lord Rye engaged?” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +Mrs. Jordan looked away from her now—looked, she thought, rather +injured and, as if trifled with, even a little angry. The mention of +Lady Bradeen had frustrated for a while the convergence of our +heroine’s thoughts; but with this impression of her old friend’s +combined impatience and diffidence they began again to whirl round her, +and continued it till one of them appeared to dart at her, out of the +dance, as if with a sharp peck. It came to her with a lively shock, +with a positive sting, that Mr. Drake was—could it be possible? With +the idea she found herself afresh on the edge of laughter, of a sudden +and strange perversity of mirth. Mr. Drake loomed, in a swift image, +before her; such a figure as she had seen in open doorways of houses in +Cocker’s quarter—majestic, middle-aged, erect, flanked on either side +by a footman and taking the name of a visitor. Mr. Drake then verily +_was_ a person who opened the door! Before she had time, however, to +recover from the effect of her evocation, she was offered a vision +which quite engulfed it. It was communicated to her somehow that the +face with which she had seen it rise prompted Mrs. Jordan to dash, a +bit wildly, at something, at anything, that might attenuate criticism. +“Lady Bradeen’s re-arranging—she’s going to be married.” + +“Married?” The girl echoed it ever so softly, but there it was at last. + +“Didn’t you know it?” + +She summoned all her sturdiness. “No, she hasn’t told me.” + +“And her friends—haven’t they?” + +“I haven’t seen any of them lately. I’m not so fortunate as _you_.” + +Mrs. Jordan gathered herself. “Then you haven’t even heard of Lord +Bradeen’s death?” + +Her comrade, unable for a moment to speak, gave a slow headshake. “You +know it from Mr. Drake?” It was better surely not to learn things at +all than to learn them by the butler. + +“She tells him everything.” + +“And he tells _you_—I see.” Our young lady got up; recovering her muff +and her gloves she smiled. “Well, I haven’t unfortunately any Mr. +Drake. I congratulate you with all my heart. Even without your sort of +assistance, however, there’s a trifle here and there that I do pick up. +I gather that if she’s to marry any one it must quite necessarily be my +friend.” + +Mrs. Jordan was now also on her feet. “Is Captain Everard your friend?” + +The girl considered, drawing on a glove. “I saw, at one time, an +immense deal of him.” + +Mrs. Jordan looked hard at the glove, but she hadn’t after all waited +for that to be sorry it wasn’t cleaner. “What time was that?” + +“It must have been the time you were seeing so much of Mr. Drake.” She +had now fairly taken it in: the distinguished person Mrs. Jordan was to +marry would answer bells and put on coals and superintend, at least, +the cleaning of boots for the other distinguished person whom she +might—well, whom she might have had, if she had wished, so much more to +say to. “Good-bye,” she added; “good-bye.” + +Mrs. Jordan, however, again taking her muff from her, turned it over, +brushed it off and thoughtfully peeped into it. “Tell me this before +you go. You spoke just now of your own changes. Do you mean that Mr. +Mudge—?” + +“Mr. Mudge has had great patience with me—he has brought me at last to +the point. We’re to be married next month and have a nice little home. +But he’s only a grocer, you know”—the girl met her friend’s intent +eyes—“so that I’m afraid that, with the set you’ve got into, you won’t +see your way to keep up our friendship.” + +Mrs. Jordan for a moment made no answer to this; she only held the muff +up to her face, after which she gave it back. “You don’t like it. I +see, I see.” + +To her guest’s astonishment there were tears now in her eyes. “I don’t +like what?” the girl asked. + +“Why my engagement. Only, with your great cleverness,” the poor lady +quavered out, “you put it in your own way. I mean that you’ll cool off. +You already _have_—!” And on this, the next instant, her tears began to +flow. She succumbed to them and collapsed; she sank down again, burying +her face and trying to smother her sobs. + +Her young friend stood there, still in some rigour, but taken much by +surprise even if not yet fully moved to pity. “I don’t put anything in +any ‘way,’ and I’m very glad you’re suited. Only, you know, you did put +to _me_ so splendidly what, even for me, if I had listened to you, it +might lead to.” + +Mrs. Jordan kept up a mild thin weak wail; then, drying her eyes, as +feebly considered this reminder. “It has led to my not starving!” she +faintly gasped. + +Our young lady, at this, dropped into the place beside her, and now, in +a rush, the small silly misery was clear. She took her hand as a sign +of pitying it, then, after another instant, confirmed this expression +with a consoling kiss. They sat there together; they looked out, hand +in hand, into the damp dusky shabby little room and into the future, of +no such very different suggestion, at last accepted by each. There was +no definite utterance, on either side, of Mr. Drake’s position in the +great world, but the temporary collapse of his prospective bride threw +all further necessary light; and what our heroine saw and felt for in +the whole business was the vivid reflexion of her own dreams and +delusions and her own return to reality. Reality, for the poor things +they both were, could only be ugliness and obscurity, could never be +the escape, the rise. She pressed her friend—she had tact enough for +that—with no other personal question, brought on no need of further +revelations, only just continued to hold and comfort her and to +acknowledge by stiff little forbearances the common element in their +fate. She felt indeed magnanimous in such matters; since if it was very +well, for condolence or reassurance, to suppress just then invidious +shrinkings, she yet by no means saw herself sitting down, as she might +say, to the same table with Mr. Drake. There would luckily, to all +appearance, be little question of tables; and the circumstance that, on +their peculiar lines, her friend’s interests would still attach +themselves to Mayfair flung over Chalk Farm the first radiance it had +shown. Where was one’s pride and one’s passion when the real way to +judge of one’s luck was by making not the wrong but the right +comparison? Before she had again gathered herself to go she felt very +small and cautious and thankful. “We shall have our own house,” she +said, “and you must come very soon and let me show it you.” + +“_We_ shall have our own too,” Mrs. Jordan replied; “for, don’t you +know? he makes it a condition that he sleeps out?” + +“A condition?”—the girl felt out of it. + +“For any new position. It was on that he parted with Lord Rye. His +lordship can’t meet it. So Mr. Drake has given him up.” + +“And all for you?”—our young woman put it as cheerfully as possible. + +“For me and Lady Bradeen. Her ladyship’s too glad to get him at any +price. Lord Rye, out of interest in us, has in fact quite _made_ her +take him. So, as I tell you, he will have his own establishment.” + +Mrs. Jordan, in the elation of it, had begun to revive; but there was +nevertheless between them rather a conscious pause—a pause in which +neither visitor nor hostess brought out a hope or an invitation. It +expressed in the last resort that, in spite of submission and sympathy, +they could now after all only look at each other across the social +gulf. They remained together as if it would be indeed their last +chance, still sitting, though awkwardly, quite close, and feeling +also—and this most unmistakeably—that there was one thing more to go +into. By the time it came to the surface, moreover, our young friend +had recognised the whole of the main truth, from which she even drew +again a slight irritation. It was not the main truth perhaps that most +signified; but after her momentary effort, her embarrassment and her +tears Mrs. Jordan had begun to sound afresh—and even without +speaking—the note of a social connexion. She hadn’t really let go of it +that she was marrying into society. Well, it was a harmless +compensation, and it was all the prospective bride of Mr. Mudge had to +leave with her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +This young lady at last rose again, but she lingered before going. “And +has Captain Everard nothing to say to it?” + +“To what, dear?” + +“Why, to such questions—the domestic arrangements, things in the +house.” + +“How _can_ he, with any authority, when nothing in the house is his?” + +“Not his?” The girl wondered, perfectly conscious of the appearance she +thus conferred on Mrs. Jordan of knowing, in comparison with herself, +so tremendously much about it. Well, there were things she wanted so to +get at that she was willing at last, though it hurt her, to pay for +them with humiliation. “Why are they not his?” + +“Don’t you know, dear, that he has nothing?” + +“Nothing?” It was hard to see him in such a light, but Mrs. Jordan’s +power to answer for it had a superiority that began, on the spot, to +grow. “Isn’t he rich?” + +Mrs. Jordan looked immensely, looked both generally and particularly, +informed. “It depends upon what you call—! Not at any rate in the least +as _she_ is. What does he bring? Think what she has. And then, love, +his debts.” + +“His debts?” His young friend was fairly betrayed into helpless +innocence. She could struggle a little, but she had to let herself go; +and if she had spoken frankly she would have said: “Do tell me, for I +don’t know so much about him as _that_!” As she didn’t speak frankly +she only said: “His debts are nothing—when she so adores him.” + +Mrs. Jordan began to fix her again, and now she saw that she must only +take it all. That was what it had come to: his having sat with her +there on the bench and under the trees in the summer darkness and put +his hand on her, making her know what he would have said if permitted; +his having returned to her afterwards, repeatedly, with supplicating +eyes and a fever in his blood; and her having, on her side, hard and +pedantic, helped by some miracle and with her impossible condition, +only answered him, yet supplicating back, through the bars of the +cage,—all simply that she might hear of him, now for ever lost, only +through Mrs. Jordan, who touched him through Mr. Drake, who reached him +through Lady Bradeen. “She adores him—but of course that wasn’t all +there was about it.” + +The girl met her eyes a minute, then quite surrendered. “What was there +else about it?” + +“Why, don’t you know?”—Mrs. Jordan was almost compassionate. + +Her interlocutress had, in the cage, sounded depths, but there was a +suggestion here somehow of an abyss quite measureless. “Of course I +know she would never let him alone.” + +“How _could_ she—fancy!—when he had so compromised her?” + +The most artless cry they had ever uttered broke, at this, from the +younger pair of lips. “_Had_ he so—?” + +“Why, don’t you know the scandal?” + +Our heroine thought, recollected there was something, whatever it was, +that she knew after all much more of than Mrs. Jordan. She saw him +again as she had seen him come that morning to recover the telegram—she +saw him as she had seen him leave the shop. She perched herself a +moment on this. “Oh there was nothing public.” + +“Not exactly public—no. But there was an awful scare and an awful row. +It was all on the very point of coming out. Something was +lost—something was found.” + +“Ah yes,” the girl replied, smiling as if with the revival of a blurred +memory; “something was found.” + +“It all got about—and there was a point at which Lord Bradeen had to +act.” + +“Had to—yes. But he didn’t.” + +Mrs. Jordan was obliged to admit it. “No, he didn’t. And then, luckily +for them, he died.” + +“I didn’t know about his death,” her companion said. + +“It was nine weeks ago, and most sudden. It has given them a prompt +chance.” + +“To get married?”—this was a wonder—“within nine weeks?” + +“Oh not immediately, but—in all the circumstances—very quietly and, I +assure you, very soon. Every preparation’s made. Above all she holds +him.” + +“Oh yes, she holds him!” our young friend threw off. She had this +before her again a minute; then she continued: “You mean through his +having made her talked about?” + +“Yes, but not only that. She has still another pull.” + +“Another?” + +Mrs. Jordan hesitated. “Why, he was _in_ something.” + +Her comrade wondered. “In what?” + +“I don’t know. Something bad. As I tell you, something was found.” + +The girl stared. “Well?” + +“It would have been very bad for him. But, she helped him some way—she +recovered it, got hold of it. It’s even said she stole it!” + +Our young woman considered afresh. “Why it was what was found that +precisely saved him.” + +Mrs. Jordan, however, was positive. “I beg your pardon. I happen to +know.” + +Her disciple faltered but an instant. “Do you mean through Mr. Drake? +Do they tell _him_ these things?” + +“A good servant,” said Mrs. Jordan, now thoroughly superior and +proportionately sententious, “doesn’t need to be told! Her ladyship +saved—as a woman so often saves!—the man she loves.” + +This time our heroine took longer to recover herself, but she found a +voice at last. “Ah well—of course I don’t know! The great thing was +that he got off. They seem then, in a manner,” she added, “to have done +a great deal for each other.” + +“Well, it’s she that has done most. She has him tight.” + +“I see, I see. Good-bye.” The women had already embraced, and this was +not repeated; but Mrs. Jordan went down with her guest to the door of +the house. Here again the younger lingered, reverting, though three or +four other remarks had on the way passed between them, to Captain +Everard and Lady Bradeen. “Did you mean just now that if she hadn’t +saved him, as you call it, she wouldn’t hold him so tight?” + +“Well, I dare say.” Mrs. Jordan, on the doorstep, smiled with a +reflexion that had come to her; she took one of her big bites of the +brown gloom. “Men always dislike one when they’ve done one an injury.” + +“But what injury had he done her?” + +“The one I’ve mentioned. He _must_ marry her, you know.” + +“And didn’t he want to?” + +“Not before.” + +“Not before she recovered the telegram?” + +Mrs. Jordan was pulled up a little. “Was it a telegram?” + +The girl hesitated. “I thought you said so. I mean whatever it was.” + +“Yes, whatever it was, I don’t think she saw _that_.” + +“So she just nailed him?” + +“She just nailed him.” The departing friend was now at the bottom of +the little flight of steps; the other was at the top, with a certain +thickness of fog. “And when am I to think of you in your little +home?—next month?” asked the voice from the top. + +“At the very latest. And when am I to think of you in yours?” + +“Oh even sooner. I feel, after so much talk with you about it, as if I +were already there!” Then “_Good_-bye!” came out of the fog. + +“Good-_bye_!” went into it. Our young lady went into it also, in the +opposed quarter, and presently, after a few sightless turns, came out +on the Paddington canal. Distinguishing vaguely what the low parapet +enclosed she stopped close to it and stood a while very intently, but +perhaps still sightlessly, looking down on it. A policeman; while she +remained, strolled past her; then, going his way a little further and +half lost in the atmosphere, paused and watched her. But she was quite +unaware—she was full of her thoughts. They were too numerous to find a +place just here, but two of the number may at least be mentioned. One +of these was that, decidedly, her little home must be not for next +month, but for next week; the other, which came indeed as she resumed +her walk and went her way, was that it was strange such a matter should +be at last settled for her by Mr. Drake + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1144 *** diff --git a/1144-h/1144-h.htm b/1144-h/1144-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..06e08bc --- /dev/null +++ b/1144-h/1144-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4726 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of In the Cage, by Henry James</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1144 ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>In the Cage</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Henry James</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">III.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">IV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">V.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">VI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">VII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">IX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">X.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">XI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">XII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">XV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">XVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">XVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">XIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">XX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">XXI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">XXII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">XXIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">XXIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">XXV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">XXVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">XXVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p> +It had occurred to her early that in her position—that of a young person +spending, in framed and wired confinement, the life of a guinea-pig or a +magpie—she should know a great many persons without their recognising the +acquaintance. That made it an emotion the more lively—though singularly +rare and always, even then, with opportunity still very much smothered—to +see any one come in whom she knew outside, as she called it, any one who could +add anything to the meanness of her function. Her function was to sit there +with two young men—the other telegraphist and the counter-clerk; to mind +the “sounder,” which was always going, to dole out stamps and +postal-orders, weigh letters, answer stupid questions, give difficult change +and, more than anything else, count words as numberless as the sands of the +sea, the words of the telegrams thrust, from morning to night, through the gap +left in the high lattice, across the encumbered shelf that her forearm ached +with rubbing. This transparent screen fenced out or fenced in, according to the +side of the narrow counter on which the human lot was cast, the duskiest corner +of a shop pervaded not a little, in winter, by the poison of perpetual gas, and +at all times by the presence of hams, cheese, dried fish, soap, varnish, +paraffin and other solids and fluids that she came to know perfectly by their +smells without consenting to know them by their names. +</p> + +<p> +The barrier that divided the little post-and-telegraph-office from the grocery +was a frail structure of wood and wire; but the social, the professional +separation was a gulf that fortune, by a stroke quite remarkable, had spared +her the necessity of contributing at all publicly to bridge. When Mr. +Cocker’s young men stepped over from behind the other counter to change a +five-pound note—and Mr. Cocker’s situation, with the cream of the +“Court Guide” and the dearest furnished apartments, +Simpkin’s, Ladle’s, Thrupp’s, just round the corner, was so +select that his place was quite pervaded by the crisp rustle of these +emblems—she pushed out the sovereigns as if the applicant were no more to +her than one of the momentary, the practically featureless, appearances in the +great procession; and this perhaps all the more from the very fact of the +connexion (only recognised outside indeed) to which she had lent herself with +ridiculous inconsequence. She recognised the others the less because she had at +last so unreservedly, so irredeemably, recognised Mr. Mudge. However that might +be, she was a little ashamed of having to admit to herself that Mr. +Mudge’s removal to a higher sphere—to a more commanding position, +that is, though to a much lower neighbourhood—would have been described +still better as a luxury than as the mere simplification, the corrected +awkwardness, that she contented herself with calling it. He had at any rate +ceased to be all day long in her eyes, and this left something a little fresh +for them to rest on of a Sunday. During the three months of his happy survival +at Cocker’s after her consent to their engagement she had often asked +herself what it was marriage would be able to add to a familiarity that seemed +already to have scraped the platter so clean. Opposite there, behind the +counter of which his superior stature, his whiter apron, his more clustering +curls and more present, too present, <i>h</i>’s had been for a couple of +years the principal ornament, he had moved to and fro before her as on the +small sanded floor of their contracted future. She was conscious now of the +improvement of not having to take her present and her future at once. They were +about as much as she could manage when taken separate. +</p> + +<p> +She had, none the less, to give her mind steadily to what Mr. Mudge had again +written her about, the idea of her applying for a transfer to an office quite +similar—she couldn’t yet hope for a place in a bigger—under +the very roof where he was foreman, so that, dangled before her every minute of +the day, he should see her, as he called it, “hourly,” and in a +part, the far N.W. district, where, with her mother, she would save on their +two rooms alone nearly three shillings. It would be far from dazzling to +exchange Mayfair for Chalk Farm, and it wore upon her much that he could never +drop a subject; still, it didn’t wear as things <i>had</i> worn, the +worries of the early times of their great misery, her own, her mother’s +and her elder sister’s—the last of whom had succumbed to all but +absolute want when, as conscious and incredulous ladies, suddenly bereft, +betrayed, overwhelmed, they had slipped faster and faster down the steep slope +at the bottom of which she alone had rebounded. Her mother had never rebounded +any more at the bottom than on the way; had only rumbled and grumbled down and +down, making, in respect of caps, topics and “habits,” no effort +whatever—which simply meant smelling much of the time of whiskey. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p> +It was always rather quiet at Cocker’s while the contingent from +Ladle’s and Thrupp’s and all the other great places were at +luncheon, or, as the young men used vulgarly to say, while the animals were +feeding. She had forty minutes in advance of this to go home for her own +dinner; and when she came back and one of the young men took his turn there was +often half an hour during which she could pull out a bit of work or a +book—a book from the place where she borrowed novels, very greasy, in +fine print and all about fine folks, at a ha’penny a day. This sacred +pause was one of the numerous ways in which the establishment kept its finger +on the pulse of fashion and fell into the rhythm of the larger life. It had +something to do, one day, with the particular flare of importance of an +arriving customer, a lady whose meals were apparently irregular, yet whom she +was destined, she afterwards found, not to forget. The girl was <i>blasée;</i> +nothing could belong more, as she perfectly knew, to the intense publicity of +her profession; but she had a whimsical mind and wonderful nerves; she was +subject, in short, to sudden flickers of antipathy and sympathy, red gleams in +the grey, fitful needs to notice and to “care,” odd caprices of +curiosity. She had a friend who had invented a new career for women—that +of being in and out of people’s houses to look after the flowers. Mrs. +Jordan had a manner of her own of sounding this allusion; “the +flowers,” on her lips, were, in fantastic places, in happy homes, as +usual as the coals or the daily papers. She took charge of them, at any rate, +in all the rooms, at so much a month, and people were quickly finding out what +it was to make over this strange burden of the pampered to the widow of a +clergyman. The widow, on her side, dilating on the initiations thus opened up +to her, had been splendid to her young friend, over the way she was made free +of the greatest houses—the way, especially when she did the +dinner-tables, set out so often for twenty, she felt that a single step more +would transform her whole social position. On its being asked of her then if +she circulated only in a sort of tropical solitude, with the upper servants for +picturesque natives, and on her having to assent to this glance at her +limitations, she had found a reply to the girl’s invidious question. +“You’ve no imagination, my dear!”—that was because a +door more than half open to the higher life couldn’t be called anything +but a thin partition. Mrs. Jordan’s imagination quite did away with the +thickness. +</p> + +<p> +Our young lady had not taken up the charge, had dealt with it good-humouredly, +just because she knew so well what to think of it. It was at once one of her +most cherished complaints and most secret supports that people didn’t +understand her, and it was accordingly a matter of indifference to her that +Mrs. Jordan shouldn’t; even though Mrs. Jordan, handed down from their +early twilight of gentility and also the victim of reverses, was the only +member of her circle in whom she recognised an equal. She was perfectly aware +that her imaginative life was the life in which she spent most of her time; and +she would have been ready, had it been at all worth while, to contend that, +since her outward occupation didn’t kill it, it must be strong indeed. +Combinations of flowers and green-stuff, forsooth! What <i>she</i> could handle +freely, she said to herself, was combinations of men and women. The only +weakness in her faculty came from the positive abundance of her contact with +the human herd; this was so constant, it had so the effect of cheapening her +privilege, that there were long stretches in which inspiration, divination and +interest quite dropped. The great thing was the flashes, the quick revivals, +absolute accidents all, and neither to be counted on nor to be resisted. Some +one had only sometimes to put in a penny for a stamp and the whole thing was +upon her. She was so absurdly constructed that these were literally the moments +that made up—made up for the long stiffness of sitting there in the +stocks, made up for the cunning hostility of Mr. Buckton and the importunate +sympathy of the counter-clerk, made up for the daily deadly flourishy letter +from Mr. Mudge, made up even for the most haunting of her worries, the rage at +moments of not knowing how her mother did “get it.” +</p> + +<p> +She had surrendered herself moreover of late to a certain expansion of her +consciousness; something that seemed perhaps vulgarly accounted for by the fact +that, as the blast of the season roared louder and the waves of fashion tossed +their spray further over the counter, there were more impressions to be +gathered and really—for it came to that—more life to be led. +Definite at any rate it was that by the time May was well started the kind of +company she kept at Cocker’s had begun to strike her as a reason—a +reason she might almost put forward for a policy of procrastination. It sounded +silly, of course, as yet, to plead such a motive, especially as the fascination +of the place was after all a sort of torment. But she liked her torment; it was +a torment she should miss at Chalk Farm. She was ingenious and uncandid, +therefore, about leaving the breadth of London a little longer between herself +and that austerity. If she hadn’t quite the courage in short to say to +Mr. Mudge that her actual chance for a play of mind was worth any week the +three shillings he desired to help her to save, she yet saw something happen in +the course of the month that in her heart of hearts at least answered the +subtle question. This was connected precisely with the appearance of the +memorable lady. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p> +She pushed in three bescribbled forms which the girl’s hand was quick to +appropriate, Mr. Buckton having so frequent a perverse instinct for catching +first any eye that promised the sort of entertainment with which she had her +peculiar affinity. The amusements of captives are full of a desperate +contrivance, and one of our young friend’s ha’pennyworths had been +the charming tale of <i>Picciola</i>. It was of course the law of the place +that they were never to take no notice, as Mr. Buckton said, whom they served; +but this also never prevented, certainly on the same gentleman’s own +part, what he was fond of describing as the underhand game. Both her +companions, for that matter, made no secret of the number of favourites they +had among the ladies; sweet familiarities in spite of which she had repeatedly +caught each of them in stupidities and mistakes, confusions of identity and +lapses of observation that never failed to remind her how the cleverness of men +ends where the cleverness of women begins. “Marguerite, Regent Street. +Try on at six. All Spanish lace. Pearls. The full length.” That was the +first; it had no signature. “Lady Agnes Orme, Hyde Park Place. Impossible +to-night, dining Haddon. Opera to-morrow, promised Fritz, but could do play +Wednesday. Will try Haddon for Savoy, and anything in the world you like, if +you can get Gussy. Sunday Montenero. Sit Mason Monday, Tuesday. Marguerite +awful. Cissy.” That was the second. The third, the girl noted when she +took it, was on a foreign form: “Everard, Hôtel Brighton, Paris. +Only understand and believe. 22nd to 26th, and certainly 8th and 9th. Perhaps +others. Come. Mary.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary was very handsome, the handsomest woman, she felt in a moment, she had +ever seen—or perhaps it was only Cissy. Perhaps it was both, for she had +seen stranger things than that—ladies wiring to different persons under +different names. She had seen all sorts of things and pieced together all sorts +of mysteries. There had once been one—not long before—who, without +winking, sent off five over five different signatures. Perhaps these +represented five different friends who had asked her—all women, just as +perhaps now Mary and Cissy, or one or other of them, were wiring by deputy. +Sometimes she put in too much—too much of her own sense; sometimes she +put in too little; and in either case this often came round to her afterwards, +for she had an extraordinary way of keeping clues. When she noticed she +noticed; that was what it came to. There were days and days, there were weeks +sometimes, of vacancy. This arose often from Mr. Buckton’s devilish and +successful subterfuges for keeping her at the sounder whenever it looked as if +anything might arouse; the sounder, which it was equally his business to mind, +being the innermost cell of captivity, a cage within the cage, fenced oft from +the rest by a frame of ground glass. The counter-clerk would have played into +her hands; but the counter-clerk was really reduced to idiocy by the effect of +his passion for her. She flattered herself moreover, nobly, that with the +unpleasant conspicuity of this passion she would never have consented to be +obliged to him. The most she would ever do would be always to shove off on him +whenever she could the registration of letters, a job she happened particularly +to loathe. After the long stupors, at all events, there almost always suddenly +would come a sharp taste of something; it was in her mouth before she knew it; +it was in her mouth now. +</p> + +<p> +To Cissy, to Mary, whichever it was, she found her curiosity going out with a +rush, a mute effusion that floated back to her, like a returning tide, the +living colour and splendour of the beautiful head, the light of eyes that +seemed to reflect such utterly other things than the mean things actually +before them; and, above all, the high curt consideration of a manner that even +at bad moments was a magnificent habit and of the very essence of the +innumerable things—her beauty, her birth, her father and mother, her +cousins and all her ancestors—that its possessor couldn’t have got +rid of even had she wished. How did our obscure little public servant know that +for the lady of the telegrams this was a bad moment? How did she guess all +sorts of impossible things, such as, almost on the very spot, the presence of +drama at a critical stage and the nature of the tie with the gentleman at the +Hôtel Brighton? More than ever before it floated to her through the bars +of the cage that this at last was the high reality, the bristling truth that +she had hitherto only patched up and eked out—one of the creatures, in +fine, in whom all the conditions for happiness actually met, and who, in the +air they made, bloomed with an unwitting insolence. What came home to the girl +was the way the insolence was tempered by something that was equally a part of +the distinguished life, the custom of a flowerlike bend to the less +fortunate—a dropped fragrance, a mere quick breath, but which in fact +pervaded and lingered. The apparition was very young, but certainly married, +and our fatigued friend had a sufficient store of mythological comparison to +recognise the port of Juno. Marguerite might be “awful,” but she +knew how to dress a goddess. +</p> + +<p> +Pearls and Spanish lace—she herself, with assurance, could see them, and +the “full length” too, and also red velvet bows, which, disposed on +the lace in a particular manner (she could have placed them with the turn of a +hand) were of course to adorn the front of a black brocade that would be like a +dress in a picture. However, neither Marguerite nor Lady Agnes nor Haddon nor +Fritz nor Gussy was what the wearer of this garment had really come in for. She +had come in for Everard—and that was doubtless not his true name either. +If our young lady had never taken such jumps before it was simply that she had +never before been so affected. She went all the way. Mary and Cissy had been +round together, in their single superb person, to see him—he must live +round the corner; they had found that, in consequence of something they had +come, precisely, to make up for or to have another scene about, he had gone +off—gone off just on purpose to make them feel it; on which they had come +together to Cocker’s as to the nearest place; where they had put in the +three forms partly in order not to put in the one alone. The two others in a +manner, covered it, muffled it, passed it off. Oh yes, she went all the way, +and this was a specimen of how she often went. She would know the hand again +any time. It was as handsome and as everything else as the woman herself. The +woman herself had, on learning his flight, pushed past Everard’s servant +and into his room; she had written her missive at his table and with his pen. +All this, every inch of it, came in the waft that she blew through and left +behind her, the influence that, as I have said, lingered. And among the things +the girl was sure of, happily, was that she should see her again. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p> +She saw her in fact, and only ten days later; but this time not alone, and that +was exactly a part of the luck of it. Not unaware—as how could her +observation have left her so?—of the possibilities through which it could +range, our young lady had ever since had in her mind a dozen conflicting +theories about Everard’s type; as to which, the instant they came into +the place, she felt the point settled with a thump that seemed somehow +addressed straight to her heart. That organ literally beat faster at the +approach of the gentleman who was this time with Cissy, and who, as seen from +within the cage, became on the spot the happiest of the happy circumstances +with which her mind had invested the friend of Fritz and Gussy. He was a very +happy circumstance indeed as, with his cigarette in his lips and his broken +familiar talk caught by his companion, he put down the half-dozen telegrams it +would take them together several minutes to dispatch. And here it occurred, +oddly enough, that if, shortly before the girl’s interest in his +companion had sharpened her sense for the messages then transmitted, her +immediate vision of himself had the effect, while she counted his seventy +words, of preventing intelligibility. <i>His</i> words were mere numbers, they +told her nothing whatever; and after he had gone she was in possession of no +name, of no address, of no meaning, of nothing but a vague sweet sound and an +immense impression. He had been there but five minutes, he had smoked in her +face, and, busy with his telegrams, with the tapping pencil and the conscious +danger, the odious betrayal that would come from a mistake, she had had no +wandering glances nor roundabout arts to spare. Yet she had taken him in; she +knew everything; she had made up her mind. +</p> + +<p> +He had come back from Paris; everything was re-arranged; the pair were again +shoulder to shoulder in their high encounter with life, their large and +complicated game. The fine soundless pulse of this game was in the air for our +young woman while they remained in the shop. While they remained? They remained +all day; their presence continued and abode with her, was in everything she did +till nightfall, in the thousands of other words she counted, she transmitted, +in all the stamps she detached and the letters she weighed and the change she +gave, equally unconscious and unerring in each of these particulars, and not, +as the run on the little office thickened with the afternoon hours, looking up +at a single ugly face in the long sequence, nor really hearing the stupid +questions that she patiently and perfectly answered. All patience was possible +now, all questions were stupid after his, all faces were ugly. She had been +sure she should see the lady again; and even now she should perhaps, she should +probably, see her often. But for him it was totally different; she should never +never see him. She wanted it too much. There was a kind of wanting that +helped—she had arrived, with her rich experience, at that generalisation; +and there was another kind that was fatal. It was this time the fatal kind; it +would prevent. +</p> + +<p> +Well, she saw him the very next day, and on this second occasion it was quite +different; the sense of every syllable he paid for was fiercely distinct; she +indeed felt her progressive pencil, dabbing as if with a quick caress the marks +of his own, put life into every stroke. He was there a long time—had not +brought his forms filled out but worked them off in a nook on the counter; and +there were other people as well—a changing pushing cluster, with every +one to mind at once and endless right change to make and information to +produce. But she kept hold of him throughout; she continued, for herself, in a +relation with him as close as that in which, behind the hated ground glass, Mr. +Buckton luckily continued with the sounder. This morning everything changed, +but rather to dreariness; she had to swallow the rebuff to her theory about +fatal desires, which she did without confusion and indeed with absolute levity; +yet if it was now flagrant that he did live close at hand—at Park +Chambers—and belonged supremely to the class that wired everything, even +their expensive feelings (so that, as he never wrote, his correspondence cost +him weekly pounds and pounds, and he might be in and out five times a day) +there was, all the same, involved in the prospect, and by reason of its +positive excess of light, a perverse melancholy, a gratuitous misery. This was +at once to give it a place in an order of feelings on which I shall presently +touch. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, for a month, he was very constant. Cissy, Mary, never re-appeared +with him; he was always either alone or accompanied only by some gentleman who +was lost in the blaze of his glory. There was another sense, however—and +indeed there was more than one—in which she mostly found herself counting +in the splendid creature with whom she had originally connected him. He +addressed this correspondent neither as Mary nor as Cissy; but the girl was +sure of whom it was, in Eaten Square, that he was perpetually wiring +to—and all so irreproachably!—as Lady Bradeen. Lady Bradeen was +Cissy, Lady Bradeen was Mary, Lady Bradeen was the friend of Fritz and of +Gussy, the customer of Marguerite, and the close ally in short (as was ideally +right, only the girl had not yet found a descriptive term that was) of the most +magnificent of men. Nothing could equal the frequency and variety of his +communications to her ladyship but their extraordinary, their abysmal +propriety. It was just the talk—so profuse sometimes that she wondered +what was left for their real meetings—of the very happiest people. Their +real meetings must have been constant, for half of it was appointments and +allusions, all swimming in a sea of other allusions still, tangled in a +complexity of questions that gave a wondrous image of their life. If Lady +Bradeen was Juno it was all certainly Olympian. If the girl, missing the +answers, her ladyship’s own outpourings, vainly reflected that +Cocker’s should have been one of the bigger offices where telegrams +arrived as well as departed, there were yet ways in which, on the whole, she +pressed the romance closer by reason of the very quantity of imagination it +demanded and consumed. The days and hours of this new friend, as she came to +account him, were at all events unrolled, and however much more she might have +known she would still have wished to go beyond. In fact she did go beyond; she +went quite far enough. +</p> + +<p> +But she could none the less, even after a month, scarce have told if the +gentlemen who came in with him recurred or changed; and this in spite of the +fact that they too were always posting and wiring, smoking in her face and +signing or not signing. The gentlemen who came in with him were nothing when he +was there. They turned up alone at other times—then only perhaps with a +dim richness of reference. He himself, absent as well as present, was all. He +was very tall, very fair, and had, in spite of his thick preoccupations, a +good-humour that was exquisite, particularly as it so often had the effect of +keeping him on. He could have reached over anybody, and anybody—no matter +who—would have let him; but he was so extraordinarily kind that he quite +pathetically waited, never waggling things at her out of his turn nor saying +“Here!” with horrid sharpness. He waited for pottering old ladies, +for gaping slaveys, for the perpetual Buttonses from Thrupp’s; and the +thing in all this that she would have liked most unspeakably to put to the test +was the possibility of her having for him a personal identity that might in a +particular way appeal. There were moments when he actually struck her as on her +side, as arranging to help, to support, to spare her. +</p> + +<p> +But such was the singular spirit of our young friend that she could remind +herself with a pang that when people had awfully good manners—people of +that class,—you couldn’t tell. These manners were for everybody, +and it might be drearily unavailing for any poor particular body to be +overworked and unusual. What he did take for granted was all sorts of facility; +and his high pleasantness, his relighting of cigarettes while he waited, his +unconscious bestowal of opportunities, of boons, of blessings, were all a part +of his splendid security, the instinct that told him there was nothing such an +existence as his could ever lose by. He was somehow all at once very bright and +very grave, very young and immensely complete; and whatever he was at any +moment it was always as much as all the rest the mere bloom of his beatitude. +He was sometimes Everard, as he had been at the Hôtel Brighton, and he +was sometimes Captain Everard. He was sometimes Philip with his surname and +sometimes Philip without it. In some directions he was merely Phil, in others +he was merely Captain. There were relations in which he was none of these +things, but a quite different person—“the Count.” There were +several friends for whom he was William. There were several for whom, in +allusion perhaps to his complexion, he was “the Pink ‘Un.” +Once, once only by good luck, he had, coinciding comically, quite miraculously, +with another person also near to her, been “Mudge.” Yes, whatever +he was, it was a part of his happiness—whatever he was and probably +whatever he wasn’t. And his happiness was a part—it became so +little by little—of something that, almost from the first of her being at +Cocker’s, had been deeply with the girl. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p> +This was neither more nor less than the queer extension of her experience, the +double life that, in the cage, she grew at last to lead. As the weeks went on +there she lived more and more into the world of whiffs and glimpses, she found +her divinations work faster and stretch further. It was a prodigious view as +the pressure heightened, a panorama fed with facts and figures, flushed with a +torrent of colour and accompanied with wondrous world-music. What it mainly +came to at this period was a picture of how London could amuse itself; and +that, with the running commentary of a witness so exclusively a witness, turned +for the most part to a hardening of the heart. The nose of this observer was +brushed by the bouquet, yet she could never really pluck even a daisy. What +could still remain fresh in her daily grind was the immense disparity, the +difference and contrast, from class to class, of every instant and every +motion. There were times when all the wires in the country seemed to start from +the little hole-and-corner where she plied for a livelihood, and where, in the +shuffle of feet, the flutter of “forms,” the straying of stamps and +the ring of change over the counter, the people she had fallen into the habit +of remembering and fitting together with others, and of having her theories and +interpretations of, kept up before her their long procession and rotation. What +twisted the knife in her vitals was the way the profligate rich scattered about +them, in extravagant chatter over their extravagant pleasures and sins, an +amount of money that would have held the stricken household of her frightened +childhood, her poor pinched mother and tormented father and lost brother and +starved sister, together for a lifetime. During her first weeks she had often +gasped at the sums people were willing to pay for the stuff they +transmitted—the “much love”s, the “awful” +regrets, the compliments and wonderments and vain vague gestures that cost the +price of a new pair of boots. She had had a way then of glancing at the +people’s faces, but she had early learnt that if you became a +telegraphist you soon ceased to be astonished. Her eye for types amounted +nevertheless to genius, and there were those she liked and those she hated, her +feeling for the latter of which grew to a positive possession, an instinct of +observation and detection. There were the brazen women, as she called them, of +the higher and the lower fashion, whose squanderings and graspings, whose +struggles and secrets and love-affairs and lies, she tracked and stored up +against them till she had at moments, in private, a triumphant vicious feeling +of mastery and ease, a sense of carrying their silly guilty secrets in her +pocket, her small retentive brain, and thereby knowing so much more about them +than they suspected or would care to think. There were those she would have +liked to betray, to trip up, to bring down with words altered and fatal; and +all through a personal hostility provoked by the lightest signs, by their +accidents of tone and manner, by the particular kind of relation she always +happened instantly to feel. +</p> + +<p> +There were impulses of various kinds, alternately soft and severe, to which she +was constitutionally accessible and which were determined by the smallest +accidents. She was rigid in general on the article of making the public itself +affix its stamps, and found a special enjoyment in dealing to that end with +some of the ladies who were too grand to touch them. She had thus a play of +refinement and subtlety greater, she flattered herself, than any of which she +could be made the subject; and though most people were too stupid to be +conscious of this it brought her endless small consolations and revenges. She +recognised quite as much those of her sex whom she would have liked to help, to +warn, to rescue, to see more of; and that alternative as well operated exactly +through the hazard of personal sympathy, her vision for silver threads and +moonbeams and her gift for keeping the clues and finding her way in the tangle. +The moonbeams and silver threads presented at moments all the vision of what +poor <i>she</i> might have made of happiness. Blurred and blank as the whole +thing often inevitably, or mercifully, became, she could still, through +crevices and crannies, be stupefied, especially by what, in spite of all +seasoning, touched the sorest place in her consciousness, the revelation of the +golden shower flying about without a gleam of gold for herself. It remained +prodigious to the end, the money her fine friends were able to spend to get +still more, or even to complain to fine friends of their own that they were in +want. The pleasures they proposed were equalled only by those they declined, +and they made their appointments often so expensively that she was left +wondering at the nature of the delights to which the mere approaches were so +paved with shillings. She quivered on occasion into the perception of this and +that one whom she would on the chance have just simply liked to <i>be</i>. Her +conceit, her baffled vanity, was possibly monstrous; she certainly often threw +herself into a defiant conviction that she would have done the whole thing much +better. But her greatest comfort, mostly, was her comparative vision of the +men; by whom I mean the unmistakeable gentlemen, for she had no interest in the +spurious or the shabby and no mercy at all for the poor. She could have found a +sixpence, outside, for an appearance of want; but her fancy, in some directions +so alert, had never a throb of response for any sign of the sordid. The men she +did track, moreover, she tracked mainly in one relation, the relation as to +which the cage convinced her, she believed, more than anything else could have +done, that it was quite the most diffused. +</p> + +<p> +She found her ladies, in short, almost always in communication with her +gentlemen, and her gentlemen with her ladies, and she read into the immensity +of their intercourse stories and meanings without end. Incontestably she grew +to think that the men cut the best figure; and in this particular, as in many +others, she arrived at a philosophy of her own, all made up of her private +notations and cynicisms. It was a striking part of the business, for example, +that it was much more the women, on the whole, who were after the men than the +men who were after the women: it was literally visible that the general +attitude of the one sex was that of the object pursued and defensive, +apologetic and attenuating, while the light of her own nature helped her more +or less to conclude as to the attitude of the other. Perhaps she herself a +little even fell into the custom of pursuit in occasionally deviating only for +gentlemen from her high rigour about the stamps. She had early in the day made +up her mind, in fine, that they had the best manners; and if there were none of +them she noticed when Captain Everard was there, there were plenty she could +place and trace and name at other times, plenty who, with their way of being +“nice” to her, and of handling, as if their pockets were private +tills loose mixed masses of silver and gold, were such pleasant appearances +that she could envy them without dislike. <i>They</i> never had to give +change—they only had to get it. They ranged through every suggestion, +every shade of fortune, which evidently included indeed lots of bad luck as +well as of good, declining even toward Mr. Mudge and his bland firm thrift, and +ascending, in wild signals and rocket-flights, almost to within hail of her +highest standard. So from month to month she went on with them all, through a +thousand ups and downs and a thousand pangs and indifferences. What virtually +happened was that in the shuffling herd that passed before her by far the +greater part only passed—a proportion but just appreciable stayed. Most +of the elements swam straight away, lost themselves in the bottomless common, +and by so doing really kept the page clear. On the clearness therefore what she +did retain stood sharply out; she nipped and caught it, turned it over and +interwove it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p> +She met Mrs. Jordan when she could, and learned from her more and more how the +great people, under her gentle shake and after going through everything with +the mere shops, were waking up to the gain of putting into the hands of a +person of real refinement the question that the shop-people spoke of so +vulgarly as that of the floral decorations. The regular dealers in these +decorations were all very well; but there was a peculiar magic in the play of +taste of a lady who had only to remember, through whatever intervening dusk, +all her own little tables, little bowls and little jars and little other +arrangements, and the wonderful thing she had made of the garden of the +vicarage. This small domain, which her young friend had never seen, bloomed in +Mrs. Jordan’s discourse like a new Eden, and she converted the past into +a bank of violets by the tone in which she said “Of course you always +knew my one passion!” She obviously met now, at any rate, a big +contemporary need, measured what it was rapidly becoming for people to feel +they could trust her without a tremor. It brought them a peace +that—during the quarter of an hour before dinner in especial—was +worth more to them than mere payment could express. Mere payment, none the +less, was tolerably prompt; she engaged by the month, taking over the whole +thing; and there was an evening on which, in respect to our heroine, she at +last returned to the charge. “It’s growing and growing, and I see +that I must really divide the work. One wants an associate—of one’s +own kind, don’t you know? You know the look they want it all to +have?—of having come, not from a florist, but from one of themselves. +Well, I’m sure <i>you</i> could give it—because you <i>are</i> one. +Then we <i>should</i> win. Therefore just come in with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“And leave the P.O.?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let the P.O. simply bring you your letters. It would bring you lots, +you’d see: orders, after a bit, by the score.” It was on this, in +due course, that the great advantage again came up: “One seems to live +again with one’s own people.” It had taken some little time (after +their having parted company in the tempest of their troubles and then, in the +glimmering dawn, finally sighted each other again) for each to admit that the +other was, in her private circle, her only equal, but the admission came, when +it did come, with an honest groan; and since equality was named, each found +much personal profit in exaggerating the other’s original grandeur. Mrs. +Jordan was ten years the older, but her young friend was struck with the +smaller difference this now made: it had counted otherwise at the time when, +much more as a friend of her mother’s, the bereaved lady, without a penny +of provision and with stopgaps, like their own, all gone, had, across the +sordid landing on which the opposite doors of the pair of scared miseries +opened and to which they were bewilderedly bolted, borrowed coals and umbrellas +that were repaid in potatoes and postage-stamps. It had been a questionable +help, at that time, to ladies submerged, floundering, panting, swimming for +their lives, that they were ladies; but such an advantage could come up again +in proportion as others vanished, and it had grown very great by the time it +was the only ghost of one they possessed. They had literally watched it take to +itself a portion of the substance of each that had departed; and it became +prodigious now, when they could talk of it together, when they could look back +at it across a desert of accepted derogation, and when, above all, they could +together work up a credulity about it that neither could otherwise work up. +Nothing was really so marked as that they felt the need to cultivate this +legend much more after having found their feet and stayed their stomachs in the +ultimate obscure than they had done in the upper air of mere frequent shocks. +The thing they could now oftenest say to each other was that they knew what +they meant; and the sentiment with which, all round, they knew it was known had +well-nigh amounted to a promise not again to fall apart. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan was at present fairly dazzling on the subject of the way that, in +the practice of her fairy art, as she called it, she more than peeped +in—she penetrated. There was not a house of the great kind—and it +was of course only a question of those, real homes of luxury—in which she +was not, at the rate such people now had things, all over the place. The girl +felt before the picture the cold breath of disinheritance as much as she had +ever felt it in the cage; she knew moreover how much she betrayed this, for the +experience of poverty had begun, in her life, too early, and her ignorance of +the requirements of homes of luxury had grown, with other active knowledge, a +depth of simplification. She had accordingly at first often found that in these +colloquies she could only pretend she understood. Educated as she had rapidly +been by her chances at Cocker’s, there were still strange gaps in her +learning—she could never, like Mrs. Jordan, have found her way about one +of the “homes.” Little by little, however, she had caught on, above +all in the light of what Mrs. Jordan’s redemption had materially made of +that lady, giving her, though the years and the struggles had naturally not +straightened a feature, an almost super-eminent air. There were women in and +out of Cocker’s who were quite nice and who yet didn’t look well; +whereas Mrs. Jordan looked well and yet, with her extraordinarily protrusive +teeth, was by no means quite nice. It would seem, mystifyingly, that it might +really come from all the greatness she could live with. It was fine to hear her +talk so often of dinners of twenty and of her doing, as she said, exactly as +she liked with them. She spoke as if, for that matter, she invited the company. +“They simply give me the table—all the rest, all the other effects, +come afterwards.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p> +“Then you <i>do</i> see them?” the girl again asked. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan hesitated, and indeed the point had been ambiguous before. +“Do you mean the guests?” +</p> + +<p> +Her young friend, cautious about an undue exposure of innocence, was not quite +sure. “Well—the people who live there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lady Ventnor? Mrs. Bubb? Lord Rye? Dear, yes. Why they <i>like</i> +one.” +</p> + +<p> +“But does one personally <i>know</i> them?” our young lady went on, +since that was the way to speak. “I mean socially, don’t you +know?—as you know <i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re not so nice as you!” Mrs. Jordan charmingly cried. +“But I <i>shall</i> see more and more of them.” +</p> + +<p> +Ah this was the old story. “But how soon?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why almost any day. Of course,” Mrs. Jordan honestly added, +“they’re nearly always out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why do they want flowers all over?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh that doesn’t make any difference.” Mrs. Jordan was not +philosophic; she was just evidently determined it <i>shouldn’t</i> make +any. “They’re awfully interested in my ideas, and it’s +inevitable they should meet me over them.” +</p> + +<p> +Her interlocutress was sturdy enough. “What do you call your +ideas?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan’s reply was fine. “If you were to see me some day with +a thousand tulips you’d discover.” +</p> + +<p> +“A thousand?”—the girl gaped at such a revelation of the +scale of it; she felt for the instant fairly planted out. “Well, but if +in fact they never do meet you?” she none the less pessimistically +insisted. +</p> + +<p> +“Never? They <i>often</i> do—and evidently quite on purpose. We +have grand long talks.” +</p> + +<p> +There was something in our young lady that could still stay her from asking for +a personal description of these apparitions; that showed too starved a state. +But while she considered she took in afresh the whole of the clergyman’s +widow. Mrs. Jordan couldn’t help her teeth, and her sleeves were a +distinct rise in the world. A thousand tulips at a shilling clearly took one +further than a thousand words at a penny; and the betrothed of Mr. Mudge, in +whom the sense of the race for life was always acute, found herself wondering, +with a twinge of her easy jealousy, if it mightn’t after all then, for +<i>her</i> also, be better—better than where she was—to follow some +such scent. Where she was was where Mr. Buckton’s elbow could freely +enter her right side and the counter-clerk’s breathing—he had +something the matter with his nose—pervade her left ear. It was something +to fill an office under Government, and she knew but too well there were places +commoner still than Cocker’s; but it needed no great range of taste to +bring home to her the picture of servitude and promiscuity she couldn’t +but offer to the eye of comparative freedom. She was so boxed up with her young +men, and anything like a margin so absent, that it needed more art than she +should ever possess to pretend in the least to compass, with any one in the +nature of an acquaintance—say with Mrs. Jordan herself, flying in, as it +might happen, to wire sympathetically to Mrs. Bubb—an approach to a +relation of elegant privacy. She remembered the day when Mrs. Jordan +<i>had</i>, in fact, by the greatest chance, come in with fifty-three words for +Lord Rye and a five-pound note to change. This had been the dramatic manner of +their reunion—their mutual recognition was so great an event. The girl +could at first only see her from the waist up, besides making but little of her +long telegram to his lordship. It was a strange whirligig that had converted +the clergyman’s widow into such a specimen of the class that went beyond +the sixpence. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing of the occasion, all the more, had ever become dim; least of all the +way that, as her recovered friend looked up from counting, Mrs. Jordan had just +blown, in explanation, through her teeth and through the bars of the cage: +“I <i>do</i> flowers, you know.” Our young woman had always, with +her little finger crooked out, a pretty movement for counting; and she had not +forgotten the small secret advantage, a sharpness of triumph it might even have +been called, that fell upon her at this moment and avenged her for the +incoherence of the message, an unintelligible enumeration of numbers, colours, +days, hours. The correspondence of people she didn’t know was one thing; +but the correspondence of people she did had an aspect of its own for her even +when she couldn’t understand it. The speech in which Mrs. Jordan had +defined a position and announced a profession was like a tinkle of bluebells; +but for herself her one idea about flowers was that people had them at +funerals, and her present sole gleam of light was that lords probably had them +most. When she watched, a minute later, through the cage, the swing of her +visitor’s departing petticoats, she saw the sight from the waist down; +and when the counter-clerk, after a mere male glance, remarked, with an +intention unmistakeably low, “Handsome woman!” she had for him the +finest of her chills: “She’s the widow of a bishop.” She +always felt, with the counter-clerk, that it was impossible sufficiently to put +it on; for what she wished to express to him was the maximum of her contempt, +and that element in her nature was confusedly stored. “A bishop” +was putting it on, but the counter-clerk’s approaches were vile. The +night, after this, when, in the fulness of time, Mrs. Jordan mentioned the +grand long talks, the girl at last brought out: “Should <i>I</i> see +them?—I mean if I <i>were</i> to give up everything for you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan at this became most arch. “I’d send you to all the +bachelors!” +</p> + +<p> +Our young lady could be reminded by such a remark that she usually struck her +friend as pretty. “Do <i>they</i> have their flowers?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oceans. And they’re the most particular.” Oh it was a +wonderful world. “You should see Lord Rye’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“His flowers?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and his letters. He writes me pages on pages—with the most +adorable little drawings and plans. You should see his diagrams!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p> +The girl had in course of time every opportunity to inspect these documents, +and they a little disappointed her; but in the mean while there had been more +talk, and it had led to her saying, as if her friend’s guarantee of a +life of elegance were not quite definite: “Well, I see every one at +<i>my</i> place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Every one?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lots of swells. They flock. They live, you know, all round, and the +place is filled with all the smart people, all the fast people, those whose +names are in the papers—mamma has still The <i>Morning Post</i>—and +who come up for the season.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan took this in with complete intelligence. “Yes, and I dare say +it’s some of your people that <i>I</i> do.” +</p> + +<p> +Her companion assented, but discriminated. “I doubt if you +‘do’ them as much as I! Their affairs, their appointments and +arrangements, their little games and secrets and vices—those things all +pass before me.” +</p> + +<p> +This was a picture that could make a clergyman’s widow not imperceptibly +gasp; it was in intention moreover something of a retort to the thousand +tulips. “Their vices? Have they got vices?” +</p> + +<p> +Our young critic even more overtly stared then with a touch of contempt in her +amusement: “Haven’t you found <i>that</i> out?” The homes of +luxury then hadn’t so much to give. “<i>I</i> find out +everything.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan, at bottom a very meek person, was visibly struck. “I see. +You do ‘have’ them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh I don’t care! Much good it does me!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan after an instant recovered her superiority. “No—it +doesn’t lead to much.” Her own initiations so clearly did. +Still—after all; and she was not jealous: “There must be a +charm.” +</p> + +<p> +“In seeing them?” At this the girl suddenly let herself go. +“I hate them. There’s that charm!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan gaped again. “The <i>real</i> ‘smarts’?” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that what you call Mrs. Bubb? Yes—it comes to me; I’ve +had Mrs. Bubb. I don’t think she has been in herself, but there are +things her maid has brought. Well, my dear!”—and the young person +from Cocker’s, recalling these things and summing them up, seemed +suddenly to have much to say. She didn’t say it, however; she checked it; +she only brought out: “Her maid, who’s horrid—<i>she</i> must +have her!” Then she went on with indifference: “They’re +<i>too</i> real! They’re selfish brutes.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan, turning it over, adopted at last the plan of treating it with a +smile. She wished to be liberal. “Well, of course, they do lay it +out.” +</p> + +<p> +“They bore me to death,” her companion pursued with slightly more +temperance. +</p> + +<p> +But this was going too far. “Ah that’s because you’ve no +sympathy!” +</p> + +<p> +The girl gave an ironic laugh, only retorting that nobody could have any who +had to count all day all the words in the dictionary; a contention Mrs. Jordan +quite granted, the more that she shuddered at the notion of ever failing of the +very gift to which she owed the vogue—the rage she might call +it—that had caught her up. Without sympathy—or without imagination, +for it came back again to that—how should she get, for big dinners, down +the middle and toward the far corners at all? It wasn’t the combinations, +which were easily managed: the strain was over the ineffable simplicities, +those that the bachelors above all, and Lord Rye perhaps most of any, threw +off—just blew off like cigarette-puffs—such sketches of. The +betrothed of Mr. Mudge at all events accepted the explanation, which had the +effect, as almost any turn of their talk was now apt to have, of bringing her +round to the terrific question of that gentleman. She was tormented with the +desire to get out of Mrs. Jordan, on this subject, what she was sure was at the +back of Mrs. Jordan’s head; and to get it out of her, queerly enough, if +only to vent a certain irritation at it. She knew that what her friend would +already have risked if she hadn’t been timid and tortuous was: +“Give him up—yes, give him up: you’ll see that with your sure +chances you’ll be able to do much better.” +</p> + +<p> +Our young woman had a sense that if that view could only be put before her with +a particular sniff for poor Mr. Mudge she should hate it as much as she morally +ought. She was conscious of not, as yet, hating it quite so much as that. But +she saw that Mrs. Jordan was conscious of something too, and that there was a +degree of confidence she was waiting little by little to arrive at. The day +came when the girl caught a glimpse of what was still wanting to make her +friend feel strong; which was nothing less than the prospect of being able to +announce the climax of sundry private dreams. The associate of the aristocracy +had personal calculations—matter for brooding and dreaming, even for +peeping out not quite hopelessly from behind the window-curtains of lonely +lodgings. If she did the flowers for the bachelors, in short, didn’t she +expect that to have consequences very different from such an outlook at +Cocker’s as she had pronounced wholly desperate? There seemed in very +truth something auspicious in the mixture of bachelors and flowers, though, +when looked hard in the eye, Mrs. Jordan was not quite prepared to say she had +expected a positive proposal from Lord Rye to pop out of it. Our young woman +arrived at last, none the less, at a definite vision of what was in her mind. +This was a vivid foreknowledge that the betrothed of Mr. Mudge would, unless +conciliated in advance by a successful rescue, almost hate her on the day she +should break a particular piece of news. How could that unfortunate otherwise +endure to hear of what, under the protection of Lady Ventnor, was after all so +possible. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p> +Meanwhile, since irritation sometimes relieved her, the betrothed of Mr. Mudge +found herself indebted to that admirer for amounts of it perfectly proportioned +to her fidelity. She always walked with him on Sundays, usually in the +Regent’s Park, and quite often, once or twice a month he took her, in the +Strand or thereabouts, to see a piece that was having a run. The productions he +always preferred were the really good ones—Shakespeare, Thompson or some +funny American thing; which, as it also happened that she hated vulgar plays, +gave him ground for what was almost the fondest of his approaches, the theory +that their tastes were, blissfully, just the same. He was for ever reminding +her of that, rejoicing over it and being affectionate and wise about it. There +were times when she wondered how in the world she could “put up +with” him, how she could put up with any man so smugly unconscious of the +immensity of her difference. It was just for this difference that, if she was +to be liked at all, she wanted to be liked, and if that was not the source of +Mr. Mudge’s admiration, she asked herself what on earth <i>could</i> be? +She was not different only at one point, she was different all round; unless +perhaps indeed in being practically human, which her mind just barely +recognised that he also was. She would have made tremendous concessions in +other quarters: there was no limit for instance to those she would have made to +Captain Everard; but what I have named was the most she was prepared to do for +Mr. Mudge. It was because <i>he</i> was different that, in the oddest way, she +liked as well as deplored him; which was after all a proof that the disparity, +should they frankly recognise it, wouldn’t necessarily be fatal. She felt +that, oleaginous—too oleaginous—as he was, he was somehow +comparatively primitive: she had once, during the portion of his time at +Cocker’s that had overlapped her own, seen him collar a drunken soldier, +a big violent man who, having come in with a mate to get a postal-order cashed, +had made a grab at the money before his friend could reach it and had so +determined, among the hams and cheeses and the lodgers from Thrupp’s, +immediate and alarming reprisals, a scene of scandal and consternation. Mr. +Buckton and the counter-clerk had crouched within the cage, but Mr. Mudge had, +with a very quiet but very quick step round the counter, an air of masterful +authority she shouldn’t soon forget, triumphantly interposed in the +scrimmage, parted the combatants and shaken the delinquent in his skin. She had +been proud of him at that moment, and had felt that if their affair had not +already been settled the neatness of his execution would have left her without +resistance. +</p> + +<p> +Their affair had been settled by other things: by the evident sincerity of his +passion and by the sense that his high white apron resembled a front of many +floors. It had gone a great way with her that he would build up a business to +his chin, which he carried quite in the air. This could only be a question of +time; he would have all Piccadilly in the pen behind his ear. That was a merit +in itself for a girl who had known what she had known. There were hours at +which she even found him good-looking, though, frankly there could be no crown +for her effort to imagine on the part of the tailor or the barber some such +treatment of his appearance as would make him resemble even remotely a man of +the world. His very beauty was the beauty of a grocer, and the finest future +would offer it none too much room consistently to develop. She had engaged +herself in short to the perfection of a type, and almost anything square and +smooth and whole had its weight for a person still conscious herself of being a +mere bruised fragment of wreckage. But it contributed hugely at present to +carry on the two parallel lines of her experience in the cage and her +experience out of it. After keeping quiet for some time about this opposition +she suddenly—one Sunday afternoon on a penny chair in the Regent’s +Park—broke, for him, capriciously, bewilderingly, into an intimation of +what it came to. He had naturally pressed more and more on the point of her +again placing herself where he could see her hourly, and for her to recognise +that she had as yet given him no sane reason for delay he had small need to +describe himself as unable to make out what she was up to. As if, with her +absurd bad reasons, she could have begun to tell him! Sometimes she thought it +would be amusing to let him have them full in the face, for she felt she should +die of him unless she once in a while stupefied him; and sometimes she thought +it would be disgusting and perhaps even fatal. She liked him, however, to think +her silly, for that gave her the margin which at the best she would always +require; and the only difficulty about this was that he hadn’t enough +imagination to oblige her. It produced none the less something of the desired +effect—to leave him simply wondering why, over the matter of their +reunion, she didn’t yield to his arguments. Then at last, simply as if by +accident and out of mere boredom on a day that was rather flat, she +preposterously produced her own. “Well, wait a bit. Where I am I still +see things.” And she talked to him even worse, if possible, than she had +talked to Jordan. +</p> + +<p> +Little by little, to her own stupefaction, she caught that he was trying to +take it as she meant it and that he was neither astonished nor angry. Oh the +British tradesman—this gave her an idea of his resources! Mr. Mudge would +be angry only with a person who, like the drunken soldier in the shop, should +have an unfavourable effect on business. He seemed positively to enter, for the +time and without the faintest flash of irony or ripple of laughter, into the +whimsical grounds of her enjoyment of Cocker’s custom, and instantly to +be casting up whatever it might, as Mrs. Jordan had said, lead to. What he had +in mind was not of course what Mrs. Jordan had had: it was obviously not a +source of speculation with him that his sweetheart might pick up a husband. She +could see perfectly that this was not for a moment even what he supposed she +herself dreamed of. What she had done was simply to give his sensibility +another push into the dim vast of trade. In that direction it was all alert, +and she had whisked before it the mild fragrance of a “connexion.” +That was the most he could see in any account of her keeping in, on whatever +roundabout lines, with the gentry; and when, getting to the bottom of this, she +quickly proceeded to show him the kind of eye she turned on such people and to +give him a sketch of what that eye discovered, she reduced him to the +particular prostration in which he could still be amusing to her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p> +“They’re the most awful wretches, I assure you—the lot all +about there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why do you want to stay among them?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear man, just because they <i>are</i>. It makes me hate them +so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hate them? I thought you liked them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be stupid. What I ‘like’ is just to loathe them. +You wouldn’t believe what passes before my eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why have you never told me? You didn’t mention anything +before I left.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh I hadn’t got round to it then. It’s the sort of thing you +don’t believe at first; you have to look round you a bit and then you +understand. You work into it more and more. Besides,” the girl went on, +“this is the time of the year when the worst lot come up. They’re +simply packed together in those smart streets. Talk of the numbers of the poor! +What <i>I</i> can vouch for is the numbers of the rich! There are new ones +every day, and they seem to get richer and richer. Oh, they do come up!” +she cried, imitating for her private recreation—she was sure it +wouldn’t reach Mr. Mudge—the low intonation of the counter-clerk. +</p> + +<p> +“And where do they come from?” her companion candidly enquired. +</p> + +<p> +She had to think a moment; then she found something. “From the +‘spring meetings.’ They bet tremendously.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, they bet enough at Chalk Farm, if that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>isn’t</i> all. It isn’t a millionth part!” she +replied with some sharpness. “It’s immense fun”—she +would tantalise him. Then as she had heard Mrs. Jordan say, and as the ladies +at Cocker’s even sometimes wired, “It’s quite too +dreadful!” She could fully feel how it was Mr. Mudge’s propriety, +which was extreme—he had a horror of coarseness and attended a Wesleyan +chapel—that prevented his asking for details. But she gave him some of +the more innocuous in spite of himself, especially putting before him how, at +Simpkin’s and Ladle’s, they all made the money fly. That was indeed +what he liked to hear: the connexion was not direct, but one was somehow more +in the right place where the money was flying than where it was simply and +meagrely nesting. The air felt that stir, he had to acknowledge, much less at +Chalk Farm than in the district in which his beloved so oddly enjoyed her +footing. She gave him, she could see, a restless sense that these might be +familiarities not to be sacrificed; germs, possibilities, faint +foreshowings—heaven knew what—of the initiation it would prove +profitable to have arrived at when in the fulness of time he should have his +own shop in some such paradise. What really touched him—that was +discernible—was that she could feed him with so much mere vividness of +reminder, keep before him, as by the play of a fan, the very wind of the swift +bank-notes and the charm of the existence of a class that Providence had raised +up to be the blessing of grocers. He liked to think that the class was there, +that it was always there, and that she contributed in her slight but +appreciable degree to keep it up to the mark. He couldn’t have formulated +his theory of the matter, but the exuberance of the aristocracy was the +advantage of trade, and everything was knit together in a richness of pattern +that it was good to follow with one’s finger-tips. It was a comfort to +him to be thus assured that there were no symptoms of a drop. What did the +sounder, as she called it, nimbly worked, do but keep the ball going? +</p> + +<p> +What it came to therefore for Mr. Mudge was that all enjoyments were, as might +be said, inter-related, and that the more people had the more they wanted to +have. The more flirtations, as he might roughly express it, the more cheese and +pickles. He had even in his own small way been dimly struck with the +linkèd sweetness connecting the tender passion with cheap champagne, or +perhaps the other way round. What he would have liked to say had he been able +to work out his thought to the end was: “I see, I see. Lash them up then, +lead them on, keep them going: some of it can’t help, some time, coming +<i>our</i> way.” Yet he was troubled by the suspicion of subtleties on +his companion’s part that spoiled the straight view. He couldn’t +understand people’s hating what they liked or liking what they hated; +above all it hurt him somewhere—for he had his private +delicacies—to see anything <i>but</i> money made out of his betters. To +be too enquiring, or in any other way too free, at the expense of the gentry +was vaguely wrong; the only thing that was distinctly right was to be +prosperous at any price. Wasn’t it just because they were up there aloft +that they were lucrative? He concluded at any rate by saying to his young +friend: “If it’s improper for you to remain at Cocker’s, then +that falls in exactly with the other reasons I’ve put before you for your +removal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Improper?”—her smile became a prolonged boldness. “My +dear boy, there’s no one like you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say,” he laughed; “but that doesn’t help the +question.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” she returned, “I can’t give up my friends. +I’m making even more than Mrs. Jordan.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge considered. “How much is <i>she</i> making?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh you dear donkey!”—and, regardless of all the +Regent’s Park, she patted his cheek. This was the sort of moment at which +she was absolutely tempted to tell him that she liked to be near Park Chambers. +There was a fascination in the idea of seeing if, on a mention of Captain +Everard, he wouldn’t do what she thought he might; wouldn’t weigh +against the obvious objection the still more obvious advantage. The advantage +of course could only strike him at the best as rather fantastic; but it was +always to the good to keep hold when you <i>had</i> hold, and such an attitude +would also after all involve a high tribute to her fidelity. Of one thing she +absolutely never doubted: Mr. Mudge believed in her with a belief—! She +believed in herself too, for that matter: if there was a thing in the world no +one could charge her with it was being the kind of low barmaid person who +rinsed tumblers and bandied slang. But she forbore as yet to speak; she had not +spoken even to Mrs. Jordan; and the hush that on her lips surrounded the +Captain’s name maintained itself as a kind of symbol of the success that, +up to this time, had attended something or other—she couldn’t have +said what—that she humoured herself with calling, without words, her +relation with him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<p> +She would have admitted indeed that it consisted of little more than the fact +that his absences, however frequent and however long, always ended with his +turning up again. It was nobody’s business in the world but her own if +that fact continued to be enough for her. It was of course not enough just in +itself; what it had taken on to make it so was the extraordinary possession of +the elements of his life that memory and attention had at last given her. There +came a day when this possession on the girl’s part actually seemed to +enjoy between them, while their eyes met, a tacit recognition that was half a +joke and half a deep solemnity. He bade her good morning always now; he often +quite raised his hat to her. He passed a remark when there was time or room, +and once she went so far as to say to him that she hadn’t seen him for +“ages.” “Ages” was the word she consciously and +carefully, though a trifle tremulously used; “ages” was exactly +what she meant. To this he replied in terms doubtless less anxiously selected, +but perhaps on that account not the less remarkable, “Oh yes, +hasn’t it been awfully wet?” That was a specimen of their give and +take; it fed her fancy that no form of intercourse so transcendent and +distilled had ever been established on earth. Everything, so far as they chose +to consider it so, might mean almost anything. The want of margin in the cage, +when he peeped through the bars, wholly ceased to be appreciable. It was a +drawback only in superficial commerce. With Captain Everard she had simply the +margin of the universe. It may be imagined therefore how their unuttered +reference to all she knew about him could in this immensity play at its ease. +Every time he handed in a telegram it was an addition to her knowledge: what +did his constant smile mean to mark if it didn’t mean to mark that? He +never came into the place without saying to her in this manner: “Oh yes, +you have me by this time so completely at your mercy that it doesn’t in +the least matter what I give you now. You’ve become a comfort, I assure +you!” +</p> + +<p> +She had only two torments; the greatest of which was that she couldn’t, +not even once or twice, touch with him on some individual fact. She would have +given anything to have been able to allude to one of his friends by name, to +one of his engagements by date, to one of his difficulties by the solution. She +would have given almost as much for just the right chance—it would have +to be tremendously right—to show him in some sharp sweet way that she had +perfectly penetrated the greatest of these last and now lived with it in a kind +of heroism of sympathy. He was in love with a woman to whom, and to any view of +whom, a lady-telegraphist, and especially one who passed a life among hams and +cheeses, was as the sand on the floor; and what her dreams desired was the +possibility of its somehow coming to him that her own interest in him could +take a pure and noble account of such an infatuation and even of such an +impropriety. As yet, however, she could only rub along with the hope that an +accident, sooner or later, might give her a lift toward popping out with +something that would surprise and perhaps even, some fine day, assist him. What +could people mean moreover—cheaply sarcastic people—by not feeling +all that could be got out of the weather? <i>She</i> felt it all, and seemed +literally to feel it most when she went quite wrong, speaking of the stuffy +days as cold, of the cold ones as stuffy, and betraying how little she knew, in +her cage, of whether it was foul or fair. It was for that matter always stuffy +at Cocker’s, and she finally settled down to the safe proposition that +the outside element was “changeable.” Anything seemed true that +made him so radiantly assent. +</p> + +<p> +This indeed is a small specimen of her cultivation of insidious ways of making +things easy for him—ways to which of course she couldn’t be at all +sure he did real justice. Real justice was not of this world: she had had too +often to come back to that; yet, strangely, happiness was, and her traps had to +be set for it in a manner to keep them unperceived by Mr. Buckton and the +counter-clerk. The most she could hope for apart from the question, which +constantly flickered up and died down, of the divine chance of his consciously +liking her, would be that, without analysing it, he should arrive at a vague +sense that Cocker’s was—well, attractive; easier, smoother, +sociably brighter, slightly more picturesque, in short more propitious in +general to his little affairs, than any other establishment just thereabouts. +She was quite aware that they couldn’t be, in so huddled a hole, +particularly quick; but she found her account in the slowness—she +certainly could bear it if <i>he</i> could. The great pang was that just +thereabouts post-offices were so awfully thick. She was always seeing him in +imagination in other places and with other girls. But she would defy any other +girl to follow him as she followed. And though they weren’t, for so many +reasons, quick at Cocker’s, she could hurry for him when, through an +intimation light as air, she gathered that he was pressed. +</p> + +<p> +When hurry was, better still, impossible, it was because of the pleasantest +thing of all, the particular element of their contact—she would have +called it their friendship—that consisted of an almost humorous treatment +of the look of some of his words. They would never perhaps have grown half so +intimate if he had not, by the blessing of heaven, formed some of his letters +with a queerness—! It was positive that the queerness could scarce have +been greater if he had practised it for the very purpose of bringing their +heads together over it as far as was possible to heads on different sides of a +wire fence. It had taken her truly but once or twice to master these tricks, +but, at the cost of striking him perhaps as stupid, she could still challenge +them when circumstances favoured. The great circumstance that favoured was that +she sometimes actually believed he knew she only feigned perplexity. If he knew +it therefore he tolerated it; if he tolerated it he came back; and if he came +back he liked her. This was her seventh heaven; and she didn’t ask much +of his liking—she only asked of it to reach the point of his not going +away because of her own. He had at times to be away for weeks; he had to lead +his life; he had to travel—there were places to which he was constantly +wiring for “rooms”: all this she granted him, forgave him; in fact, +in the long run, literally blessed and thanked him for. If he had to lead his +life, that precisely fostered his leading it so much by telegraph: therefore +the benediction was to come in when he could. That was all she asked—that +he shouldn’t wholly deprive her. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes she almost felt that he couldn’t have deprived her even had he +been minded, by reason of the web of revelation that was woven between them. +She quite thrilled herself with thinking what, with such a lot of material, a +bad girl would do. It would be a scene better than many in her ha’penny +novels, this going to him in the dusk of evening at Park Chambers and letting +him at last have it. “I know too much about a certain person now not to +put it to you—excuse my being so lurid—that it’s quite worth +your while to buy me off. Come, therefore; buy me!” There was a point +indeed at which such flights had to drop again—the point of an +unreadiness to name, when it came to that, the purchasing medium. It +wouldn’t certainly be anything so gross as money, and the matter +accordingly remained rather vague, all the more that <i>she</i> was not a bad +girl. It wasn’t for any such reason as might have aggravated a mere minx +that she often hoped he would again bring Cissy. The difficulty of this, +however, was constantly present to her, for the kind of communion to which +Cocker’s so richly ministered rested on the fact that Cissy and he were +so often in different places. She knew by this time all the +places—Suchbury, Monkhouse, Whiteroy, Finches—and even how the +parties on these occasions were composed; but her subtlety found ways to make +her knowledge fairly protect and promote their keeping, as she had heard Mrs. +Jordan say, in touch. So, when he actually sometimes smiled as if he really +felt the awkwardness of giving her again one of the same old addresses, all her +being went out in the desire—which her face must have +expressed—that he should recognise her forbearance to criticise as one of +the finest tenderest sacrifices a woman had ever made for love. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<p> +She was occasionally worried, however this might be, by the impression that +these sacrifices, great as they were, were nothing to those that his own +passion had imposed; if indeed it was not rather the passion of his +confederate, which had caught him up and was whirling him round like a great +steam-wheel. He was at any rate in the strong grip of a dizzy splendid fate; +the wild wind of his life blew him straight before it. Didn’t she catch +in his face at times, even through his smile and his happy habit, the gleam of +that pale glare with which a bewildered victim appeals, as he passes, to some +pair of pitying eyes? He perhaps didn’t even himself know how scared he +was; but <i>she</i> knew. They were in danger, they were in danger, Captain +Everard and Lady Bradeen: it beat every novel in the shop. She thought of Mr. +Mudge and his safe sentiment; she thought of herself and blushed even more for +her tepid response to it. It was a comfort to her at such moments to feel that +in another relation—a relation supplying that affinity with her nature +that Mr. Mudge, deluded creature, would never supply—she should have been +no more tepid than her ladyship. Her deepest soundings were on two or three +occasions of finding herself almost sure that, if she dared, her +ladyship’s lover would have gathered relief from “speaking” +to her. She literally fancied once or twice that, projected as he was toward +his doom, her own eyes struck him, while the air roared in his ears, as the one +pitying pair in the crowd. But how could he speak to her while she sat +sandwiched there between the counter-clerk and the sounder? +</p> + +<p> +She had long ago, in her comings and goings made acquaintance with Park +Chambers and reflected as she looked up at their luxurious front that +<i>they</i>, of course, would supply the ideal setting for the ideal speech. +There was not an object in London that, before the season was over, was more +stamped upon her brain. She went roundabout to pass it, for it was not on the +short way; she passed on the opposite side of the street and always looked up, +though it had taken her a long time to be sure of the particular set of +windows. She had made that out finally by an act of audacity that at the time +had almost stopped her heart-beats and that in retrospect greatly quickened her +blushes. One evening she had lingered late and watched—watched for some +moment when the porter, who was in uniform and often on the steps, had gone in +with a visitor. Then she followed boldly, on the calculation that he would have +taken the visitor up and that the hall would be free. The hall <i>was</i> free, +and the electric light played over the gilded and lettered board that showed +the names and numbers of the occupants of the different floors. What she wanted +looked straight at her—Captain Everard was on the third. It was as if, in +the immense intimacy of this, they were, for the instant and the first time, +face to face outside the cage. Alas! they were face to face but a second or +two: she was whirled out on the wings of a panic fear that he might just then +be entering or issuing. This fear was indeed, in her shameless deflexions, +never very far from her, and was mixed in the oddest way with depressions and +disappointments. It was dreadful, as she trembled by, to run the risk of +looking to him as if she basely hung about; and yet it was dreadful to be +obliged to pass only at such moments as put an encounter out of the question. +</p> + +<p> +At the horrible hour of her first coming to Cocker’s he was +always—it was to be hoped—snug in bed; and at the hour of her final +departure he was of course—she had such things all on her +fingers’-ends—dressing for dinner. We may let it pass that if she +couldn’t bring herself to hover till he was dressed, this was simply +because such a process for such a person could only be terribly prolonged. When +she went in the middle of the day to her own dinner she had too little time to +do anything but go straight, though it must be added that for a real certainty +she would joyously have omitted the repast. She had made up her mind as to +there being on the whole no decent pretext to justify her flitting casually +past at three o’clock in the morning. That was the hour at which, if the +ha’penny novels were not all wrong, he probably came home for the night. +She was therefore reduced to the vainest figuration of the miraculous meeting +toward which a hundred impossibilities would have to conspire. But if nothing +was more impossible than the fact, nothing was more intense than the vision. +What may not, we can only moralise, take place in the quickened muffled +perception of a young person with an ardent soul? All our humble friend’s +native distinction, her refinement of personal grain, of heredity, of pride, +took refuge in this small throbbing spot; for when she was most conscious of +the objection of her vanity and the pitifulness of her little flutters and +manoeuvres, then the consolation and the redemption were most sure to glow +before her in some just discernible sign. He did like her! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<p> +He never brought Cissy back, but Cissy came one day without him, as fresh as +before from the hands of Marguerite, or only, at the season’s end, a +trifle less fresh. She was, however, distinctly less serene. She had brought +nothing with her and looked about with impatience for the forms and the place +to write. The latter convenience, at Cocker’s, was obscure and barely +adequate, and her clear voice had the light note of disgust which her +lover’s never showed as she responded with a “There?” of +surprise to the gesture made by the counter-clerk in answer to her sharp +question. Our young friend was busy with half a dozen people, but she had +dispatched them in her most businesslike manner by the time her ladyship flung +through the bars this light of re-appearance. Then the directness with which +the girl managed to receive the accompanying missive was the result of the +concentration that had caused her to make the stamps fly during the few minutes +occupied by the production of it. This concentration, in turn, may be described +as the effect of the apprehension of imminent relief. It was nineteen days, +counted and checked off, since she had seen the object of her homage; and as, +had he been in London, she should, with his habits, have been sure to see him +often, she was now about to learn what other spot his presence might just then +happen to sanctify. For she thought of them, the other spots, as ecstatically +conscious of it, expressively happy in it. +</p> + +<p> +But, gracious, how handsome <i>was</i> her ladyship, and what an added price it +gave him that the air of intimacy he threw out should have flowed originally +from such a source! The girl looked straight through the cage at the eyes and +lips that must so often have been so near as own—looked at them with a +strange passion that for an instant had the result of filling out some of the +gaps, supplying the missing answers, in his correspondence. Then as she made +out that the features she thus scanned and associated were totally unaware of +it, that they glowed only with the colour of quite other and not at all +guessable thoughts, this directly added to their splendour, gave the girl the +sharpest impression she had yet received of the uplifted, the unattainable +plains of heaven, and yet at the same time caused her to thrill with a sense of +the high company she did somehow keep. She was with the absent through her +ladyship and with her ladyship through the absent. The only pang—but it +didn’t matter—was the proof in the admirable face, in the sightless +preoccupation of its possessor, that the latter hadn’t a notion of her. +Her folly had gone to the point of half believing that the other party to the +affair must sometimes mention in Eaton Square the extraordinary little person +at the place from which he so often wired. Yet the perception of her +visitor’s blankness actually helped this extraordinary little person, the +next instant, to take refuge in a reflexion that could be as proud as it liked. +“How little she knows, how little she knows!” the girl cried to +herself; for what did that show after all but that Captain Everard’s +telegraphic confidant was Captain Everard’s charming secret? Our young +friend’s perusal of her ladyship’s telegram was literally prolonged +by a momentary daze: what swam between her and the words, making her see them +as through rippled shallow sunshot water, was the great, the perpetual flood of +“How much <i>I</i> know—how much <i>I</i> know!” This +produced a delay in her catching that, on the face, these words didn’t +give her what she wanted, though she was prompt enough with her remembrance +that her grasp was, half the time, just of what was <i>not</i> on the face. +“Miss Dolman, Parade Lodge, Parade Terrace, Dover. Let him instantly know +right one, Hôtel de France, Ostend. Make it seven nine four nine six one. Wire +me alternative Burfield’s.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl slowly counted. Then he was at Ostend. This hooked on with so sharp a +click that, not to feel she was as quickly letting it all slip from her, she +had absolutely to hold it a minute longer and to do something to that end. Thus +it was that she did on this occasion what she never did—threw off a +“Reply paid?” that sounded officious, but that she partly made up +for by deliberately affixing the stamps and by waiting till she had done so to +give change. She had, for so much coolness, the strength that she considered +she knew all about Miss Dolman. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—paid.” She saw all sorts of things in this reply, even +to a small suppressed start of surprise at so correct an assumption; even to an +attempt the next minute at a fresh air of detachment. “How much, with the +answer?” The calculation was not abstruse, but our intense observer +required a moment more to make it, and this gave her ladyship time for a second +thought. “Oh just wait!” The white begemmed hand bared to write +rose in sudden nervousness to the side of the wonderful face which, with eyes +of anxiety for the paper on the counter, she brought closer to the bars of the +cage. “I think I must alter a word!” On this she recovered her +telegram and looked over it again; but she had a new, an obvious trouble, and +studied it without deciding and with much of the effect of making our young +woman watch her. +</p> + +<p> +This personage, meanwhile, at the sight of her expression, had decided on the +spot. If she had always been sure they were in danger her ladyship’s +expression was the best possible sign of it. There was a word wrong, but she +had lost the right one, and much clearly depended on her finding it again. The +girl, therefore, sufficiently estimating the affluence of customers and the +distraction of Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk, took the jump and gave it. +“Isn’t it Cooper’s?” +</p> + +<p> +It was as if she had bodily leaped—cleared the top of the cage and +alighted on her interlocutress. “Cooper’s?”—the stare +was heightened by a blush. Yes, she had made Juno blush. +</p> + +<p> +This was all the greater reason for going on. “I mean instead of +Burfield’s.” +</p> + +<p> +Our young friend fairly pitied her; she had made her in an instant so helpless, +and yet not a bit haughty nor outraged. She was only mystified and scared. +“Oh, you know—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know!” Our young friend smiled, meeting the other’s +eyes, and, having made Juno blush, proceeded to patronise her. +“<i>I’ll</i> do it”—she put out a competent hand. Her +ladyship only submitted, confused and bewildered, all presence of mind quite +gone; and the next moment the telegram was in the cage again and its author out +of the shop. Then quickly, boldly, under all the eyes that might have witnessed +her tampering, the extraordinary little person at Cocker’s made the +proper change. People were really too giddy, and if they <i>were</i>, in a +certain case, to be caught, it shouldn’t be the fault of her own grand +memory. Hadn’t it been settled weeks before?—for Miss Dolman it was +always to be “Cooper’s.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<p> +But the summer “holidays” brought a marked difference; they were +holidays for almost every one but the animals in the cage. The August days were +flat and dry, and, with so little to feed it, she was conscious of the ebb of +her interest in the secrets of the refined. She was in a position to follow the +refined to the extent of knowing—they had made so many of their +arrangements with her aid—exactly where they were; yet she felt quite as +if the panorama had ceased unrolling and the band stopped playing. A stray +member of the latter occasionally turned up, but the communications that passed +before her bore now largely on rooms at hotels, prices of furnished houses, +hours of trains, dates of sailings and arrangements for being +“met”; she found them for the most part prosaic and coarse. The +only thing was that they brought into her stuffy corner as straight a whiff of +Alpine meadows and Scotch moors as she might hope ever to inhale; there were +moreover in especial fat hot dull ladies who had out with her, to exasperation, +the terms for seaside lodgings, which struck her as huge, and the matter of the +number of beds required, which was not less portentous: this in reference to +places of which the names—Eastbourne, Folkestone, Cromer, Scarborough, +Whitby—tormented her with something of the sound of the plash of water +that haunts the traveller in the desert. She had not been out of London for a +dozen years, and the only thing to give a taste to the present dead weeks was +the spice of a chronic resentment. The sparse customers, the people she did +see, were the people who were “just off”—off on the decks of +fluttered yachts, off to the uttermost point of rocky headlands where the very +breeze was then playing for the want of which she said to herself that she +sickened. +</p> + +<p> +There was accordingly a sense in which, at such a period, the great differences +of the human condition could press upon her more than ever; a circumstance +drawing fresh force in truth from the very fact of the chance that at last, for +a change, did squarely meet her—the chance to be “off,” for a +bit, almost as far as anybody. They took their turns in the cage as they took +them both in the shop and at Chalk Farm; she had known these two months that +time was to be allowed in September—no less than eleven days—for +her personal private holiday. Much of her recent intercourse with Mr. Mudge had +consisted of the hopes and fears, expressed mainly by himself, involved in the +question of their getting the same dates—a question that, in proportion +as the delight seemed assured, spread into a sea of speculation over the choice +of where and how. All through July, on the Sunday evenings and at such other +odd times as he could seize, he had flooded their talk with wild waves of +calculation. It was practically settled that, with her mother, somewhere +“on the south coast” (a phrase of which she liked the sound) they +should put in their allowance together; but she already felt the prospect quite +weary and worn with the way he went round and round on it. It had become his +sole topic, the theme alike of his most solemn prudences and most placid jests, +to which every opening led for return and revision and in which every little +flower of a foretaste was pulled up as soon as planted. He had announced at the +earliest day—characterising the whole business, from that moment, as +their “plans,” under which name he handled it as a Syndicate +handles a Chinese or other Loan—he had promptly declared that the +question must be thoroughly studied, and he produced, on the whole subject, +from day to day, an amount of information that excited her wonder and even, not +a little, as she frankly let him know, her disdain. When she thought of the +danger in which another pair of lovers rapturously lived she enquired of him +anew why he could leave nothing to chance. Then she got for answer that this +profundity was just his pride, and he pitted Ramsgate against Bournemouth and +even Boulogne against Jersey—for he had great ideas—with all the +mastery of detail that was some day, professionally, to carry him afar. +</p> + +<p> +The longer the time since she had seen Captain Everard the more she was booked, +as she called it, to pass Park Chambers; and this was the sole amusement that +in the lingering August days and the twilights sadly drawn out it was left her +to cultivate. She had long since learned to know it for a feeble one, though +its feebleness was perhaps scarce the reason for her saying to herself each +evening as her time for departure approached: “No, no—not +to-night.” She never failed of that silent remark, any more than she +failed of feeling, in some deeper place than she had even yet fully sounded, +that one’s remarks were as weak as straws and that, however one might +indulge in them at eight o’clock, one’s fate infallibly declared +itself in absolute indifference to them at about eight-fifteen. Remarks were +remarks, and very well for that; but fate was fate, and this young lady’s +was to pass Park Chambers every night in the working week. Out of the immensity +of her knowledge of the life of the world there bloomed on these occasions as +specific remembrance that it was regarded in that region, in August and +September, as rather pleasant just to be caught for something or other in +passing through town. Somebody was always passing and somebody might catch +somebody else. It was in full cognisance of this subtle law that she adhered to +the most ridiculous circuit she could have made to get home. One warm dull +featureless Friday, when an accident had made her start from Cocker’s a +little later than usual, she became aware that something of which the infinite +possibilities had for so long peopled her dreams was at last prodigiously upon +her, though the perfection in which the conditions happened to present it was +almost rich enough to be but the positive creation of a dream. She saw, +straight before her, like a vista painted in a picture, the empty street and +the lamps that burned pale in the dusk not yet established. It was into the +convenience of this quiet twilight that a gentleman on the doorstep of the +Chambers gazed with a vagueness that our young lady’s little figure +violently trembled, in the approach, with the measure of its power to +dissipate. Everything indeed grew in a flash terrific and distinct; her old +uncertainties fell away from her, and, since she was so familiar with fate, she +felt as if the very nail that fixed it were driven in by the hard look with +which, for a moment, Captain Everard awaited her. +</p> + +<p> +The vestibule was open behind him and the porter as absent as on the day she +had peeped in; he had just come out—was in town, in a tweed suit and a +pot hat, but between two journeys—duly bored over his evening and at a +loss what to do with it. Then it was that she was glad she had never met him in +that way before: she reaped with such ecstasy the benefit of his not being able +to think she passed often. She jumped in two seconds to the determination that +he should even suppose it to be the very first time and the very oddest chance: +this was while she still wondered if he would identify or notice her. His +original attention had not, she instinctively knew, been for the young woman at +Cocker’s; it had only been for any young woman who might advance to the +tune of her not troubling the quiet air, and in fact the poetic hour, with +ugliness. Ah but then, and just as she had reached the door, came his second +observation, a long light reach with which, visibly and quite amusedly, he +recalled and placed her. They were on different sides, but the street, narrow +and still, had only made more of a stage for the small momentary drama. It was +not over, besides, it was far from over, even on his sending across the way, +with the pleasantest laugh she had ever heard, a little lift of his hat and an +“Oh good evening!” It was still less over on their meeting, the +next minute, though rather indirectly and awkwardly, in the middle, of the +road—a situation to which three or four steps of her own had +unmistakeably contributed—and then passing not again to the side on which +she had arrived, but back toward the portal of Park Chambers. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know you at first. Are you taking a walk?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah I don’t take walks at night! I’m going home after my +work.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +That was practically what they had meanwhile smiled out, and his exclamation to +which for a minute he appeared to have nothing to add, left them face to face +and in just such an attitude as, for his part, he might have worn had he been +wondering if he could properly ask her to come in. During this interval in fact +she really felt his question to be just “<i>How</i> +properly—?” It was simply a question of the degree of properness. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<p> +She never knew afterwards quite what she had done to settle it, and at the time +she only knew that they presently moved, with vagueness, yet with continuity, +away from the picture of the lighted vestibule and the quiet stairs and well up +the street together. This also must have been in the absence of a definite +permission, of anything vulgarly articulate, for that matter, on the part of +either; and it was to be, later on, a thing of remembrance and reflexion for +her that the limit of what just here for a longish minute passed between them +was his taking in her thoroughly successful deprecation, though conveyed +without pride or sound or touch, of the idea that she might be, out of the +cage, the very shop-girl at large that she hugged the theory she wasn’t. +Yes, it was strange, she afterwards thought, that so much could have come and +gone and yet not disfigured the dear little intense crisis either with +impertinence or with resentment, with any of the horrid notes of that kind of +acquaintance. He had taken no liberty, as she would have so called it; and, +through not having to betray the sense of one, she herself had, still more +charmingly, taken none. On the spot, nevertheless, she could speculate as to +what it meant that, if his relation with Lady Bradeen continued to be what her +mind had built it up to, he should feel free to proceed with marked +independence. This was one of the questions he was to leave her to deal +with—the question whether people of his sort still asked girls up to +their rooms when they were so awfully in love with other women. Could people of +his sort do that without what people of <i>her</i> sort would call being +“false to their love”? She had already a vision of how the true +answer was that people of her sort didn’t, in such cases, +matter—didn’t count as infidelity, counted only as something else: +she might have been curious, since it came to that, to see exactly what. +</p> + +<p> +Strolling together slowly in their summer twilight and their empty corner of +Mayfair, they found themselves emerge at last opposite to one of the smaller +gates of the Park; upon which, without any particular word about it—they +were talking so of other things—they crossed the street and went in and +sat down on a bench. She had gathered by this time one magnificent hope about +him—the hope he would say nothing vulgar. She knew thoroughly what she +meant by that; she meant something quite apart from any matter of his being +“false.” Their bench was not far within; it was near the Park Lane +paling and the patchy lamplight and the rumbling cabs and ‘buses. A +strange emotion had come to her, and she felt indeed excitement within +excitement; above all a conscious joy in testing him with chances he +didn’t take. She had an intense desire he should know the type she really +conformed to without her doing anything so low as tell him, and he had surely +begun to know it from the moment he didn’t seize the opportunities into +which a common man would promptly have blundered. These were on the mere +awkward surface, and <i>their</i> relation was beautiful behind and below them. +She had questioned so little on the way what they might be doing that as soon +as they were seated she took straight hold of it. Her hours, her confinement, +the many conditions of service in the post-office, had—with a glance at +his own postal resources and alternatives—formed, up to this stage, the +subject of their talk. “Well, here we are, and it may be right enough; +but this isn’t the least, you know, where I was going.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were going home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and I was already rather late. I was going to my supper.” +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t had it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you haven’t eaten—?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked of a sudden so extravagantly concerned that she laughed out. +“All day? Yes, we do feed once. But that was long ago. So I must +presently say good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh deary <i>me</i>!” he exclaimed with an intonation so droll and +yet a touch so light and a distress so marked—a confession of +helplessness for such a case, in short, so unrelieved—that she at once +felt sure she had made the great difference plain. He looked at her with the +kindest eyes and still without saying what she had known he wouldn’t. She +had known he wouldn’t say “Then sup with <i>me</i>!” but the +proof of it made her feel as if she had feasted. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not a bit hungry,” she went on. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah you <i>must</i> be, awfully!” he made answer, but settling +himself on the bench as if, after all, that needn’t interfere with his +spending his evening. “I’ve always quite wanted the chance to thank +you for the trouble you so often take for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know,” she replied; uttering the words with a sense of the +situation far deeper than any pretence of not fitting his allusion. She +immediately felt him surprised and even a little puzzled at her frank assent; +but for herself the trouble she had taken could only, in these fleeting +minutes—they would probably never come back—be all there like a +little hoard of gold in her lap. Certainly he might look at it, handle it, take +up the pieces. Yet if he understood anything he must understand all. “I +consider you’ve already immensely thanked me.” The horror was back +upon her of having seemed to hang about for some reward. “It’s +awfully odd you should have been there just the one time—!” +</p> + +<p> +“The one time you’ve passed my place?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; you can fancy I haven’t many minutes to waste. There was a +place to-night I had to stop at.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see, I see—” he knew already so much about her work. +“It must be an awful grind—for a lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is, but I don’t think I groan over it any more than my +companions—and you’ve seen <i>they’re</i> not ladies!” +She mildly jested, but with an intention. “One gets used to things, and +there are employments I should have hated much more.” She had the finest +conception of the beauty of not at least boring him. To whine, to count up her +wrongs, was what a barmaid or a shop-girl would do, and it was quite enough to +sit there like one of these. +</p> + +<p> +“If you had had another employment,” he remarked after a moment, +“we might never have become acquainted.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s highly probable—and certainly not in the same +way.” Then, still with her heap of gold in her lap and something of the +pride of it in her manner of holding her head, she continued not to +move—she only smiled at him. The evening had thickened now; the scattered +lamps were red; the Park, all before them, was full of obscure and ambiguous +life; there were other couples on other benches whom it was impossible not to +see, yet at whom it was impossible to look. “But I’ve walked so +much out of my way with you only just to show you +that—that”—with this she paused; it was not after all so easy +to express—“that anything you may have thought is perfectly +true.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh I’ve thought a tremendous lot!” her companion laughed. +“Do you mind my smoking?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I? You always smoke <i>there</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“At your place? Oh yes, but here it’s different.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said as he lighted a cigarette, “that’s just +what it isn’t. It’s quite the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, that’s because ‘there’ it’s so +wonderful!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’re conscious of how wonderful it is?” she returned. +</p> + +<p> +He jerked his handsome head in literal protest at a doubt. “Why +that’s exactly what I mean by my gratitude for all your trouble. It has +been just as if you took a particular interest.” She only looked at him +by way of answer in such sudden headlong embarrassment, as she was quite aware, +that while she remained silent he showed himself checked by her expression. +“You <i>have</i>—haven’t you?—taken a particular +interest?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh a particular interest!” she quavered out, feeling the whole +thing—her headlong embarrassment—get terribly the better of her, +and wishing, with a sudden scare, all the more to keep her emotion down. She +maintained her fixed smile a moment and turned her eyes over the peopled +darkness, unconfused now, because there was something much more confusing. +This, with a fatal great rush, was simply the fact that they were thus +together. They were near, near, and all she had imagined of that had only +become more true, more dreadful and overwhelming. She stared straight away in +silence till she felt she looked an idiot; then, to say something, to say +nothing, she attempted a sound which ended in a flood of tears. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<p> +Her tears helped her really to dissimulate, for she had instantly, in so public +a situation, to recover herself. They had come and gone in half a minute, and +she immediately explained them. “It‘s only because I’m tired. +It’s that—it’s that!” Then she added a trifle +incoherently: “I shall never see you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah but why not?” The mere tone in which her companion asked this +satisfied her once for all as to the amount of imagination for which she could +count on him. It was naturally not large: it had exhausted itself in having +arrived at what he had already touched upon—the sense of an intention in +her poor zeal at Cocker’s. But any deficiency of this kind was no fault +in him: <i>he</i> wasn’t obliged to have an inferior cleverness—to +have second-rate resources and virtues. It had been as if he almost really +believed she had simply cried for fatigue, and he accordingly put in some kind +confused plea—“You ought really to take something: won’t you +have something or other <i>somewhere</i>?” to which she had made no +response but a headshake of a sharpness that settled it. “Why +shan’t we all the more keep meeting?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean meeting this way—only this way. At my place +there—<i>that</i> I’ve nothing to do with, and I hope of course +you’ll turn up, with your correspondence, when it suits you. Whether I +stay or not, I mean; for I shall probably not stay.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re going somewhere else?” he put it with positive +anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ever so far away—to the other end of London. There are all +sorts of reasons I can’t tell you; and it’s practically settled. +It’s better for me, much; and I’ve only kept on at Cocker’s +for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“For me?” +</p> + +<p> +Making out in the dusk that he fairly blushed, she now measured how far he had +been from knowing too much. Too much, she called it at present; and that was +easy, since it proved so abundantly enough for her that he should simply be +where he was. “As we shall never talk this way but to-night—never, +never again!—here it all is. I’ll say it; I don’t care what +you think; it doesn’t matter; I only want to help you. Besides, +you’re kind—you’re kind. I’ve been thinking then of +leaving for ever so long. But you’ve come so often—at +times—and you’ve had so much to do, and it has been so pleasant and +interesting, that I’ve remained, I’ve kept putting off any change. +More than once, when I had nearly decided, you’ve turned up again and +I’ve thought ‘Oh no!’ That’s the simple fact!” +She had by this time got her confusion down so completely that she could laugh. +“This is what I meant when I said to you just now that I +‘knew.’ I’ve known perfectly that you knew I took trouble for +you; and that knowledge has been for me, and I seemed to see it was for you, as +if there were something—I don’t know what to call it!—between +us. I mean something unusual and good and awfully nice—something not a +bit horrid or vulgar.” +</p> + +<p> +She had by this time, she could see, produced a great effect on him; but she +would have spoken the truth to herself had she at the same moment declared that +she didn’t in the least care: all the more that the effect must be one of +extreme perplexity. What, in it all, was visibly clear for him, none the less, +was that he was tremendously glad he had met her. She held him, and he was +astonished at the force of it; he was intent, immensely considerate. His elbow +was on the back of the seat, and his head, with the pot-hat pushed quite back, +in a boyish way, so that she really saw almost for the first time his forehead +and hair, rested on the hand into which he had crumpled his gloves. +“Yes,” he assented, “it’s not a bit horrid or +vulgar.” +</p> + +<p> +She just hung fire a moment, then she brought out the whole truth. +“I’d do anything for you. I’d do anything for you.” +Never in her life had she known anything so high and fine as this, just letting +him have it and bravely and magnificently leaving it. Didn’t the place, +the associations and circumstances, perfectly make it sound what it +wasn’t? and wasn’t that exactly the beauty? +</p> + +<p> +So she bravely and magnificently left it, and little by little she felt him +take it up, take it down, as if they had been on a satin sofa in a boudoir. She +had never seen a boudoir, but there had been lots of boudoirs in the telegrams. +What she had said at all events sank into him, so that after a minute he simply +made a movement that had the result of placing his hand on her +own—presently indeed that of her feeling herself firmly enough grasped. +There was no pressure she need return, there was none she need decline; she +just sat admirably still, satisfied for the time with the surprise and +bewilderment of the impression she made on him. His agitation was even greater +on the whole than she had at first allowed for. “I say, you know, you +mustn’t think of leaving!” he at last broke out. +</p> + +<p> +“Of leaving Cocker’s, you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you must stay on there, whatever happens, and help a fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +She was silent a little, partly because it was so strange and exquisite to feel +him watch her as if it really mattered to him and he were almost in suspense. +“Then you <i>have</i> quite recognised what I’ve tried to +do?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, wasn’t that exactly what I dashed over from my door just now +to thank you for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; so you said.” +</p> + +<p> +“And don’t you believe it?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked down a moment at his hand, which continued to cover her own; +whereupon he presently drew it back, rather restlessly folding his arms. +Without answering his question she went on: “Have you ever spoken of +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Spoken of you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of my being there—of my knowing, and that sort of thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh never to a human creature!” he eagerly declared. +</p> + +<p> +She had a small drop at this, which was expressed in another pause, and she +then returned to what he had just asked her. “Oh yes, I quite believe you +like it—my always being there and our taking things up so familiarly and +successfully: if not exactly where we left them,” she laughed, +“almost always at least at an interesting point!” He was about to +say something in reply to this, but her friendly gaiety was quicker. “You +want a great many things in life, a great many comforts and helps and +luxuries—you want everything as pleasant as possible. Therefore, so far +as it’s in the power of any particular person to contribute to all +that—” She had turned her face to him smiling, just thinking. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh see here!” But he was highly amused. “Well, what +then?” he enquired as if to humour her. +</p> + +<p> +“Why the particular person must never fail. We must manage it for you +somehow.” +</p> + +<p> +He threw back his head, laughing out; he was really exhilarated. “Oh yes, +somehow!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I think we each do—don’t we?—in one little way +and another and according to our limited lights. I’m pleased at any rate, +for myself, that you are; for I assure you I’ve done my best.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do better than any one!” He had struck a match for another +cigarette, and the flame lighted an instant his responsive finished face, +magnifying into a pleasant grimace the kindness with which he paid her this +tribute. “You’re awfully clever, you know; cleverer, cleverer, +cleverer—!” He had appeared on the point of making some tremendous +statement; then suddenly, puffing his cigarette and shifting almost with +violence on his seat, he let it altogether fall. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<p> +In spite of this drop, if not just by reason of it, she felt as if Lady +Bradeen, all but named out, had popped straight up; and she practically +betrayed her consciousness by waiting a little before she rejoined: +“Cleverer than who?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if I wasn’t afraid you’d think I swagger, I should +say—than anybody! If you leave your place there, where shall you +go?” he more gravely asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh too far for you ever to find me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d find you anywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +The tone of this was so still more serious that she had but her one +acknowledgement. “I’d do anything for you—I’d do +anything for you,” she repeated. She had already, she felt, said it all; +so what did anything more, anything less, matter? That was the very reason +indeed why she could, with a lighter note, ease him generously of any +awkwardness produced by solemnity, either his own or hers. “Of course it +must be nice for you to be able to think there are people all about who feel in +such a way.” +</p> + +<p> +In immediate appreciation of this, however, he only smoked without looking at +her. “But you don’t want to give up your present work?” he at +last threw out. “I mean you <i>will</i> stay in the post-office?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes; I think I’ve a genius for that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather! No one can touch you.” With this he turned more to her +again. “But you can get, with a move, greater advantages?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can get in the suburbs cheaper lodgings. I live with my mother. We +need some space. There’s a particular place that has other +inducements.” +</p> + +<p> +He just hesitated. “Where is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh quite out of <i>your</i> way. You’d never have time.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I tell you I’d go anywhere. Don’t you believe it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, for once or twice. But you’d soon see it wouldn’t do +for you.” +</p> + +<p> +He smoked and considered; seemed to stretch himself a little and, with his legs +out, surrender himself comfortably. “Well, well, well—I believe +everything you say. I take it from you—anything you like—in the +most extraordinary way.” It struck her certainly—and almost without +bitterness—that the way in which she was already, as if she had been an +old friend, arranging for him and preparing the only magnificence she could +muster, was quite the most extraordinary. “Don’t, +<i>don’t</i> go!” he presently went on. “I shall miss you too +horribly!” +</p> + +<p> +“So that you just put it to me as a definite request?”—oh how +she tried to divest this of all sound of the hardness of bargaining! That ought +to have been easy enough, for what was she arranging to get? Before he could +answer she had continued: “To be perfectly fair I should tell you I +recognise at Cocker’s certain strong attractions. All you people come. I +like all the horrors.” +</p> + +<p> +“The horrors?” +</p> + +<p> +“Those you all—you know the set I mean, <i>your</i> set—show +me with as good a conscience as if I had no more feeling than a +letter-box.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked quite excited at the way she put it. “Oh they don’t +know!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t know I’m not stupid? No, how should they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, how should they?” said the Captain sympathetically. +“But isn’t ‘horrors’ rather strong?” +</p> + +<p> +“What you <i>do</i> is rather strong!” the girl promptly returned. +</p> + +<p> +“What <i>I</i> do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your extravagance, your selfishness, your immorality, your +crimes,” she pursued, without heeding his expression. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>say</i>!”—her companion showed the queerest stare. +</p> + +<p> +“I like them, as I tell you—I revel in them. But we needn’t +go into that,” she quietly went on; “for all I get out of it is the +harmless pleasure of knowing. I know, I know, I know!”—she breathed +it ever so gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; that’s what has been between us,” he answered much more +simply. +</p> + +<p> +She could enjoy his simplicity in silence, and for a moment she did so. +“If I do stay because you want it—and I’m rather capable of +that—there are two or three things I think you ought to remember. One is, +you know, that I’m there sometimes for days and weeks together without +your ever coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh I’ll come every day!” he honestly cried. +</p> + +<p> +She was on the point, at this, of imitating with her hand his movement of +shortly before; but she checked herself, and there was no want of effect in her +soothing substitute. “How can you? How can you?” He had, too +manifestly, only to look at it there, in the vulgarly animated gloom, to see +that he couldn’t; and at this point, by the mere action of his silence, +everything they had so definitely not named, the whole presence round which +they had been circling, became part of their reference, settled in solidly +between them. It was as if then for a minute they sat and saw it all in each +other’s eyes, saw so much that there was no need of a pretext for +sounding it at last. “Your danger, your danger—!” Her voice +indeed trembled with it, and she could only for the moment again leave it so. +</p> + +<p> +During this moment he leaned back on the bench, meeting her in silence and with +a face that grew more strange. It grew so strange that after a further instant +she got straight up. She stood there as if their talk were now over, and he +just sat and watched her. It was as if now—owing to the third person they +had brought in—they must be more careful; so that the most he could +finally say was: “That’s where it is!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s where it is!” the girl as guardedly replied. He sat +still, and she added: “I won’t give you up. Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye?”—he appealed, but without moving. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t quite see my way, but I won’t give you up,” +she repeated. “There. Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +It brought him with a jerk to his feet, tossing away his cigarette. His poor +face was flushed. “See here—see here!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I won’t; but I must leave you now,” she went on as if +not hearing him. +</p> + +<p> +“See here—see here!” He tried, from the bench, to take her +hand again. +</p> + +<p> +But that definitely settled it for her: this would, after all, be as bad as his +asking her to supper. “You mustn’t come with me—no, +no!” +</p> + +<p> +He sank back, quite blank, as if she had pushed him. “I mayn’t see +you home?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; let me go.” He looked almost as if she had struck him, but +she didn’t care; and the manner in which she spoke—it was literally +as if she were angry—had the force of a command. “Stay where you +are!” +</p> + +<p> +“See here—see here!” he nevertheless pleaded. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t give you up!” she cried once more—this time +quite with passion; on which she got away from him as fast as she could and +left him staring after her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge had lately been so occupied with their famous “plans” +that he had neglected for a while the question of her transfer; but down at +Bournemouth, which had found itself selected as the field of their recreation +by a process consisting, it seemed, exclusively of innumerable pages of the +neatest arithmetic in a very greasy but most orderly little pocket-book, the +distracting possible melted away—the fleeting absolute ruled the scene. +The plans, hour by hour, were simply superseded, and it was much of a rest to +the girl, as she sat on the pier and overlooked the sea and the company, to see +them evaporate in rosy fumes and to feel that from moment to moment there was +less left to cipher about. The week proves blissfully fine, and her mother, at +their lodgings—partly to her embarrassment and partly to her +relief—struck up with the landlady an alliance that left the younger +couple a great deal of freedom. This relative took her pleasure of a week at +Bournemouth in a stuffy back-kitchen and endless talks; to that degree even +that Mr. Mudge himself—habitually inclined indeed to a scrutiny of all +mysteries and to seeing, as he sometimes admitted, too much in +things—made remarks on it as he sat on the cliff with his betrothed, or +on the decks of steamers that conveyed them, close-packed items in terrific +totals of enjoyment, to the Isle of Wight and the Dorset coast. +</p> + +<p> +He had a lodging in another house, where he had speedily learned the importance +of keeping his eyes open, and he made no secret of his suspecting that sinister +mutual connivances might spring, under the roof of his companions, from +unnatural sociabilities. At the same time he fully recognised that as a source +of anxiety, not to say of expense, his future mother-in law would have weighted +them more by accompanying their steps than by giving her hostess, in the +interest of the tendency they considered that they never mentioned, equivalent +pledges as to the tea-caddy and the jam-pot. These were the +questions—these indeed the familiar commodities—that he had now to +put into the scales; and his betrothed had in consequence, during her holiday, +the odd and yet pleasant and almost languid sense of an anticlimax. She had +become conscious of an extraordinary collapse, a surrender to stillness and to +retrospect. She cared neither to walk nor to sail; it was enough for her to sit +on benches and wonder at the sea and taste the air and not be at Cocker’s +and not see the counter-clerk. She still seemed to wait for +something—something in the key of the immense discussions that had mapped +out their little week of idleness on the scale of a world-atlas. Something came +at last, but without perhaps appearing quite adequately to crown the monument. +</p> + +<p> +Preparation and precaution were, however, the natural flowers of Mr. +Mudge’s mind, and in proportion as these things declined in one quarter +they inevitably bloomed elsewhere. He could always, at the worst, have on +Tuesday the project of their taking the Swanage boat on Thursday, and on +Thursday that of their ordering minced kidneys on Saturday. He had moreover a +constant gift of inexorable enquiry as to where and what they should have gone +and have done if they hadn’t been exactly as they were. He had in short +his resources, and his mistress had never been so conscious of them; on the +other hand they never interfered so little with her own. She liked to be as she +was—if it could only have lasted. She could accept even without +bitterness a rigour of economy so great that the little fee they paid for +admission to the pier had to be balanced against other delights. The people at +Ladle’s and at Thrupp’s had <i>their</i> ways of amusing +themselves, whereas she had to sit and hear Mr. Mudge talk of what he might do +if he didn’t take a bath, or of the bath he might take if he only +hadn’t taken something else. He was always with her now, of course, +always beside her; she saw him more than “hourly,” more than ever +yet, more even than he had planned she should do at Chalk Farm. She preferred +to sit at the far end, away from the band and the crowd; as to which she had +frequent differences with her friend, who reminded her often that they could +have only in the thick of it the sense of the money they were getting back. +That had little effect on her, for she got back her money by seeing many +things, the things of the past year, fall together and connect themselves, +undergo the happy relegation that transforms melancholy and misery, passion and +effort, into experience and knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +She liked having done with them, as she assured herself she had practically +done, and the strange thing was that she neither missed the procession now nor +wished to keep her place for it. It had become there, in the sun and the breeze +and the sea-smell, a far-away story, a picture of another life. If Mr. Mudge +himself liked processions, liked them at Bournemouth and on the pier quite as +much as at Chalk Farm or anywhere, she learned after a little not to be worried +by his perpetual counting of the figures that made them up. There were dreadful +women in particular, usually fat and in men’s caps and write shoes, whom +he could never let alone—not that <i>she</i> cared; it was not the great +world, the world of Cocker’s and Ladle’s and Thrupp’s, but it +offered an endless field to his faculties of memory, philosophy, and frolic. +She had never accepted him so much, never arranged so successfully for making +him chatter while she carried on secret conversations. This separate commerce +was with herself; and if they both practised a great thrift she had quite +mastered that of merely spending words enough to keep him imperturbably and +continuously going. +</p> + +<p> +He was charmed with the panorama, not knowing—or at any rate not at all +showing that he knew—what far other images peopled her mind than the +women in the navy caps and the shop-boys in the blazers. His observations on +these types, his general interpretation of the show, brought home to her the +prospect of Chalk Farm. She wondered sometimes that he should have derived so +little illumination, during his period, from the society at Cocker’s. But +one evening while their holiday cloudlessly waned he gave her such a proof of +his quality as might have made her ashamed of her many suppressions. He brought +out something that, in all his overflow, he had been able to keep back till +other matters were disposed of. It was the announcement that he was at last +ready to marry—that he saw his way. A rise at Chalk Farm had been offered +him; he was to be taken into the business, bringing with him a capital the +estimation of which by other parties constituted the handsomest recognition yet +made of the head on his shoulders. Therefore their waiting was over—it +could be a question of a near date. They would settle this date before going +back, and he meanwhile had his eye on a sweet little home. He would take her to +see it on their first Sunday. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<p> +His having kept this great news for the last, having had such a card up his +sleeve and not floated it out in the current of his chatter and the luxury of +their leisure, was one of those incalculable strokes by which he could still +affect her; the kind of thing that reminded her of the latent force that had +ejected the drunken soldier—an example of the profundity of which his +promotion was the proof. She listened a while in silence, on this occasion, to +the wafted strains of the music; she took it in as she had not quite done +before that her future was now constituted. Mr. Mudge was distinctly her fate; +yet at this moment she turned her face quite away from him, showing him so long +a mere quarter of her cheek that she at last again heard his voice. He +couldn’t see a pair of tears that were partly the reason of her delay to +give him the assurance he required; but he expressed at a venture the hope that +she had had her fill of Cocker’s. +</p> + +<p> +She was finally able to turn back. “Oh quite. There’s nothing going +on. No one comes but the Americans at Thrupp’s, and <i>they</i> +don’t do much. They don’t seem to have a secret in the +world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the extraordinary reason you’ve been giving me for holding on +there has ceased to work?” +</p> + +<p> +She thought a moment. “Yes, that one. I’ve seen the thing +through—I’ve got them all in my pocket.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you’re ready to come?” +</p> + +<p> +For a little again she made no answer. “No, not yet, all the same. +I’ve still got a reason—a different one.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked her all over as if it might have been something she kept in her mouth +or her glove or under her jacket—something she was even sitting upon. +“Well, I’ll have it, please.” +</p> + +<p> +“I went out the other night and sat in the Park with a gentleman,” +she said at last. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing was ever seen like his confidence in her and she wondered a little now +why it didn’t irritate her. It only gave her ease and space, as she felt, +for telling him the whole truth that no one knew. It had arrived at present at +her really wanting to do that, and yet to do it not in the least for Mr. Mudge, +but altogether and only for herself. This truth filled out for her there the +whole experience about to relinquish, suffused and coloured it as a picture +that she should keep and that, describe it as she might, no one but herself +would ever really see. Moreover she had no desire whatever to make Mr. Mudge +jealous; there would be no amusement in it, for the amusement she had lately +known had spoiled her for lower pleasures. There were even no materials for it. +The odd thing was how she never doubted that, properly handled, his passion was +poisonable; what had happened was that he had cannily selected a partner with +no poison to distil. She read then and there that she should never interest +herself in anybody as to whom some other sentiment, some superior view, +wouldn’t be sure to interfere for him with jealousy. “And what did +you get out of that?” he asked with a concern that was not in the least +for his honour. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing but a good chance to promise him I wouldn’t forsake him. +He’s one of my customers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it’s for him not to forsake <i>you</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he won’t. It’s all right. But I must just keep on as +long as he may want me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Want you to sit with him in the Park?” +</p> + +<p> +“He may want me for that—but I shan’t. I rather liked it, but +once, under the circumstances, is enough. I can do better for him in another +manner.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what manner, pray?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, elsewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Elsewhere?—I <i>say</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +This was an ejaculation used also by Captain Everard, but oh with what a +different sound! “You needn’t ‘say’—there’s +nothing to be said. And yet you ought perhaps to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I ought. But <i>what</i>—up to now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why exactly what I told him. That I’d do anything for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean by ‘anything’?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge’s immediate comment on this statement was to draw from his +pocket a crumpled paper containing the remains of half a pound of +“sundries.” These sundries had figured conspicuously in his +prospective sketch of their tour, but it was only at the end of three days that +they had defined themselves unmistakeably as chocolate-creams. “Have +another?—<i>that</i> one,” he said. She had another, but not the +one he indicated, and then he continued: “What took place +afterwards?” +</p> + +<p> +“Afterwards?” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you do when you had told him you’d do everything?” +</p> + +<p> +“I simply came away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out of the Park?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, leaving him there. I didn’t let him follow me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what did you let him do?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t let him do anything.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge considered an instant. “Then what did you go there for?” +His tone was even slightly critical. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t quite know at the time. It was simply to be with him, I +suppose—just once. He’s in danger, and I wanted him to know I know +it. It makes meeting him—at Cocker’s, since it’s that I want +to stay on for—more interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +“It makes it mighty interesting for <i>me</i>!” Mr. Mudge freely +declared. “Yet he didn’t follow you?” he asked. +“<i>I</i> would!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course. That was the way you began, you know. You’re +awfully inferior to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my dear, you’re not inferior to anybody. You’ve got a +cheek! What’s he in danger of?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of being found out. He’s in love with a lady—and it +isn’t right—and <i>I’ve</i> found him out.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll be a look-out for <i>me</i>!” Mr. Mudge joked. +“You mean she has a husband?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind what she has! They’re in awful danger, but his is the +worst, because he’s in danger from her too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Like me from you—the woman <i>I</i> love? If he’s in the +same funk as me—” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s in a worse one. He’s not only afraid of the +lady—he’s afraid of other things.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge selected another chocolate-cream. “Well, I’m only afraid +of one! But how in the world can you help this party?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know—perhaps not at all. But so long as +there’s a chance—” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t come away?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you’ve got to wait for me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge enjoyed what was in his mouth. “And what will he give +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you do help him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. Nothing in all the wide world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what will he give <i>me</i>?” Mr. Mudge enquired. “I +mean for waiting.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl thought a moment; then she got up to walk. “He never heard of +you,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t mentioned me?” +</p> + +<p> +“We never mention anything. What I’ve told you is just what +I’ve found out.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge, who had remained on the bench, looked up at her; she often preferred +to be quiet when he proposed to walk, but now that he seemed to wish to sit she +had a desire to move. “But you haven’t told me what <i>he</i> has +found out.” +</p> + +<p> +She considered her lover. “He’d never find <i>you</i>, my +dear!” +</p> + +<p> +Her lover, still on his seat, appealed to her in something of the attitude in +which she had last left Captain Everard, but the impression was not the same. +“Then where do I come in?” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t come in at all. That’s just the beauty of +it!”—and with this she turned to mingle with the multitude +collected round the band. Mr. Mudge presently overtook her and drew her arm +into his own with a quiet force that expressed the serenity of possession; in +consonance with which it was only when they parted for the night at her door +that he referred again to what she had told him. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen him since?” +</p> + +<p> +“Since the night in the Park? No, not once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what a cad!” said Mr. Mudge. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<p> +It was not till the end of October that she saw Captain Everard again, and on +that occasion—the only one of all the series on which hindrance had been +so utter—no communication with him proved possible. She had made out even +from the cage that it was a charming golden day: a patch of hazy autumn +sunlight lay across the sanded floor and also, higher up, quickened into +brightness a row of ruddy bottled syrups. Work was slack and the place in +general empty; the town, as they said in the cage, had not waked up, and the +feeling of the day likened itself to something than in happier conditions she +would have thought of romantically as Saint Martin’s summer. The +counter-clerk had gone to his dinner; she herself was busy with arrears of +postal jobs, in the midst of which she became aware that Captain Everard had +apparently been in the shop a minute and that Mr. Buckton had already seized +him. +</p> + +<p> +He had as usual half a dozen telegrams; and when he saw that she saw him and +their eyes met he gave, on bowing to her, an exaggerated laugh in which she +read a new consciousness. It was a confession of awkwardness; it seemed to tell +her that of course he knew he ought better to have kept his head, ought to have +been clever enough to wait, on some pretext, till he should have found her +free. Mr. Buckton was a long time with him, and her attention was soon demanded +by other visitors; so that nothing passed between them but the fulness of their +silence. The look she took from him was his greeting, and the other one a +simple sign of the eyes sent her before going out. The only token they +exchanged therefore was his tacit assent to her wish that since they +couldn’t attempt a certain frankness they should attempt nothing at all. +This was her intense preference; she could be as still and cold as any one when +that was the sole solution. +</p> + +<p> +Yet more than any contact hitherto achieved these counted instants struck her +as marking a step: they were built so—just in the mere flash—on the +recognition of his now definitely knowing what it was she would do for him. The +“anything, anything” she had uttered in the Park went to and fro +between them and under the poked-out china that interposed. It had all at last +even put on the air of their not needing now clumsily to manoeuvre to converse: +their former little postal make-believes, the intense implications of questions +and answers and change, had become in the light of the personal fact, of their +having had their moment, a possibility comparatively poor. It was as if they +had met for all time—it exerted on their being in presence again an +influence so prodigious. When she watched herself, in the memory of that night, +walk away from him as if she were making an end, she found something too +pitiful in the primness of such a gait. Hadn’t she precisely established +on the part of each a consciousness that could end only with death? +</p> + +<p> +It must be admitted that in spite of this brave margin an irritation, after he +had gone, remained with her; a sense that presently became one with a still +sharper hatred of Mr. Buckton, who, on her friend’s withdrawal, had +retired with the telegrams to the sounder and left her the other work. She knew +indeed she should have a chance to see them, when she would, on file; and she +was divided, as the day went on, between the two impressions of all that was +lost and all that was re-asserted. What beset her above all, and as she had +almost never known it before, was the desire to bound straight out, to overtake +the autumn afternoon before it passed away for ever and hurry off to the Park +and perhaps be with him there again on a bench. It became for an hour a +fantastic vision with her that he might just have gone to sit and wait for her. +She could almost hear him, through the tick of the sounder, scatter with his +stick, in his impatience, the fallen leaves of October. Why should such a +vision seize her at this particular moment with such a shake? There was a +time—from four to five—when she could have cried with happiness and +rage. +</p> + +<p> +Business quickened, it seemed, toward five, as if the town did wake up; she had +therefore more to do, and she went through it with little sharp stampings and +jerkings: she made the crisp postal-orders fairly snap while she breathed to +herself “It’s the last day—the last day!” The last day +of what? She couldn’t have told. All she knew now was that if she +<i>were</i> out of the cage she wouldn’t in the least have minded, this +time, its not yet being dark. She would have gone straight toward Park Chambers +and have hung about there till no matter when. She would have waited, stayed, +rung, asked, have gone in, sat on the stairs. What the day was the last of was +probably, to her strained inner sense, the group of golden ones, of any +occasion for seeing the hazy sunshine slant at that angle into the smelly shop, +of any range of chances for his wishing still to repeat to her the two words +she had in the Park scarcely let him bring out. “See here—see +here!”—the sound of these two words had been with her perpetually; +but it was in her ears to-day without mercy, with a loudness that grew and +grew. What was it they then expressed? what was it he had wanted her to see? +She seemed, whatever it was, perfectly to see it now—to see that if she +should just chuck the whole thing, should have a great and beautiful courage, +he would somehow make everything up to her. When the clock struck five she was +on the very point of saying to Mr. Buckton that she was deadly ill and rapidly +getting worse. This announcement was on her lips, and she had quite composed +the pale hard face she would offer him: “I can’t stop—I must +go home. If I feel better, later on, I’ll come back. I’m very +sorry, but I <i>must</i> go.” At that instant Captain Everard once more +stood there, producing in her agitated spirit, by his real presence, the +strangest, quickest revolution. He stopped her off without knowing it, and by +the time he had been a minute in the shop she felt herself saved. +</p> + +<p> +That was from the first minute how she thought of it. There were again other +persons with whom she was occupied, and again the situation could only be +expressed by their silence. It was expressed, of a truth, in a larger phrase +than ever yet, for her eyes now spoke to him with a kind of supplication. +“Be quiet, be quiet!” they pleaded; and they saw his own reply: +“I’ll do whatever you say; I won’t even look at +you—see, see!” They kept conveying thus, with the friendliest +liberality, that they wouldn’t look, quite positively wouldn’t. +What she was to see was that he hovered at the other end of the counter, Mr. +Buckton’s end, and surrendered himself again to that frustration. It +quickly proved so great indeed that what she was to see further was how he +turned away before he was attended to, and hung off, waiting, smoking, looking +about the shop; how he went over to Mr. Cocker’s own counter and appeared +to price things, gave in fact presently two or three orders and put down money, +stood there a long time with his back to her, considerately abstaining from any +glance round to see if she were free. It at last came to pass in this way that +he had remained in the shop longer than she had ever yet known to do, and that, +nevertheless, when he did turn about she could see him time himself—she +was freshly taken up—and cross straight to her postal subordinate, whom +some one else had released. He had in his hand all this while neither letters +nor telegrams, and now that he was close to her—for she was close to the +counter-clerk—it brought her heart into her mouth merely to see him look +at her neighbour and open his lips. She was too nervous to bear it. He asked +for a Post-Office Guide, and the young man whipped out a new one; whereupon he +said he wished not to purchase, but only to consult one a moment; with which, +the copy kept on loan being produced, he once more wandered off. +</p> + +<p> +What was he doing to her? What did he want of her? Well, it was just the +aggravation of his “See here!” She felt at this moment strangely +and portentously afraid of him—had in her ears the hum of a sense that, +should it come to that kind of tension, she must fly on the spot to Chalk Farm. +Mixed with her dread and with her reflexion was the idea that, if he wanted her +so much as he seemed to show, it might be after all simply to do for him the +“anything” she had promised, the “everything” she had +thought it so fine to bring out to Mr. Mudge. He might want her to help him, +might have some particular appeal; though indeed his manner didn’t denote +that—denoted on the contrary an embarrassment, an indecision, something +of a desire not so much to be helped as to be treated rather more nicely than +she had treated him the other time. Yes, he considered quite probably that he +had help rather to offer than to ask for. Still, none the less, when he again +saw her free he continued to keep away from her; when he came back with his +<i>Guide</i> it was Mr. Buckton he caught—it was from Mr. Buckton he +obtained half-a-crown’s-worth of stamps. +</p> + +<p> +After asking for the stamps he asked, quite as a second thought, for a +postal-order for ten shillings. What did he want with so many stamps when he +wrote so few letters? How could he enclose a postal-order in a telegram? She +expected him, the next thing, to go into the corner and make up one of his +telegrams—half a dozen of them—on purpose to prolong his presence. +She had so completely stopped looking at him that she could only guess his +movements—guess even where his eyes rested. Finally she saw him make a +dash that might have been toward the nook where the forms were hung; and at +this she suddenly felt that she couldn’t keep it up. The counter-clerk +had just taken a telegram from a slavey, and, to give herself something to +cover her, she snatched it out of his hand. The gesture was so violent that he +gave her in return an odd look, and she also perceived that Mr. Buckton noticed +it. The latter personage, with a quick stare at her, appeared for an instant to +wonder whether his snatching it in <i>his</i> turn mightn’t be the thing +she would least like, and she anticipated this practical criticism by the +frankest glare she had ever given him. It sufficed: this time it paralysed him; +and she sought with her trophy the refuge of the sounder. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<p> +It was repeated the next day; it went on for three days; and at the end of that +time she knew what to think. When, at the beginning, she had emerged from her +temporary shelter Captain Everard had quitted the shop; and he had not come +again that evening, as it had struck her he possibly might—might all the +more easily that there were numberless persons who came, morning and afternoon, +numberless times, so that he wouldn’t necessarily have attracted +attention. The second day it was different and yet on the whole worse. His +access to her had become possible—she felt herself even reaping the fruit +of her yesterday’s glare at Mr. Buckton; but transacting his business +with him didn’t simplify—it could, in spite of the rigour of +circumstance, feed so her new conviction. The rigour was tremendous, and his +telegrams—not now mere pretexts for getting at her—were apparently +genuine; yet the conviction had taken but a night to develop. It could be +simply enough expressed; she had had the glimmer of it the day before in her +idea that he needed no more help than she had already given; that it was help +he himself was prepared to render. He had come up to town but for three or four +days; he had been absolutely obliged to be absent after the other time; yet he +would, now that he was face to face with her, stay on as much longer as she +liked. Little by little it was thus clarified, though from the first flash of +his re-appearance she had read into it the real essence. +</p> + +<p> +That was what the night before, at eight o’clock, her hour to go, had +made her hang back and dawdle. She did last things or pretended to do them; to +be in the cage had suddenly become her safety, and she was literally afraid of +the alternate self who might be waiting outside. <i>He</i> might be waiting; it +was he who was her alternate self, and of him she was afraid. The most +extraordinary change had taken place in her from the moment of her catching the +impression he seemed to have returned on purpose to give her. Just before she +had done so, on that bewitched afternoon, she had seen herself approach without +a scruple the porter at Park Chambers; then as the effect of the rush of a +consciousness quite altered she had on at last quitting Cocker’s, gone +straight home for the first time since her return from Bournemouth. She had +passed his door every night for weeks, but nothing would have induced her to +pass it now. This change was the tribute of her fear—the result of a +change in himself as to which she needed no more explanation than his mere face +vividly gave her; strange though it was to find an element of deterrence in the +object that she regarded as the most beautiful in the world. He had taken it +from her in the Park that night that she wanted him not to propose to her to +sup; but he had put away the lesson by this time—he practically proposed +supper every time he looked at her. This was what, for that matter, mainly +filled the three days. He came in twice on each of these, and it was as if he +came in to give her a chance to relent. That was after all, she said to herself +in the intervals, the most that he did. There were ways, she fully recognised, +in which he spared her, and other particular ways as to which she meant that +her silence should be full to him of exquisite pleading. The most particular of +all was his not being outside, at the corner, when she quitted the place for +the night. This he might so easily have been—so easily if he hadn’t +been so nice. She continued to recognise in his forbearance the fruit of her +dumb supplication, and the only compensation he found for it was the harmless +freedom of being able to appear to say: “Yes, I’m in town only for +three or four days, but, you know, I <i>would</i> stay on.” He struck her +as calling attention each day, each hour, to the rapid ebb of time; he +exaggerated to the point of putting it that there were only two days more, that +there was at last, dreadfully, only one. +</p> + +<p> +There were other things still that he struck her as doing with a special +intention; as to the most marked of which—unless indeed it were the most +obscure—she might well have marvelled that it didn’t seem to her +more horrid. It was either the frenzy of her imagination or the disorder of his +baffled passion that gave her once or twice the vision of his putting down +redundant money—sovereigns not concerned with the little payments he was +perpetually making—so that she might give him some sign of helping him to +slip them over to her. What was most extraordinary in this impression was the +amount of excuse that, with some incoherence, she found for him. He wanted to +pay her because there was nothing to pay her for. He wanted to offer her things +he knew she wouldn’t take. He wanted to show her how much he respected +her by giving her the supreme chance to show <i>him</i> she was respectable. +Over the dryest transactions, at any rate, their eyes had out these questions. +On the third day he put in a telegram that had evidently something of the same +point as the stray sovereigns—a message that was in the first place +concocted and that on a second thought he took back from her before she had +stamped it. He had given her time to read it and had only then bethought +himself that he had better not send it. If it was not to Lady Bradeen at +Twindle—where she knew her ladyship then to be—this was because an +address to Doctor Buzzard at Brickwood was just as good, with the added merit +of its not giving away quite so much a person whom he had still, after all, in +a manner to consider. It was of course most complicated, only half lighted; but +there was, discernibly enough, a scheme of communication in which Lady Bradeen +at Twindle and Dr. Buzzard at Brickwood were, within limits, one and the same +person. The words he had shown her and then taken back consisted, at all +events, of the brief but vivid phrase “Absolutely impossible.” The +point was not that she should transmit it; the point was just that she should +see it. What was absolutely impossible was that before he had setted something +at Cocker’s he should go either to Twindle or to Brickwood. +</p> + +<p> +The logic of this, in turn, for herself, was that she could lend herself to no +settlement so long as she so intensely knew. What she knew was that he was, +almost under peril of life, clenched in a situation: therefore how could she +also know where a poor girl in the P.O. might really stand? It was more and +more between them that if he might convey to her he was free, with all the +impossible locked away into a closed chapter, her own case might become +different for her, she might understand and meet him and listen. But he could +convey nothing of the sort, and he only fidgeted and floundered in his want of +power. The chapter wasn’t in the least closed, not for the other party; +and the other party had a pull, somehow and somewhere: this his whole attitude +and expression confessed, at the same time that they entreated her not to +remember and not to mind. So long as she did remember and did mind he could +only circle about and go and come, doing futile things of which he was ashamed. +He was ashamed of his two words to Dr. Buzzard; he went out of the shop as soon +as he had crumpled up the paper again and thrust it into his pocket. It had +been an abject little exposure of dreadful impossible passion. He appeared in +fact to be too ashamed to come back. He had once more left town, and a first +week elapsed, and a second. He had had naturally to return to the real mistress +of his fate; she had insisted—she knew how to insist, and he +couldn’t put in another hour. There was always a day when she called +time. It was known to our young friend moreover that he had now been +dispatching telegrams from other offices. She knew at last so much that she had +quite lost her earlier sense of merely guessing. There were no different shades +of distinctness—it all bounced out. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<p> +Eighteen days elapsed, and she had begun to think it probable she should never +see him again. He too then understood now: he had made out that she had secrets +and reasons and impediments, that even a poor girl at the P.O. might have her +complications. With the charm she had cast on him lightened by distance he had +suffered a final delicacy to speak to him, had made up his mind that it would +be only decent to let her alone. Never so much as during these latter days had +she felt the precariousness of their relation—the happy beautiful +untroubled original one, if it could only have been restored—in which the +public servant and the casual public only were concerned. It hung at the best +by the merest silken thread, which was at the mercy of any accident and might +snap at any minute. She arrived by the end of the fortnight at the highest +sense of actual fitness, never doubting that her decision was now complete. She +would just give him a few days more to come back to her on a proper impersonal +basis—for even to an embarrassing representative of the casual public a +public servant with a conscience did owe something—and then would signify +to Mr. Mudge that she was ready for the little home. It had been visited, in +the further talk she had had with him at Bournemouth, from garret to cellar, +and they had especially lingered, with their respectively darkened brows, +before the niche into which it was to be broached to her mother that she must +find means to fit. +</p> + +<p> +He had put it to her more definitely than before that his calculations had +allowed for that dingy presence, and he had thereby marked the greatest +impression he had ever made on her. It was a stroke superior even again to his +handling of the drunken soldier. What she considered that in the face of it she +hung on at Cocker’s for was something she could only have described as +the common fairness of a last word. Her actual last word had been, till it +should be superseded, that she wouldn’t forsake her other friend, and it +stuck to her through thick and thin that she was still at her post and on her +honour. This other friend had shown so much beauty of conduct already that he +would surely after all just re-appear long enough to relieve her, to give her +something she could take away. She saw it, caught it, at times, his parting +present; and there were moments when she felt herself sitting like a beggar +with a hand held out to almsgiver who only fumbled. She hadn’t taken the +sovereigns, but she <i>would</i> take the penny. She heard, in imagination, on +the counter, the ring of the copper. “Don’t put yourself out any +longer,” he would say, “for so bad a case. You’ve done all +there is to be done. I thank and acquit and release you. Our lives take us. I +don’t know much—though I’ve really been +interested—about yours, but I suppose you’ve got one. Mine at any +rate will take <i>me</i>—and where it will. Heigh-ho! Good-bye.” +And then once more, for the sweetest faintest flower of all: “Only, I +say—see here!” She had framed the whole picture with a squareness +that included also the image of how again she would decline to “see +there,” decline, as she might say, to see anywhere, see anything. Yet it +befell that just in the fury of this escape she saw more than ever. +</p> + +<p> +He came back one night with a rush, near the moment of their closing, and +showed her a face so different and new, so upset and anxious, that almost +anything seemed to look out of it but clear recognition. He poked in a telegram +very much as if the simple sense of pressure, the distress of extreme haste, +had blurred the remembrance of where in particular he was. But as she met his +eyes a light came; it broke indeed on the spot into a positive conscious glare. +That made up for everything, since it was an instant proclamation of the +celebrated “danger”; it seemed to pour things out in a flood. +“Oh yes, here it is—it’s upon me at last! Forget, for +God’s sake, my having worried or bored you, and just help me, just +<i>save</i> me, by getting this off without the loss of a second!” +Something grave had clearly occurred, a crisis declared itself. She recognised +immediately the person to whom the telegram was addressed—the Miss Dolman +of Parade Lodge to whom Lady Bradeen had wired, at Dover, on the last occasion, +and whom she had then, with her recollection of previous arrangements, fitted +into a particular setting. Miss Dolman had figured before and not figured +since, but she was now the subject of an imperative appeal. “Absolutely +necessary to see you. Take last train Victoria if you can catch it. If not, +earliest morning, and answer me direct either way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Reply paid?” said the girl. Mr. Buckton had just departed and the +counter-clerk was at the sounder. There was no other representative of the +public, and she had never yet, as it seemed to her, not even in the street or +in the Park, been so alone with him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, reply paid, and as sharp as possible, please.” +</p> + +<p> +She affixed the stamps in a flash. “She’ll catch the train!” +she then declared to him breathlessly, as if she could absolutely guarantee it. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know—I hope so. It’s awfully important. So +kind of you. Awfully sharp, please.” It was wonderfully innocent now, his +oblivion of all but his danger. Anything else that had ever passed between them +was utterly out of it. Well, she had wanted him to be impersonal! +</p> + +<p> +There was less of the same need therefore, happily, for herself; yet she only +took time, before she flew to the sounder, to gasp at him: “You‘re +in trouble?” +</p> + +<p> +“Horrid, horrid—there’s a row!” But they parted, on it, +in the next breath; and as she dashed at the sounder, almost pushing, in her +violence, the counter-clerk off the stool, she caught the bang with which, at +Cocker’s door, in his further precipitation, he closed the apron of the +cab into which he had leaped. As he rebounded to some other precaution +suggested by his alarm, his appeal to Miss Dolman flashed straight away. +</p> + +<p> +But she had not, on the morrow, been in the place five minutes before he was +with her again, still more discomposed and quite, now, as she said to herself, +like a frightened child coming to its mother. Her companions were there, and +she felt it to be remarkable how, in the presence of his agitation, his mere +scared exposed nature, she suddenly ceased to mind. It came to her as it had +never come to her before that with absolute directness and assurance they might +carry almost anything off. He had nothing to send—she was sure he had +been wiring all over—and yet his business was evidently huge. There was +nothing but that in his eyes—not a glimmer of reference or memory. He was +almost haggard with anxiety and had clearly not slept a wink. Her pity for him +would have given her any courage, and she seemed to know at last why she had +been such a fool. “She didn’t come?” she panted. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, she came; but there has been some mistake. We want a +telegram.” +</p> + +<p> +“A telegram?” +</p> + +<p> +“One that was sent from here ever so long ago. There was something in it +that has to be recovered. Something very, very important, please—we want +it immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +He really spoke to her as if she had been some strange young woman at +Knightsbridge or Paddington; but it had no other effect on her than to give her +the measure of his tremendous flurry. Then it was that, above all, she felt how +much she had missed in the gaps and blanks and absent answers—how much +she had had to dispense with: it was now black darkness save for this little +wild red flare. So much as that she saw, so much her mind dealt with. One of +the lovers was quaking somewhere out of town, and the other was quaking just +where he stood. This was vivid enough, and after an instant she knew it was all +she wanted. She wanted no detail, no fact—she wanted no nearer vision of +discovery or shame. “When was your telegram? Do you mean you sent it from +here?” She tried to do the young woman at Knightsbridge. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, from here—several weeks ago. Five, six, +seven”—he was confused and impatient—“don’t you +remember?” +</p> + +<p> +“Remember?” she could scarcely keep out of her face, at the word, +the strangest of smiles. +</p> + +<p> +But the way he didn’t catch what it meant was perhaps even stranger +still. “I mean, don’t you keep the old ones?” +</p> + +<p> +“For a certain time.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how long?” +</p> + +<p> +She thought; she <i>must</i> do the young woman, and she knew exactly what the +young woman would say and, still more, wouldn’t. “Can you give me +the date?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh God, no! It was some time or other in August—toward the end. It +was to the same address as the one I gave you last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said the girl, knowing at this the deepest thrill she had +ever felt. It came to her there, with her eyes on his face, that she held the +whole thing in her hand, held it as she held her pencil, which might have +broken at that instant in her tightened grip. This made her feel like the very +fountain of fate, but the emotion was such a flood that she had to press it +back with all her force. That was positively the reason, again, of her +flute-like Paddington tone. “You can’t give us anything a little +nearer?” Her “little” and her “us” came straight +from Paddington. These things were no false note for him—his difficulty +absorbed them all. The eyes with which he pressed her, and in the depths of +which she read terror and rage and literal tears, were just the same he would +have shown any other prim person. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know the date. I only know the thing went from here, and +just about the time I speak of. It wasn’t delivered, you see. We’ve +got to recover it.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<p> +She was as struck with the beauty of his plural pronoun as she had judged he +might be with that of her own; but she knew now so well what she was about that +she could almost play with him and with her new-born joy. “You say +‘about the time you speak of.’ But I don’t think you speak of +an exact time—<i>do</i> you?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked splendidly helpless. “That’s just what I want to find +out. Don’t you keep the old ones?—can’t you look it +up?” +</p> + +<p> +Our young lady—still at Paddington—turned the question over. +“It wasn’t delivered?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it <i>was</i>; yet, at the same time, don’t you know? it +wasn’t.” He just hung back, but he brought it out. “I mean it +was intercepted, don’t you know? and there was something in it.” He +paused again and, as if to further his quest and woo and supplicate success and +recovery, even smiled with an effort at the agreeable that was almost ghastly +and that turned the knife in her tenderness. What must be the pain of it all, +of the open gulf and the throbbing fever, when this was the mere hot breath? +“We want to get what was in it—to know what it was.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see—I see.” She managed just the accent they had at +Paddington when they stared like dead fish. “And you have no clue?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all—I’ve the clue I’ve just given you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh the last of August?” If she kept it up long enough she would +make him really angry. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and the address, as I’ve said.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh the same as last night?” +</p> + +<p> +He visibly quivered, as with a gleam of hope; but it only poured oil on her +quietude, and she was still deliberate. She ranged some papers. +“Won’t you look?” he went on. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember your coming,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +He blinked with a new uneasiness; it might have begun to come to him, through +her difference, that he was somehow different himself. “You were much +quicker then, you know!” +</p> + +<p> +“So were you—you must do me that justice,” she answered with +a smile. “But let me see. Wasn’t it Dover?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Miss Dolman—” +</p> + +<p> +“Parade Lodge, Parade Terrace?” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly—thank you so awfully much!” He began to hope again. +“Then you <i>have</i> it—the other one?” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated afresh; she quite dangled him. “It was brought by a +lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and she put in by mistake something wrong. That’s what +we’ve got to get hold of!” Heavens, what was he going to +say?—flooding poor Paddington with wild betrayals! She couldn’t too +much, for her joy, dangle him, yet she couldn’t either, for his dignity, +warn or control or check him. What she found herself doing was just to treat +herself to the middle way. “It was intercepted?” +</p> + +<p> +“It fell into the wrong hands. But there’s something in it,” +he continued to blurt out, “that <i>may</i> be all right. That is, if +it’s wrong, don’t you know? It’s all right if it’s +wrong,” he remarkably explained. +</p> + +<p> +What <i>was</i> he, on earth, going to say? Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk +were already interested; no one <i>would</i> have the decency to come in; and +she was divided between her particular terror for him and her general +curiosity. Yet she already saw with what brilliancy she could add, to carry the +thing off, a little false knowledge to all her real. “I quite +understand,” she said with benevolent, with almost patronising quickness. +“The lady has forgotten what she did put.” +</p> + +<p> +“Forgotten most wretchedly, and it’s an immense inconvenience. It +has only just been found that it didn’t get there; so that if we could +immediately have it—” +</p> + +<p> +“Immediately?” +</p> + +<p> +“Every minute counts. You <i>have</i>,” he pleaded, “surely +got them on file?” +</p> + +<p> +“So that you can see it on the spot?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, please—this very minute.” The counter rang with his +knuckles, with the knob of his stick, with his panic of alarm. “Do, +<i>do</i> hunt it up!” he repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say we could get it for you,” the girl weetly returned. +</p> + +<p> +“Get it?”—he looked aghast. “When?” +</p> + +<p> +“Probably by to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it isn’t here?”—his face was pitiful. +</p> + +<p> +She caught only the uncovered gleams that peeped out of the blackness, and she +wondered what complication, even among the most supposable, the very worst, +could be bad enough to account for the degree of his terror. There were twists +and turns, there were places where the screw drew blood, that she +couldn’t guess. She was more and more glad she didn’t want to. +“It has been sent on.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how do you know if you don’t look?” +</p> + +<p> +She gave him a smile that was meant to be, in the absolute irony of its +propriety, quite divine. “It was August 23rd, and we’ve nothing +later here than August 27th.” +</p> + +<p> +Something leaped into his face. “27th—23rd? Then you’re sure? +You know?” +</p> + +<p> +She felt she scarce knew what—as if she might soon be pounced upon for +some lurid connexion with a scandal. It was the queerest of all sensations, for +she had heard, she had read, of these things, and the wealth of her intimacy +with them at Cocker’s might be supposed to have schooled and seasoned +her. This particular one that she had really quite lived with was, after all, +an old story; yet what it had been before was dim and distant beside the touch +under which she now winced. Scandal?—it had never been but a silly word. +Now it was a great tense surface, and the surface was somehow Captain +Everard’s wonderful face. Deep down in his eyes a picture, a +scene—a great place like a chamber of justice, where, before a watching +crowd, a poor girl, exposed but heroic, swore with a quavering voice to a +document, proved an <i>alibi</i>, supplied a link. In this picture she bravely +took her place. “It was the 23rd.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then can’t you get it this morning—or some time +to-day?” +</p> + +<p> +She considered, still holding him with her look, which she then turned on her +two companions, who were by this time unreservedly enlisted. She didn’t +care—not a scrap, and she glanced about for a piece of paper. With this +she had to recognise the rigour of official thrift—a morsel of blackened +blotter was the only loose paper to be seen. “Have you got a card?” +she said to her visitor. He was quite away from Paddington now, and the next +instant, pocket-book in hand, he had whipped a card out. She gave no glance at +the name on it—only turned it to the other side. She continued to hold +him, she felt at present, as she had never held him; and her command of her +colleagues was for the moment not less marked. She wrote something on the back +of the card and pushed it across to him. +</p> + +<p> +He fairly glared at it. “Seven, nine, four—” +</p> + +<p> +“Nine, six, one”—she obligingly completed the number. +“Is it right?” she smiled. +</p> + +<p> +He took the whole thing in with a flushed intensity; then there broke out in +him a visibility of relief that was simply a tremendous exposure. He shone at +them all like a tall lighthouse, embracing even, for sympathy, the blinking +young men. “By all the powers—it’s wrong!” And without +another look, without a word of thanks, without time for anything or anybody, +he turned on them the broad back of his great stature, straightened his +triumphant shoulders, and strode out of the place. +</p> + +<p> +She was left confronted with her habitual critics. “‘If it’s +wrong it’s all right!’” she extravagantly quoted to them. +</p> + +<p> +The counter-clerk was really awe-stricken. “But how did you know, +dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“I remembered, love!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Buckton, on the contrary, was rude. “And what game is that, +miss?” +</p> + +<p> +No happiness she had ever known came within miles of it, and some minutes +elapsed before she could recall herself sufficiently to reply that it was none +of his business. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<p> +If life at Cocker’s, with the dreadful drop of August, had lost something +of its savour, she had not been slow to infer that a heavier blight had fallen +on the graceful industry of Mrs. Jordan. +</p> + +<p> +With Lord Rye and Lady Ventnor and Mrs. Bubb all out of town, with the blinds +down on all the homes of luxury, this ingenious woman might well have found her +wonderful taste left quite on her hands. She bore up, however, in a way that +began by exciting much of her young friend’s esteem; they perhaps even +more frequently met as the wine of life flowed less free from other sources, +and each, in the lack of better diversion, carried on with more mystification +for the other an intercourse that consisted not a little in peeping out and +drawing back. Each waited for the other to commit herself, each profusely +curtained for the other the limits of low horizons. Mrs. Jordan was indeed +probably the more reckless skirmisher; nothing could exceed her frequent +incoherence unless it was indeed her occasional bursts of confidence. Her +account of her private affairs rose and fell like a flame in the +wind—sometimes the bravest bonfire and sometimes a handful of ashes. This +our young woman took to be an effect of the position, at one moment and +another, of the famous door of the great world. She had been struck in one of +her ha’penny volumes with the translation of a French proverb according +to which such a door, any door, had to be either open or shut; and it seemed +part of the precariousness of Mrs. Jordan’s life that hers mostly managed +to be neither. There had been occasions when it appeared to gape +wide—fairly to woo her across its threshold; there had been others, of an +order distinctly disconcerting, when it was all but banged in her face. On the +whole, however, she had evidently not lost heart; these still belonged to the +class of things in spite of which she looked well. She intimated that the +profits of her trade had swollen so as to float her through any state of the +tide, and she had, besides this, a hundred profundities and explanations. +</p> + +<p> +She rose superior, above all, on the happy fact that there were always +gentlemen in town and that gentlemen were her greatest admirers; gentlemen from +the City in especial—as to whom she was full of information about the +passion and pride excited in such breasts by the elements of her charming +commerce. The City men <i>did</i>, in short, go in for flowers. There was a +certain type of awfully smart stockbroker—Lord Rye called them Jews and +bounders, but she didn’t care—whose extravagance, she more than +once threw out, had really, if one had any conscience, to be forcibly +restrained. It was not perhaps a pure love of beauty: it was a matter of vanity +and a sign of business; they wished to crush their rivals, and that was one of +their weapons. Mrs. Jordan’s shrewdness was extreme; she knew in any case +her customer—she dealt, as she said, with all sorts; and it was at the +worst a race for her—a race even in the dull months—from one set of +chambers to another. And then, after all, there were also still the ladies; the +ladies of stockbroking circles were perpetually up and down. They were not +quite perhaps Mrs. Bubb or Lady Ventnor; but you couldn’t tell the +difference unless you quarrelled with them, and then you knew it only by their +making-up sooner. These ladies formed the branch of her subject on which she +most swayed in the breeze; to that degree that her confidant had ended with an +inference or two tending to banish regret for opportunities not embraced. There +were indeed tea-gowns that Mrs. Jordan described—but tea-gowns were not +the whole of respectability, and it was odd that a clergyman’s widow +should sometimes speak as if she almost thought so. She came back, it was true, +unfailingly to Lord Rye, never, evidently, quite losing sight of him even on +the longest excursions. That he was kindness itself had become in fact the very +moral it all pointed—pointed in strange flashes of the poor woman’s +nearsighted eyes. She launched at her young friend portentous looks, solemn +heralds of some extraordinary communication. The communication itself, from +week to week, hung fire; but it was to the facts over which it hovered that she +owed her power of going on. “They <i>are</i>, in one way <i>and</i> +another,” she often emphasised, “a tower of strength”; and as +the allusion was to the aristocracy the girl could quite wonder why, if they +were so in “one way,” they should require to be so in two. She +thoroughly knew, however, how many ways Mrs. Jordan counted in. It all meant +simply that her fate was pressing her close. If that fate was to be sealed at +the matrimonial altar it was perhaps not remarkable that she shouldn’t +come all at once to the scratch of overwhelming a mere telegraphist. It would +necessarily present to such a person a prospect of regretful sacrifice. Lord +Rye—if it <i>was</i> Lord Rye—wouldn’t be “kind” +to a nonentity of that sort, even though people quite as good had been. +</p> + +<p> +One Sunday afternoon in November they went, by arrangement, to church together; +after which—on the inspiration of the moment the arrangement had not +included it—they proceeded to Mrs. Jordan’s lodging in the region +of Maida Vale. She had raved to her friend about her service of predilection; +she was excessively “high,” and had more than once wished to +introduce the girl to the same comfort and privilege. There was a thick brown +fog and Maida Vale tasted of acrid smoke; but they had been sitting among +chants and incense and wonderful music, during which, though the effect of such +things on her mind was great, our young lady had indulged in a series of +reflexions but indirectly related to them. One of these was the result of Mrs. +Jordan’s having said to her on the way, and with a certain fine +significance, that Lord Rye had been for some time in town. She had spoken as +if it were a circumstance to which little required to be added—as if the +bearing of such an item on her life might easily be grasped. Perhaps it was the +wonder of whether Lord Rye wished to marry her that made her guest, with +thoughts straying to that quarter, quite determine that some other nuptials +also should take place at Saint Julian’s. Mr. Mudge was still an +attendant at his Wesleyan chapel, but this was the least of her +worries—it had never even vexed her enough for her to so much as name it +to Mrs. Jordan. Mr. Mudge’s form of worship was one of several +things—they made up in superiority and beauty for what they wanted in +number—that she had long ago settled he should take from her, and she had +now moreover for the first time definitely established her own. Its principal +feature was that it was to be the same as that of Mrs. Jordan and Lord Rye; +which was indeed very much what she said to her hostess as they sat together +later on. The brown fog was in this hostess’s little parlour, where it +acted as a postponement of the question of there being, besides, anything else +than the teacups and a pewter pot and a very black little fire and a paraffin +lamp without a shade. There was at any rate no sign of a flower; it was not for +herself Mrs. Jordan gathered sweets. The girl waited till they had had a cup of +tea—waited for the announcement that she fairly believed her friend had, +this time, possessed herself of her formally at last to make; but nothing came, +after the interval, save a little poke at the fire, which was like the clearing +of a throat for a speech. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + +<p> +“I think you must have heard me speak of Mr. Drake?” Mrs. Jordan +had never looked so queer, nor her smile so suggestive of a large benevolent +bite. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Drake? Oh yes; isn’t he a friend of Lord Rye?” +</p> + +<p> +“A great and trusted friend. Almost—I may say—a loved +friend.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan’s “almost” had such an oddity that her companion +was moved, rather flippantly perhaps, to take it up. “Don’t people +as good as love their friends when they I trust them?” +</p> + +<p> +It pulled up a little the eulogist of Mr. Drake. “Well, my dear, I love +<i>you</i>—” +</p> + +<p> +“But you don’t trust me?” the girl unmercifully asked. +</p> + +<p> +Again Mrs. Jordan paused—still she looked queer. “Yes,” she +replied with a certain austerity; “that’s exactly what I’m +about to give you rather a remarkable proof of.” The sense of its being +remarkable was already so strong that, while she bridled a little, this held +her auditor in a momentary muteness of submission. “Mr. Drake has +rendered his lordship for several years services that his lordship has highly +appreciated and that make it all the more—a—unexpected that they +should, perhaps a little suddenly, separate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Separate?” Our young lady was mystified, but she tried to be +interested; and she already saw that she had put the saddle on the wrong horse. +She had heard something of Mr. Drake, who was a member of his lordship’s +circle—the member with whom, apparently, Mrs. Jordan’s avocations +had most happened to throw her. She was only a little puzzled at the +“separation.” “Well, at any rate,” she smiled, +“if they separate as friends—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh his lordship takes the greatest interest in Mr. Drake’s future. +He’ll do anything for him; he has in fact just done a great deal. There +<i>must</i>, you know, be changes—!” +</p> + +<p> +“No one knows it better than I,” the girl said. She wished to draw +her interlocutress out. “There will be changes enough for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re leaving Cocker’s?” +</p> + +<p> +The ornament of that establishment waited a moment to answer, and then it was +indirect. “Tell me what <i>you’re</i> doing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what will you think of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why that you’ve found the opening you were always so sure +of.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan, on this, appeared to muse with embarrassed intensity. “I was +always sure, yes—and yet I often wasn’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope you’re sure now. Sure, I mean, of Mr. Drake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my dear, I think I may say I <i>am</i>. I kept him going till I +was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then he’s yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“My very own.” +</p> + +<p> +“How nice! And awfully rich?” our young woman went on. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan showed promptly enough that she loved for higher things. +“Awfully handsome—six foot two. And he <i>has</i> put by.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite like Mr. Mudge, then!” that gentleman’s friend rather +desperately exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh not <i>quite!</i>” Mr. Drake’s was ambiguous about it, +but the name of Mr. Mudge had evidently given her some sort of stimulus. +“He’ll have more opportunity now, at any rate. He’s going to +Lady Bradeen.” +</p> + +<p> +“To Lady Bradeen?” This was bewilderment. +“‘Going—’?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl had seen, from the way Mrs. Jordan looked at her, that the effect of +the name had been to make her let something out. “Do you know her?” +</p> + +<p> +She floundered, but she found her feet. “Well, you’ll remember +I’ve often told you that if you’ve grand clients I have them +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mrs. Jordan; “but the great difference is that +you hate yours, whereas I really love mine. <i>Do</i> you know Lady +Bradeen?” she pursued. +</p> + +<p> +“Down to the ground! She’s always in and out.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan’s foolish eyes confessed, in fixing themselves on this +sketch, to a degree of wonder and even of envy. But she bore up and, with a +certain gaiety, “Do you hate <i>her</i>?” she demanded. +</p> + +<p> +Her visitor’s reply was prompt. “Dear no!—not nearly so much +as some of them. She’s too outrageously beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan continued to gaze. “Outrageously?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes; deliciously.” What was really delicious was Mrs. +Jordan’s vagueness. “You don’t know her—you’ve +not seen her?” her guest lightly continued. +</p> + +<p> +“No, but I’ve heard a great deal about her.” +</p> + +<p> +“So have I!” our young lady exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +Jordan looked an instant as if she suspected her good faith, or at least her +seriousness. “You know some friend—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of Lady Bradeen’s? Oh yes—I know one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only one?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl laughed out. “Only one—but he’s so intimate.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan just hesitated. “He’s a gentleman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he’s not a lady.” +</p> + +<p> +Her interlocutress appeared to muse. “She’s immensely +surrounded.” +</p> + +<p> +“She <i>will</i> be—with Mr. Drake!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan’s gaze became strangely fixed. “Is she <i>very</i> +good-looking?” +</p> + +<p> +“The handsomest person I know.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan continued to contemplate. “Well, <i>I</i> know some +beauties.” Then with her odd jerkiness: “Do you think she looks +<i>good</i>?” she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Because that’s not always the case with the +good-looking?”—the other took it up. “No, indeed, it +isn’t: that’s one thing Cocker’s has taught me. Still, there +are some people who have everything. Lady Bradeen, at any rate, has enough: +eyes and a nose and a mouth, a complexion, a figure—” +</p> + +<p> +“A figure?” Mrs. Jordan almost broke in. +</p> + +<p> +“A figure, a head of hair!” The girl made a little conscious motion +that seemed to let the hair all down, and her companion watched the wonderful +show. “But Mr. Drake <i>is</i> another—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Another?”—Mrs. Jordan’s thoughts had to come back from +a distance. +</p> + +<p> +“Of her ladyship’s admirers. He’s ‘going,’ you +say, to her?” +</p> + +<p> +At this Mrs. Jordan really faltered. “She has engaged him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Engaged him?”—our young woman was quite at sea. +</p> + +<p> +“In the same capacity as Lord Rye.” +</p> + +<p> +“And was Lord Rye engaged?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan looked away from her now—looked, she thought, rather injured +and, as if trifled with, even a little angry. The mention of Lady Bradeen had +frustrated for a while the convergence of our heroine’s thoughts; but +with this impression of her old friend’s combined impatience and +diffidence they began again to whirl round her, and continued it till one of +them appeared to dart at her, out of the dance, as if with a sharp peck. It +came to her with a lively shock, with a positive sting, that Mr. Drake +was—could it be possible? With the idea she found herself afresh on the +edge of laughter, of a sudden and strange perversity of mirth. Mr. Drake +loomed, in a swift image, before her; such a figure as she had seen in open +doorways of houses in Cocker’s quarter—majestic, middle-aged, +erect, flanked on either side by a footman and taking the name of a visitor. +Mr. Drake then verily <i>was</i> a person who opened the door! Before she had +time, however, to recover from the effect of her evocation, she was offered a +vision which quite engulfed it. It was communicated to her somehow that the +face with which she had seen it rise prompted Mrs. Jordan to dash, a bit +wildly, at something, at anything, that might attenuate criticism. “Lady +Bradeen’s re-arranging—she’s going to be married.” +</p> + +<p> +“Married?” The girl echoed it ever so softly, but there it was at +last. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you know it?” +</p> + +<p> +She summoned all her sturdiness. “No, she hasn’t told me.” +</p> + +<p> +“And her friends—haven’t they?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t seen any of them lately. I’m not so fortunate as +<i>you</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan gathered herself. “Then you haven’t even heard of Lord +Bradeen’s death?” +</p> + +<p> +Her comrade, unable for a moment to speak, gave a slow headshake. “You +know it from Mr. Drake?” It was better surely not to learn things at all +than to learn them by the butler. +</p> + +<p> +“She tells him everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he tells <i>you</i>—I see.” Our young lady got up; +recovering her muff and her gloves she smiled. “Well, I haven’t +unfortunately any Mr. Drake. I congratulate you with all my heart. Even without +your sort of assistance, however, there’s a trifle here and there that I +do pick up. I gather that if she’s to marry any one it must quite +necessarily be my friend.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan was now also on her feet. “Is Captain Everard your +friend?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl considered, drawing on a glove. “I saw, at one time, an immense +deal of him.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan looked hard at the glove, but she hadn’t after all waited for +that to be sorry it wasn’t cleaner. “What time was that?” +</p> + +<p> +“It must have been the time you were seeing so much of Mr. Drake.” +She had now fairly taken it in: the distinguished person Mrs. Jordan was to +marry would answer bells and put on coals and superintend, at least, the +cleaning of boots for the other distinguished person whom she might—well, +whom she might have had, if she had wished, so much more to say to. +“Good-bye,” she added; “good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan, however, again taking her muff from her, turned it over, brushed +it off and thoughtfully peeped into it. “Tell me this before you go. You +spoke just now of your own changes. Do you mean that Mr. Mudge—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Mudge has had great patience with me—he has brought me at last +to the point. We’re to be married next month and have a nice little home. +But he’s only a grocer, you know”—the girl met her +friend’s intent eyes—“so that I’m afraid that, with the +set you’ve got into, you won’t see your way to keep up our +friendship.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan for a moment made no answer to this; she only held the muff up to +her face, after which she gave it back. “You don’t like it. I see, +I see.” +</p> + +<p> +To her guest’s astonishment there were tears now in her eyes. “I +don’t like what?” the girl asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why my engagement. Only, with your great cleverness,” the poor +lady quavered out, “you put it in your own way. I mean that you’ll +cool off. You already <i>have</i>—!” And on this, the next instant, +her tears began to flow. She succumbed to them and collapsed; she sank down +again, burying her face and trying to smother her sobs. +</p> + +<p> +Her young friend stood there, still in some rigour, but taken much by surprise +even if not yet fully moved to pity. “I don’t put anything in any +‘way,’ and I’m very glad you’re suited. Only, you know, +you did put to <i>me</i> so splendidly what, even for me, if I had listened to +you, it might lead to.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan kept up a mild thin weak wail; then, drying her eyes, as feebly +considered this reminder. “It has led to my not starving!” she +faintly gasped. +</p> + +<p> +Our young lady, at this, dropped into the place beside her, and now, in a rush, +the small silly misery was clear. She took her hand as a sign of pitying it, +then, after another instant, confirmed this expression with a consoling kiss. +They sat there together; they looked out, hand in hand, into the damp dusky +shabby little room and into the future, of no such very different suggestion, +at last accepted by each. There was no definite utterance, on either side, of +Mr. Drake’s position in the great world, but the temporary collapse of +his prospective bride threw all further necessary light; and what our heroine +saw and felt for in the whole business was the vivid reflexion of her own +dreams and delusions and her own return to reality. Reality, for the poor +things they both were, could only be ugliness and obscurity, could never be the +escape, the rise. She pressed her friend—she had tact enough for +that—with no other personal question, brought on no need of further +revelations, only just continued to hold and comfort her and to acknowledge by +stiff little forbearances the common element in their fate. She felt indeed +magnanimous in such matters; since if it was very well, for condolence or +reassurance, to suppress just then invidious shrinkings, she yet by no means +saw herself sitting down, as she might say, to the same table with Mr. Drake. +There would luckily, to all appearance, be little question of tables; and the +circumstance that, on their peculiar lines, her friend’s interests would +still attach themselves to Mayfair flung over Chalk Farm the first radiance it +had shown. Where was one’s pride and one’s passion when the real +way to judge of one’s luck was by making not the wrong but the right +comparison? Before she had again gathered herself to go she felt very small and +cautious and thankful. “We shall have our own house,” she said, +“and you must come very soon and let me show it you.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>We</i> shall have our own too,” Mrs. Jordan replied; +“for, don’t you know? he makes it a condition that he sleeps +out?” +</p> + +<p> +“A condition?”—the girl felt out of it. +</p> + +<p> +“For any new position. It was on that he parted with Lord Rye. His +lordship can’t meet it. So Mr. Drake has given him up.” +</p> + +<p> +“And all for you?”—our young woman put it as cheerfully as +possible. +</p> + +<p> +“For me and Lady Bradeen. Her ladyship’s too glad to get him at any +price. Lord Rye, out of interest in us, has in fact quite <i>made</i> her take +him. So, as I tell you, he will have his own establishment.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan, in the elation of it, had begun to revive; but there was +nevertheless between them rather a conscious pause—a pause in which +neither visitor nor hostess brought out a hope or an invitation. It expressed +in the last resort that, in spite of submission and sympathy, they could now +after all only look at each other across the social gulf. They remained +together as if it would be indeed their last chance, still sitting, though +awkwardly, quite close, and feeling also—and this most +unmistakeably—that there was one thing more to go into. By the time it +came to the surface, moreover, our young friend had recognised the whole of the +main truth, from which she even drew again a slight irritation. It was not the +main truth perhaps that most signified; but after her momentary effort, her +embarrassment and her tears Mrs. Jordan had begun to sound afresh—and +even without speaking—the note of a social connexion. She hadn’t +really let go of it that she was marrying into society. Well, it was a harmless +compensation, and it was all the prospective bride of Mr. Mudge had to leave +with her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + +<p> +This young lady at last rose again, but she lingered before going. “And +has Captain Everard nothing to say to it?” +</p> + +<p> +“To what, dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, to such questions—the domestic arrangements, things in the +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“How <i>can</i> he, with any authority, when nothing in the house is +his?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not his?” The girl wondered, perfectly conscious of the appearance +she thus conferred on Mrs. Jordan of knowing, in comparison with herself, so +tremendously much about it. Well, there were things she wanted so to get at +that she was willing at last, though it hurt her, to pay for them with +humiliation. “Why are they not his?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know, dear, that he has nothing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing?” It was hard to see him in such a light, but Mrs. +Jordan’s power to answer for it had a superiority that began, on the +spot, to grow. “Isn’t he rich?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan looked immensely, looked both generally and particularly, informed. +“It depends upon what you call—! Not at any rate in the least as +<i>she</i> is. What does he bring? Think what she has. And then, love, his +debts.” +</p> + +<p> +“His debts?” His young friend was fairly betrayed into helpless +innocence. She could struggle a little, but she had to let herself go; and if +she had spoken frankly she would have said: “Do tell me, for I +don’t know so much about him as <i>that</i>!” As she didn’t +speak frankly she only said: “His debts are nothing—when she so +adores him.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan began to fix her again, and now she saw that she must only take it +all. That was what it had come to: his having sat with her there on the bench +and under the trees in the summer darkness and put his hand on her, making her +know what he would have said if permitted; his having returned to her +afterwards, repeatedly, with supplicating eyes and a fever in his blood; and +her having, on her side, hard and pedantic, helped by some miracle and with her +impossible condition, only answered him, yet supplicating back, through the +bars of the cage,—all simply that she might hear of him, now for ever +lost, only through Mrs. Jordan, who touched him through Mr. Drake, who reached +him through Lady Bradeen. “She adores him—but of course that +wasn’t all there was about it.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl met her eyes a minute, then quite surrendered. “What was there +else about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, don’t you know?”—Mrs. Jordan was almost +compassionate. +</p> + +<p> +Her interlocutress had, in the cage, sounded depths, but there was a suggestion +here somehow of an abyss quite measureless. “Of course I know she would +never let him alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“How <i>could</i> she—fancy!—when he had so compromised +her?” +</p> + +<p> +The most artless cry they had ever uttered broke, at this, from the younger +pair of lips. “<i>Had</i> he so—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, don’t you know the scandal?” +</p> + +<p> +Our heroine thought, recollected there was something, whatever it was, that she +knew after all much more of than Mrs. Jordan. She saw him again as she had seen +him come that morning to recover the telegram—she saw him as she had seen +him leave the shop. She perched herself a moment on this. “Oh there was +nothing public.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not exactly public—no. But there was an awful scare and an awful +row. It was all on the very point of coming out. Something was +lost—something was found.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah yes,” the girl replied, smiling as if with the revival of a +blurred memory; “something was found.” +</p> + +<p> +“It all got about—and there was a point at which Lord Bradeen had +to act.” +</p> + +<p> +“Had to—yes. But he didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan was obliged to admit it. “No, he didn’t. And then, +luckily for them, he died.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know about his death,” her companion said. +</p> + +<p> +“It was nine weeks ago, and most sudden. It has given them a prompt +chance.” +</p> + +<p> +“To get married?”—this was a wonder—“within nine +weeks?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh not immediately, but—in all the circumstances—very +quietly and, I assure you, very soon. Every preparation’s made. Above all +she holds him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, she holds him!” our young friend threw off. She had this +before her again a minute; then she continued: “You mean through his +having made her talked about?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but not only that. She has still another pull.” +</p> + +<p> +“Another?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan hesitated. “Why, he was <i>in</i> something.” +</p> + +<p> +Her comrade wondered. “In what?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. Something bad. As I tell you, something was +found.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl stared. “Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“It would have been very bad for him. But, she helped him some +way—she recovered it, got hold of it. It’s even said she stole +it!” +</p> + +<p> +Our young woman considered afresh. “Why it was what was found that +precisely saved him.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan, however, was positive. “I beg your pardon. I happen to +know.” +</p> + +<p> +Her disciple faltered but an instant. “Do you mean through Mr. Drake? Do +they tell <i>him</i> these things?” +</p> + +<p> +“A good servant,” said Mrs. Jordan, now thoroughly superior and +proportionately sententious, “doesn’t need to be told! Her ladyship +saved—as a woman so often saves!—the man she loves.” +</p> + +<p> +This time our heroine took longer to recover herself, but she found a voice at +last. “Ah well—of course I don’t know! The great thing was +that he got off. They seem then, in a manner,” she added, “to have +done a great deal for each other.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s she that has done most. She has him tight.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see, I see. Good-bye.” The women had already embraced, and this +was not repeated; but Mrs. Jordan went down with her guest to the door of the +house. Here again the younger lingered, reverting, though three or four other +remarks had on the way passed between them, to Captain Everard and Lady +Bradeen. “Did you mean just now that if she hadn’t saved him, as +you call it, she wouldn’t hold him so tight?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I dare say.” Mrs. Jordan, on the doorstep, smiled with a +reflexion that had come to her; she took one of her big bites of the brown +gloom. “Men always dislike one when they’ve done one an +injury.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what injury had he done her?” +</p> + +<p> +“The one I’ve mentioned. He <i>must</i> marry her, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“And didn’t he want to?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not before she recovered the telegram?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan was pulled up a little. “Was it a telegram?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl hesitated. “I thought you said so. I mean whatever it +was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, whatever it was, I don’t think she saw <i>that</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“So she just nailed him?” +</p> + +<p> +“She just nailed him.” The departing friend was now at the bottom +of the little flight of steps; the other was at the top, with a certain +thickness of fog. “And when am I to think of you in your little +home?—next month?” asked the voice from the top. +</p> + +<p> +“At the very latest. And when am I to think of you in yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh even sooner. I feel, after so much talk with you about it, as if I +were already there!” Then “<i>Good</i>-bye!” came out of the +fog. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-<i>bye</i>!” went into it. Our young lady went into it also, +in the opposed quarter, and presently, after a few sightless turns, came out on +the Paddington canal. Distinguishing vaguely what the low parapet enclosed she +stopped close to it and stood a while very intently, but perhaps still +sightlessly, looking down on it. A policeman; while she remained, strolled past +her; then, going his way a little further and half lost in the atmosphere, +paused and watched her. But she was quite unaware—she was full of her +thoughts. They were too numerous to find a place just here, but two of the +number may at least be mentioned. One of these was that, decidedly, her little +home must be not for next month, but for next week; the other, which came +indeed as she resumed her walk and went her way, was that it was strange such a +matter should be at last settled for her by Mr. Drake +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1144 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + + diff --git a/1144-h/images/cover.jpg b/1144-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f0d0b5f --- /dev/null +++ b/1144-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd92eeb --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #1144 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1144) diff --git a/old/1144-0.txt b/old/1144-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5bd209e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1144-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4085 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of In the Cage, by Henry James + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: In the Cage + +Author: Henry James + +Release Date: December, 1997 [eBook #1144] +[Most recently updated: January 29, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Price + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CAGE *** + +[Illustration] + + + + +In the Cage + +by Henry James + + +Contents + + I. + II. + III. + IV. + V. + VI. + VII. + VIII. + IX. + X. + XI. + XII. + XIII. + XIV. + XV. + XVI. + XVII. + XVIII. + XIX. + XX. + XXI. + XXII. + XXIII. + XXIV. + XXV. + XXVI. + XXVII. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +It had occurred to her early that in her position—that of a young +person spending, in framed and wired confinement, the life of a +guinea-pig or a magpie—she should know a great many persons without +their recognising the acquaintance. That made it an emotion the more +lively—though singularly rare and always, even then, with opportunity +still very much smothered—to see any one come in whom she knew outside, +as she called it, any one who could add anything to the meanness of her +function. Her function was to sit there with two young men—the other +telegraphist and the counter-clerk; to mind the “sounder,” which was +always going, to dole out stamps and postal-orders, weigh letters, +answer stupid questions, give difficult change and, more than anything +else, count words as numberless as the sands of the sea, the words of +the telegrams thrust, from morning to night, through the gap left in +the high lattice, across the encumbered shelf that her forearm ached +with rubbing. This transparent screen fenced out or fenced in, +according to the side of the narrow counter on which the human lot was +cast, the duskiest corner of a shop pervaded not a little, in winter, +by the poison of perpetual gas, and at all times by the presence of +hams, cheese, dried fish, soap, varnish, paraffin and other solids and +fluids that she came to know perfectly by their smells without +consenting to know them by their names. + +The barrier that divided the little post-and-telegraph-office from the +grocery was a frail structure of wood and wire; but the social, the +professional separation was a gulf that fortune, by a stroke quite +remarkable, had spared her the necessity of contributing at all +publicly to bridge. When Mr. Cocker’s young men stepped over from +behind the other counter to change a five-pound note—and Mr. Cocker’s +situation, with the cream of the “Court Guide” and the dearest +furnished apartments, Simpkin’s, Ladle’s, Thrupp’s, just round the +corner, was so select that his place was quite pervaded by the crisp +rustle of these emblems—she pushed out the sovereigns as if the +applicant were no more to her than one of the momentary, the +practically featureless, appearances in the great procession; and this +perhaps all the more from the very fact of the connexion (only +recognised outside indeed) to which she had lent herself with +ridiculous inconsequence. She recognised the others the less because +she had at last so unreservedly, so irredeemably, recognised Mr. Mudge. +However that might be, she was a little ashamed of having to admit to +herself that Mr. Mudge’s removal to a higher sphere—to a more +commanding position, that is, though to a much lower +neighbourhood—would have been described still better as a luxury than +as the mere simplification, the corrected awkwardness, that she +contented herself with calling it. He had at any rate ceased to be all +day long in her eyes, and this left something a little fresh for them +to rest on of a Sunday. During the three months of his happy survival +at Cocker’s after her consent to their engagement she had often asked +herself what it was marriage would be able to add to a familiarity that +seemed already to have scraped the platter so clean. Opposite there, +behind the counter of which his superior stature, his whiter apron, his +more clustering curls and more present, too present, _h_’s had been for +a couple of years the principal ornament, he had moved to and fro +before her as on the small sanded floor of their contracted future. She +was conscious now of the improvement of not having to take her present +and her future at once. They were about as much as she could manage +when taken separate. + +She had, none the less, to give her mind steadily to what Mr. Mudge had +again written her about, the idea of her applying for a transfer to an +office quite similar—she couldn’t yet hope for a place in a +bigger—under the very roof where he was foreman, so that, dangled +before her every minute of the day, he should see her, as he called it, +“hourly,” and in a part, the far N.W. district, where, with her mother, +she would save on their two rooms alone nearly three shillings. It +would be far from dazzling to exchange Mayfair for Chalk Farm, and it +wore upon her much that he could never drop a subject; still, it didn’t +wear as things _had_ worn, the worries of the early times of their +great misery, her own, her mother’s and her elder sister’s—the last of +whom had succumbed to all but absolute want when, as conscious and +incredulous ladies, suddenly bereft, betrayed, overwhelmed, they had +slipped faster and faster down the steep slope at the bottom of which +she alone had rebounded. Her mother had never rebounded any more at the +bottom than on the way; had only rumbled and grumbled down and down, +making, in respect of caps, topics and “habits,” no effort +whatever—which simply meant smelling much of the time of whiskey. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +It was always rather quiet at Cocker’s while the contingent from +Ladle’s and Thrupp’s and all the other great places were at luncheon, +or, as the young men used vulgarly to say, while the animals were +feeding. She had forty minutes in advance of this to go home for her +own dinner; and when she came back and one of the young men took his +turn there was often half an hour during which she could pull out a bit +of work or a book—a book from the place where she borrowed novels, very +greasy, in fine print and all about fine folks, at a ha’penny a day. +This sacred pause was one of the numerous ways in which the +establishment kept its finger on the pulse of fashion and fell into the +rhythm of the larger life. It had something to do, one day, with the +particular flare of importance of an arriving customer, a lady whose +meals were apparently irregular, yet whom she was destined, she +afterwards found, not to forget. The girl was _blasée;_ nothing could +belong more, as she perfectly knew, to the intense publicity of her +profession; but she had a whimsical mind and wonderful nerves; she was +subject, in short, to sudden flickers of antipathy and sympathy, red +gleams in the grey, fitful needs to notice and to “care,” odd caprices +of curiosity. She had a friend who had invented a new career for +women—that of being in and out of people’s houses to look after the +flowers. Mrs. Jordan had a manner of her own of sounding this allusion; +“the flowers,” on her lips, were, in fantastic places, in happy homes, +as usual as the coals or the daily papers. She took charge of them, at +any rate, in all the rooms, at so much a month, and people were quickly +finding out what it was to make over this strange burden of the +pampered to the widow of a clergyman. The widow, on her side, dilating +on the initiations thus opened up to her, had been splendid to her +young friend, over the way she was made free of the greatest houses—the +way, especially when she did the dinner-tables, set out so often for +twenty, she felt that a single step more would transform her whole +social position. On its being asked of her then if she circulated only +in a sort of tropical solitude, with the upper servants for picturesque +natives, and on her having to assent to this glance at her limitations, +she had found a reply to the girl’s invidious question. “You’ve no +imagination, my dear!”—that was because a door more than half open to +the higher life couldn’t be called anything but a thin partition. Mrs. +Jordan’s imagination quite did away with the thickness. + +Our young lady had not taken up the charge, had dealt with it +good-humouredly, just because she knew so well what to think of it. It +was at once one of her most cherished complaints and most secret +supports that people didn’t understand her, and it was accordingly a +matter of indifference to her that Mrs. Jordan shouldn’t; even though +Mrs. Jordan, handed down from their early twilight of gentility and +also the victim of reverses, was the only member of her circle in whom +she recognised an equal. She was perfectly aware that her imaginative +life was the life in which she spent most of her time; and she would +have been ready, had it been at all worth while, to contend that, since +her outward occupation didn’t kill it, it must be strong indeed. +Combinations of flowers and green-stuff, forsooth! What _she_ could +handle freely, she said to herself, was combinations of men and women. +The only weakness in her faculty came from the positive abundance of +her contact with the human herd; this was so constant, it had so the +effect of cheapening her privilege, that there were long stretches in +which inspiration, divination and interest quite dropped. The great +thing was the flashes, the quick revivals, absolute accidents all, and +neither to be counted on nor to be resisted. Some one had only +sometimes to put in a penny for a stamp and the whole thing was upon +her. She was so absurdly constructed that these were literally the +moments that made up—made up for the long stiffness of sitting there in +the stocks, made up for the cunning hostility of Mr. Buckton and the +importunate sympathy of the counter-clerk, made up for the daily deadly +flourishy letter from Mr. Mudge, made up even for the most haunting of +her worries, the rage at moments of not knowing how her mother did “get +it.” + +She had surrendered herself moreover of late to a certain expansion of +her consciousness; something that seemed perhaps vulgarly accounted for +by the fact that, as the blast of the season roared louder and the +waves of fashion tossed their spray further over the counter, there +were more impressions to be gathered and really—for it came to +that—more life to be led. Definite at any rate it was that by the time +May was well started the kind of company she kept at Cocker’s had begun +to strike her as a reason—a reason she might almost put forward for a +policy of procrastination. It sounded silly, of course, as yet, to +plead such a motive, especially as the fascination of the place was +after all a sort of torment. But she liked her torment; it was a +torment she should miss at Chalk Farm. She was ingenious and uncandid, +therefore, about leaving the breadth of London a little longer between +herself and that austerity. If she hadn’t quite the courage in short to +say to Mr. Mudge that her actual chance for a play of mind was worth +any week the three shillings he desired to help her to save, she yet +saw something happen in the course of the month that in her heart of +hearts at least answered the subtle question. This was connected +precisely with the appearance of the memorable lady. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +She pushed in three bescribbled forms which the girl’s hand was quick +to appropriate, Mr. Buckton having so frequent a perverse instinct for +catching first any eye that promised the sort of entertainment with +which she had her peculiar affinity. The amusements of captives are +full of a desperate contrivance, and one of our young friend’s +ha’pennyworths had been the charming tale of _Picciola_. It was of +course the law of the place that they were never to take no notice, as +Mr. Buckton said, whom they served; but this also never prevented, +certainly on the same gentleman’s own part, what he was fond of +describing as the underhand game. Both her companions, for that matter, +made no secret of the number of favourites they had among the ladies; +sweet familiarities in spite of which she had repeatedly caught each of +them in stupidities and mistakes, confusions of identity and lapses of +observation that never failed to remind her how the cleverness of men +ends where the cleverness of women begins. “Marguerite, Regent Street. +Try on at six. All Spanish lace. Pearls. The full length.” That was the +first; it had no signature. “Lady Agnes Orme, Hyde Park Place. +Impossible to-night, dining Haddon. Opera to-morrow, promised Fritz, +but could do play Wednesday. Will try Haddon for Savoy, and anything in +the world you like, if you can get Gussy. Sunday Montenero. Sit Mason +Monday, Tuesday. Marguerite awful. Cissy.” That was the second. The +third, the girl noted when she took it, was on a foreign form: +“Everard, Hôtel Brighton, Paris. Only understand and believe. 22nd to +26th, and certainly 8th and 9th. Perhaps others. Come. Mary.” + +Mary was very handsome, the handsomest woman, she felt in a moment, she +had ever seen—or perhaps it was only Cissy. Perhaps it was both, for +she had seen stranger things than that—ladies wiring to different +persons under different names. She had seen all sorts of things and +pieced together all sorts of mysteries. There had once been one—not +long before—who, without winking, sent off five over five different +signatures. Perhaps these represented five different friends who had +asked her—all women, just as perhaps now Mary and Cissy, or one or +other of them, were wiring by deputy. Sometimes she put in too much—too +much of her own sense; sometimes she put in too little; and in either +case this often came round to her afterwards, for she had an +extraordinary way of keeping clues. When she noticed she noticed; that +was what it came to. There were days and days, there were weeks +sometimes, of vacancy. This arose often from Mr. Buckton’s devilish and +successful subterfuges for keeping her at the sounder whenever it +looked as if anything might arouse; the sounder, which it was equally +his business to mind, being the innermost cell of captivity, a cage +within the cage, fenced oft from the rest by a frame of ground glass. +The counter-clerk would have played into her hands; but the +counter-clerk was really reduced to idiocy by the effect of his passion +for her. She flattered herself moreover, nobly, that with the +unpleasant conspicuity of this passion she would never have consented +to be obliged to him. The most she would ever do would be always to +shove off on him whenever she could the registration of letters, a job +she happened particularly to loathe. After the long stupors, at all +events, there almost always suddenly would come a sharp taste of +something; it was in her mouth before she knew it; it was in her mouth +now. + +To Cissy, to Mary, whichever it was, she found her curiosity going out +with a rush, a mute effusion that floated back to her, like a returning +tide, the living colour and splendour of the beautiful head, the light +of eyes that seemed to reflect such utterly other things than the mean +things actually before them; and, above all, the high curt +consideration of a manner that even at bad moments was a magnificent +habit and of the very essence of the innumerable things—her beauty, her +birth, her father and mother, her cousins and all her ancestors—that +its possessor couldn’t have got rid of even had she wished. How did our +obscure little public servant know that for the lady of the telegrams +this was a bad moment? How did she guess all sorts of impossible +things, such as, almost on the very spot, the presence of drama at a +critical stage and the nature of the tie with the gentleman at the +Hôtel Brighton? More than ever before it floated to her through the +bars of the cage that this at last was the high reality, the bristling +truth that she had hitherto only patched up and eked out—one of the +creatures, in fine, in whom all the conditions for happiness actually +met, and who, in the air they made, bloomed with an unwitting +insolence. What came home to the girl was the way the insolence was +tempered by something that was equally a part of the distinguished +life, the custom of a flowerlike bend to the less fortunate—a dropped +fragrance, a mere quick breath, but which in fact pervaded and +lingered. The apparition was very young, but certainly married, and our +fatigued friend had a sufficient store of mythological comparison to +recognise the port of Juno. Marguerite might be “awful,” but she knew +how to dress a goddess. + +Pearls and Spanish lace—she herself, with assurance, could see them, +and the “full length” too, and also red velvet bows, which, disposed on +the lace in a particular manner (she could have placed them with the +turn of a hand) were of course to adorn the front of a black brocade +that would be like a dress in a picture. However, neither Marguerite +nor Lady Agnes nor Haddon nor Fritz nor Gussy was what the wearer of +this garment had really come in for. She had come in for Everard—and +that was doubtless not his true name either. If our young lady had +never taken such jumps before it was simply that she had never before +been so affected. She went all the way. Mary and Cissy had been round +together, in their single superb person, to see him—he must live round +the corner; they had found that, in consequence of something they had +come, precisely, to make up for or to have another scene about, he had +gone off—gone off just on purpose to make them feel it; on which they +had come together to Cocker’s as to the nearest place; where they had +put in the three forms partly in order not to put in the one alone. The +two others in a manner, covered it, muffled it, passed it off. Oh yes, +she went all the way, and this was a specimen of how she often went. +She would know the hand again any time. It was as handsome and as +everything else as the woman herself. The woman herself had, on +learning his flight, pushed past Everard’s servant and into his room; +she had written her missive at his table and with his pen. All this, +every inch of it, came in the waft that she blew through and left +behind her, the influence that, as I have said, lingered. And among the +things the girl was sure of, happily, was that she should see her +again. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +She saw her in fact, and only ten days later; but this time not alone, +and that was exactly a part of the luck of it. Not unaware—as how could +her observation have left her so?—of the possibilities through which it +could range, our young lady had ever since had in her mind a dozen +conflicting theories about Everard’s type; as to which, the instant +they came into the place, she felt the point settled with a thump that +seemed somehow addressed straight to her heart. That organ literally +beat faster at the approach of the gentleman who was this time with +Cissy, and who, as seen from within the cage, became on the spot the +happiest of the happy circumstances with which her mind had invested +the friend of Fritz and Gussy. He was a very happy circumstance indeed +as, with his cigarette in his lips and his broken familiar talk caught +by his companion, he put down the half-dozen telegrams it would take +them together several minutes to dispatch. And here it occurred, oddly +enough, that if, shortly before the girl’s interest in his companion +had sharpened her sense for the messages then transmitted, her +immediate vision of himself had the effect, while she counted his +seventy words, of preventing intelligibility. _His_ words were mere +numbers, they told her nothing whatever; and after he had gone she was +in possession of no name, of no address, of no meaning, of nothing but +a vague sweet sound and an immense impression. He had been there but +five minutes, he had smoked in her face, and, busy with his telegrams, +with the tapping pencil and the conscious danger, the odious betrayal +that would come from a mistake, she had had no wandering glances nor +roundabout arts to spare. Yet she had taken him in; she knew +everything; she had made up her mind. + +He had come back from Paris; everything was re-arranged; the pair were +again shoulder to shoulder in their high encounter with life, their +large and complicated game. The fine soundless pulse of this game was +in the air for our young woman while they remained in the shop. While +they remained? They remained all day; their presence continued and +abode with her, was in everything she did till nightfall, in the +thousands of other words she counted, she transmitted, in all the +stamps she detached and the letters she weighed and the change she +gave, equally unconscious and unerring in each of these particulars, +and not, as the run on the little office thickened with the afternoon +hours, looking up at a single ugly face in the long sequence, nor +really hearing the stupid questions that she patiently and perfectly +answered. All patience was possible now, all questions were stupid +after his, all faces were ugly. She had been sure she should see the +lady again; and even now she should perhaps, she should probably, see +her often. But for him it was totally different; she should never never +see him. She wanted it too much. There was a kind of wanting that +helped—she had arrived, with her rich experience, at that +generalisation; and there was another kind that was fatal. It was this +time the fatal kind; it would prevent. + +Well, she saw him the very next day, and on this second occasion it was +quite different; the sense of every syllable he paid for was fiercely +distinct; she indeed felt her progressive pencil, dabbing as if with a +quick caress the marks of his own, put life into every stroke. He was +there a long time—had not brought his forms filled out but worked them +off in a nook on the counter; and there were other people as well—a +changing pushing cluster, with every one to mind at once and endless +right change to make and information to produce. But she kept hold of +him throughout; she continued, for herself, in a relation with him as +close as that in which, behind the hated ground glass, Mr. Buckton +luckily continued with the sounder. This morning everything changed, +but rather to dreariness; she had to swallow the rebuff to her theory +about fatal desires, which she did without confusion and indeed with +absolute levity; yet if it was now flagrant that he did live close at +hand—at Park Chambers—and belonged supremely to the class that wired +everything, even their expensive feelings (so that, as he never wrote, +his correspondence cost him weekly pounds and pounds, and he might be +in and out five times a day) there was, all the same, involved in the +prospect, and by reason of its positive excess of light, a perverse +melancholy, a gratuitous misery. This was at once to give it a place in +an order of feelings on which I shall presently touch. + +Meanwhile, for a month, he was very constant. Cissy, Mary, never +re-appeared with him; he was always either alone or accompanied only by +some gentleman who was lost in the blaze of his glory. There was +another sense, however—and indeed there was more than one—in which she +mostly found herself counting in the splendid creature with whom she +had originally connected him. He addressed this correspondent neither +as Mary nor as Cissy; but the girl was sure of whom it was, in Eaten +Square, that he was perpetually wiring to—and all so irreproachably!—as +Lady Bradeen. Lady Bradeen was Cissy, Lady Bradeen was Mary, Lady +Bradeen was the friend of Fritz and of Gussy, the customer of +Marguerite, and the close ally in short (as was ideally right, only the +girl had not yet found a descriptive term that was) of the most +magnificent of men. Nothing could equal the frequency and variety of +his communications to her ladyship but their extraordinary, their +abysmal propriety. It was just the talk—so profuse sometimes that she +wondered what was left for their real meetings—of the very happiest +people. Their real meetings must have been constant, for half of it was +appointments and allusions, all swimming in a sea of other allusions +still, tangled in a complexity of questions that gave a wondrous image +of their life. If Lady Bradeen was Juno it was all certainly Olympian. +If the girl, missing the answers, her ladyship’s own outpourings, +vainly reflected that Cocker’s should have been one of the bigger +offices where telegrams arrived as well as departed, there were yet +ways in which, on the whole, she pressed the romance closer by reason +of the very quantity of imagination it demanded and consumed. The days +and hours of this new friend, as she came to account him, were at all +events unrolled, and however much more she might have known she would +still have wished to go beyond. In fact she did go beyond; she went +quite far enough. + +But she could none the less, even after a month, scarce have told if +the gentlemen who came in with him recurred or changed; and this in +spite of the fact that they too were always posting and wiring, smoking +in her face and signing or not signing. The gentlemen who came in with +him were nothing when he was there. They turned up alone at other +times—then only perhaps with a dim richness of reference. He himself, +absent as well as present, was all. He was very tall, very fair, and +had, in spite of his thick preoccupations, a good-humour that was +exquisite, particularly as it so often had the effect of keeping him +on. He could have reached over anybody, and anybody—no matter who—would +have let him; but he was so extraordinarily kind that he quite +pathetically waited, never waggling things at her out of his turn nor +saying “Here!” with horrid sharpness. He waited for pottering old +ladies, for gaping slaveys, for the perpetual Buttonses from Thrupp’s; +and the thing in all this that she would have liked most unspeakably to +put to the test was the possibility of her having for him a personal +identity that might in a particular way appeal. There were moments when +he actually struck her as on her side, as arranging to help, to +support, to spare her. + +But such was the singular spirit of our young friend that she could +remind herself with a pang that when people had awfully good +manners—people of that class,—you couldn’t tell. These manners were for +everybody, and it might be drearily unavailing for any poor particular +body to be overworked and unusual. What he did take for granted was all +sorts of facility; and his high pleasantness, his relighting of +cigarettes while he waited, his unconscious bestowal of opportunities, +of boons, of blessings, were all a part of his splendid security, the +instinct that told him there was nothing such an existence as his could +ever lose by. He was somehow all at once very bright and very grave, +very young and immensely complete; and whatever he was at any moment it +was always as much as all the rest the mere bloom of his beatitude. He +was sometimes Everard, as he had been at the Hôtel Brighton, and he was +sometimes Captain Everard. He was sometimes Philip with his surname and +sometimes Philip without it. In some directions he was merely Phil, in +others he was merely Captain. There were relations in which he was none +of these things, but a quite different person—“the Count.” There were +several friends for whom he was William. There were several for whom, +in allusion perhaps to his complexion, he was “the Pink ‘Un.” Once, +once only by good luck, he had, coinciding comically, quite +miraculously, with another person also near to her, been “Mudge.” Yes, +whatever he was, it was a part of his happiness—whatever he was and +probably whatever he wasn’t. And his happiness was a part—it became so +little by little—of something that, almost from the first of her being +at Cocker’s, had been deeply with the girl. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +This was neither more nor less than the queer extension of her +experience, the double life that, in the cage, she grew at last to +lead. As the weeks went on there she lived more and more into the world +of whiffs and glimpses, she found her divinations work faster and +stretch further. It was a prodigious view as the pressure heightened, a +panorama fed with facts and figures, flushed with a torrent of colour +and accompanied with wondrous world-music. What it mainly came to at +this period was a picture of how London could amuse itself; and that, +with the running commentary of a witness so exclusively a witness, +turned for the most part to a hardening of the heart. The nose of this +observer was brushed by the bouquet, yet she could never really pluck +even a daisy. What could still remain fresh in her daily grind was the +immense disparity, the difference and contrast, from class to class, of +every instant and every motion. There were times when all the wires in +the country seemed to start from the little hole-and-corner where she +plied for a livelihood, and where, in the shuffle of feet, the flutter +of “forms,” the straying of stamps and the ring of change over the +counter, the people she had fallen into the habit of remembering and +fitting together with others, and of having her theories and +interpretations of, kept up before her their long procession and +rotation. What twisted the knife in her vitals was the way the +profligate rich scattered about them, in extravagant chatter over their +extravagant pleasures and sins, an amount of money that would have held +the stricken household of her frightened childhood, her poor pinched +mother and tormented father and lost brother and starved sister, +together for a lifetime. During her first weeks she had often gasped at +the sums people were willing to pay for the stuff they transmitted—the +“much love”s, the “awful” regrets, the compliments and wonderments and +vain vague gestures that cost the price of a new pair of boots. She had +had a way then of glancing at the people’s faces, but she had early +learnt that if you became a telegraphist you soon ceased to be +astonished. Her eye for types amounted nevertheless to genius, and +there were those she liked and those she hated, her feeling for the +latter of which grew to a positive possession, an instinct of +observation and detection. There were the brazen women, as she called +them, of the higher and the lower fashion, whose squanderings and +graspings, whose struggles and secrets and love-affairs and lies, she +tracked and stored up against them till she had at moments, in private, +a triumphant vicious feeling of mastery and ease, a sense of carrying +their silly guilty secrets in her pocket, her small retentive brain, +and thereby knowing so much more about them than they suspected or +would care to think. There were those she would have liked to betray, +to trip up, to bring down with words altered and fatal; and all through +a personal hostility provoked by the lightest signs, by their accidents +of tone and manner, by the particular kind of relation she always +happened instantly to feel. + +There were impulses of various kinds, alternately soft and severe, to +which she was constitutionally accessible and which were determined by +the smallest accidents. She was rigid in general on the article of +making the public itself affix its stamps, and found a special +enjoyment in dealing to that end with some of the ladies who were too +grand to touch them. She had thus a play of refinement and subtlety +greater, she flattered herself, than any of which she could be made the +subject; and though most people were too stupid to be conscious of this +it brought her endless small consolations and revenges. She recognised +quite as much those of her sex whom she would have liked to help, to +warn, to rescue, to see more of; and that alternative as well operated +exactly through the hazard of personal sympathy, her vision for silver +threads and moonbeams and her gift for keeping the clues and finding +her way in the tangle. The moonbeams and silver threads presented at +moments all the vision of what poor _she_ might have made of happiness. +Blurred and blank as the whole thing often inevitably, or mercifully, +became, she could still, through crevices and crannies, be stupefied, +especially by what, in spite of all seasoning, touched the sorest place +in her consciousness, the revelation of the golden shower flying about +without a gleam of gold for herself. It remained prodigious to the end, +the money her fine friends were able to spend to get still more, or +even to complain to fine friends of their own that they were in want. +The pleasures they proposed were equalled only by those they declined, +and they made their appointments often so expensively that she was left +wondering at the nature of the delights to which the mere approaches +were so paved with shillings. She quivered on occasion into the +perception of this and that one whom she would on the chance have just +simply liked to _be_. Her conceit, her baffled vanity, was possibly +monstrous; she certainly often threw herself into a defiant conviction +that she would have done the whole thing much better. But her greatest +comfort, mostly, was her comparative vision of the men; by whom I mean +the unmistakeable gentlemen, for she had no interest in the spurious or +the shabby and no mercy at all for the poor. She could have found a +sixpence, outside, for an appearance of want; but her fancy, in some +directions so alert, had never a throb of response for any sign of the +sordid. The men she did track, moreover, she tracked mainly in one +relation, the relation as to which the cage convinced her, she +believed, more than anything else could have done, that it was quite +the most diffused. + +She found her ladies, in short, almost always in communication with her +gentlemen, and her gentlemen with her ladies, and she read into the +immensity of their intercourse stories and meanings without end. +Incontestably she grew to think that the men cut the best figure; and +in this particular, as in many others, she arrived at a philosophy of +her own, all made up of her private notations and cynicisms. It was a +striking part of the business, for example, that it was much more the +women, on the whole, who were after the men than the men who were after +the women: it was literally visible that the general attitude of the +one sex was that of the object pursued and defensive, apologetic and +attenuating, while the light of her own nature helped her more or less +to conclude as to the attitude of the other. Perhaps she herself a +little even fell into the custom of pursuit in occasionally deviating +only for gentlemen from her high rigour about the stamps. She had early +in the day made up her mind, in fine, that they had the best manners; +and if there were none of them she noticed when Captain Everard was +there, there were plenty she could place and trace and name at other +times, plenty who, with their way of being “nice” to her, and of +handling, as if their pockets were private tills loose mixed masses of +silver and gold, were such pleasant appearances that she could envy +them without dislike. _They_ never had to give change—they only had to +get it. They ranged through every suggestion, every shade of fortune, +which evidently included indeed lots of bad luck as well as of good, +declining even toward Mr. Mudge and his bland firm thrift, and +ascending, in wild signals and rocket-flights, almost to within hail of +her highest standard. So from month to month she went on with them all, +through a thousand ups and downs and a thousand pangs and +indifferences. What virtually happened was that in the shuffling herd +that passed before her by far the greater part only passed—a proportion +but just appreciable stayed. Most of the elements swam straight away, +lost themselves in the bottomless common, and by so doing really kept +the page clear. On the clearness therefore what she did retain stood +sharply out; she nipped and caught it, turned it over and interwove it. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +She met Mrs. Jordan when she could, and learned from her more and more +how the great people, under her gentle shake and after going through +everything with the mere shops, were waking up to the gain of putting +into the hands of a person of real refinement the question that the +shop-people spoke of so vulgarly as that of the floral decorations. The +regular dealers in these decorations were all very well; but there was +a peculiar magic in the play of taste of a lady who had only to +remember, through whatever intervening dusk, all her own little tables, +little bowls and little jars and little other arrangements, and the +wonderful thing she had made of the garden of the vicarage. This small +domain, which her young friend had never seen, bloomed in Mrs. Jordan’s +discourse like a new Eden, and she converted the past into a bank of +violets by the tone in which she said “Of course you always knew my one +passion!” She obviously met now, at any rate, a big contemporary need, +measured what it was rapidly becoming for people to feel they could +trust her without a tremor. It brought them a peace that—during the +quarter of an hour before dinner in especial—was worth more to them +than mere payment could express. Mere payment, none the less, was +tolerably prompt; she engaged by the month, taking over the whole +thing; and there was an evening on which, in respect to our heroine, +she at last returned to the charge. “It’s growing and growing, and I +see that I must really divide the work. One wants an associate—of one’s +own kind, don’t you know? You know the look they want it all to +have?—of having come, not from a florist, but from one of themselves. +Well, I’m sure _you_ could give it—because you _are_ one. Then we +_should_ win. Therefore just come in with me.” + +“And leave the P.O.?” + +“Let the P.O. simply bring you your letters. It would bring you lots, +you’d see: orders, after a bit, by the score.” It was on this, in due +course, that the great advantage again came up: “One seems to live +again with one’s own people.” It had taken some little time (after +their having parted company in the tempest of their troubles and then, +in the glimmering dawn, finally sighted each other again) for each to +admit that the other was, in her private circle, her only equal, but +the admission came, when it did come, with an honest groan; and since +equality was named, each found much personal profit in exaggerating the +other’s original grandeur. Mrs. Jordan was ten years the older, but her +young friend was struck with the smaller difference this now made: it +had counted otherwise at the time when, much more as a friend of her +mother’s, the bereaved lady, without a penny of provision and with +stopgaps, like their own, all gone, had, across the sordid landing on +which the opposite doors of the pair of scared miseries opened and to +which they were bewilderedly bolted, borrowed coals and umbrellas that +were repaid in potatoes and postage-stamps. It had been a questionable +help, at that time, to ladies submerged, floundering, panting, swimming +for their lives, that they were ladies; but such an advantage could +come up again in proportion as others vanished, and it had grown very +great by the time it was the only ghost of one they possessed. They had +literally watched it take to itself a portion of the substance of each +that had departed; and it became prodigious now, when they could talk +of it together, when they could look back at it across a desert of +accepted derogation, and when, above all, they could together work up a +credulity about it that neither could otherwise work up. Nothing was +really so marked as that they felt the need to cultivate this legend +much more after having found their feet and stayed their stomachs in +the ultimate obscure than they had done in the upper air of mere +frequent shocks. The thing they could now oftenest say to each other +was that they knew what they meant; and the sentiment with which, all +round, they knew it was known had well-nigh amounted to a promise not +again to fall apart. + +Mrs. Jordan was at present fairly dazzling on the subject of the way +that, in the practice of her fairy art, as she called it, she more than +peeped in—she penetrated. There was not a house of the great kind—and +it was of course only a question of those, real homes of luxury—in +which she was not, at the rate such people now had things, all over the +place. The girl felt before the picture the cold breath of +disinheritance as much as she had ever felt it in the cage; she knew +moreover how much she betrayed this, for the experience of poverty had +begun, in her life, too early, and her ignorance of the requirements of +homes of luxury had grown, with other active knowledge, a depth of +simplification. She had accordingly at first often found that in these +colloquies she could only pretend she understood. Educated as she had +rapidly been by her chances at Cocker’s, there were still strange gaps +in her learning—she could never, like Mrs. Jordan, have found her way +about one of the “homes.” Little by little, however, she had caught on, +above all in the light of what Mrs. Jordan’s redemption had materially +made of that lady, giving her, though the years and the struggles had +naturally not straightened a feature, an almost super-eminent air. +There were women in and out of Cocker’s who were quite nice and who yet +didn’t look well; whereas Mrs. Jordan looked well and yet, with her +extraordinarily protrusive teeth, was by no means quite nice. It would +seem, mystifyingly, that it might really come from all the greatness +she could live with. It was fine to hear her talk so often of dinners +of twenty and of her doing, as she said, exactly as she liked with +them. She spoke as if, for that matter, she invited the company. “They +simply give me the table—all the rest, all the other effects, come +afterwards.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +“Then you _do_ see them?” the girl again asked. + +Mrs. Jordan hesitated, and indeed the point had been ambiguous before. +“Do you mean the guests?” + +Her young friend, cautious about an undue exposure of innocence, was +not quite sure. “Well—the people who live there.” + +“Lady Ventnor? Mrs. Bubb? Lord Rye? Dear, yes. Why they _like_ one.” + +“But does one personally _know_ them?” our young lady went on, since +that was the way to speak. “I mean socially, don’t you know?—as you +know _me_.” + +“They’re not so nice as you!” Mrs. Jordan charmingly cried. “But I +_shall_ see more and more of them.” + +Ah this was the old story. “But how soon?” + +“Why almost any day. Of course,” Mrs. Jordan honestly added, “they’re +nearly always out.” + +“Then why do they want flowers all over?” + +“Oh that doesn’t make any difference.” Mrs. Jordan was not philosophic; +she was just evidently determined it _shouldn’t_ make any. “They’re +awfully interested in my ideas, and it’s inevitable they should meet me +over them.” + +Her interlocutress was sturdy enough. “What do you call your ideas?” + +Mrs. Jordan’s reply was fine. “If you were to see me some day with a +thousand tulips you’d discover.” + +“A thousand?”—the girl gaped at such a revelation of the scale of it; +she felt for the instant fairly planted out. “Well, but if in fact they +never do meet you?” she none the less pessimistically insisted. + +“Never? They _often_ do—and evidently quite on purpose. We have grand +long talks.” + +There was something in our young lady that could still stay her from +asking for a personal description of these apparitions; that showed too +starved a state. But while she considered she took in afresh the whole +of the clergyman’s widow. Mrs. Jordan couldn’t help her teeth, and her +sleeves were a distinct rise in the world. A thousand tulips at a +shilling clearly took one further than a thousand words at a penny; and +the betrothed of Mr. Mudge, in whom the sense of the race for life was +always acute, found herself wondering, with a twinge of her easy +jealousy, if it mightn’t after all then, for _her_ also, be +better—better than where she was—to follow some such scent. Where she +was was where Mr. Buckton’s elbow could freely enter her right side and +the counter-clerk’s breathing—he had something the matter with his +nose—pervade her left ear. It was something to fill an office under +Government, and she knew but too well there were places commoner still +than Cocker’s; but it needed no great range of taste to bring home to +her the picture of servitude and promiscuity she couldn’t but offer to +the eye of comparative freedom. She was so boxed up with her young men, +and anything like a margin so absent, that it needed more art than she +should ever possess to pretend in the least to compass, with any one in +the nature of an acquaintance—say with Mrs. Jordan herself, flying in, +as it might happen, to wire sympathetically to Mrs. Bubb—an approach to +a relation of elegant privacy. She remembered the day when Mrs. Jordan +_had_, in fact, by the greatest chance, come in with fifty-three words +for Lord Rye and a five-pound note to change. This had been the +dramatic manner of their reunion—their mutual recognition was so great +an event. The girl could at first only see her from the waist up, +besides making but little of her long telegram to his lordship. It was +a strange whirligig that had converted the clergyman’s widow into such +a specimen of the class that went beyond the sixpence. + +Nothing of the occasion, all the more, had ever become dim; least of +all the way that, as her recovered friend looked up from counting, Mrs. +Jordan had just blown, in explanation, through her teeth and through +the bars of the cage: “I _do_ flowers, you know.” Our young woman had +always, with her little finger crooked out, a pretty movement for +counting; and she had not forgotten the small secret advantage, a +sharpness of triumph it might even have been called, that fell upon her +at this moment and avenged her for the incoherence of the message, an +unintelligible enumeration of numbers, colours, days, hours. The +correspondence of people she didn’t know was one thing; but the +correspondence of people she did had an aspect of its own for her even +when she couldn’t understand it. The speech in which Mrs. Jordan had +defined a position and announced a profession was like a tinkle of +bluebells; but for herself her one idea about flowers was that people +had them at funerals, and her present sole gleam of light was that +lords probably had them most. When she watched, a minute later, through +the cage, the swing of her visitor’s departing petticoats, she saw the +sight from the waist down; and when the counter-clerk, after a mere +male glance, remarked, with an intention unmistakeably low, “Handsome +woman!” she had for him the finest of her chills: “She’s the widow of a +bishop.” She always felt, with the counter-clerk, that it was +impossible sufficiently to put it on; for what she wished to express to +him was the maximum of her contempt, and that element in her nature was +confusedly stored. “A bishop” was putting it on, but the +counter-clerk’s approaches were vile. The night, after this, when, in +the fulness of time, Mrs. Jordan mentioned the grand long talks, the +girl at last brought out: “Should _I_ see them?—I mean if I _were_ to +give up everything for you.” + +Mrs. Jordan at this became most arch. “I’d send you to all the +bachelors!” + +Our young lady could be reminded by such a remark that she usually +struck her friend as pretty. “Do _they_ have their flowers?” + +“Oceans. And they’re the most particular.” Oh it was a wonderful world. +“You should see Lord Rye’s.” + +“His flowers?” + +“Yes, and his letters. He writes me pages on pages—with the most +adorable little drawings and plans. You should see his diagrams!” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +The girl had in course of time every opportunity to inspect these +documents, and they a little disappointed her; but in the mean while +there had been more talk, and it had led to her saying, as if her +friend’s guarantee of a life of elegance were not quite definite: +“Well, I see every one at _my_ place.” + +“Every one?” + +“Lots of swells. They flock. They live, you know, all round, and the +place is filled with all the smart people, all the fast people, those +whose names are in the papers—mamma has still The _Morning Post_—and +who come up for the season.” + +Mrs. Jordan took this in with complete intelligence. “Yes, and I dare +say it’s some of your people that _I_ do.” + +Her companion assented, but discriminated. “I doubt if you ‘do’ them as +much as I! Their affairs, their appointments and arrangements, their +little games and secrets and vices—those things all pass before me.” + +This was a picture that could make a clergyman’s widow not +imperceptibly gasp; it was in intention moreover something of a retort +to the thousand tulips. “Their vices? Have they got vices?” + +Our young critic even more overtly stared then with a touch of contempt +in her amusement: “Haven’t you found _that_ out?” The homes of luxury +then hadn’t so much to give. “_I_ find out everything.” + +Mrs. Jordan, at bottom a very meek person, was visibly struck. “I see. +You do ‘have’ them.” + +“Oh I don’t care! Much good it does me!” + +Mrs. Jordan after an instant recovered her superiority. “No—it doesn’t +lead to much.” Her own initiations so clearly did. Still—after all; and +she was not jealous: “There must be a charm.” + +“In seeing them?” At this the girl suddenly let herself go. “I hate +them. There’s that charm!” + +Mrs. Jordan gaped again. “The _real_ ‘smarts’?” + +“Is that what you call Mrs. Bubb? Yes—it comes to me; I’ve had Mrs. +Bubb. I don’t think she has been in herself, but there are things her +maid has brought. Well, my dear!”—and the young person from Cocker’s, +recalling these things and summing them up, seemed suddenly to have +much to say. She didn’t say it, however; she checked it; she only +brought out: “Her maid, who’s horrid—_she_ must have her!” Then she +went on with indifference: “They’re _too_ real! They’re selfish +brutes.” + +Mrs. Jordan, turning it over, adopted at last the plan of treating it +with a smile. She wished to be liberal. “Well, of course, they do lay +it out.” + +“They bore me to death,” her companion pursued with slightly more +temperance. + +But this was going too far. “Ah that’s because you’ve no sympathy!” + +The girl gave an ironic laugh, only retorting that nobody could have +any who had to count all day all the words in the dictionary; a +contention Mrs. Jordan quite granted, the more that she shuddered at +the notion of ever failing of the very gift to which she owed the +vogue—the rage she might call it—that had caught her up. Without +sympathy—or without imagination, for it came back again to that—how +should she get, for big dinners, down the middle and toward the far +corners at all? It wasn’t the combinations, which were easily managed: +the strain was over the ineffable simplicities, those that the +bachelors above all, and Lord Rye perhaps most of any, threw off—just +blew off like cigarette-puffs—such sketches of. The betrothed of Mr. +Mudge at all events accepted the explanation, which had the effect, as +almost any turn of their talk was now apt to have, of bringing her +round to the terrific question of that gentleman. She was tormented +with the desire to get out of Mrs. Jordan, on this subject, what she +was sure was at the back of Mrs. Jordan’s head; and to get it out of +her, queerly enough, if only to vent a certain irritation at it. She +knew that what her friend would already have risked if she hadn’t been +timid and tortuous was: “Give him up—yes, give him up: you’ll see that +with your sure chances you’ll be able to do much better.” + +Our young woman had a sense that if that view could only be put before +her with a particular sniff for poor Mr. Mudge she should hate it as +much as she morally ought. She was conscious of not, as yet, hating it +quite so much as that. But she saw that Mrs. Jordan was conscious of +something too, and that there was a degree of confidence she was +waiting little by little to arrive at. The day came when the girl +caught a glimpse of what was still wanting to make her friend feel +strong; which was nothing less than the prospect of being able to +announce the climax of sundry private dreams. The associate of the +aristocracy had personal calculations—matter for brooding and dreaming, +even for peeping out not quite hopelessly from behind the +window-curtains of lonely lodgings. If she did the flowers for the +bachelors, in short, didn’t she expect that to have consequences very +different from such an outlook at Cocker’s as she had pronounced wholly +desperate? There seemed in very truth something auspicious in the +mixture of bachelors and flowers, though, when looked hard in the eye, +Mrs. Jordan was not quite prepared to say she had expected a positive +proposal from Lord Rye to pop out of it. Our young woman arrived at +last, none the less, at a definite vision of what was in her mind. This +was a vivid foreknowledge that the betrothed of Mr. Mudge would, unless +conciliated in advance by a successful rescue, almost hate her on the +day she should break a particular piece of news. How could that +unfortunate otherwise endure to hear of what, under the protection of +Lady Ventnor, was after all so possible. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +Meanwhile, since irritation sometimes relieved her, the betrothed of +Mr. Mudge found herself indebted to that admirer for amounts of it +perfectly proportioned to her fidelity. She always walked with him on +Sundays, usually in the Regent’s Park, and quite often, once or twice a +month he took her, in the Strand or thereabouts, to see a piece that +was having a run. The productions he always preferred were the really +good ones—Shakespeare, Thompson or some funny American thing; which, as +it also happened that she hated vulgar plays, gave him ground for what +was almost the fondest of his approaches, the theory that their tastes +were, blissfully, just the same. He was for ever reminding her of that, +rejoicing over it and being affectionate and wise about it. There were +times when she wondered how in the world she could “put up with” him, +how she could put up with any man so smugly unconscious of the +immensity of her difference. It was just for this difference that, if +she was to be liked at all, she wanted to be liked, and if that was not +the source of Mr. Mudge’s admiration, she asked herself what on earth +_could_ be? She was not different only at one point, she was different +all round; unless perhaps indeed in being practically human, which her +mind just barely recognised that he also was. She would have made +tremendous concessions in other quarters: there was no limit for +instance to those she would have made to Captain Everard; but what I +have named was the most she was prepared to do for Mr. Mudge. It was +because _he_ was different that, in the oddest way, she liked as well +as deplored him; which was after all a proof that the disparity, should +they frankly recognise it, wouldn’t necessarily be fatal. She felt +that, oleaginous—too oleaginous—as he was, he was somehow comparatively +primitive: she had once, during the portion of his time at Cocker’s +that had overlapped her own, seen him collar a drunken soldier, a big +violent man who, having come in with a mate to get a postal-order +cashed, had made a grab at the money before his friend could reach it +and had so determined, among the hams and cheeses and the lodgers from +Thrupp’s, immediate and alarming reprisals, a scene of scandal and +consternation. Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk had crouched within +the cage, but Mr. Mudge had, with a very quiet but very quick step +round the counter, an air of masterful authority she shouldn’t soon +forget, triumphantly interposed in the scrimmage, parted the combatants +and shaken the delinquent in his skin. She had been proud of him at +that moment, and had felt that if their affair had not already been +settled the neatness of his execution would have left her without +resistance. + +Their affair had been settled by other things: by the evident sincerity +of his passion and by the sense that his high white apron resembled a +front of many floors. It had gone a great way with her that he would +build up a business to his chin, which he carried quite in the air. +This could only be a question of time; he would have all Piccadilly in +the pen behind his ear. That was a merit in itself for a girl who had +known what she had known. There were hours at which she even found him +good-looking, though, frankly there could be no crown for her effort to +imagine on the part of the tailor or the barber some such treatment of +his appearance as would make him resemble even remotely a man of the +world. His very beauty was the beauty of a grocer, and the finest +future would offer it none too much room consistently to develop. She +had engaged herself in short to the perfection of a type, and almost +anything square and smooth and whole had its weight for a person still +conscious herself of being a mere bruised fragment of wreckage. But it +contributed hugely at present to carry on the two parallel lines of her +experience in the cage and her experience out of it. After keeping +quiet for some time about this opposition she suddenly—one Sunday +afternoon on a penny chair in the Regent’s Park—broke, for him, +capriciously, bewilderingly, into an intimation of what it came to. He +had naturally pressed more and more on the point of her again placing +herself where he could see her hourly, and for her to recognise that +she had as yet given him no sane reason for delay he had small need to +describe himself as unable to make out what she was up to. As if, with +her absurd bad reasons, she could have begun to tell him! Sometimes she +thought it would be amusing to let him have them full in the face, for +she felt she should die of him unless she once in a while stupefied +him; and sometimes she thought it would be disgusting and perhaps even +fatal. She liked him, however, to think her silly, for that gave her +the margin which at the best she would always require; and the only +difficulty about this was that he hadn’t enough imagination to oblige +her. It produced none the less something of the desired effect—to leave +him simply wondering why, over the matter of their reunion, she didn’t +yield to his arguments. Then at last, simply as if by accident and out +of mere boredom on a day that was rather flat, she preposterously +produced her own. “Well, wait a bit. Where I am I still see things.” +And she talked to him even worse, if possible, than she had talked to +Jordan. + +Little by little, to her own stupefaction, she caught that he was +trying to take it as she meant it and that he was neither astonished +nor angry. Oh the British tradesman—this gave her an idea of his +resources! Mr. Mudge would be angry only with a person who, like the +drunken soldier in the shop, should have an unfavourable effect on +business. He seemed positively to enter, for the time and without the +faintest flash of irony or ripple of laughter, into the whimsical +grounds of her enjoyment of Cocker’s custom, and instantly to be +casting up whatever it might, as Mrs. Jordan had said, lead to. What he +had in mind was not of course what Mrs. Jordan had had: it was +obviously not a source of speculation with him that his sweetheart +might pick up a husband. She could see perfectly that this was not for +a moment even what he supposed she herself dreamed of. What she had +done was simply to give his sensibility another push into the dim vast +of trade. In that direction it was all alert, and she had whisked +before it the mild fragrance of a “connexion.” That was the most he +could see in any account of her keeping in, on whatever roundabout +lines, with the gentry; and when, getting to the bottom of this, she +quickly proceeded to show him the kind of eye she turned on such people +and to give him a sketch of what that eye discovered, she reduced him +to the particular prostration in which he could still be amusing to +her. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +“They’re the most awful wretches, I assure you—the lot all about +there.” + +“Then why do you want to stay among them?” + +“My dear man, just because they _are_. It makes me hate them so.” + +“Hate them? I thought you liked them.” + +“Don’t be stupid. What I ‘like’ is just to loathe them. You wouldn’t +believe what passes before my eyes.” + +“Then why have you never told me? You didn’t mention anything before I +left.” + +“Oh I hadn’t got round to it then. It’s the sort of thing you don’t +believe at first; you have to look round you a bit and then you +understand. You work into it more and more. Besides,” the girl went on, +“this is the time of the year when the worst lot come up. They’re +simply packed together in those smart streets. Talk of the numbers of +the poor! What _I_ can vouch for is the numbers of the rich! There are +new ones every day, and they seem to get richer and richer. Oh, they do +come up!” she cried, imitating for her private recreation—she was sure +it wouldn’t reach Mr. Mudge—the low intonation of the counter-clerk. + +“And where do they come from?” her companion candidly enquired. + +She had to think a moment; then she found something. “From the ‘spring +meetings.’ They bet tremendously.” + +“Well, they bet enough at Chalk Farm, if that’s all.” + +“It _isn’t_ all. It isn’t a millionth part!” she replied with some +sharpness. “It’s immense fun”—she would tantalise him. Then as she had +heard Mrs. Jordan say, and as the ladies at Cocker’s even sometimes +wired, “It’s quite too dreadful!” She could fully feel how it was Mr. +Mudge’s propriety, which was extreme—he had a horror of coarseness and +attended a Wesleyan chapel—that prevented his asking for details. But +she gave him some of the more innocuous in spite of himself, especially +putting before him how, at Simpkin’s and Ladle’s, they all made the +money fly. That was indeed what he liked to hear: the connexion was not +direct, but one was somehow more in the right place where the money was +flying than where it was simply and meagrely nesting. The air felt that +stir, he had to acknowledge, much less at Chalk Farm than in the +district in which his beloved so oddly enjoyed her footing. She gave +him, she could see, a restless sense that these might be familiarities +not to be sacrificed; germs, possibilities, faint foreshowings—heaven +knew what—of the initiation it would prove profitable to have arrived +at when in the fulness of time he should have his own shop in some such +paradise. What really touched him—that was discernible—was that she +could feed him with so much mere vividness of reminder, keep before +him, as by the play of a fan, the very wind of the swift bank-notes and +the charm of the existence of a class that Providence had raised up to +be the blessing of grocers. He liked to think that the class was there, +that it was always there, and that she contributed in her slight but +appreciable degree to keep it up to the mark. He couldn’t have +formulated his theory of the matter, but the exuberance of the +aristocracy was the advantage of trade, and everything was knit +together in a richness of pattern that it was good to follow with one’s +finger-tips. It was a comfort to him to be thus assured that there were +no symptoms of a drop. What did the sounder, as she called it, nimbly +worked, do but keep the ball going? + +What it came to therefore for Mr. Mudge was that all enjoyments were, +as might be said, inter-related, and that the more people had the more +they wanted to have. The more flirtations, as he might roughly express +it, the more cheese and pickles. He had even in his own small way been +dimly struck with the linkèd sweetness connecting the tender passion +with cheap champagne, or perhaps the other way round. What he would +have liked to say had he been able to work out his thought to the end +was: “I see, I see. Lash them up then, lead them on, keep them going: +some of it can’t help, some time, coming _our_ way.” Yet he was +troubled by the suspicion of subtleties on his companion’s part that +spoiled the straight view. He couldn’t understand people’s hating what +they liked or liking what they hated; above all it hurt him +somewhere—for he had his private delicacies—to see anything _but_ money +made out of his betters. To be too enquiring, or in any other way too +free, at the expense of the gentry was vaguely wrong; the only thing +that was distinctly right was to be prosperous at any price. Wasn’t it +just because they were up there aloft that they were lucrative? He +concluded at any rate by saying to his young friend: “If it’s improper +for you to remain at Cocker’s, then that falls in exactly with the +other reasons I’ve put before you for your removal.” + +“Improper?”—her smile became a prolonged boldness. “My dear boy, +there’s no one like you!” + +“I dare say,” he laughed; “but that doesn’t help the question.” + +“Well,” she returned, “I can’t give up my friends. I’m making even more +than Mrs. Jordan.” + +Mr. Mudge considered. “How much is _she_ making?” + +“Oh you dear donkey!”—and, regardless of all the Regent’s Park, she +patted his cheek. This was the sort of moment at which she was +absolutely tempted to tell him that she liked to be near Park Chambers. +There was a fascination in the idea of seeing if, on a mention of +Captain Everard, he wouldn’t do what she thought he might; wouldn’t +weigh against the obvious objection the still more obvious advantage. +The advantage of course could only strike him at the best as rather +fantastic; but it was always to the good to keep hold when you _had_ +hold, and such an attitude would also after all involve a high tribute +to her fidelity. Of one thing she absolutely never doubted: Mr. Mudge +believed in her with a belief—! She believed in herself too, for that +matter: if there was a thing in the world no one could charge her with +it was being the kind of low barmaid person who rinsed tumblers and +bandied slang. But she forbore as yet to speak; she had not spoken even +to Mrs. Jordan; and the hush that on her lips surrounded the Captain’s +name maintained itself as a kind of symbol of the success that, up to +this time, had attended something or other—she couldn’t have said +what—that she humoured herself with calling, without words, her +relation with him. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +She would have admitted indeed that it consisted of little more than +the fact that his absences, however frequent and however long, always +ended with his turning up again. It was nobody’s business in the world +but her own if that fact continued to be enough for her. It was of +course not enough just in itself; what it had taken on to make it so +was the extraordinary possession of the elements of his life that +memory and attention had at last given her. There came a day when this +possession on the girl’s part actually seemed to enjoy between them, +while their eyes met, a tacit recognition that was half a joke and half +a deep solemnity. He bade her good morning always now; he often quite +raised his hat to her. He passed a remark when there was time or room, +and once she went so far as to say to him that she hadn’t seen him for +“ages.” “Ages” was the word she consciously and carefully, though a +trifle tremulously used; “ages” was exactly what she meant. To this he +replied in terms doubtless less anxiously selected, but perhaps on that +account not the less remarkable, “Oh yes, hasn’t it been awfully wet?” +That was a specimen of their give and take; it fed her fancy that no +form of intercourse so transcendent and distilled had ever been +established on earth. Everything, so far as they chose to consider it +so, might mean almost anything. The want of margin in the cage, when he +peeped through the bars, wholly ceased to be appreciable. It was a +drawback only in superficial commerce. With Captain Everard she had +simply the margin of the universe. It may be imagined therefore how +their unuttered reference to all she knew about him could in this +immensity play at its ease. Every time he handed in a telegram it was +an addition to her knowledge: what did his constant smile mean to mark +if it didn’t mean to mark that? He never came into the place without +saying to her in this manner: “Oh yes, you have me by this time so +completely at your mercy that it doesn’t in the least matter what I +give you now. You’ve become a comfort, I assure you!” + +She had only two torments; the greatest of which was that she couldn’t, +not even once or twice, touch with him on some individual fact. She +would have given anything to have been able to allude to one of his +friends by name, to one of his engagements by date, to one of his +difficulties by the solution. She would have given almost as much for +just the right chance—it would have to be tremendously right—to show +him in some sharp sweet way that she had perfectly penetrated the +greatest of these last and now lived with it in a kind of heroism of +sympathy. He was in love with a woman to whom, and to any view of whom, +a lady-telegraphist, and especially one who passed a life among hams +and cheeses, was as the sand on the floor; and what her dreams desired +was the possibility of its somehow coming to him that her own interest +in him could take a pure and noble account of such an infatuation and +even of such an impropriety. As yet, however, she could only rub along +with the hope that an accident, sooner or later, might give her a lift +toward popping out with something that would surprise and perhaps even, +some fine day, assist him. What could people mean moreover—cheaply +sarcastic people—by not feeling all that could be got out of the +weather? _She_ felt it all, and seemed literally to feel it most when +she went quite wrong, speaking of the stuffy days as cold, of the cold +ones as stuffy, and betraying how little she knew, in her cage, of +whether it was foul or fair. It was for that matter always stuffy at +Cocker’s, and she finally settled down to the safe proposition that the +outside element was “changeable.” Anything seemed true that made him so +radiantly assent. + +This indeed is a small specimen of her cultivation of insidious ways of +making things easy for him—ways to which of course she couldn’t be at +all sure he did real justice. Real justice was not of this world: she +had had too often to come back to that; yet, strangely, happiness was, +and her traps had to be set for it in a manner to keep them unperceived +by Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk. The most she could hope for apart +from the question, which constantly flickered up and died down, of the +divine chance of his consciously liking her, would be that, without +analysing it, he should arrive at a vague sense that Cocker’s was—well, +attractive; easier, smoother, sociably brighter, slightly more +picturesque, in short more propitious in general to his little affairs, +than any other establishment just thereabouts. She was quite aware that +they couldn’t be, in so huddled a hole, particularly quick; but she +found her account in the slowness—she certainly could bear it if _he_ +could. The great pang was that just thereabouts post-offices were so +awfully thick. She was always seeing him in imagination in other places +and with other girls. But she would defy any other girl to follow him +as she followed. And though they weren’t, for so many reasons, quick at +Cocker’s, she could hurry for him when, through an intimation light as +air, she gathered that he was pressed. + +When hurry was, better still, impossible, it was because of the +pleasantest thing of all, the particular element of their contact—she +would have called it their friendship—that consisted of an almost +humorous treatment of the look of some of his words. They would never +perhaps have grown half so intimate if he had not, by the blessing of +heaven, formed some of his letters with a queerness—! It was positive +that the queerness could scarce have been greater if he had practised +it for the very purpose of bringing their heads together over it as far +as was possible to heads on different sides of a wire fence. It had +taken her truly but once or twice to master these tricks, but, at the +cost of striking him perhaps as stupid, she could still challenge them +when circumstances favoured. The great circumstance that favoured was +that she sometimes actually believed he knew she only feigned +perplexity. If he knew it therefore he tolerated it; if he tolerated it +he came back; and if he came back he liked her. This was her seventh +heaven; and she didn’t ask much of his liking—she only asked of it to +reach the point of his not going away because of her own. He had at +times to be away for weeks; he had to lead his life; he had to +travel—there were places to which he was constantly wiring for “rooms”: +all this she granted him, forgave him; in fact, in the long run, +literally blessed and thanked him for. If he had to lead his life, that +precisely fostered his leading it so much by telegraph: therefore the +benediction was to come in when he could. That was all she asked—that +he shouldn’t wholly deprive her. + +Sometimes she almost felt that he couldn’t have deprived her even had +he been minded, by reason of the web of revelation that was woven +between them. She quite thrilled herself with thinking what, with such +a lot of material, a bad girl would do. It would be a scene better than +many in her ha’penny novels, this going to him in the dusk of evening +at Park Chambers and letting him at last have it. “I know too much +about a certain person now not to put it to you—excuse my being so +lurid—that it’s quite worth your while to buy me off. Come, therefore; +buy me!” There was a point indeed at which such flights had to drop +again—the point of an unreadiness to name, when it came to that, the +purchasing medium. It wouldn’t certainly be anything so gross as money, +and the matter accordingly remained rather vague, all the more that +_she_ was not a bad girl. It wasn’t for any such reason as might have +aggravated a mere minx that she often hoped he would again bring Cissy. +The difficulty of this, however, was constantly present to her, for the +kind of communion to which Cocker’s so richly ministered rested on the +fact that Cissy and he were so often in different places. She knew by +this time all the places—Suchbury, Monkhouse, Whiteroy, Finches—and +even how the parties on these occasions were composed; but her subtlety +found ways to make her knowledge fairly protect and promote their +keeping, as she had heard Mrs. Jordan say, in touch. So, when he +actually sometimes smiled as if he really felt the awkwardness of +giving her again one of the same old addresses, all her being went out +in the desire—which her face must have expressed—that he should +recognise her forbearance to criticise as one of the finest tenderest +sacrifices a woman had ever made for love. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +She was occasionally worried, however this might be, by the impression +that these sacrifices, great as they were, were nothing to those that +his own passion had imposed; if indeed it was not rather the passion of +his confederate, which had caught him up and was whirling him round +like a great steam-wheel. He was at any rate in the strong grip of a +dizzy splendid fate; the wild wind of his life blew him straight before +it. Didn’t she catch in his face at times, even through his smile and +his happy habit, the gleam of that pale glare with which a bewildered +victim appeals, as he passes, to some pair of pitying eyes? He perhaps +didn’t even himself know how scared he was; but _she_ knew. They were +in danger, they were in danger, Captain Everard and Lady Bradeen: it +beat every novel in the shop. She thought of Mr. Mudge and his safe +sentiment; she thought of herself and blushed even more for her tepid +response to it. It was a comfort to her at such moments to feel that in +another relation—a relation supplying that affinity with her nature +that Mr. Mudge, deluded creature, would never supply—she should have +been no more tepid than her ladyship. Her deepest soundings were on two +or three occasions of finding herself almost sure that, if she dared, +her ladyship’s lover would have gathered relief from “speaking” to her. +She literally fancied once or twice that, projected as he was toward +his doom, her own eyes struck him, while the air roared in his ears, as +the one pitying pair in the crowd. But how could he speak to her while +she sat sandwiched there between the counter-clerk and the sounder? + +She had long ago, in her comings and goings made acquaintance with Park +Chambers and reflected as she looked up at their luxurious front that +_they_, of course, would supply the ideal setting for the ideal speech. +There was not an object in London that, before the season was over, was +more stamped upon her brain. She went roundabout to pass it, for it was +not on the short way; she passed on the opposite side of the street and +always looked up, though it had taken her a long time to be sure of the +particular set of windows. She had made that out finally by an act of +audacity that at the time had almost stopped her heart-beats and that +in retrospect greatly quickened her blushes. One evening she had +lingered late and watched—watched for some moment when the porter, who +was in uniform and often on the steps, had gone in with a visitor. Then +she followed boldly, on the calculation that he would have taken the +visitor up and that the hall would be free. The hall _was_ free, and +the electric light played over the gilded and lettered board that +showed the names and numbers of the occupants of the different floors. +What she wanted looked straight at her—Captain Everard was on the +third. It was as if, in the immense intimacy of this, they were, for +the instant and the first time, face to face outside the cage. Alas! +they were face to face but a second or two: she was whirled out on the +wings of a panic fear that he might just then be entering or issuing. +This fear was indeed, in her shameless deflexions, never very far from +her, and was mixed in the oddest way with depressions and +disappointments. It was dreadful, as she trembled by, to run the risk +of looking to him as if she basely hung about; and yet it was dreadful +to be obliged to pass only at such moments as put an encounter out of +the question. + +At the horrible hour of her first coming to Cocker’s he was always—it +was to be hoped—snug in bed; and at the hour of her final departure he +was of course—she had such things all on her fingers’-ends—dressing for +dinner. We may let it pass that if she couldn’t bring herself to hover +till he was dressed, this was simply because such a process for such a +person could only be terribly prolonged. When she went in the middle of +the day to her own dinner she had too little time to do anything but go +straight, though it must be added that for a real certainty she would +joyously have omitted the repast. She had made up her mind as to there +being on the whole no decent pretext to justify her flitting casually +past at three o’clock in the morning. That was the hour at which, if +the ha’penny novels were not all wrong, he probably came home for the +night. She was therefore reduced to the vainest figuration of the +miraculous meeting toward which a hundred impossibilities would have to +conspire. But if nothing was more impossible than the fact, nothing was +more intense than the vision. What may not, we can only moralise, take +place in the quickened muffled perception of a young person with an +ardent soul? All our humble friend’s native distinction, her refinement +of personal grain, of heredity, of pride, took refuge in this small +throbbing spot; for when she was most conscious of the objection of her +vanity and the pitifulness of her little flutters and manoeuvres, then +the consolation and the redemption were most sure to glow before her in +some just discernible sign. He did like her! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +He never brought Cissy back, but Cissy came one day without him, as +fresh as before from the hands of Marguerite, or only, at the season’s +end, a trifle less fresh. She was, however, distinctly less serene. She +had brought nothing with her and looked about with impatience for the +forms and the place to write. The latter convenience, at Cocker’s, was +obscure and barely adequate, and her clear voice had the light note of +disgust which her lover’s never showed as she responded with a “There?” +of surprise to the gesture made by the counter-clerk in answer to her +sharp question. Our young friend was busy with half a dozen people, but +she had dispatched them in her most businesslike manner by the time her +ladyship flung through the bars this light of re-appearance. Then the +directness with which the girl managed to receive the accompanying +missive was the result of the concentration that had caused her to make +the stamps fly during the few minutes occupied by the production of it. +This concentration, in turn, may be described as the effect of the +apprehension of imminent relief. It was nineteen days, counted and +checked off, since she had seen the object of her homage; and as, had +he been in London, she should, with his habits, have been sure to see +him often, she was now about to learn what other spot his presence +might just then happen to sanctify. For she thought of them, the other +spots, as ecstatically conscious of it, expressively happy in it. + +But, gracious, how handsome _was_ her ladyship, and what an added price +it gave him that the air of intimacy he threw out should have flowed +originally from such a source! The girl looked straight through the +cage at the eyes and lips that must so often have been so near as +own—looked at them with a strange passion that for an instant had the +result of filling out some of the gaps, supplying the missing answers, +in his correspondence. Then as she made out that the features she thus +scanned and associated were totally unaware of it, that they glowed +only with the colour of quite other and not at all guessable thoughts, +this directly added to their splendour, gave the girl the sharpest +impression she had yet received of the uplifted, the unattainable +plains of heaven, and yet at the same time caused her to thrill with a +sense of the high company she did somehow keep. She was with the absent +through her ladyship and with her ladyship through the absent. The only +pang—but it didn’t matter—was the proof in the admirable face, in the +sightless preoccupation of its possessor, that the latter hadn’t a +notion of her. Her folly had gone to the point of half believing that +the other party to the affair must sometimes mention in Eaton Square +the extraordinary little person at the place from which he so often +wired. Yet the perception of her visitor’s blankness actually helped +this extraordinary little person, the next instant, to take refuge in a +reflexion that could be as proud as it liked. “How little she knows, +how little she knows!” the girl cried to herself; for what did that +show after all but that Captain Everard’s telegraphic confidant was +Captain Everard’s charming secret? Our young friend’s perusal of her +ladyship’s telegram was literally prolonged by a momentary daze: what +swam between her and the words, making her see them as through rippled +shallow sunshot water, was the great, the perpetual flood of “How much +_I_ know—how much _I_ know!” This produced a delay in her catching +that, on the face, these words didn’t give her what she wanted, though +she was prompt enough with her remembrance that her grasp was, half the +time, just of what was _not_ on the face. “Miss Dolman, Parade Lodge, +Parade Terrace, Dover. Let him instantly know right one, Hôtel de +France, Ostend. Make it seven nine four nine six one. Wire me +alternative Burfield’s.” + +The girl slowly counted. Then he was at Ostend. This hooked on with so +sharp a click that, not to feel she was as quickly letting it all slip +from her, she had absolutely to hold it a minute longer and to do +something to that end. Thus it was that she did on this occasion what +she never did—threw off a “Reply paid?” that sounded officious, but +that she partly made up for by deliberately affixing the stamps and by +waiting till she had done so to give change. She had, for so much +coolness, the strength that she considered she knew all about Miss +Dolman. + +“Yes—paid.” She saw all sorts of things in this reply, even to a small +suppressed start of surprise at so correct an assumption; even to an +attempt the next minute at a fresh air of detachment. “How much, with +the answer?” The calculation was not abstruse, but our intense observer +required a moment more to make it, and this gave her ladyship time for +a second thought. “Oh just wait!” The white begemmed hand bared to +write rose in sudden nervousness to the side of the wonderful face +which, with eyes of anxiety for the paper on the counter, she brought +closer to the bars of the cage. “I think I must alter a word!” On this +she recovered her telegram and looked over it again; but she had a new, +an obvious trouble, and studied it without deciding and with much of +the effect of making our young woman watch her. + +This personage, meanwhile, at the sight of her expression, had decided +on the spot. If she had always been sure they were in danger her +ladyship’s expression was the best possible sign of it. There was a +word wrong, but she had lost the right one, and much clearly depended +on her finding it again. The girl, therefore, sufficiently estimating +the affluence of customers and the distraction of Mr. Buckton and the +counter-clerk, took the jump and gave it. “Isn’t it Cooper’s?” + +It was as if she had bodily leaped—cleared the top of the cage and +alighted on her interlocutress. “Cooper’s?”—the stare was heightened by +a blush. Yes, she had made Juno blush. + +This was all the greater reason for going on. “I mean instead of +Burfield’s.” + +Our young friend fairly pitied her; she had made her in an instant so +helpless, and yet not a bit haughty nor outraged. She was only +mystified and scared. “Oh, you know—?” + +“Yes, I know!” Our young friend smiled, meeting the other’s eyes, and, +having made Juno blush, proceeded to patronise her. “_I’ll_ do it”—she +put out a competent hand. Her ladyship only submitted, confused and +bewildered, all presence of mind quite gone; and the next moment the +telegram was in the cage again and its author out of the shop. Then +quickly, boldly, under all the eyes that might have witnessed her +tampering, the extraordinary little person at Cocker’s made the proper +change. People were really too giddy, and if they _were_, in a certain +case, to be caught, it shouldn’t be the fault of her own grand memory. +Hadn’t it been settled weeks before?—for Miss Dolman it was always to +be “Cooper’s.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +But the summer “holidays” brought a marked difference; they were +holidays for almost every one but the animals in the cage. The August +days were flat and dry, and, with so little to feed it, she was +conscious of the ebb of her interest in the secrets of the refined. She +was in a position to follow the refined to the extent of knowing—they +had made so many of their arrangements with her aid—exactly where they +were; yet she felt quite as if the panorama had ceased unrolling and +the band stopped playing. A stray member of the latter occasionally +turned up, but the communications that passed before her bore now +largely on rooms at hotels, prices of furnished houses, hours of +trains, dates of sailings and arrangements for being “met”; she found +them for the most part prosaic and coarse. The only thing was that they +brought into her stuffy corner as straight a whiff of Alpine meadows +and Scotch moors as she might hope ever to inhale; there were moreover +in especial fat hot dull ladies who had out with her, to exasperation, +the terms for seaside lodgings, which struck her as huge, and the +matter of the number of beds required, which was not less portentous: +this in reference to places of which the names—Eastbourne, Folkestone, +Cromer, Scarborough, Whitby—tormented her with something of the sound +of the plash of water that haunts the traveller in the desert. She had +not been out of London for a dozen years, and the only thing to give a +taste to the present dead weeks was the spice of a chronic resentment. +The sparse customers, the people she did see, were the people who were +“just off”—off on the decks of fluttered yachts, off to the uttermost +point of rocky headlands where the very breeze was then playing for the +want of which she said to herself that she sickened. + +There was accordingly a sense in which, at such a period, the great +differences of the human condition could press upon her more than ever; +a circumstance drawing fresh force in truth from the very fact of the +chance that at last, for a change, did squarely meet her—the chance to +be “off,” for a bit, almost as far as anybody. They took their turns in +the cage as they took them both in the shop and at Chalk Farm; she had +known these two months that time was to be allowed in September—no less +than eleven days—for her personal private holiday. Much of her recent +intercourse with Mr. Mudge had consisted of the hopes and fears, +expressed mainly by himself, involved in the question of their getting +the same dates—a question that, in proportion as the delight seemed +assured, spread into a sea of speculation over the choice of where and +how. All through July, on the Sunday evenings and at such other odd +times as he could seize, he had flooded their talk with wild waves of +calculation. It was practically settled that, with her mother, +somewhere “on the south coast” (a phrase of which she liked the sound) +they should put in their allowance together; but she already felt the +prospect quite weary and worn with the way he went round and round on +it. It had become his sole topic, the theme alike of his most solemn +prudences and most placid jests, to which every opening led for return +and revision and in which every little flower of a foretaste was pulled +up as soon as planted. He had announced at the earliest +day—characterising the whole business, from that moment, as their +“plans,” under which name he handled it as a Syndicate handles a +Chinese or other Loan—he had promptly declared that the question must +be thoroughly studied, and he produced, on the whole subject, from day +to day, an amount of information that excited her wonder and even, not +a little, as she frankly let him know, her disdain. When she thought of +the danger in which another pair of lovers rapturously lived she +enquired of him anew why he could leave nothing to chance. Then she got +for answer that this profundity was just his pride, and he pitted +Ramsgate against Bournemouth and even Boulogne against Jersey—for he +had great ideas—with all the mastery of detail that was some day, +professionally, to carry him afar. + +The longer the time since she had seen Captain Everard the more she was +booked, as she called it, to pass Park Chambers; and this was the sole +amusement that in the lingering August days and the twilights sadly +drawn out it was left her to cultivate. She had long since learned to +know it for a feeble one, though its feebleness was perhaps scarce the +reason for her saying to herself each evening as her time for departure +approached: “No, no—not to-night.” She never failed of that silent +remark, any more than she failed of feeling, in some deeper place than +she had even yet fully sounded, that one’s remarks were as weak as +straws and that, however one might indulge in them at eight o’clock, +one’s fate infallibly declared itself in absolute indifference to them +at about eight-fifteen. Remarks were remarks, and very well for that; +but fate was fate, and this young lady’s was to pass Park Chambers +every night in the working week. Out of the immensity of her knowledge +of the life of the world there bloomed on these occasions as specific +remembrance that it was regarded in that region, in August and +September, as rather pleasant just to be caught for something or other +in passing through town. Somebody was always passing and somebody might +catch somebody else. It was in full cognisance of this subtle law that +she adhered to the most ridiculous circuit she could have made to get +home. One warm dull featureless Friday, when an accident had made her +start from Cocker’s a little later than usual, she became aware that +something of which the infinite possibilities had for so long peopled +her dreams was at last prodigiously upon her, though the perfection in +which the conditions happened to present it was almost rich enough to +be but the positive creation of a dream. She saw, straight before her, +like a vista painted in a picture, the empty street and the lamps that +burned pale in the dusk not yet established. It was into the +convenience of this quiet twilight that a gentleman on the doorstep of +the Chambers gazed with a vagueness that our young lady’s little figure +violently trembled, in the approach, with the measure of its power to +dissipate. Everything indeed grew in a flash terrific and distinct; her +old uncertainties fell away from her, and, since she was so familiar +with fate, she felt as if the very nail that fixed it were driven in by +the hard look with which, for a moment, Captain Everard awaited her. + +The vestibule was open behind him and the porter as absent as on the +day she had peeped in; he had just come out—was in town, in a tweed +suit and a pot hat, but between two journeys—duly bored over his +evening and at a loss what to do with it. Then it was that she was glad +she had never met him in that way before: she reaped with such ecstasy +the benefit of his not being able to think she passed often. She jumped +in two seconds to the determination that he should even suppose it to +be the very first time and the very oddest chance: this was while she +still wondered if he would identify or notice her. His original +attention had not, she instinctively knew, been for the young woman at +Cocker’s; it had only been for any young woman who might advance to the +tune of her not troubling the quiet air, and in fact the poetic hour, +with ugliness. Ah but then, and just as she had reached the door, came +his second observation, a long light reach with which, visibly and +quite amusedly, he recalled and placed her. They were on different +sides, but the street, narrow and still, had only made more of a stage +for the small momentary drama. It was not over, besides, it was far +from over, even on his sending across the way, with the pleasantest +laugh she had ever heard, a little lift of his hat and an “Oh good +evening!” It was still less over on their meeting, the next minute, +though rather indirectly and awkwardly, in the middle, of the road—a +situation to which three or four steps of her own had unmistakeably +contributed—and then passing not again to the side on which she had +arrived, but back toward the portal of Park Chambers. + +“I didn’t know you at first. Are you taking a walk?” + +“Ah I don’t take walks at night! I’m going home after my work.” + +“Oh!” + +That was practically what they had meanwhile smiled out, and his +exclamation to which for a minute he appeared to have nothing to add, +left them face to face and in just such an attitude as, for his part, +he might have worn had he been wondering if he could properly ask her +to come in. During this interval in fact she really felt his question +to be just “_How_ properly—?” It was simply a question of the degree of +properness. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +She never knew afterwards quite what she had done to settle it, and at +the time she only knew that they presently moved, with vagueness, yet +with continuity, away from the picture of the lighted vestibule and the +quiet stairs and well up the street together. This also must have been +in the absence of a definite permission, of anything vulgarly +articulate, for that matter, on the part of either; and it was to be, +later on, a thing of remembrance and reflexion for her that the limit +of what just here for a longish minute passed between them was his +taking in her thoroughly successful deprecation, though conveyed +without pride or sound or touch, of the idea that she might be, out of +the cage, the very shop-girl at large that she hugged the theory she +wasn’t. Yes, it was strange, she afterwards thought, that so much could +have come and gone and yet not disfigured the dear little intense +crisis either with impertinence or with resentment, with any of the +horrid notes of that kind of acquaintance. He had taken no liberty, as +she would have so called it; and, through not having to betray the +sense of one, she herself had, still more charmingly, taken none. On +the spot, nevertheless, she could speculate as to what it meant that, +if his relation with Lady Bradeen continued to be what her mind had +built it up to, he should feel free to proceed with marked +independence. This was one of the questions he was to leave her to deal +with—the question whether people of his sort still asked girls up to +their rooms when they were so awfully in love with other women. Could +people of his sort do that without what people of _her_ sort would call +being “false to their love”? She had already a vision of how the true +answer was that people of her sort didn’t, in such cases, matter—didn’t +count as infidelity, counted only as something else: she might have +been curious, since it came to that, to see exactly what. + +Strolling together slowly in their summer twilight and their empty +corner of Mayfair, they found themselves emerge at last opposite to one +of the smaller gates of the Park; upon which, without any particular +word about it—they were talking so of other things—they crossed the +street and went in and sat down on a bench. She had gathered by this +time one magnificent hope about him—the hope he would say nothing +vulgar. She knew thoroughly what she meant by that; she meant something +quite apart from any matter of his being “false.” Their bench was not +far within; it was near the Park Lane paling and the patchy lamplight +and the rumbling cabs and ‘buses. A strange emotion had come to her, +and she felt indeed excitement within excitement; above all a conscious +joy in testing him with chances he didn’t take. She had an intense +desire he should know the type she really conformed to without her +doing anything so low as tell him, and he had surely begun to know it +from the moment he didn’t seize the opportunities into which a common +man would promptly have blundered. These were on the mere awkward +surface, and _their_ relation was beautiful behind and below them. She +had questioned so little on the way what they might be doing that as +soon as they were seated she took straight hold of it. Her hours, her +confinement, the many conditions of service in the post-office, +had—with a glance at his own postal resources and alternatives—formed, +up to this stage, the subject of their talk. “Well, here we are, and it +may be right enough; but this isn’t the least, you know, where I was +going.” + +“You were going home?” + +“Yes, and I was already rather late. I was going to my supper.” + +“You haven’t had it?” + +“No indeed!” + +“Then you haven’t eaten—?” + +He looked of a sudden so extravagantly concerned that she laughed out. +“All day? Yes, we do feed once. But that was long ago. So I must +presently say good-bye.” + +“Oh deary _me_!” he exclaimed with an intonation so droll and yet a +touch so light and a distress so marked—a confession of helplessness +for such a case, in short, so unrelieved—that she at once felt sure she +had made the great difference plain. He looked at her with the kindest +eyes and still without saying what she had known he wouldn’t. She had +known he wouldn’t say “Then sup with _me_!” but the proof of it made +her feel as if she had feasted. + +“I’m not a bit hungry,” she went on. + +“Ah you _must_ be, awfully!” he made answer, but settling himself on +the bench as if, after all, that needn’t interfere with his spending +his evening. “I’ve always quite wanted the chance to thank you for the +trouble you so often take for me.” + +“Yes, I know,” she replied; uttering the words with a sense of the +situation far deeper than any pretence of not fitting his allusion. She +immediately felt him surprised and even a little puzzled at her frank +assent; but for herself the trouble she had taken could only, in these +fleeting minutes—they would probably never come back—be all there like +a little hoard of gold in her lap. Certainly he might look at it, +handle it, take up the pieces. Yet if he understood anything he must +understand all. “I consider you’ve already immensely thanked me.” The +horror was back upon her of having seemed to hang about for some +reward. “It’s awfully odd you should have been there just the one +time—!” + +“The one time you’ve passed my place?” + +“Yes; you can fancy I haven’t many minutes to waste. There was a place +to-night I had to stop at.” + +“I see, I see—” he knew already so much about her work. “It must be an +awful grind—for a lady.” + +“It is, but I don’t think I groan over it any more than my +companions—and you’ve seen _they’re_ not ladies!” She mildly jested, +but with an intention. “One gets used to things, and there are +employments I should have hated much more.” She had the finest +conception of the beauty of not at least boring him. To whine, to count +up her wrongs, was what a barmaid or a shop-girl would do, and it was +quite enough to sit there like one of these. + +“If you had had another employment,” he remarked after a moment, “we +might never have become acquainted.” + +“It’s highly probable—and certainly not in the same way.” Then, still +with her heap of gold in her lap and something of the pride of it in +her manner of holding her head, she continued not to move—she only +smiled at him. The evening had thickened now; the scattered lamps were +red; the Park, all before them, was full of obscure and ambiguous life; +there were other couples on other benches whom it was impossible not to +see, yet at whom it was impossible to look. “But I’ve walked so much +out of my way with you only just to show you that—that”—with this she +paused; it was not after all so easy to express—“that anything you may +have thought is perfectly true.” + +“Oh I’ve thought a tremendous lot!” her companion laughed. “Do you mind +my smoking?” + +“Why should I? You always smoke _there_.” + +“At your place? Oh yes, but here it’s different.” + +“No,” she said as he lighted a cigarette, “that’s just what it isn’t. +It’s quite the same.” + +“Well, then, that’s because ‘there’ it’s so wonderful!” + +“Then you’re conscious of how wonderful it is?” she returned. + +He jerked his handsome head in literal protest at a doubt. “Why that’s +exactly what I mean by my gratitude for all your trouble. It has been +just as if you took a particular interest.” She only looked at him by +way of answer in such sudden headlong embarrassment, as she was quite +aware, that while she remained silent he showed himself checked by her +expression. “You _have_—haven’t you?—taken a particular interest?” + +“Oh a particular interest!” she quavered out, feeling the whole +thing—her headlong embarrassment—get terribly the better of her, and +wishing, with a sudden scare, all the more to keep her emotion down. +She maintained her fixed smile a moment and turned her eyes over the +peopled darkness, unconfused now, because there was something much more +confusing. This, with a fatal great rush, was simply the fact that they +were thus together. They were near, near, and all she had imagined of +that had only become more true, more dreadful and overwhelming. She +stared straight away in silence till she felt she looked an idiot; +then, to say something, to say nothing, she attempted a sound which +ended in a flood of tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +Her tears helped her really to dissimulate, for she had instantly, in +so public a situation, to recover herself. They had come and gone in +half a minute, and she immediately explained them. “It‘s only because +I’m tired. It’s that—it’s that!” Then she added a trifle incoherently: +“I shall never see you again.” + +“Ah but why not?” The mere tone in which her companion asked this +satisfied her once for all as to the amount of imagination for which +she could count on him. It was naturally not large: it had exhausted +itself in having arrived at what he had already touched upon—the sense +of an intention in her poor zeal at Cocker’s. But any deficiency of +this kind was no fault in him: _he_ wasn’t obliged to have an inferior +cleverness—to have second-rate resources and virtues. It had been as if +he almost really believed she had simply cried for fatigue, and he +accordingly put in some kind confused plea—“You ought really to take +something: won’t you have something or other _somewhere_?” to which she +had made no response but a headshake of a sharpness that settled it. +“Why shan’t we all the more keep meeting?” + +“I mean meeting this way—only this way. At my place there—_that_ I’ve +nothing to do with, and I hope of course you’ll turn up, with your +correspondence, when it suits you. Whether I stay or not, I mean; for I +shall probably not stay.” + +“You’re going somewhere else?” he put it with positive anxiety. + +“Yes, ever so far away—to the other end of London. There are all sorts +of reasons I can’t tell you; and it’s practically settled. It’s better +for me, much; and I’ve only kept on at Cocker’s for you.” + +“For me?” + +Making out in the dusk that he fairly blushed, she now measured how far +he had been from knowing too much. Too much, she called it at present; +and that was easy, since it proved so abundantly enough for her that he +should simply be where he was. “As we shall never talk this way but +to-night—never, never again!—here it all is. I’ll say it; I don’t care +what you think; it doesn’t matter; I only want to help you. Besides, +you’re kind—you’re kind. I’ve been thinking then of leaving for ever so +long. But you’ve come so often—at times—and you’ve had so much to do, +and it has been so pleasant and interesting, that I’ve remained, I’ve +kept putting off any change. More than once, when I had nearly decided, +you’ve turned up again and I’ve thought ‘Oh no!’ That’s the simple +fact!” She had by this time got her confusion down so completely that +she could laugh. “This is what I meant when I said to you just now that +I ‘knew.’ I’ve known perfectly that you knew I took trouble for you; +and that knowledge has been for me, and I seemed to see it was for you, +as if there were something—I don’t know what to call it!—between us. I +mean something unusual and good and awfully nice—something not a bit +horrid or vulgar.” + +She had by this time, she could see, produced a great effect on him; +but she would have spoken the truth to herself had she at the same +moment declared that she didn’t in the least care: all the more that +the effect must be one of extreme perplexity. What, in it all, was +visibly clear for him, none the less, was that he was tremendously glad +he had met her. She held him, and he was astonished at the force of it; +he was intent, immensely considerate. His elbow was on the back of the +seat, and his head, with the pot-hat pushed quite back, in a boyish +way, so that she really saw almost for the first time his forehead and +hair, rested on the hand into which he had crumpled his gloves. “Yes,” +he assented, “it’s not a bit horrid or vulgar.” + +She just hung fire a moment, then she brought out the whole truth. “I’d +do anything for you. I’d do anything for you.” Never in her life had +she known anything so high and fine as this, just letting him have it +and bravely and magnificently leaving it. Didn’t the place, the +associations and circumstances, perfectly make it sound what it wasn’t? +and wasn’t that exactly the beauty? + +So she bravely and magnificently left it, and little by little she felt +him take it up, take it down, as if they had been on a satin sofa in a +boudoir. She had never seen a boudoir, but there had been lots of +boudoirs in the telegrams. What she had said at all events sank into +him, so that after a minute he simply made a movement that had the +result of placing his hand on her own—presently indeed that of her +feeling herself firmly enough grasped. There was no pressure she need +return, there was none she need decline; she just sat admirably still, +satisfied for the time with the surprise and bewilderment of the +impression she made on him. His agitation was even greater on the whole +than she had at first allowed for. “I say, you know, you mustn’t think +of leaving!” he at last broke out. + +“Of leaving Cocker’s, you mean?” + +“Yes, you must stay on there, whatever happens, and help a fellow.” + +She was silent a little, partly because it was so strange and exquisite +to feel him watch her as if it really mattered to him and he were +almost in suspense. “Then you _have_ quite recognised what I’ve tried +to do?” she asked. + +“Why, wasn’t that exactly what I dashed over from my door just now to +thank you for?” + +“Yes; so you said.” + +“And don’t you believe it?” + +She looked down a moment at his hand, which continued to cover her own; +whereupon he presently drew it back, rather restlessly folding his +arms. Without answering his question she went on: “Have you ever spoken +of me?” + +“Spoken of you?” + +“Of my being there—of my knowing, and that sort of thing.” + +“Oh never to a human creature!” he eagerly declared. + +She had a small drop at this, which was expressed in another pause, and +she then returned to what he had just asked her. “Oh yes, I quite +believe you like it—my always being there and our taking things up so +familiarly and successfully: if not exactly where we left them,” she +laughed, “almost always at least at an interesting point!” He was about +to say something in reply to this, but her friendly gaiety was quicker. +“You want a great many things in life, a great many comforts and helps +and luxuries—you want everything as pleasant as possible. Therefore, so +far as it’s in the power of any particular person to contribute to all +that—” She had turned her face to him smiling, just thinking. + +“Oh see here!” But he was highly amused. “Well, what then?” he enquired +as if to humour her. + +“Why the particular person must never fail. We must manage it for you +somehow.” + +He threw back his head, laughing out; he was really exhilarated. “Oh +yes, somehow!” + +“Well, I think we each do—don’t we?—in one little way and another and +according to our limited lights. I’m pleased at any rate, for myself, +that you are; for I assure you I’ve done my best.” + +“You do better than any one!” He had struck a match for another +cigarette, and the flame lighted an instant his responsive finished +face, magnifying into a pleasant grimace the kindness with which he +paid her this tribute. “You’re awfully clever, you know; cleverer, +cleverer, cleverer—!” He had appeared on the point of making some +tremendous statement; then suddenly, puffing his cigarette and shifting +almost with violence on his seat, he let it altogether fall. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +In spite of this drop, if not just by reason of it, she felt as if Lady +Bradeen, all but named out, had popped straight up; and she practically +betrayed her consciousness by waiting a little before she rejoined: +“Cleverer than who?” + +“Well, if I wasn’t afraid you’d think I swagger, I should say—than +anybody! If you leave your place there, where shall you go?” he more +gravely asked. + +“Oh too far for you ever to find me!” + +“I’d find you anywhere.” + +The tone of this was so still more serious that she had but her one +acknowledgement. “I’d do anything for you—I’d do anything for you,” she +repeated. She had already, she felt, said it all; so what did anything +more, anything less, matter? That was the very reason indeed why she +could, with a lighter note, ease him generously of any awkwardness +produced by solemnity, either his own or hers. “Of course it must be +nice for you to be able to think there are people all about who feel in +such a way.” + +In immediate appreciation of this, however, he only smoked without +looking at her. “But you don’t want to give up your present work?” he +at last threw out. “I mean you _will_ stay in the post-office?” + +“Oh yes; I think I’ve a genius for that.” + +“Rather! No one can touch you.” With this he turned more to her again. +“But you can get, with a move, greater advantages?” + +“I can get in the suburbs cheaper lodgings. I live with my mother. We +need some space. There’s a particular place that has other +inducements.” + +He just hesitated. “Where is it?” + +“Oh quite out of _your_ way. You’d never have time.” + +“But I tell you I’d go anywhere. Don’t you believe it?” + +“Yes, for once or twice. But you’d soon see it wouldn’t do for you.” + +He smoked and considered; seemed to stretch himself a little and, with +his legs out, surrender himself comfortably. “Well, well, well—I +believe everything you say. I take it from you—anything you like—in the +most extraordinary way.” It struck her certainly—and almost without +bitterness—that the way in which she was already, as if she had been an +old friend, arranging for him and preparing the only magnificence she +could muster, was quite the most extraordinary. “Don’t, _don’t_ go!” he +presently went on. “I shall miss you too horribly!” + +“So that you just put it to me as a definite request?”—oh how she tried +to divest this of all sound of the hardness of bargaining! That ought +to have been easy enough, for what was she arranging to get? Before he +could answer she had continued: “To be perfectly fair I should tell you +I recognise at Cocker’s certain strong attractions. All you people +come. I like all the horrors.” + +“The horrors?” + +“Those you all—you know the set I mean, _your_ set—show me with as good +a conscience as if I had no more feeling than a letter-box.” + +He looked quite excited at the way she put it. “Oh they don’t know!” + +“Don’t know I’m not stupid? No, how should they?” + +“Yes, how should they?” said the Captain sympathetically. “But isn’t +‘horrors’ rather strong?” + +“What you _do_ is rather strong!” the girl promptly returned. + +“What _I_ do?” + +“Your extravagance, your selfishness, your immorality, your crimes,” +she pursued, without heeding his expression. + +“I _say_!”—her companion showed the queerest stare. + +“I like them, as I tell you—I revel in them. But we needn’t go into +that,” she quietly went on; “for all I get out of it is the harmless +pleasure of knowing. I know, I know, I know!”—she breathed it ever so +gently. + +“Yes; that’s what has been between us,” he answered much more simply. + +She could enjoy his simplicity in silence, and for a moment she did so. +“If I do stay because you want it—and I’m rather capable of that—there +are two or three things I think you ought to remember. One is, you +know, that I’m there sometimes for days and weeks together without your +ever coming.” + +“Oh I’ll come every day!” he honestly cried. + +She was on the point, at this, of imitating with her hand his movement +of shortly before; but she checked herself, and there was no want of +effect in her soothing substitute. “How can you? How can you?” He had, +too manifestly, only to look at it there, in the vulgarly animated +gloom, to see that he couldn’t; and at this point, by the mere action +of his silence, everything they had so definitely not named, the whole +presence round which they had been circling, became part of their +reference, settled in solidly between them. It was as if then for a +minute they sat and saw it all in each other’s eyes, saw so much that +there was no need of a pretext for sounding it at last. “Your danger, +your danger—!” Her voice indeed trembled with it, and she could only +for the moment again leave it so. + +During this moment he leaned back on the bench, meeting her in silence +and with a face that grew more strange. It grew so strange that after a +further instant she got straight up. She stood there as if their talk +were now over, and he just sat and watched her. It was as if now—owing +to the third person they had brought in—they must be more careful; so +that the most he could finally say was: “That’s where it is!” + +“That’s where it is!” the girl as guardedly replied. He sat still, and +she added: “I won’t give you up. Good-bye.” + +“Good-bye?”—he appealed, but without moving. + +“I don’t quite see my way, but I won’t give you up,” she repeated. +“There. Good-bye.” + +It brought him with a jerk to his feet, tossing away his cigarette. His +poor face was flushed. “See here—see here!” + +“No, I won’t; but I must leave you now,” she went on as if not hearing +him. + +“See here—see here!” He tried, from the bench, to take her hand again. + +But that definitely settled it for her: this would, after all, be as +bad as his asking her to supper. “You mustn’t come with me—no, no!” + +He sank back, quite blank, as if she had pushed him. “I mayn’t see you +home?” + +“No, no; let me go.” He looked almost as if she had struck him, but she +didn’t care; and the manner in which she spoke—it was literally as if +she were angry—had the force of a command. “Stay where you are!” + +“See here—see here!” he nevertheless pleaded. + +“I won’t give you up!” she cried once more—this time quite with +passion; on which she got away from him as fast as she could and left +him staring after her. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +Mr. Mudge had lately been so occupied with their famous “plans” that he +had neglected for a while the question of her transfer; but down at +Bournemouth, which had found itself selected as the field of their +recreation by a process consisting, it seemed, exclusively of +innumerable pages of the neatest arithmetic in a very greasy but most +orderly little pocket-book, the distracting possible melted away—the +fleeting absolute ruled the scene. The plans, hour by hour, were simply +superseded, and it was much of a rest to the girl, as she sat on the +pier and overlooked the sea and the company, to see them evaporate in +rosy fumes and to feel that from moment to moment there was less left +to cipher about. The week proves blissfully fine, and her mother, at +their lodgings—partly to her embarrassment and partly to her +relief—struck up with the landlady an alliance that left the younger +couple a great deal of freedom. This relative took her pleasure of a +week at Bournemouth in a stuffy back-kitchen and endless talks; to that +degree even that Mr. Mudge himself—habitually inclined indeed to a +scrutiny of all mysteries and to seeing, as he sometimes admitted, too +much in things—made remarks on it as he sat on the cliff with his +betrothed, or on the decks of steamers that conveyed them, close-packed +items in terrific totals of enjoyment, to the Isle of Wight and the +Dorset coast. + +He had a lodging in another house, where he had speedily learned the +importance of keeping his eyes open, and he made no secret of his +suspecting that sinister mutual connivances might spring, under the +roof of his companions, from unnatural sociabilities. At the same time +he fully recognised that as a source of anxiety, not to say of expense, +his future mother-in law would have weighted them more by accompanying +their steps than by giving her hostess, in the interest of the tendency +they considered that they never mentioned, equivalent pledges as to the +tea-caddy and the jam-pot. These were the questions—these indeed the +familiar commodities—that he had now to put into the scales; and his +betrothed had in consequence, during her holiday, the odd and yet +pleasant and almost languid sense of an anticlimax. She had become +conscious of an extraordinary collapse, a surrender to stillness and to +retrospect. She cared neither to walk nor to sail; it was enough for +her to sit on benches and wonder at the sea and taste the air and not +be at Cocker’s and not see the counter-clerk. She still seemed to wait +for something—something in the key of the immense discussions that had +mapped out their little week of idleness on the scale of a world-atlas. +Something came at last, but without perhaps appearing quite adequately +to crown the monument. + +Preparation and precaution were, however, the natural flowers of Mr. +Mudge’s mind, and in proportion as these things declined in one quarter +they inevitably bloomed elsewhere. He could always, at the worst, have +on Tuesday the project of their taking the Swanage boat on Thursday, +and on Thursday that of their ordering minced kidneys on Saturday. He +had moreover a constant gift of inexorable enquiry as to where and what +they should have gone and have done if they hadn’t been exactly as they +were. He had in short his resources, and his mistress had never been so +conscious of them; on the other hand they never interfered so little +with her own. She liked to be as she was—if it could only have lasted. +She could accept even without bitterness a rigour of economy so great +that the little fee they paid for admission to the pier had to be +balanced against other delights. The people at Ladle’s and at Thrupp’s +had _their_ ways of amusing themselves, whereas she had to sit and hear +Mr. Mudge talk of what he might do if he didn’t take a bath, or of the +bath he might take if he only hadn’t taken something else. He was +always with her now, of course, always beside her; she saw him more +than “hourly,” more than ever yet, more even than he had planned she +should do at Chalk Farm. She preferred to sit at the far end, away from +the band and the crowd; as to which she had frequent differences with +her friend, who reminded her often that they could have only in the +thick of it the sense of the money they were getting back. That had +little effect on her, for she got back her money by seeing many things, +the things of the past year, fall together and connect themselves, +undergo the happy relegation that transforms melancholy and misery, +passion and effort, into experience and knowledge. + +She liked having done with them, as she assured herself she had +practically done, and the strange thing was that she neither missed the +procession now nor wished to keep her place for it. It had become +there, in the sun and the breeze and the sea-smell, a far-away story, a +picture of another life. If Mr. Mudge himself liked processions, liked +them at Bournemouth and on the pier quite as much as at Chalk Farm or +anywhere, she learned after a little not to be worried by his perpetual +counting of the figures that made them up. There were dreadful women in +particular, usually fat and in men’s caps and write shoes, whom he +could never let alone—not that _she_ cared; it was not the great world, +the world of Cocker’s and Ladle’s and Thrupp’s, but it offered an +endless field to his faculties of memory, philosophy, and frolic. She +had never accepted him so much, never arranged so successfully for +making him chatter while she carried on secret conversations. This +separate commerce was with herself; and if they both practised a great +thrift she had quite mastered that of merely spending words enough to +keep him imperturbably and continuously going. + +He was charmed with the panorama, not knowing—or at any rate not at all +showing that he knew—what far other images peopled her mind than the +women in the navy caps and the shop-boys in the blazers. His +observations on these types, his general interpretation of the show, +brought home to her the prospect of Chalk Farm. She wondered sometimes +that he should have derived so little illumination, during his period, +from the society at Cocker’s. But one evening while their holiday +cloudlessly waned he gave her such a proof of his quality as might have +made her ashamed of her many suppressions. He brought out something +that, in all his overflow, he had been able to keep back till other +matters were disposed of. It was the announcement that he was at last +ready to marry—that he saw his way. A rise at Chalk Farm had been +offered him; he was to be taken into the business, bringing with him a +capital the estimation of which by other parties constituted the +handsomest recognition yet made of the head on his shoulders. Therefore +their waiting was over—it could be a question of a near date. They +would settle this date before going back, and he meanwhile had his eye +on a sweet little home. He would take her to see it on their first +Sunday. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +His having kept this great news for the last, having had such a card up +his sleeve and not floated it out in the current of his chatter and the +luxury of their leisure, was one of those incalculable strokes by which +he could still affect her; the kind of thing that reminded her of the +latent force that had ejected the drunken soldier—an example of the +profundity of which his promotion was the proof. She listened a while +in silence, on this occasion, to the wafted strains of the music; she +took it in as she had not quite done before that her future was now +constituted. Mr. Mudge was distinctly her fate; yet at this moment she +turned her face quite away from him, showing him so long a mere quarter +of her cheek that she at last again heard his voice. He couldn’t see a +pair of tears that were partly the reason of her delay to give him the +assurance he required; but he expressed at a venture the hope that she +had had her fill of Cocker’s. + +She was finally able to turn back. “Oh quite. There’s nothing going on. +No one comes but the Americans at Thrupp’s, and _they_ don’t do much. +They don’t seem to have a secret in the world.” + +“Then the extraordinary reason you’ve been giving me for holding on +there has ceased to work?” + +She thought a moment. “Yes, that one. I’ve seen the thing through—I’ve +got them all in my pocket.” + +“So you’re ready to come?” + +For a little again she made no answer. “No, not yet, all the same. I’ve +still got a reason—a different one.” + +He looked her all over as if it might have been something she kept in +her mouth or her glove or under her jacket—something she was even +sitting upon. “Well, I’ll have it, please.” + +“I went out the other night and sat in the Park with a gentleman,” she +said at last. + +Nothing was ever seen like his confidence in her and she wondered a +little now why it didn’t irritate her. It only gave her ease and space, +as she felt, for telling him the whole truth that no one knew. It had +arrived at present at her really wanting to do that, and yet to do it +not in the least for Mr. Mudge, but altogether and only for herself. +This truth filled out for her there the whole experience about to +relinquish, suffused and coloured it as a picture that she should keep +and that, describe it as she might, no one but herself would ever +really see. Moreover she had no desire whatever to make Mr. Mudge +jealous; there would be no amusement in it, for the amusement she had +lately known had spoiled her for lower pleasures. There were even no +materials for it. The odd thing was how she never doubted that, +properly handled, his passion was poisonable; what had happened was +that he had cannily selected a partner with no poison to distil. She +read then and there that she should never interest herself in anybody +as to whom some other sentiment, some superior view, wouldn’t be sure +to interfere for him with jealousy. “And what did you get out of that?” +he asked with a concern that was not in the least for his honour. + +“Nothing but a good chance to promise him I wouldn’t forsake him. He’s +one of my customers.” + +“Then it’s for him not to forsake _you_.” + +“Well, he won’t. It’s all right. But I must just keep on as long as he +may want me.” + +“Want you to sit with him in the Park?” + +“He may want me for that—but I shan’t. I rather liked it, but once, +under the circumstances, is enough. I can do better for him in another +manner.” + +“And what manner, pray?” + +“Well, elsewhere.” + +“Elsewhere?—I _say_!” + +This was an ejaculation used also by Captain Everard, but oh with what +a different sound! “You needn’t ‘say’—there’s nothing to be said. And +yet you ought perhaps to know.” + +“Certainly I ought. But _what_—up to now?” + +“Why exactly what I told him. That I’d do anything for him.” + +“What do you mean by ‘anything’?” + +“Everything.” + +Mr. Mudge’s immediate comment on this statement was to draw from his +pocket a crumpled paper containing the remains of half a pound of +“sundries.” These sundries had figured conspicuously in his prospective +sketch of their tour, but it was only at the end of three days that +they had defined themselves unmistakeably as chocolate-creams. “Have +another?—_that_ one,” he said. She had another, but not the one he +indicated, and then he continued: “What took place afterwards?” + +“Afterwards?” + +“What did you do when you had told him you’d do everything?” + +“I simply came away.” + +“Out of the Park?” + +“Yes, leaving him there. I didn’t let him follow me.” + +“Then what did you let him do?” + +“I didn’t let him do anything.” + +Mr. Mudge considered an instant. “Then what did you go there for?” His +tone was even slightly critical. + +“I didn’t quite know at the time. It was simply to be with him, I +suppose—just once. He’s in danger, and I wanted him to know I know it. +It makes meeting him—at Cocker’s, since it’s that I want to stay on +for—more interesting.” + +“It makes it mighty interesting for _me_!” Mr. Mudge freely declared. +“Yet he didn’t follow you?” he asked. “_I_ would!” + +“Yes, of course. That was the way you began, you know. You’re awfully +inferior to him.” + +“Well, my dear, you’re not inferior to anybody. You’ve got a cheek! +What’s he in danger of?” + +“Of being found out. He’s in love with a lady—and it isn’t right—and +_I’ve_ found him out.” + +“That’ll be a look-out for _me_!” Mr. Mudge joked. “You mean she has a +husband?” + +“Never mind what she has! They’re in awful danger, but his is the +worst, because he’s in danger from her too.” + +“Like me from you—the woman _I_ love? If he’s in the same funk as me—” + +“He’s in a worse one. He’s not only afraid of the lady—he’s afraid of +other things.” + +Mr. Mudge selected another chocolate-cream. “Well, I’m only afraid of +one! But how in the world can you help this party?” + +“I don’t know—perhaps not at all. But so long as there’s a chance—” + +“You won’t come away?” + +“No, you’ve got to wait for me.” + +Mr. Mudge enjoyed what was in his mouth. “And what will he give you?” + +“Give me?” + +“If you do help him.” + +“Nothing. Nothing in all the wide world.” + +“Then what will he give _me_?” Mr. Mudge enquired. “I mean for +waiting.” + +The girl thought a moment; then she got up to walk. “He never heard of +you,” she replied. + +“You haven’t mentioned me?” + +“We never mention anything. What I’ve told you is just what I’ve found +out.” + +Mr. Mudge, who had remained on the bench, looked up at her; she often +preferred to be quiet when he proposed to walk, but now that he seemed +to wish to sit she had a desire to move. “But you haven’t told me what +_he_ has found out.” + +She considered her lover. “He’d never find _you_, my dear!” + +Her lover, still on his seat, appealed to her in something of the +attitude in which she had last left Captain Everard, but the impression +was not the same. “Then where do I come in?” + +“You don’t come in at all. That’s just the beauty of it!”—and with this +she turned to mingle with the multitude collected round the band. Mr. +Mudge presently overtook her and drew her arm into his own with a quiet +force that expressed the serenity of possession; in consonance with +which it was only when they parted for the night at her door that he +referred again to what she had told him. + +“Have you seen him since?” + +“Since the night in the Park? No, not once.” + +“Oh, what a cad!” said Mr. Mudge. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +It was not till the end of October that she saw Captain Everard again, +and on that occasion—the only one of all the series on which hindrance +had been so utter—no communication with him proved possible. She had +made out even from the cage that it was a charming golden day: a patch +of hazy autumn sunlight lay across the sanded floor and also, higher +up, quickened into brightness a row of ruddy bottled syrups. Work was +slack and the place in general empty; the town, as they said in the +cage, had not waked up, and the feeling of the day likened itself to +something than in happier conditions she would have thought of +romantically as Saint Martin’s summer. The counter-clerk had gone to +his dinner; she herself was busy with arrears of postal jobs, in the +midst of which she became aware that Captain Everard had apparently +been in the shop a minute and that Mr. Buckton had already seized him. + +He had as usual half a dozen telegrams; and when he saw that she saw +him and their eyes met he gave, on bowing to her, an exaggerated laugh +in which she read a new consciousness. It was a confession of +awkwardness; it seemed to tell her that of course he knew he ought +better to have kept his head, ought to have been clever enough to wait, +on some pretext, till he should have found her free. Mr. Buckton was a +long time with him, and her attention was soon demanded by other +visitors; so that nothing passed between them but the fulness of their +silence. The look she took from him was his greeting, and the other one +a simple sign of the eyes sent her before going out. The only token +they exchanged therefore was his tacit assent to her wish that since +they couldn’t attempt a certain frankness they should attempt nothing +at all. This was her intense preference; she could be as still and cold +as any one when that was the sole solution. + +Yet more than any contact hitherto achieved these counted instants +struck her as marking a step: they were built so—just in the mere +flash—on the recognition of his now definitely knowing what it was she +would do for him. The “anything, anything” she had uttered in the Park +went to and fro between them and under the poked-out china that +interposed. It had all at last even put on the air of their not needing +now clumsily to manoeuvre to converse: their former little postal +make-believes, the intense implications of questions and answers and +change, had become in the light of the personal fact, of their having +had their moment, a possibility comparatively poor. It was as if they +had met for all time—it exerted on their being in presence again an +influence so prodigious. When she watched herself, in the memory of +that night, walk away from him as if she were making an end, she found +something too pitiful in the primness of such a gait. Hadn’t she +precisely established on the part of each a consciousness that could +end only with death? + +It must be admitted that in spite of this brave margin an irritation, +after he had gone, remained with her; a sense that presently became one +with a still sharper hatred of Mr. Buckton, who, on her friend’s +withdrawal, had retired with the telegrams to the sounder and left her +the other work. She knew indeed she should have a chance to see them, +when she would, on file; and she was divided, as the day went on, +between the two impressions of all that was lost and all that was +re-asserted. What beset her above all, and as she had almost never +known it before, was the desire to bound straight out, to overtake the +autumn afternoon before it passed away for ever and hurry off to the +Park and perhaps be with him there again on a bench. It became for an +hour a fantastic vision with her that he might just have gone to sit +and wait for her. She could almost hear him, through the tick of the +sounder, scatter with his stick, in his impatience, the fallen leaves +of October. Why should such a vision seize her at this particular +moment with such a shake? There was a time—from four to five—when she +could have cried with happiness and rage. + +Business quickened, it seemed, toward five, as if the town did wake up; +she had therefore more to do, and she went through it with little sharp +stampings and jerkings: she made the crisp postal-orders fairly snap +while she breathed to herself “It’s the last day—the last day!” The +last day of what? She couldn’t have told. All she knew now was that if +she _were_ out of the cage she wouldn’t in the least have minded, this +time, its not yet being dark. She would have gone straight toward Park +Chambers and have hung about there till no matter when. She would have +waited, stayed, rung, asked, have gone in, sat on the stairs. What the +day was the last of was probably, to her strained inner sense, the +group of golden ones, of any occasion for seeing the hazy sunshine +slant at that angle into the smelly shop, of any range of chances for +his wishing still to repeat to her the two words she had in the Park +scarcely let him bring out. “See here—see here!”—the sound of these two +words had been with her perpetually; but it was in her ears to-day +without mercy, with a loudness that grew and grew. What was it they +then expressed? what was it he had wanted her to see? She seemed, +whatever it was, perfectly to see it now—to see that if she should just +chuck the whole thing, should have a great and beautiful courage, he +would somehow make everything up to her. When the clock struck five she +was on the very point of saying to Mr. Buckton that she was deadly ill +and rapidly getting worse. This announcement was on her lips, and she +had quite composed the pale hard face she would offer him: “I can’t +stop—I must go home. If I feel better, later on, I’ll come back. I’m +very sorry, but I _must_ go.” At that instant Captain Everard once more +stood there, producing in her agitated spirit, by his real presence, +the strangest, quickest revolution. He stopped her off without knowing +it, and by the time he had been a minute in the shop she felt herself +saved. + +That was from the first minute how she thought of it. There were again +other persons with whom she was occupied, and again the situation could +only be expressed by their silence. It was expressed, of a truth, in a +larger phrase than ever yet, for her eyes now spoke to him with a kind +of supplication. “Be quiet, be quiet!” they pleaded; and they saw his +own reply: “I’ll do whatever you say; I won’t even look at you—see, +see!” They kept conveying thus, with the friendliest liberality, that +they wouldn’t look, quite positively wouldn’t. What she was to see was +that he hovered at the other end of the counter, Mr. Buckton’s end, and +surrendered himself again to that frustration. It quickly proved so +great indeed that what she was to see further was how he turned away +before he was attended to, and hung off, waiting, smoking, looking +about the shop; how he went over to Mr. Cocker’s own counter and +appeared to price things, gave in fact presently two or three orders +and put down money, stood there a long time with his back to her, +considerately abstaining from any glance round to see if she were free. +It at last came to pass in this way that he had remained in the shop +longer than she had ever yet known to do, and that, nevertheless, when +he did turn about she could see him time himself—she was freshly taken +up—and cross straight to her postal subordinate, whom some one else had +released. He had in his hand all this while neither letters nor +telegrams, and now that he was close to her—for she was close to the +counter-clerk—it brought her heart into her mouth merely to see him +look at her neighbour and open his lips. She was too nervous to bear +it. He asked for a Post-Office Guide, and the young man whipped out a +new one; whereupon he said he wished not to purchase, but only to +consult one a moment; with which, the copy kept on loan being produced, +he once more wandered off. + +What was he doing to her? What did he want of her? Well, it was just +the aggravation of his “See here!” She felt at this moment strangely +and portentously afraid of him—had in her ears the hum of a sense that, +should it come to that kind of tension, she must fly on the spot to +Chalk Farm. Mixed with her dread and with her reflexion was the idea +that, if he wanted her so much as he seemed to show, it might be after +all simply to do for him the “anything” she had promised, the +“everything” she had thought it so fine to bring out to Mr. Mudge. He +might want her to help him, might have some particular appeal; though +indeed his manner didn’t denote that—denoted on the contrary an +embarrassment, an indecision, something of a desire not so much to be +helped as to be treated rather more nicely than she had treated him the +other time. Yes, he considered quite probably that he had help rather +to offer than to ask for. Still, none the less, when he again saw her +free he continued to keep away from her; when he came back with his +_Guide_ it was Mr. Buckton he caught—it was from Mr. Buckton he +obtained half-a-crown’s-worth of stamps. + +After asking for the stamps he asked, quite as a second thought, for a +postal-order for ten shillings. What did he want with so many stamps +when he wrote so few letters? How could he enclose a postal-order in a +telegram? She expected him, the next thing, to go into the corner and +make up one of his telegrams—half a dozen of them—on purpose to prolong +his presence. She had so completely stopped looking at him that she +could only guess his movements—guess even where his eyes rested. +Finally she saw him make a dash that might have been toward the nook +where the forms were hung; and at this she suddenly felt that she +couldn’t keep it up. The counter-clerk had just taken a telegram from a +slavey, and, to give herself something to cover her, she snatched it +out of his hand. The gesture was so violent that he gave her in return +an odd look, and she also perceived that Mr. Buckton noticed it. The +latter personage, with a quick stare at her, appeared for an instant to +wonder whether his snatching it in _his_ turn mightn’t be the thing she +would least like, and she anticipated this practical criticism by the +frankest glare she had ever given him. It sufficed: this time it +paralysed him; and she sought with her trophy the refuge of the +sounder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +It was repeated the next day; it went on for three days; and at the end +of that time she knew what to think. When, at the beginning, she had +emerged from her temporary shelter Captain Everard had quitted the +shop; and he had not come again that evening, as it had struck her he +possibly might—might all the more easily that there were numberless +persons who came, morning and afternoon, numberless times, so that he +wouldn’t necessarily have attracted attention. The second day it was +different and yet on the whole worse. His access to her had become +possible—she felt herself even reaping the fruit of her yesterday’s +glare at Mr. Buckton; but transacting his business with him didn’t +simplify—it could, in spite of the rigour of circumstance, feed so her +new conviction. The rigour was tremendous, and his telegrams—not now +mere pretexts for getting at her—were apparently genuine; yet the +conviction had taken but a night to develop. It could be simply enough +expressed; she had had the glimmer of it the day before in her idea +that he needed no more help than she had already given; that it was +help he himself was prepared to render. He had come up to town but for +three or four days; he had been absolutely obliged to be absent after +the other time; yet he would, now that he was face to face with her, +stay on as much longer as she liked. Little by little it was thus +clarified, though from the first flash of his re-appearance she had +read into it the real essence. + +That was what the night before, at eight o’clock, her hour to go, had +made her hang back and dawdle. She did last things or pretended to do +them; to be in the cage had suddenly become her safety, and she was +literally afraid of the alternate self who might be waiting outside. +_He_ might be waiting; it was he who was her alternate self, and of him +she was afraid. The most extraordinary change had taken place in her +from the moment of her catching the impression he seemed to have +returned on purpose to give her. Just before she had done so, on that +bewitched afternoon, she had seen herself approach without a scruple +the porter at Park Chambers; then as the effect of the rush of a +consciousness quite altered she had on at last quitting Cocker’s, gone +straight home for the first time since her return from Bournemouth. She +had passed his door every night for weeks, but nothing would have +induced her to pass it now. This change was the tribute of her fear—the +result of a change in himself as to which she needed no more +explanation than his mere face vividly gave her; strange though it was +to find an element of deterrence in the object that she regarded as the +most beautiful in the world. He had taken it from her in the Park that +night that she wanted him not to propose to her to sup; but he had put +away the lesson by this time—he practically proposed supper every time +he looked at her. This was what, for that matter, mainly filled the +three days. He came in twice on each of these, and it was as if he came +in to give her a chance to relent. That was after all, she said to +herself in the intervals, the most that he did. There were ways, she +fully recognised, in which he spared her, and other particular ways as +to which she meant that her silence should be full to him of exquisite +pleading. The most particular of all was his not being outside, at the +corner, when she quitted the place for the night. This he might so +easily have been—so easily if he hadn’t been so nice. She continued to +recognise in his forbearance the fruit of her dumb supplication, and +the only compensation he found for it was the harmless freedom of being +able to appear to say: “Yes, I’m in town only for three or four days, +but, you know, I _would_ stay on.” He struck her as calling attention +each day, each hour, to the rapid ebb of time; he exaggerated to the +point of putting it that there were only two days more, that there was +at last, dreadfully, only one. + +There were other things still that he struck her as doing with a +special intention; as to the most marked of which—unless indeed it were +the most obscure—she might well have marvelled that it didn’t seem to +her more horrid. It was either the frenzy of her imagination or the +disorder of his baffled passion that gave her once or twice the vision +of his putting down redundant money—sovereigns not concerned with the +little payments he was perpetually making—so that she might give him +some sign of helping him to slip them over to her. What was most +extraordinary in this impression was the amount of excuse that, with +some incoherence, she found for him. He wanted to pay her because there +was nothing to pay her for. He wanted to offer her things he knew she +wouldn’t take. He wanted to show her how much he respected her by +giving her the supreme chance to show _him_ she was respectable. Over +the dryest transactions, at any rate, their eyes had out these +questions. On the third day he put in a telegram that had evidently +something of the same point as the stray sovereigns—a message that was +in the first place concocted and that on a second thought he took back +from her before she had stamped it. He had given her time to read it +and had only then bethought himself that he had better not send it. If +it was not to Lady Bradeen at Twindle—where she knew her ladyship then +to be—this was because an address to Doctor Buzzard at Brickwood was +just as good, with the added merit of its not giving away quite so much +a person whom he had still, after all, in a manner to consider. It was +of course most complicated, only half lighted; but there was, +discernibly enough, a scheme of communication in which Lady Bradeen at +Twindle and Dr. Buzzard at Brickwood were, within limits, one and the +same person. The words he had shown her and then taken back consisted, +at all events, of the brief but vivid phrase “Absolutely impossible.” +The point was not that she should transmit it; the point was just that +she should see it. What was absolutely impossible was that before he +had setted something at Cocker’s he should go either to Twindle or to +Brickwood. + +The logic of this, in turn, for herself, was that she could lend +herself to no settlement so long as she so intensely knew. What she +knew was that he was, almost under peril of life, clenched in a +situation: therefore how could she also know where a poor girl in the +P.O. might really stand? It was more and more between them that if he +might convey to her he was free, with all the impossible locked away +into a closed chapter, her own case might become different for her, she +might understand and meet him and listen. But he could convey nothing +of the sort, and he only fidgeted and floundered in his want of power. +The chapter wasn’t in the least closed, not for the other party; and +the other party had a pull, somehow and somewhere: this his whole +attitude and expression confessed, at the same time that they entreated +her not to remember and not to mind. So long as she did remember and +did mind he could only circle about and go and come, doing futile +things of which he was ashamed. He was ashamed of his two words to Dr. +Buzzard; he went out of the shop as soon as he had crumpled up the +paper again and thrust it into his pocket. It had been an abject little +exposure of dreadful impossible passion. He appeared in fact to be too +ashamed to come back. He had once more left town, and a first week +elapsed, and a second. He had had naturally to return to the real +mistress of his fate; she had insisted—she knew how to insist, and he +couldn’t put in another hour. There was always a day when she called +time. It was known to our young friend moreover that he had now been +dispatching telegrams from other offices. She knew at last so much that +she had quite lost her earlier sense of merely guessing. There were no +different shades of distinctness—it all bounced out. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +Eighteen days elapsed, and she had begun to think it probable she +should never see him again. He too then understood now: he had made out +that she had secrets and reasons and impediments, that even a poor girl +at the P.O. might have her complications. With the charm she had cast +on him lightened by distance he had suffered a final delicacy to speak +to him, had made up his mind that it would be only decent to let her +alone. Never so much as during these latter days had she felt the +precariousness of their relation—the happy beautiful untroubled +original one, if it could only have been restored—in which the public +servant and the casual public only were concerned. It hung at the best +by the merest silken thread, which was at the mercy of any accident and +might snap at any minute. She arrived by the end of the fortnight at +the highest sense of actual fitness, never doubting that her decision +was now complete. She would just give him a few days more to come back +to her on a proper impersonal basis—for even to an embarrassing +representative of the casual public a public servant with a conscience +did owe something—and then would signify to Mr. Mudge that she was +ready for the little home. It had been visited, in the further talk she +had had with him at Bournemouth, from garret to cellar, and they had +especially lingered, with their respectively darkened brows, before the +niche into which it was to be broached to her mother that she must find +means to fit. + +He had put it to her more definitely than before that his calculations +had allowed for that dingy presence, and he had thereby marked the +greatest impression he had ever made on her. It was a stroke superior +even again to his handling of the drunken soldier. What she considered +that in the face of it she hung on at Cocker’s for was something she +could only have described as the common fairness of a last word. Her +actual last word had been, till it should be superseded, that she +wouldn’t forsake her other friend, and it stuck to her through thick +and thin that she was still at her post and on her honour. This other +friend had shown so much beauty of conduct already that he would surely +after all just re-appear long enough to relieve her, to give her +something she could take away. She saw it, caught it, at times, his +parting present; and there were moments when she felt herself sitting +like a beggar with a hand held out to almsgiver who only fumbled. She +hadn’t taken the sovereigns, but she _would_ take the penny. She heard, +in imagination, on the counter, the ring of the copper. “Don’t put +yourself out any longer,” he would say, “for so bad a case. You’ve done +all there is to be done. I thank and acquit and release you. Our lives +take us. I don’t know much—though I’ve really been interested—about +yours, but I suppose you’ve got one. Mine at any rate will take +_me_—and where it will. Heigh-ho! Good-bye.” And then once more, for +the sweetest faintest flower of all: “Only, I say—see here!” She had +framed the whole picture with a squareness that included also the image +of how again she would decline to “see there,” decline, as she might +say, to see anywhere, see anything. Yet it befell that just in the fury +of this escape she saw more than ever. + +He came back one night with a rush, near the moment of their closing, +and showed her a face so different and new, so upset and anxious, that +almost anything seemed to look out of it but clear recognition. He +poked in a telegram very much as if the simple sense of pressure, the +distress of extreme haste, had blurred the remembrance of where in +particular he was. But as she met his eyes a light came; it broke +indeed on the spot into a positive conscious glare. That made up for +everything, since it was an instant proclamation of the celebrated +“danger”; it seemed to pour things out in a flood. “Oh yes, here it +is—it’s upon me at last! Forget, for God’s sake, my having worried or +bored you, and just help me, just _save_ me, by getting this off +without the loss of a second!” Something grave had clearly occurred, a +crisis declared itself. She recognised immediately the person to whom +the telegram was addressed—the Miss Dolman of Parade Lodge to whom Lady +Bradeen had wired, at Dover, on the last occasion, and whom she had +then, with her recollection of previous arrangements, fitted into a +particular setting. Miss Dolman had figured before and not figured +since, but she was now the subject of an imperative appeal. “Absolutely +necessary to see you. Take last train Victoria if you can catch it. If +not, earliest morning, and answer me direct either way.” + +“Reply paid?” said the girl. Mr. Buckton had just departed and the +counter-clerk was at the sounder. There was no other representative of +the public, and she had never yet, as it seemed to her, not even in the +street or in the Park, been so alone with him. + +“Oh yes, reply paid, and as sharp as possible, please.” + +She affixed the stamps in a flash. “She’ll catch the train!” she then +declared to him breathlessly, as if she could absolutely guarantee it. + +“I don’t know—I hope so. It’s awfully important. So kind of you. +Awfully sharp, please.” It was wonderfully innocent now, his oblivion +of all but his danger. Anything else that had ever passed between them +was utterly out of it. Well, she had wanted him to be impersonal! + +There was less of the same need therefore, happily, for herself; yet +she only took time, before she flew to the sounder, to gasp at him: +“You‘re in trouble?” + +“Horrid, horrid—there’s a row!” But they parted, on it, in the next +breath; and as she dashed at the sounder, almost pushing, in her +violence, the counter-clerk off the stool, she caught the bang with +which, at Cocker’s door, in his further precipitation, he closed the +apron of the cab into which he had leaped. As he rebounded to some +other precaution suggested by his alarm, his appeal to Miss Dolman +flashed straight away. + +But she had not, on the morrow, been in the place five minutes before +he was with her again, still more discomposed and quite, now, as she +said to herself, like a frightened child coming to its mother. Her +companions were there, and she felt it to be remarkable how, in the +presence of his agitation, his mere scared exposed nature, she suddenly +ceased to mind. It came to her as it had never come to her before that +with absolute directness and assurance they might carry almost anything +off. He had nothing to send—she was sure he had been wiring all +over—and yet his business was evidently huge. There was nothing but +that in his eyes—not a glimmer of reference or memory. He was almost +haggard with anxiety and had clearly not slept a wink. Her pity for him +would have given her any courage, and she seemed to know at last why +she had been such a fool. “She didn’t come?” she panted. + +“Oh yes, she came; but there has been some mistake. We want a +telegram.” + +“A telegram?” + +“One that was sent from here ever so long ago. There was something in +it that has to be recovered. Something very, very important, please—we +want it immediately.” + +He really spoke to her as if she had been some strange young woman at +Knightsbridge or Paddington; but it had no other effect on her than to +give her the measure of his tremendous flurry. Then it was that, above +all, she felt how much she had missed in the gaps and blanks and absent +answers—how much she had had to dispense with: it was now black +darkness save for this little wild red flare. So much as that she saw, +so much her mind dealt with. One of the lovers was quaking somewhere +out of town, and the other was quaking just where he stood. This was +vivid enough, and after an instant she knew it was all she wanted. She +wanted no detail, no fact—she wanted no nearer vision of discovery or +shame. “When was your telegram? Do you mean you sent it from here?” She +tried to do the young woman at Knightsbridge. + +“Oh yes, from here—several weeks ago. Five, six, seven”—he was confused +and impatient—“don’t you remember?” + +“Remember?” she could scarcely keep out of her face, at the word, the +strangest of smiles. + +But the way he didn’t catch what it meant was perhaps even stranger +still. “I mean, don’t you keep the old ones?” + +“For a certain time.” + +“But how long?” + +She thought; she _must_ do the young woman, and she knew exactly what +the young woman would say and, still more, wouldn’t. “Can you give me +the date?” + +“Oh God, no! It was some time or other in August—toward the end. It was +to the same address as the one I gave you last night.” + +“Oh!” said the girl, knowing at this the deepest thrill she had ever +felt. It came to her there, with her eyes on his face, that she held +the whole thing in her hand, held it as she held her pencil, which +might have broken at that instant in her tightened grip. This made her +feel like the very fountain of fate, but the emotion was such a flood +that she had to press it back with all her force. That was positively +the reason, again, of her flute-like Paddington tone. “You can’t give +us anything a little nearer?” Her “little” and her “us” came straight +from Paddington. These things were no false note for him—his difficulty +absorbed them all. The eyes with which he pressed her, and in the +depths of which she read terror and rage and literal tears, were just +the same he would have shown any other prim person. + +“I don’t know the date. I only know the thing went from here, and just +about the time I speak of. It wasn’t delivered, you see. We’ve got to +recover it.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +She was as struck with the beauty of his plural pronoun as she had +judged he might be with that of her own; but she knew now so well what +she was about that she could almost play with him and with her new-born +joy. “You say ‘about the time you speak of.’ But I don’t think you +speak of an exact time—_do_ you?” + +He looked splendidly helpless. “That’s just what I want to find out. +Don’t you keep the old ones?—can’t you look it up?” + +Our young lady—still at Paddington—turned the question over. “It wasn’t +delivered?” + +“Yes, it _was_; yet, at the same time, don’t you know? it wasn’t.” He +just hung back, but he brought it out. “I mean it was intercepted, +don’t you know? and there was something in it.” He paused again and, as +if to further his quest and woo and supplicate success and recovery, +even smiled with an effort at the agreeable that was almost ghastly and +that turned the knife in her tenderness. What must be the pain of it +all, of the open gulf and the throbbing fever, when this was the mere +hot breath? “We want to get what was in it—to know what it was.” + +“I see—I see.” She managed just the accent they had at Paddington when +they stared like dead fish. “And you have no clue?” + +“Not at all—I’ve the clue I’ve just given you.” + +“Oh the last of August?” If she kept it up long enough she would make +him really angry. + +“Yes, and the address, as I’ve said.” + +“Oh the same as last night?” + +He visibly quivered, as with a gleam of hope; but it only poured oil on +her quietude, and she was still deliberate. She ranged some papers. +“Won’t you look?” he went on. + +“I remember your coming,” she replied. + +He blinked with a new uneasiness; it might have begun to come to him, +through her difference, that he was somehow different himself. “You +were much quicker then, you know!” + +“So were you—you must do me that justice,” she answered with a smile. +“But let me see. Wasn’t it Dover?” + +“Yes, Miss Dolman—” + +“Parade Lodge, Parade Terrace?” + +“Exactly—thank you so awfully much!” He began to hope again. “Then you +_have_ it—the other one?” + +She hesitated afresh; she quite dangled him. “It was brought by a +lady?” + +“Yes; and she put in by mistake something wrong. That’s what we’ve got +to get hold of!” Heavens, what was he going to say?—flooding poor +Paddington with wild betrayals! She couldn’t too much, for her joy, +dangle him, yet she couldn’t either, for his dignity, warn or control +or check him. What she found herself doing was just to treat herself to +the middle way. “It was intercepted?” + +“It fell into the wrong hands. But there’s something in it,” he +continued to blurt out, “that _may_ be all right. That is, if it’s +wrong, don’t you know? It’s all right if it’s wrong,” he remarkably +explained. + +What _was_ he, on earth, going to say? Mr. Buckton and the +counter-clerk were already interested; no one _would_ have the decency +to come in; and she was divided between her particular terror for him +and her general curiosity. Yet she already saw with what brilliancy she +could add, to carry the thing off, a little false knowledge to all her +real. “I quite understand,” she said with benevolent, with almost +patronising quickness. “The lady has forgotten what she did put.” + +“Forgotten most wretchedly, and it’s an immense inconvenience. It has +only just been found that it didn’t get there; so that if we could +immediately have it—” + +“Immediately?” + +“Every minute counts. You _have_,” he pleaded, “surely got them on +file?” + +“So that you can see it on the spot?” + +“Yes, please—this very minute.” The counter rang with his knuckles, +with the knob of his stick, with his panic of alarm. “Do, _do_ hunt it +up!” he repeated. + +“I dare say we could get it for you,” the girl weetly returned. + +“Get it?”—he looked aghast. “When?” + +“Probably by to-morrow.” + +“Then it isn’t here?”—his face was pitiful. + +She caught only the uncovered gleams that peeped out of the blackness, +and she wondered what complication, even among the most supposable, the +very worst, could be bad enough to account for the degree of his +terror. There were twists and turns, there were places where the screw +drew blood, that she couldn’t guess. She was more and more glad she +didn’t want to. “It has been sent on.” + +“But how do you know if you don’t look?” + +She gave him a smile that was meant to be, in the absolute irony of its +propriety, quite divine. “It was August 23rd, and we’ve nothing later +here than August 27th.” + +Something leaped into his face. “27th—23rd? Then you’re sure? You +know?” + +She felt she scarce knew what—as if she might soon be pounced upon for +some lurid connexion with a scandal. It was the queerest of all +sensations, for she had heard, she had read, of these things, and the +wealth of her intimacy with them at Cocker’s might be supposed to have +schooled and seasoned her. This particular one that she had really +quite lived with was, after all, an old story; yet what it had been +before was dim and distant beside the touch under which she now winced. +Scandal?—it had never been but a silly word. Now it was a great tense +surface, and the surface was somehow Captain Everard’s wonderful face. +Deep down in his eyes a picture, a scene—a great place like a chamber +of justice, where, before a watching crowd, a poor girl, exposed but +heroic, swore with a quavering voice to a document, proved an _alibi_, +supplied a link. In this picture she bravely took her place. “It was +the 23rd.” + +“Then can’t you get it this morning—or some time to-day?” + +She considered, still holding him with her look, which she then turned +on her two companions, who were by this time unreservedly enlisted. She +didn’t care—not a scrap, and she glanced about for a piece of paper. +With this she had to recognise the rigour of official thrift—a morsel +of blackened blotter was the only loose paper to be seen. “Have you got +a card?” she said to her visitor. He was quite away from Paddington +now, and the next instant, pocket-book in hand, he had whipped a card +out. She gave no glance at the name on it—only turned it to the other +side. She continued to hold him, she felt at present, as she had never +held him; and her command of her colleagues was for the moment not less +marked. She wrote something on the back of the card and pushed it +across to him. + +He fairly glared at it. “Seven, nine, four—” + +“Nine, six, one”—she obligingly completed the number. “Is it right?” +she smiled. + +He took the whole thing in with a flushed intensity; then there broke +out in him a visibility of relief that was simply a tremendous +exposure. He shone at them all like a tall lighthouse, embracing even, +for sympathy, the blinking young men. “By all the powers—it’s wrong!” +And without another look, without a word of thanks, without time for +anything or anybody, he turned on them the broad back of his great +stature, straightened his triumphant shoulders, and strode out of the +place. + +She was left confronted with her habitual critics. “‘If it’s wrong it’s +all right!’” she extravagantly quoted to them. + +The counter-clerk was really awe-stricken. “But how did you know, +dear?” + +“I remembered, love!” + +Mr. Buckton, on the contrary, was rude. “And what game is that, miss?” + +No happiness she had ever known came within miles of it, and some +minutes elapsed before she could recall herself sufficiently to reply +that it was none of his business. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +If life at Cocker’s, with the dreadful drop of August, had lost +something of its savour, she had not been slow to infer that a heavier +blight had fallen on the graceful industry of Mrs. Jordan. + +With Lord Rye and Lady Ventnor and Mrs. Bubb all out of town, with the +blinds down on all the homes of luxury, this ingenious woman might well +have found her wonderful taste left quite on her hands. She bore up, +however, in a way that began by exciting much of her young friend’s +esteem; they perhaps even more frequently met as the wine of life +flowed less free from other sources, and each, in the lack of better +diversion, carried on with more mystification for the other an +intercourse that consisted not a little in peeping out and drawing +back. Each waited for the other to commit herself, each profusely +curtained for the other the limits of low horizons. Mrs. Jordan was +indeed probably the more reckless skirmisher; nothing could exceed her +frequent incoherence unless it was indeed her occasional bursts of +confidence. Her account of her private affairs rose and fell like a +flame in the wind—sometimes the bravest bonfire and sometimes a handful +of ashes. This our young woman took to be an effect of the position, at +one moment and another, of the famous door of the great world. She had +been struck in one of her ha’penny volumes with the translation of a +French proverb according to which such a door, any door, had to be +either open or shut; and it seemed part of the precariousness of Mrs. +Jordan’s life that hers mostly managed to be neither. There had been +occasions when it appeared to gape wide—fairly to woo her across its +threshold; there had been others, of an order distinctly disconcerting, +when it was all but banged in her face. On the whole, however, she had +evidently not lost heart; these still belonged to the class of things +in spite of which she looked well. She intimated that the profits of +her trade had swollen so as to float her through any state of the tide, +and she had, besides this, a hundred profundities and explanations. + +She rose superior, above all, on the happy fact that there were always +gentlemen in town and that gentlemen were her greatest admirers; +gentlemen from the City in especial—as to whom she was full of +information about the passion and pride excited in such breasts by the +elements of her charming commerce. The City men _did_, in short, go in +for flowers. There was a certain type of awfully smart stockbroker—Lord +Rye called them Jews and bounders, but she didn’t care—whose +extravagance, she more than once threw out, had really, if one had any +conscience, to be forcibly restrained. It was not perhaps a pure love +of beauty: it was a matter of vanity and a sign of business; they +wished to crush their rivals, and that was one of their weapons. Mrs. +Jordan’s shrewdness was extreme; she knew in any case her customer—she +dealt, as she said, with all sorts; and it was at the worst a race for +her—a race even in the dull months—from one set of chambers to another. +And then, after all, there were also still the ladies; the ladies of +stockbroking circles were perpetually up and down. They were not quite +perhaps Mrs. Bubb or Lady Ventnor; but you couldn’t tell the difference +unless you quarrelled with them, and then you knew it only by their +making-up sooner. These ladies formed the branch of her subject on +which she most swayed in the breeze; to that degree that her confidant +had ended with an inference or two tending to banish regret for +opportunities not embraced. There were indeed tea-gowns that Mrs. +Jordan described—but tea-gowns were not the whole of respectability, +and it was odd that a clergyman’s widow should sometimes speak as if +she almost thought so. She came back, it was true, unfailingly to Lord +Rye, never, evidently, quite losing sight of him even on the longest +excursions. That he was kindness itself had become in fact the very +moral it all pointed—pointed in strange flashes of the poor woman’s +nearsighted eyes. She launched at her young friend portentous looks, +solemn heralds of some extraordinary communication. The communication +itself, from week to week, hung fire; but it was to the facts over +which it hovered that she owed her power of going on. “They _are_, in +one way _and_ another,” she often emphasised, “a tower of strength”; +and as the allusion was to the aristocracy the girl could quite wonder +why, if they were so in “one way,” they should require to be so in two. +She thoroughly knew, however, how many ways Mrs. Jordan counted in. It +all meant simply that her fate was pressing her close. If that fate was +to be sealed at the matrimonial altar it was perhaps not remarkable +that she shouldn’t come all at once to the scratch of overwhelming a +mere telegraphist. It would necessarily present to such a person a +prospect of regretful sacrifice. Lord Rye—if it _was_ Lord Rye—wouldn’t +be “kind” to a nonentity of that sort, even though people quite as good +had been. + +One Sunday afternoon in November they went, by arrangement, to church +together; after which—on the inspiration of the moment the arrangement +had not included it—they proceeded to Mrs. Jordan’s lodging in the +region of Maida Vale. She had raved to her friend about her service of +predilection; she was excessively “high,” and had more than once wished +to introduce the girl to the same comfort and privilege. There was a +thick brown fog and Maida Vale tasted of acrid smoke; but they had been +sitting among chants and incense and wonderful music, during which, +though the effect of such things on her mind was great, our young lady +had indulged in a series of reflexions but indirectly related to them. +One of these was the result of Mrs. Jordan’s having said to her on the +way, and with a certain fine significance, that Lord Rye had been for +some time in town. She had spoken as if it were a circumstance to which +little required to be added—as if the bearing of such an item on her +life might easily be grasped. Perhaps it was the wonder of whether Lord +Rye wished to marry her that made her guest, with thoughts straying to +that quarter, quite determine that some other nuptials also should take +place at Saint Julian’s. Mr. Mudge was still an attendant at his +Wesleyan chapel, but this was the least of her worries—it had never +even vexed her enough for her to so much as name it to Mrs. Jordan. Mr. +Mudge’s form of worship was one of several things—they made up in +superiority and beauty for what they wanted in number—that she had long +ago settled he should take from her, and she had now moreover for the +first time definitely established her own. Its principal feature was +that it was to be the same as that of Mrs. Jordan and Lord Rye; which +was indeed very much what she said to her hostess as they sat together +later on. The brown fog was in this hostess’s little parlour, where it +acted as a postponement of the question of there being, besides, +anything else than the teacups and a pewter pot and a very black little +fire and a paraffin lamp without a shade. There was at any rate no sign +of a flower; it was not for herself Mrs. Jordan gathered sweets. The +girl waited till they had had a cup of tea—waited for the announcement +that she fairly believed her friend had, this time, possessed herself +of her formally at last to make; but nothing came, after the interval, +save a little poke at the fire, which was like the clearing of a throat +for a speech. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +“I think you must have heard me speak of Mr. Drake?” Mrs. Jordan had +never looked so queer, nor her smile so suggestive of a large +benevolent bite. + +“Mr. Drake? Oh yes; isn’t he a friend of Lord Rye?” + +“A great and trusted friend. Almost—I may say—a loved friend.” + +Mrs. Jordan’s “almost” had such an oddity that her companion was moved, +rather flippantly perhaps, to take it up. “Don’t people as good as love +their friends when they I trust them?” + +It pulled up a little the eulogist of Mr. Drake. “Well, my dear, I love +_you_—” + +“But you don’t trust me?” the girl unmercifully asked. + +Again Mrs. Jordan paused—still she looked queer. “Yes,” she replied +with a certain austerity; “that’s exactly what I’m about to give you +rather a remarkable proof of.” The sense of its being remarkable was +already so strong that, while she bridled a little, this held her +auditor in a momentary muteness of submission. “Mr. Drake has rendered +his lordship for several years services that his lordship has highly +appreciated and that make it all the more—a—unexpected that they +should, perhaps a little suddenly, separate.” + +“Separate?” Our young lady was mystified, but she tried to be +interested; and she already saw that she had put the saddle on the +wrong horse. She had heard something of Mr. Drake, who was a member of +his lordship’s circle—the member with whom, apparently, Mrs. Jordan’s +avocations had most happened to throw her. She was only a little +puzzled at the “separation.” “Well, at any rate,” she smiled, “if they +separate as friends—!” + +“Oh his lordship takes the greatest interest in Mr. Drake’s future. +He’ll do anything for him; he has in fact just done a great deal. There +_must_, you know, be changes—!” + +“No one knows it better than I,” the girl said. She wished to draw her +interlocutress out. “There will be changes enough for me.” + +“You’re leaving Cocker’s?” + +The ornament of that establishment waited a moment to answer, and then +it was indirect. “Tell me what _you’re_ doing.” + +“Well, what will you think of it?” + +“Why that you’ve found the opening you were always so sure of.” + +Mrs. Jordan, on this, appeared to muse with embarrassed intensity. “I +was always sure, yes—and yet I often wasn’t!” + +“Well, I hope you’re sure now. Sure, I mean, of Mr. Drake.” + +“Yes, my dear, I think I may say I _am_. I kept him going till I was.” + +“Then he’s yours?” + +“My very own.” + +“How nice! And awfully rich?” our young woman went on. + +Mrs. Jordan showed promptly enough that she loved for higher things. +“Awfully handsome—six foot two. And he _has_ put by.” + +“Quite like Mr. Mudge, then!” that gentleman’s friend rather +desperately exclaimed. + +“Oh not _quite!_” Mr. Drake’s was ambiguous about it, but the name of +Mr. Mudge had evidently given her some sort of stimulus. “He’ll have +more opportunity now, at any rate. He’s going to Lady Bradeen.” + +“To Lady Bradeen?” This was bewilderment. “‘Going—’?” + +The girl had seen, from the way Mrs. Jordan looked at her, that the +effect of the name had been to make her let something out. “Do you know +her?” + +She floundered, but she found her feet. “Well, you’ll remember I’ve +often told you that if you’ve grand clients I have them too.” + +“Yes,” said Mrs. Jordan; “but the great difference is that you hate +yours, whereas I really love mine. _Do_ you know Lady Bradeen?” she +pursued. + +“Down to the ground! She’s always in and out.” + +Mrs. Jordan’s foolish eyes confessed, in fixing themselves on this +sketch, to a degree of wonder and even of envy. But she bore up and, +with a certain gaiety, “Do you hate _her_?” she demanded. + +Her visitor’s reply was prompt. “Dear no!—not nearly so much as some of +them. She’s too outrageously beautiful.” + +Mrs. Jordan continued to gaze. “Outrageously?” + +“Well, yes; deliciously.” What was really delicious was Mrs. Jordan’s +vagueness. “You don’t know her—you’ve not seen her?” her guest lightly +continued. + +“No, but I’ve heard a great deal about her.” + +“So have I!” our young lady exclaimed. + +Jordan looked an instant as if she suspected her good faith, or at +least her seriousness. “You know some friend—?” + +“Of Lady Bradeen’s? Oh yes—I know one.” + +“Only one?” + +The girl laughed out. “Only one—but he’s so intimate.” + +Mrs. Jordan just hesitated. “He’s a gentleman?” + +“Yes, he’s not a lady.” + +Her interlocutress appeared to muse. “She’s immensely surrounded.” + +“She _will_ be—with Mr. Drake!” + +Mrs. Jordan’s gaze became strangely fixed. “Is she _very_ +good-looking?” + +“The handsomest person I know.” + +Mrs. Jordan continued to contemplate. “Well, _I_ know some beauties.” +Then with her odd jerkiness: “Do you think she looks _good_?” she +inquired. + +“Because that’s not always the case with the good-looking?”—the other +took it up. “No, indeed, it isn’t: that’s one thing Cocker’s has taught +me. Still, there are some people who have everything. Lady Bradeen, at +any rate, has enough: eyes and a nose and a mouth, a complexion, a +figure—” + +“A figure?” Mrs. Jordan almost broke in. + +“A figure, a head of hair!” The girl made a little conscious motion +that seemed to let the hair all down, and her companion watched the +wonderful show. “But Mr. Drake _is_ another—?” + +“Another?”—Mrs. Jordan’s thoughts had to come back from a distance. + +“Of her ladyship’s admirers. He’s ‘going,’ you say, to her?” + +At this Mrs. Jordan really faltered. “She has engaged him.” + +“Engaged him?”—our young woman was quite at sea. + +“In the same capacity as Lord Rye.” + +“And was Lord Rye engaged?” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +Mrs. Jordan looked away from her now—looked, she thought, rather +injured and, as if trifled with, even a little angry. The mention of +Lady Bradeen had frustrated for a while the convergence of our +heroine’s thoughts; but with this impression of her old friend’s +combined impatience and diffidence they began again to whirl round her, +and continued it till one of them appeared to dart at her, out of the +dance, as if with a sharp peck. It came to her with a lively shock, +with a positive sting, that Mr. Drake was—could it be possible? With +the idea she found herself afresh on the edge of laughter, of a sudden +and strange perversity of mirth. Mr. Drake loomed, in a swift image, +before her; such a figure as she had seen in open doorways of houses in +Cocker’s quarter—majestic, middle-aged, erect, flanked on either side +by a footman and taking the name of a visitor. Mr. Drake then verily +_was_ a person who opened the door! Before she had time, however, to +recover from the effect of her evocation, she was offered a vision +which quite engulfed it. It was communicated to her somehow that the +face with which she had seen it rise prompted Mrs. Jordan to dash, a +bit wildly, at something, at anything, that might attenuate criticism. +“Lady Bradeen’s re-arranging—she’s going to be married.” + +“Married?” The girl echoed it ever so softly, but there it was at last. + +“Didn’t you know it?” + +She summoned all her sturdiness. “No, she hasn’t told me.” + +“And her friends—haven’t they?” + +“I haven’t seen any of them lately. I’m not so fortunate as _you_.” + +Mrs. Jordan gathered herself. “Then you haven’t even heard of Lord +Bradeen’s death?” + +Her comrade, unable for a moment to speak, gave a slow headshake. “You +know it from Mr. Drake?” It was better surely not to learn things at +all than to learn them by the butler. + +“She tells him everything.” + +“And he tells _you_—I see.” Our young lady got up; recovering her muff +and her gloves she smiled. “Well, I haven’t unfortunately any Mr. +Drake. I congratulate you with all my heart. Even without your sort of +assistance, however, there’s a trifle here and there that I do pick up. +I gather that if she’s to marry any one it must quite necessarily be my +friend.” + +Mrs. Jordan was now also on her feet. “Is Captain Everard your friend?” + +The girl considered, drawing on a glove. “I saw, at one time, an +immense deal of him.” + +Mrs. Jordan looked hard at the glove, but she hadn’t after all waited +for that to be sorry it wasn’t cleaner. “What time was that?” + +“It must have been the time you were seeing so much of Mr. Drake.” She +had now fairly taken it in: the distinguished person Mrs. Jordan was to +marry would answer bells and put on coals and superintend, at least, +the cleaning of boots for the other distinguished person whom she +might—well, whom she might have had, if she had wished, so much more to +say to. “Good-bye,” she added; “good-bye.” + +Mrs. Jordan, however, again taking her muff from her, turned it over, +brushed it off and thoughtfully peeped into it. “Tell me this before +you go. You spoke just now of your own changes. Do you mean that Mr. +Mudge—?” + +“Mr. Mudge has had great patience with me—he has brought me at last to +the point. We’re to be married next month and have a nice little home. +But he’s only a grocer, you know”—the girl met her friend’s intent +eyes—“so that I’m afraid that, with the set you’ve got into, you won’t +see your way to keep up our friendship.” + +Mrs. Jordan for a moment made no answer to this; she only held the muff +up to her face, after which she gave it back. “You don’t like it. I +see, I see.” + +To her guest’s astonishment there were tears now in her eyes. “I don’t +like what?” the girl asked. + +“Why my engagement. Only, with your great cleverness,” the poor lady +quavered out, “you put it in your own way. I mean that you’ll cool off. +You already _have_—!” And on this, the next instant, her tears began to +flow. She succumbed to them and collapsed; she sank down again, burying +her face and trying to smother her sobs. + +Her young friend stood there, still in some rigour, but taken much by +surprise even if not yet fully moved to pity. “I don’t put anything in +any ‘way,’ and I’m very glad you’re suited. Only, you know, you did put +to _me_ so splendidly what, even for me, if I had listened to you, it +might lead to.” + +Mrs. Jordan kept up a mild thin weak wail; then, drying her eyes, as +feebly considered this reminder. “It has led to my not starving!” she +faintly gasped. + +Our young lady, at this, dropped into the place beside her, and now, in +a rush, the small silly misery was clear. She took her hand as a sign +of pitying it, then, after another instant, confirmed this expression +with a consoling kiss. They sat there together; they looked out, hand +in hand, into the damp dusky shabby little room and into the future, of +no such very different suggestion, at last accepted by each. There was +no definite utterance, on either side, of Mr. Drake’s position in the +great world, but the temporary collapse of his prospective bride threw +all further necessary light; and what our heroine saw and felt for in +the whole business was the vivid reflexion of her own dreams and +delusions and her own return to reality. Reality, for the poor things +they both were, could only be ugliness and obscurity, could never be +the escape, the rise. She pressed her friend—she had tact enough for +that—with no other personal question, brought on no need of further +revelations, only just continued to hold and comfort her and to +acknowledge by stiff little forbearances the common element in their +fate. She felt indeed magnanimous in such matters; since if it was very +well, for condolence or reassurance, to suppress just then invidious +shrinkings, she yet by no means saw herself sitting down, as she might +say, to the same table with Mr. Drake. There would luckily, to all +appearance, be little question of tables; and the circumstance that, on +their peculiar lines, her friend’s interests would still attach +themselves to Mayfair flung over Chalk Farm the first radiance it had +shown. Where was one’s pride and one’s passion when the real way to +judge of one’s luck was by making not the wrong but the right +comparison? Before she had again gathered herself to go she felt very +small and cautious and thankful. “We shall have our own house,” she +said, “and you must come very soon and let me show it you.” + +“_We_ shall have our own too,” Mrs. Jordan replied; “for, don’t you +know? he makes it a condition that he sleeps out?” + +“A condition?”—the girl felt out of it. + +“For any new position. It was on that he parted with Lord Rye. His +lordship can’t meet it. So Mr. Drake has given him up.” + +“And all for you?”—our young woman put it as cheerfully as possible. + +“For me and Lady Bradeen. Her ladyship’s too glad to get him at any +price. Lord Rye, out of interest in us, has in fact quite _made_ her +take him. So, as I tell you, he will have his own establishment.” + +Mrs. Jordan, in the elation of it, had begun to revive; but there was +nevertheless between them rather a conscious pause—a pause in which +neither visitor nor hostess brought out a hope or an invitation. It +expressed in the last resort that, in spite of submission and sympathy, +they could now after all only look at each other across the social +gulf. They remained together as if it would be indeed their last +chance, still sitting, though awkwardly, quite close, and feeling +also—and this most unmistakeably—that there was one thing more to go +into. By the time it came to the surface, moreover, our young friend +had recognised the whole of the main truth, from which she even drew +again a slight irritation. It was not the main truth perhaps that most +signified; but after her momentary effort, her embarrassment and her +tears Mrs. Jordan had begun to sound afresh—and even without +speaking—the note of a social connexion. She hadn’t really let go of it +that she was marrying into society. Well, it was a harmless +compensation, and it was all the prospective bride of Mr. Mudge had to +leave with her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +This young lady at last rose again, but she lingered before going. “And +has Captain Everard nothing to say to it?” + +“To what, dear?” + +“Why, to such questions—the domestic arrangements, things in the +house.” + +“How _can_ he, with any authority, when nothing in the house is his?” + +“Not his?” The girl wondered, perfectly conscious of the appearance she +thus conferred on Mrs. Jordan of knowing, in comparison with herself, +so tremendously much about it. Well, there were things she wanted so to +get at that she was willing at last, though it hurt her, to pay for +them with humiliation. “Why are they not his?” + +“Don’t you know, dear, that he has nothing?” + +“Nothing?” It was hard to see him in such a light, but Mrs. Jordan’s +power to answer for it had a superiority that began, on the spot, to +grow. “Isn’t he rich?” + +Mrs. Jordan looked immensely, looked both generally and particularly, +informed. “It depends upon what you call—! Not at any rate in the least +as _she_ is. What does he bring? Think what she has. And then, love, +his debts.” + +“His debts?” His young friend was fairly betrayed into helpless +innocence. She could struggle a little, but she had to let herself go; +and if she had spoken frankly she would have said: “Do tell me, for I +don’t know so much about him as _that_!” As she didn’t speak frankly +she only said: “His debts are nothing—when she so adores him.” + +Mrs. Jordan began to fix her again, and now she saw that she must only +take it all. That was what it had come to: his having sat with her +there on the bench and under the trees in the summer darkness and put +his hand on her, making her know what he would have said if permitted; +his having returned to her afterwards, repeatedly, with supplicating +eyes and a fever in his blood; and her having, on her side, hard and +pedantic, helped by some miracle and with her impossible condition, +only answered him, yet supplicating back, through the bars of the +cage,—all simply that she might hear of him, now for ever lost, only +through Mrs. Jordan, who touched him through Mr. Drake, who reached him +through Lady Bradeen. “She adores him—but of course that wasn’t all +there was about it.” + +The girl met her eyes a minute, then quite surrendered. “What was there +else about it?” + +“Why, don’t you know?”—Mrs. Jordan was almost compassionate. + +Her interlocutress had, in the cage, sounded depths, but there was a +suggestion here somehow of an abyss quite measureless. “Of course I +know she would never let him alone.” + +“How _could_ she—fancy!—when he had so compromised her?” + +The most artless cry they had ever uttered broke, at this, from the +younger pair of lips. “_Had_ he so—?” + +“Why, don’t you know the scandal?” + +Our heroine thought, recollected there was something, whatever it was, +that she knew after all much more of than Mrs. Jordan. She saw him +again as she had seen him come that morning to recover the telegram—she +saw him as she had seen him leave the shop. She perched herself a +moment on this. “Oh there was nothing public.” + +“Not exactly public—no. But there was an awful scare and an awful row. +It was all on the very point of coming out. Something was +lost—something was found.” + +“Ah yes,” the girl replied, smiling as if with the revival of a blurred +memory; “something was found.” + +“It all got about—and there was a point at which Lord Bradeen had to +act.” + +“Had to—yes. But he didn’t.” + +Mrs. Jordan was obliged to admit it. “No, he didn’t. And then, luckily +for them, he died.” + +“I didn’t know about his death,” her companion said. + +“It was nine weeks ago, and most sudden. It has given them a prompt +chance.” + +“To get married?”—this was a wonder—“within nine weeks?” + +“Oh not immediately, but—in all the circumstances—very quietly and, I +assure you, very soon. Every preparation’s made. Above all she holds +him.” + +“Oh yes, she holds him!” our young friend threw off. She had this +before her again a minute; then she continued: “You mean through his +having made her talked about?” + +“Yes, but not only that. She has still another pull.” + +“Another?” + +Mrs. Jordan hesitated. “Why, he was _in_ something.” + +Her comrade wondered. “In what?” + +“I don’t know. Something bad. As I tell you, something was found.” + +The girl stared. “Well?” + +“It would have been very bad for him. But, she helped him some way—she +recovered it, got hold of it. It’s even said she stole it!” + +Our young woman considered afresh. “Why it was what was found that +precisely saved him.” + +Mrs. Jordan, however, was positive. “I beg your pardon. I happen to +know.” + +Her disciple faltered but an instant. “Do you mean through Mr. Drake? +Do they tell _him_ these things?” + +“A good servant,” said Mrs. Jordan, now thoroughly superior and +proportionately sententious, “doesn’t need to be told! Her ladyship +saved—as a woman so often saves!—the man she loves.” + +This time our heroine took longer to recover herself, but she found a +voice at last. “Ah well—of course I don’t know! The great thing was +that he got off. They seem then, in a manner,” she added, “to have done +a great deal for each other.” + +“Well, it’s she that has done most. She has him tight.” + +“I see, I see. Good-bye.” The women had already embraced, and this was +not repeated; but Mrs. Jordan went down with her guest to the door of +the house. Here again the younger lingered, reverting, though three or +four other remarks had on the way passed between them, to Captain +Everard and Lady Bradeen. “Did you mean just now that if she hadn’t +saved him, as you call it, she wouldn’t hold him so tight?” + +“Well, I dare say.” Mrs. Jordan, on the doorstep, smiled with a +reflexion that had come to her; she took one of her big bites of the +brown gloom. “Men always dislike one when they’ve done one an injury.” + +“But what injury had he done her?” + +“The one I’ve mentioned. He _must_ marry her, you know.” + +“And didn’t he want to?” + +“Not before.” + +“Not before she recovered the telegram?” + +Mrs. Jordan was pulled up a little. “Was it a telegram?” + +The girl hesitated. “I thought you said so. I mean whatever it was.” + +“Yes, whatever it was, I don’t think she saw _that_.” + +“So she just nailed him?” + +“She just nailed him.” The departing friend was now at the bottom of +the little flight of steps; the other was at the top, with a certain +thickness of fog. “And when am I to think of you in your little +home?—next month?” asked the voice from the top. + +“At the very latest. And when am I to think of you in yours?” + +“Oh even sooner. I feel, after so much talk with you about it, as if I +were already there!” Then “_Good_-bye!” came out of the fog. + +“Good-_bye_!” went into it. Our young lady went into it also, in the +opposed quarter, and presently, after a few sightless turns, came out +on the Paddington canal. Distinguishing vaguely what the low parapet +enclosed she stopped close to it and stood a while very intently, but +perhaps still sightlessly, looking down on it. A policeman; while she +remained, strolled past her; then, going his way a little further and +half lost in the atmosphere, paused and watched her. But she was quite +unaware—she was full of her thoughts. They were too numerous to find a +place just here, but two of the number may at least be mentioned. One +of these was that, decidedly, her little home must be not for next +month, but for next week; the other, which came indeed as she resumed +her walk and went her way, was that it was strange such a matter should +be at last settled for her by Mr. Drake + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CAGE *** + +***** This file should be named 1144-0.txt or 1144-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/4/1144/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: In the Cage</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Henry James</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December, 1997 [eBook #1144]<br /> +[Most recently updated: January 29, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CAGE ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>In the Cage</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Henry James</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">III.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">IV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">V.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">VI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">VII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">IX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">X.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">XI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">XII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">XV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">XVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">XVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">XIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">XX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">XXI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">XXII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">XXIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">XXIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">XXV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">XXVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">XXVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p> +It had occurred to her early that in her position—that of a young person +spending, in framed and wired confinement, the life of a guinea-pig or a +magpie—she should know a great many persons without their recognising the +acquaintance. That made it an emotion the more lively—though singularly +rare and always, even then, with opportunity still very much smothered—to +see any one come in whom she knew outside, as she called it, any one who could +add anything to the meanness of her function. Her function was to sit there +with two young men—the other telegraphist and the counter-clerk; to mind +the “sounder,” which was always going, to dole out stamps and +postal-orders, weigh letters, answer stupid questions, give difficult change +and, more than anything else, count words as numberless as the sands of the +sea, the words of the telegrams thrust, from morning to night, through the gap +left in the high lattice, across the encumbered shelf that her forearm ached +with rubbing. This transparent screen fenced out or fenced in, according to the +side of the narrow counter on which the human lot was cast, the duskiest corner +of a shop pervaded not a little, in winter, by the poison of perpetual gas, and +at all times by the presence of hams, cheese, dried fish, soap, varnish, +paraffin and other solids and fluids that she came to know perfectly by their +smells without consenting to know them by their names. +</p> + +<p> +The barrier that divided the little post-and-telegraph-office from the grocery +was a frail structure of wood and wire; but the social, the professional +separation was a gulf that fortune, by a stroke quite remarkable, had spared +her the necessity of contributing at all publicly to bridge. When Mr. +Cocker’s young men stepped over from behind the other counter to change a +five-pound note—and Mr. Cocker’s situation, with the cream of the +“Court Guide” and the dearest furnished apartments, +Simpkin’s, Ladle’s, Thrupp’s, just round the corner, was so +select that his place was quite pervaded by the crisp rustle of these +emblems—she pushed out the sovereigns as if the applicant were no more to +her than one of the momentary, the practically featureless, appearances in the +great procession; and this perhaps all the more from the very fact of the +connexion (only recognised outside indeed) to which she had lent herself with +ridiculous inconsequence. She recognised the others the less because she had at +last so unreservedly, so irredeemably, recognised Mr. Mudge. However that might +be, she was a little ashamed of having to admit to herself that Mr. +Mudge’s removal to a higher sphere—to a more commanding position, +that is, though to a much lower neighbourhood—would have been described +still better as a luxury than as the mere simplification, the corrected +awkwardness, that she contented herself with calling it. He had at any rate +ceased to be all day long in her eyes, and this left something a little fresh +for them to rest on of a Sunday. During the three months of his happy survival +at Cocker’s after her consent to their engagement she had often asked +herself what it was marriage would be able to add to a familiarity that seemed +already to have scraped the platter so clean. Opposite there, behind the +counter of which his superior stature, his whiter apron, his more clustering +curls and more present, too present, <i>h</i>’s had been for a couple of +years the principal ornament, he had moved to and fro before her as on the +small sanded floor of their contracted future. She was conscious now of the +improvement of not having to take her present and her future at once. They were +about as much as she could manage when taken separate. +</p> + +<p> +She had, none the less, to give her mind steadily to what Mr. Mudge had again +written her about, the idea of her applying for a transfer to an office quite +similar—she couldn’t yet hope for a place in a bigger—under +the very roof where he was foreman, so that, dangled before her every minute of +the day, he should see her, as he called it, “hourly,” and in a +part, the far N.W. district, where, with her mother, she would save on their +two rooms alone nearly three shillings. It would be far from dazzling to +exchange Mayfair for Chalk Farm, and it wore upon her much that he could never +drop a subject; still, it didn’t wear as things <i>had</i> worn, the +worries of the early times of their great misery, her own, her mother’s +and her elder sister’s—the last of whom had succumbed to all but +absolute want when, as conscious and incredulous ladies, suddenly bereft, +betrayed, overwhelmed, they had slipped faster and faster down the steep slope +at the bottom of which she alone had rebounded. Her mother had never rebounded +any more at the bottom than on the way; had only rumbled and grumbled down and +down, making, in respect of caps, topics and “habits,” no effort +whatever—which simply meant smelling much of the time of whiskey. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p> +It was always rather quiet at Cocker’s while the contingent from +Ladle’s and Thrupp’s and all the other great places were at +luncheon, or, as the young men used vulgarly to say, while the animals were +feeding. She had forty minutes in advance of this to go home for her own +dinner; and when she came back and one of the young men took his turn there was +often half an hour during which she could pull out a bit of work or a +book—a book from the place where she borrowed novels, very greasy, in +fine print and all about fine folks, at a ha’penny a day. This sacred +pause was one of the numerous ways in which the establishment kept its finger +on the pulse of fashion and fell into the rhythm of the larger life. It had +something to do, one day, with the particular flare of importance of an +arriving customer, a lady whose meals were apparently irregular, yet whom she +was destined, she afterwards found, not to forget. The girl was <i>blasée;</i> +nothing could belong more, as she perfectly knew, to the intense publicity of +her profession; but she had a whimsical mind and wonderful nerves; she was +subject, in short, to sudden flickers of antipathy and sympathy, red gleams in +the grey, fitful needs to notice and to “care,” odd caprices of +curiosity. She had a friend who had invented a new career for women—that +of being in and out of people’s houses to look after the flowers. Mrs. +Jordan had a manner of her own of sounding this allusion; “the +flowers,” on her lips, were, in fantastic places, in happy homes, as +usual as the coals or the daily papers. She took charge of them, at any rate, +in all the rooms, at so much a month, and people were quickly finding out what +it was to make over this strange burden of the pampered to the widow of a +clergyman. The widow, on her side, dilating on the initiations thus opened up +to her, had been splendid to her young friend, over the way she was made free +of the greatest houses—the way, especially when she did the +dinner-tables, set out so often for twenty, she felt that a single step more +would transform her whole social position. On its being asked of her then if +she circulated only in a sort of tropical solitude, with the upper servants for +picturesque natives, and on her having to assent to this glance at her +limitations, she had found a reply to the girl’s invidious question. +“You’ve no imagination, my dear!”—that was because a +door more than half open to the higher life couldn’t be called anything +but a thin partition. Mrs. Jordan’s imagination quite did away with the +thickness. +</p> + +<p> +Our young lady had not taken up the charge, had dealt with it good-humouredly, +just because she knew so well what to think of it. It was at once one of her +most cherished complaints and most secret supports that people didn’t +understand her, and it was accordingly a matter of indifference to her that +Mrs. Jordan shouldn’t; even though Mrs. Jordan, handed down from their +early twilight of gentility and also the victim of reverses, was the only +member of her circle in whom she recognised an equal. She was perfectly aware +that her imaginative life was the life in which she spent most of her time; and +she would have been ready, had it been at all worth while, to contend that, +since her outward occupation didn’t kill it, it must be strong indeed. +Combinations of flowers and green-stuff, forsooth! What <i>she</i> could handle +freely, she said to herself, was combinations of men and women. The only +weakness in her faculty came from the positive abundance of her contact with +the human herd; this was so constant, it had so the effect of cheapening her +privilege, that there were long stretches in which inspiration, divination and +interest quite dropped. The great thing was the flashes, the quick revivals, +absolute accidents all, and neither to be counted on nor to be resisted. Some +one had only sometimes to put in a penny for a stamp and the whole thing was +upon her. She was so absurdly constructed that these were literally the moments +that made up—made up for the long stiffness of sitting there in the +stocks, made up for the cunning hostility of Mr. Buckton and the importunate +sympathy of the counter-clerk, made up for the daily deadly flourishy letter +from Mr. Mudge, made up even for the most haunting of her worries, the rage at +moments of not knowing how her mother did “get it.” +</p> + +<p> +She had surrendered herself moreover of late to a certain expansion of her +consciousness; something that seemed perhaps vulgarly accounted for by the fact +that, as the blast of the season roared louder and the waves of fashion tossed +their spray further over the counter, there were more impressions to be +gathered and really—for it came to that—more life to be led. +Definite at any rate it was that by the time May was well started the kind of +company she kept at Cocker’s had begun to strike her as a reason—a +reason she might almost put forward for a policy of procrastination. It sounded +silly, of course, as yet, to plead such a motive, especially as the fascination +of the place was after all a sort of torment. But she liked her torment; it was +a torment she should miss at Chalk Farm. She was ingenious and uncandid, +therefore, about leaving the breadth of London a little longer between herself +and that austerity. If she hadn’t quite the courage in short to say to +Mr. Mudge that her actual chance for a play of mind was worth any week the +three shillings he desired to help her to save, she yet saw something happen in +the course of the month that in her heart of hearts at least answered the +subtle question. This was connected precisely with the appearance of the +memorable lady. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p> +She pushed in three bescribbled forms which the girl’s hand was quick to +appropriate, Mr. Buckton having so frequent a perverse instinct for catching +first any eye that promised the sort of entertainment with which she had her +peculiar affinity. The amusements of captives are full of a desperate +contrivance, and one of our young friend’s ha’pennyworths had been +the charming tale of <i>Picciola</i>. It was of course the law of the place +that they were never to take no notice, as Mr. Buckton said, whom they served; +but this also never prevented, certainly on the same gentleman’s own +part, what he was fond of describing as the underhand game. Both her +companions, for that matter, made no secret of the number of favourites they +had among the ladies; sweet familiarities in spite of which she had repeatedly +caught each of them in stupidities and mistakes, confusions of identity and +lapses of observation that never failed to remind her how the cleverness of men +ends where the cleverness of women begins. “Marguerite, Regent Street. +Try on at six. All Spanish lace. Pearls. The full length.” That was the +first; it had no signature. “Lady Agnes Orme, Hyde Park Place. Impossible +to-night, dining Haddon. Opera to-morrow, promised Fritz, but could do play +Wednesday. Will try Haddon for Savoy, and anything in the world you like, if +you can get Gussy. Sunday Montenero. Sit Mason Monday, Tuesday. Marguerite +awful. Cissy.” That was the second. The third, the girl noted when she +took it, was on a foreign form: “Everard, Hôtel Brighton, Paris. +Only understand and believe. 22nd to 26th, and certainly 8th and 9th. Perhaps +others. Come. Mary.” +</p> + +<p> +Mary was very handsome, the handsomest woman, she felt in a moment, she had +ever seen—or perhaps it was only Cissy. Perhaps it was both, for she had +seen stranger things than that—ladies wiring to different persons under +different names. She had seen all sorts of things and pieced together all sorts +of mysteries. There had once been one—not long before—who, without +winking, sent off five over five different signatures. Perhaps these +represented five different friends who had asked her—all women, just as +perhaps now Mary and Cissy, or one or other of them, were wiring by deputy. +Sometimes she put in too much—too much of her own sense; sometimes she +put in too little; and in either case this often came round to her afterwards, +for she had an extraordinary way of keeping clues. When she noticed she +noticed; that was what it came to. There were days and days, there were weeks +sometimes, of vacancy. This arose often from Mr. Buckton’s devilish and +successful subterfuges for keeping her at the sounder whenever it looked as if +anything might arouse; the sounder, which it was equally his business to mind, +being the innermost cell of captivity, a cage within the cage, fenced oft from +the rest by a frame of ground glass. The counter-clerk would have played into +her hands; but the counter-clerk was really reduced to idiocy by the effect of +his passion for her. She flattered herself moreover, nobly, that with the +unpleasant conspicuity of this passion she would never have consented to be +obliged to him. The most she would ever do would be always to shove off on him +whenever she could the registration of letters, a job she happened particularly +to loathe. After the long stupors, at all events, there almost always suddenly +would come a sharp taste of something; it was in her mouth before she knew it; +it was in her mouth now. +</p> + +<p> +To Cissy, to Mary, whichever it was, she found her curiosity going out with a +rush, a mute effusion that floated back to her, like a returning tide, the +living colour and splendour of the beautiful head, the light of eyes that +seemed to reflect such utterly other things than the mean things actually +before them; and, above all, the high curt consideration of a manner that even +at bad moments was a magnificent habit and of the very essence of the +innumerable things—her beauty, her birth, her father and mother, her +cousins and all her ancestors—that its possessor couldn’t have got +rid of even had she wished. How did our obscure little public servant know that +for the lady of the telegrams this was a bad moment? How did she guess all +sorts of impossible things, such as, almost on the very spot, the presence of +drama at a critical stage and the nature of the tie with the gentleman at the +Hôtel Brighton? More than ever before it floated to her through the bars +of the cage that this at last was the high reality, the bristling truth that +she had hitherto only patched up and eked out—one of the creatures, in +fine, in whom all the conditions for happiness actually met, and who, in the +air they made, bloomed with an unwitting insolence. What came home to the girl +was the way the insolence was tempered by something that was equally a part of +the distinguished life, the custom of a flowerlike bend to the less +fortunate—a dropped fragrance, a mere quick breath, but which in fact +pervaded and lingered. The apparition was very young, but certainly married, +and our fatigued friend had a sufficient store of mythological comparison to +recognise the port of Juno. Marguerite might be “awful,” but she +knew how to dress a goddess. +</p> + +<p> +Pearls and Spanish lace—she herself, with assurance, could see them, and +the “full length” too, and also red velvet bows, which, disposed on +the lace in a particular manner (she could have placed them with the turn of a +hand) were of course to adorn the front of a black brocade that would be like a +dress in a picture. However, neither Marguerite nor Lady Agnes nor Haddon nor +Fritz nor Gussy was what the wearer of this garment had really come in for. She +had come in for Everard—and that was doubtless not his true name either. +If our young lady had never taken such jumps before it was simply that she had +never before been so affected. She went all the way. Mary and Cissy had been +round together, in their single superb person, to see him—he must live +round the corner; they had found that, in consequence of something they had +come, precisely, to make up for or to have another scene about, he had gone +off—gone off just on purpose to make them feel it; on which they had come +together to Cocker’s as to the nearest place; where they had put in the +three forms partly in order not to put in the one alone. The two others in a +manner, covered it, muffled it, passed it off. Oh yes, she went all the way, +and this was a specimen of how she often went. She would know the hand again +any time. It was as handsome and as everything else as the woman herself. The +woman herself had, on learning his flight, pushed past Everard’s servant +and into his room; she had written her missive at his table and with his pen. +All this, every inch of it, came in the waft that she blew through and left +behind her, the influence that, as I have said, lingered. And among the things +the girl was sure of, happily, was that she should see her again. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p> +She saw her in fact, and only ten days later; but this time not alone, and that +was exactly a part of the luck of it. Not unaware—as how could her +observation have left her so?—of the possibilities through which it could +range, our young lady had ever since had in her mind a dozen conflicting +theories about Everard’s type; as to which, the instant they came into +the place, she felt the point settled with a thump that seemed somehow +addressed straight to her heart. That organ literally beat faster at the +approach of the gentleman who was this time with Cissy, and who, as seen from +within the cage, became on the spot the happiest of the happy circumstances +with which her mind had invested the friend of Fritz and Gussy. He was a very +happy circumstance indeed as, with his cigarette in his lips and his broken +familiar talk caught by his companion, he put down the half-dozen telegrams it +would take them together several minutes to dispatch. And here it occurred, +oddly enough, that if, shortly before the girl’s interest in his +companion had sharpened her sense for the messages then transmitted, her +immediate vision of himself had the effect, while she counted his seventy +words, of preventing intelligibility. <i>His</i> words were mere numbers, they +told her nothing whatever; and after he had gone she was in possession of no +name, of no address, of no meaning, of nothing but a vague sweet sound and an +immense impression. He had been there but five minutes, he had smoked in her +face, and, busy with his telegrams, with the tapping pencil and the conscious +danger, the odious betrayal that would come from a mistake, she had had no +wandering glances nor roundabout arts to spare. Yet she had taken him in; she +knew everything; she had made up her mind. +</p> + +<p> +He had come back from Paris; everything was re-arranged; the pair were again +shoulder to shoulder in their high encounter with life, their large and +complicated game. The fine soundless pulse of this game was in the air for our +young woman while they remained in the shop. While they remained? They remained +all day; their presence continued and abode with her, was in everything she did +till nightfall, in the thousands of other words she counted, she transmitted, +in all the stamps she detached and the letters she weighed and the change she +gave, equally unconscious and unerring in each of these particulars, and not, +as the run on the little office thickened with the afternoon hours, looking up +at a single ugly face in the long sequence, nor really hearing the stupid +questions that she patiently and perfectly answered. All patience was possible +now, all questions were stupid after his, all faces were ugly. She had been +sure she should see the lady again; and even now she should perhaps, she should +probably, see her often. But for him it was totally different; she should never +never see him. She wanted it too much. There was a kind of wanting that +helped—she had arrived, with her rich experience, at that generalisation; +and there was another kind that was fatal. It was this time the fatal kind; it +would prevent. +</p> + +<p> +Well, she saw him the very next day, and on this second occasion it was quite +different; the sense of every syllable he paid for was fiercely distinct; she +indeed felt her progressive pencil, dabbing as if with a quick caress the marks +of his own, put life into every stroke. He was there a long time—had not +brought his forms filled out but worked them off in a nook on the counter; and +there were other people as well—a changing pushing cluster, with every +one to mind at once and endless right change to make and information to +produce. But she kept hold of him throughout; she continued, for herself, in a +relation with him as close as that in which, behind the hated ground glass, Mr. +Buckton luckily continued with the sounder. This morning everything changed, +but rather to dreariness; she had to swallow the rebuff to her theory about +fatal desires, which she did without confusion and indeed with absolute levity; +yet if it was now flagrant that he did live close at hand—at Park +Chambers—and belonged supremely to the class that wired everything, even +their expensive feelings (so that, as he never wrote, his correspondence cost +him weekly pounds and pounds, and he might be in and out five times a day) +there was, all the same, involved in the prospect, and by reason of its +positive excess of light, a perverse melancholy, a gratuitous misery. This was +at once to give it a place in an order of feelings on which I shall presently +touch. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, for a month, he was very constant. Cissy, Mary, never re-appeared +with him; he was always either alone or accompanied only by some gentleman who +was lost in the blaze of his glory. There was another sense, however—and +indeed there was more than one—in which she mostly found herself counting +in the splendid creature with whom she had originally connected him. He +addressed this correspondent neither as Mary nor as Cissy; but the girl was +sure of whom it was, in Eaten Square, that he was perpetually wiring +to—and all so irreproachably!—as Lady Bradeen. Lady Bradeen was +Cissy, Lady Bradeen was Mary, Lady Bradeen was the friend of Fritz and of +Gussy, the customer of Marguerite, and the close ally in short (as was ideally +right, only the girl had not yet found a descriptive term that was) of the most +magnificent of men. Nothing could equal the frequency and variety of his +communications to her ladyship but their extraordinary, their abysmal +propriety. It was just the talk—so profuse sometimes that she wondered +what was left for their real meetings—of the very happiest people. Their +real meetings must have been constant, for half of it was appointments and +allusions, all swimming in a sea of other allusions still, tangled in a +complexity of questions that gave a wondrous image of their life. If Lady +Bradeen was Juno it was all certainly Olympian. If the girl, missing the +answers, her ladyship’s own outpourings, vainly reflected that +Cocker’s should have been one of the bigger offices where telegrams +arrived as well as departed, there were yet ways in which, on the whole, she +pressed the romance closer by reason of the very quantity of imagination it +demanded and consumed. The days and hours of this new friend, as she came to +account him, were at all events unrolled, and however much more she might have +known she would still have wished to go beyond. In fact she did go beyond; she +went quite far enough. +</p> + +<p> +But she could none the less, even after a month, scarce have told if the +gentlemen who came in with him recurred or changed; and this in spite of the +fact that they too were always posting and wiring, smoking in her face and +signing or not signing. The gentlemen who came in with him were nothing when he +was there. They turned up alone at other times—then only perhaps with a +dim richness of reference. He himself, absent as well as present, was all. He +was very tall, very fair, and had, in spite of his thick preoccupations, a +good-humour that was exquisite, particularly as it so often had the effect of +keeping him on. He could have reached over anybody, and anybody—no matter +who—would have let him; but he was so extraordinarily kind that he quite +pathetically waited, never waggling things at her out of his turn nor saying +“Here!” with horrid sharpness. He waited for pottering old ladies, +for gaping slaveys, for the perpetual Buttonses from Thrupp’s; and the +thing in all this that she would have liked most unspeakably to put to the test +was the possibility of her having for him a personal identity that might in a +particular way appeal. There were moments when he actually struck her as on her +side, as arranging to help, to support, to spare her. +</p> + +<p> +But such was the singular spirit of our young friend that she could remind +herself with a pang that when people had awfully good manners—people of +that class,—you couldn’t tell. These manners were for everybody, +and it might be drearily unavailing for any poor particular body to be +overworked and unusual. What he did take for granted was all sorts of facility; +and his high pleasantness, his relighting of cigarettes while he waited, his +unconscious bestowal of opportunities, of boons, of blessings, were all a part +of his splendid security, the instinct that told him there was nothing such an +existence as his could ever lose by. He was somehow all at once very bright and +very grave, very young and immensely complete; and whatever he was at any +moment it was always as much as all the rest the mere bloom of his beatitude. +He was sometimes Everard, as he had been at the Hôtel Brighton, and he +was sometimes Captain Everard. He was sometimes Philip with his surname and +sometimes Philip without it. In some directions he was merely Phil, in others +he was merely Captain. There were relations in which he was none of these +things, but a quite different person—“the Count.” There were +several friends for whom he was William. There were several for whom, in +allusion perhaps to his complexion, he was “the Pink ‘Un.” +Once, once only by good luck, he had, coinciding comically, quite miraculously, +with another person also near to her, been “Mudge.” Yes, whatever +he was, it was a part of his happiness—whatever he was and probably +whatever he wasn’t. And his happiness was a part—it became so +little by little—of something that, almost from the first of her being at +Cocker’s, had been deeply with the girl. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p> +This was neither more nor less than the queer extension of her experience, the +double life that, in the cage, she grew at last to lead. As the weeks went on +there she lived more and more into the world of whiffs and glimpses, she found +her divinations work faster and stretch further. It was a prodigious view as +the pressure heightened, a panorama fed with facts and figures, flushed with a +torrent of colour and accompanied with wondrous world-music. What it mainly +came to at this period was a picture of how London could amuse itself; and +that, with the running commentary of a witness so exclusively a witness, turned +for the most part to a hardening of the heart. The nose of this observer was +brushed by the bouquet, yet she could never really pluck even a daisy. What +could still remain fresh in her daily grind was the immense disparity, the +difference and contrast, from class to class, of every instant and every +motion. There were times when all the wires in the country seemed to start from +the little hole-and-corner where she plied for a livelihood, and where, in the +shuffle of feet, the flutter of “forms,” the straying of stamps and +the ring of change over the counter, the people she had fallen into the habit +of remembering and fitting together with others, and of having her theories and +interpretations of, kept up before her their long procession and rotation. What +twisted the knife in her vitals was the way the profligate rich scattered about +them, in extravagant chatter over their extravagant pleasures and sins, an +amount of money that would have held the stricken household of her frightened +childhood, her poor pinched mother and tormented father and lost brother and +starved sister, together for a lifetime. During her first weeks she had often +gasped at the sums people were willing to pay for the stuff they +transmitted—the “much love”s, the “awful” +regrets, the compliments and wonderments and vain vague gestures that cost the +price of a new pair of boots. She had had a way then of glancing at the +people’s faces, but she had early learnt that if you became a +telegraphist you soon ceased to be astonished. Her eye for types amounted +nevertheless to genius, and there were those she liked and those she hated, her +feeling for the latter of which grew to a positive possession, an instinct of +observation and detection. There were the brazen women, as she called them, of +the higher and the lower fashion, whose squanderings and graspings, whose +struggles and secrets and love-affairs and lies, she tracked and stored up +against them till she had at moments, in private, a triumphant vicious feeling +of mastery and ease, a sense of carrying their silly guilty secrets in her +pocket, her small retentive brain, and thereby knowing so much more about them +than they suspected or would care to think. There were those she would have +liked to betray, to trip up, to bring down with words altered and fatal; and +all through a personal hostility provoked by the lightest signs, by their +accidents of tone and manner, by the particular kind of relation she always +happened instantly to feel. +</p> + +<p> +There were impulses of various kinds, alternately soft and severe, to which she +was constitutionally accessible and which were determined by the smallest +accidents. She was rigid in general on the article of making the public itself +affix its stamps, and found a special enjoyment in dealing to that end with +some of the ladies who were too grand to touch them. She had thus a play of +refinement and subtlety greater, she flattered herself, than any of which she +could be made the subject; and though most people were too stupid to be +conscious of this it brought her endless small consolations and revenges. She +recognised quite as much those of her sex whom she would have liked to help, to +warn, to rescue, to see more of; and that alternative as well operated exactly +through the hazard of personal sympathy, her vision for silver threads and +moonbeams and her gift for keeping the clues and finding her way in the tangle. +The moonbeams and silver threads presented at moments all the vision of what +poor <i>she</i> might have made of happiness. Blurred and blank as the whole +thing often inevitably, or mercifully, became, she could still, through +crevices and crannies, be stupefied, especially by what, in spite of all +seasoning, touched the sorest place in her consciousness, the revelation of the +golden shower flying about without a gleam of gold for herself. It remained +prodigious to the end, the money her fine friends were able to spend to get +still more, or even to complain to fine friends of their own that they were in +want. The pleasures they proposed were equalled only by those they declined, +and they made their appointments often so expensively that she was left +wondering at the nature of the delights to which the mere approaches were so +paved with shillings. She quivered on occasion into the perception of this and +that one whom she would on the chance have just simply liked to <i>be</i>. Her +conceit, her baffled vanity, was possibly monstrous; she certainly often threw +herself into a defiant conviction that she would have done the whole thing much +better. But her greatest comfort, mostly, was her comparative vision of the +men; by whom I mean the unmistakeable gentlemen, for she had no interest in the +spurious or the shabby and no mercy at all for the poor. She could have found a +sixpence, outside, for an appearance of want; but her fancy, in some directions +so alert, had never a throb of response for any sign of the sordid. The men she +did track, moreover, she tracked mainly in one relation, the relation as to +which the cage convinced her, she believed, more than anything else could have +done, that it was quite the most diffused. +</p> + +<p> +She found her ladies, in short, almost always in communication with her +gentlemen, and her gentlemen with her ladies, and she read into the immensity +of their intercourse stories and meanings without end. Incontestably she grew +to think that the men cut the best figure; and in this particular, as in many +others, she arrived at a philosophy of her own, all made up of her private +notations and cynicisms. It was a striking part of the business, for example, +that it was much more the women, on the whole, who were after the men than the +men who were after the women: it was literally visible that the general +attitude of the one sex was that of the object pursued and defensive, +apologetic and attenuating, while the light of her own nature helped her more +or less to conclude as to the attitude of the other. Perhaps she herself a +little even fell into the custom of pursuit in occasionally deviating only for +gentlemen from her high rigour about the stamps. She had early in the day made +up her mind, in fine, that they had the best manners; and if there were none of +them she noticed when Captain Everard was there, there were plenty she could +place and trace and name at other times, plenty who, with their way of being +“nice” to her, and of handling, as if their pockets were private +tills loose mixed masses of silver and gold, were such pleasant appearances +that she could envy them without dislike. <i>They</i> never had to give +change—they only had to get it. They ranged through every suggestion, +every shade of fortune, which evidently included indeed lots of bad luck as +well as of good, declining even toward Mr. Mudge and his bland firm thrift, and +ascending, in wild signals and rocket-flights, almost to within hail of her +highest standard. So from month to month she went on with them all, through a +thousand ups and downs and a thousand pangs and indifferences. What virtually +happened was that in the shuffling herd that passed before her by far the +greater part only passed—a proportion but just appreciable stayed. Most +of the elements swam straight away, lost themselves in the bottomless common, +and by so doing really kept the page clear. On the clearness therefore what she +did retain stood sharply out; she nipped and caught it, turned it over and +interwove it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p> +She met Mrs. Jordan when she could, and learned from her more and more how the +great people, under her gentle shake and after going through everything with +the mere shops, were waking up to the gain of putting into the hands of a +person of real refinement the question that the shop-people spoke of so +vulgarly as that of the floral decorations. The regular dealers in these +decorations were all very well; but there was a peculiar magic in the play of +taste of a lady who had only to remember, through whatever intervening dusk, +all her own little tables, little bowls and little jars and little other +arrangements, and the wonderful thing she had made of the garden of the +vicarage. This small domain, which her young friend had never seen, bloomed in +Mrs. Jordan’s discourse like a new Eden, and she converted the past into +a bank of violets by the tone in which she said “Of course you always +knew my one passion!” She obviously met now, at any rate, a big +contemporary need, measured what it was rapidly becoming for people to feel +they could trust her without a tremor. It brought them a peace +that—during the quarter of an hour before dinner in especial—was +worth more to them than mere payment could express. Mere payment, none the +less, was tolerably prompt; she engaged by the month, taking over the whole +thing; and there was an evening on which, in respect to our heroine, she at +last returned to the charge. “It’s growing and growing, and I see +that I must really divide the work. One wants an associate—of one’s +own kind, don’t you know? You know the look they want it all to +have?—of having come, not from a florist, but from one of themselves. +Well, I’m sure <i>you</i> could give it—because you <i>are</i> one. +Then we <i>should</i> win. Therefore just come in with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“And leave the P.O.?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let the P.O. simply bring you your letters. It would bring you lots, +you’d see: orders, after a bit, by the score.” It was on this, in +due course, that the great advantage again came up: “One seems to live +again with one’s own people.” It had taken some little time (after +their having parted company in the tempest of their troubles and then, in the +glimmering dawn, finally sighted each other again) for each to admit that the +other was, in her private circle, her only equal, but the admission came, when +it did come, with an honest groan; and since equality was named, each found +much personal profit in exaggerating the other’s original grandeur. Mrs. +Jordan was ten years the older, but her young friend was struck with the +smaller difference this now made: it had counted otherwise at the time when, +much more as a friend of her mother’s, the bereaved lady, without a penny +of provision and with stopgaps, like their own, all gone, had, across the +sordid landing on which the opposite doors of the pair of scared miseries +opened and to which they were bewilderedly bolted, borrowed coals and umbrellas +that were repaid in potatoes and postage-stamps. It had been a questionable +help, at that time, to ladies submerged, floundering, panting, swimming for +their lives, that they were ladies; but such an advantage could come up again +in proportion as others vanished, and it had grown very great by the time it +was the only ghost of one they possessed. They had literally watched it take to +itself a portion of the substance of each that had departed; and it became +prodigious now, when they could talk of it together, when they could look back +at it across a desert of accepted derogation, and when, above all, they could +together work up a credulity about it that neither could otherwise work up. +Nothing was really so marked as that they felt the need to cultivate this +legend much more after having found their feet and stayed their stomachs in the +ultimate obscure than they had done in the upper air of mere frequent shocks. +The thing they could now oftenest say to each other was that they knew what +they meant; and the sentiment with which, all round, they knew it was known had +well-nigh amounted to a promise not again to fall apart. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan was at present fairly dazzling on the subject of the way that, in +the practice of her fairy art, as she called it, she more than peeped +in—she penetrated. There was not a house of the great kind—and it +was of course only a question of those, real homes of luxury—in which she +was not, at the rate such people now had things, all over the place. The girl +felt before the picture the cold breath of disinheritance as much as she had +ever felt it in the cage; she knew moreover how much she betrayed this, for the +experience of poverty had begun, in her life, too early, and her ignorance of +the requirements of homes of luxury had grown, with other active knowledge, a +depth of simplification. She had accordingly at first often found that in these +colloquies she could only pretend she understood. Educated as she had rapidly +been by her chances at Cocker’s, there were still strange gaps in her +learning—she could never, like Mrs. Jordan, have found her way about one +of the “homes.” Little by little, however, she had caught on, above +all in the light of what Mrs. Jordan’s redemption had materially made of +that lady, giving her, though the years and the struggles had naturally not +straightened a feature, an almost super-eminent air. There were women in and +out of Cocker’s who were quite nice and who yet didn’t look well; +whereas Mrs. Jordan looked well and yet, with her extraordinarily protrusive +teeth, was by no means quite nice. It would seem, mystifyingly, that it might +really come from all the greatness she could live with. It was fine to hear her +talk so often of dinners of twenty and of her doing, as she said, exactly as +she liked with them. She spoke as if, for that matter, she invited the company. +“They simply give me the table—all the rest, all the other effects, +come afterwards.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p> +“Then you <i>do</i> see them?” the girl again asked. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan hesitated, and indeed the point had been ambiguous before. +“Do you mean the guests?” +</p> + +<p> +Her young friend, cautious about an undue exposure of innocence, was not quite +sure. “Well—the people who live there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lady Ventnor? Mrs. Bubb? Lord Rye? Dear, yes. Why they <i>like</i> +one.” +</p> + +<p> +“But does one personally <i>know</i> them?” our young lady went on, +since that was the way to speak. “I mean socially, don’t you +know?—as you know <i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re not so nice as you!” Mrs. Jordan charmingly cried. +“But I <i>shall</i> see more and more of them.” +</p> + +<p> +Ah this was the old story. “But how soon?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why almost any day. Of course,” Mrs. Jordan honestly added, +“they’re nearly always out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why do they want flowers all over?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh that doesn’t make any difference.” Mrs. Jordan was not +philosophic; she was just evidently determined it <i>shouldn’t</i> make +any. “They’re awfully interested in my ideas, and it’s +inevitable they should meet me over them.” +</p> + +<p> +Her interlocutress was sturdy enough. “What do you call your +ideas?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan’s reply was fine. “If you were to see me some day with +a thousand tulips you’d discover.” +</p> + +<p> +“A thousand?”—the girl gaped at such a revelation of the +scale of it; she felt for the instant fairly planted out. “Well, but if +in fact they never do meet you?” she none the less pessimistically +insisted. +</p> + +<p> +“Never? They <i>often</i> do—and evidently quite on purpose. We +have grand long talks.” +</p> + +<p> +There was something in our young lady that could still stay her from asking for +a personal description of these apparitions; that showed too starved a state. +But while she considered she took in afresh the whole of the clergyman’s +widow. Mrs. Jordan couldn’t help her teeth, and her sleeves were a +distinct rise in the world. A thousand tulips at a shilling clearly took one +further than a thousand words at a penny; and the betrothed of Mr. Mudge, in +whom the sense of the race for life was always acute, found herself wondering, +with a twinge of her easy jealousy, if it mightn’t after all then, for +<i>her</i> also, be better—better than where she was—to follow some +such scent. Where she was was where Mr. Buckton’s elbow could freely +enter her right side and the counter-clerk’s breathing—he had +something the matter with his nose—pervade her left ear. It was something +to fill an office under Government, and she knew but too well there were places +commoner still than Cocker’s; but it needed no great range of taste to +bring home to her the picture of servitude and promiscuity she couldn’t +but offer to the eye of comparative freedom. She was so boxed up with her young +men, and anything like a margin so absent, that it needed more art than she +should ever possess to pretend in the least to compass, with any one in the +nature of an acquaintance—say with Mrs. Jordan herself, flying in, as it +might happen, to wire sympathetically to Mrs. Bubb—an approach to a +relation of elegant privacy. She remembered the day when Mrs. Jordan +<i>had</i>, in fact, by the greatest chance, come in with fifty-three words for +Lord Rye and a five-pound note to change. This had been the dramatic manner of +their reunion—their mutual recognition was so great an event. The girl +could at first only see her from the waist up, besides making but little of her +long telegram to his lordship. It was a strange whirligig that had converted +the clergyman’s widow into such a specimen of the class that went beyond +the sixpence. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing of the occasion, all the more, had ever become dim; least of all the +way that, as her recovered friend looked up from counting, Mrs. Jordan had just +blown, in explanation, through her teeth and through the bars of the cage: +“I <i>do</i> flowers, you know.” Our young woman had always, with +her little finger crooked out, a pretty movement for counting; and she had not +forgotten the small secret advantage, a sharpness of triumph it might even have +been called, that fell upon her at this moment and avenged her for the +incoherence of the message, an unintelligible enumeration of numbers, colours, +days, hours. The correspondence of people she didn’t know was one thing; +but the correspondence of people she did had an aspect of its own for her even +when she couldn’t understand it. The speech in which Mrs. Jordan had +defined a position and announced a profession was like a tinkle of bluebells; +but for herself her one idea about flowers was that people had them at +funerals, and her present sole gleam of light was that lords probably had them +most. When she watched, a minute later, through the cage, the swing of her +visitor’s departing petticoats, she saw the sight from the waist down; +and when the counter-clerk, after a mere male glance, remarked, with an +intention unmistakeably low, “Handsome woman!” she had for him the +finest of her chills: “She’s the widow of a bishop.” She +always felt, with the counter-clerk, that it was impossible sufficiently to put +it on; for what she wished to express to him was the maximum of her contempt, +and that element in her nature was confusedly stored. “A bishop” +was putting it on, but the counter-clerk’s approaches were vile. The +night, after this, when, in the fulness of time, Mrs. Jordan mentioned the +grand long talks, the girl at last brought out: “Should <i>I</i> see +them?—I mean if I <i>were</i> to give up everything for you.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan at this became most arch. “I’d send you to all the +bachelors!” +</p> + +<p> +Our young lady could be reminded by such a remark that she usually struck her +friend as pretty. “Do <i>they</i> have their flowers?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oceans. And they’re the most particular.” Oh it was a +wonderful world. “You should see Lord Rye’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“His flowers?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and his letters. He writes me pages on pages—with the most +adorable little drawings and plans. You should see his diagrams!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p> +The girl had in course of time every opportunity to inspect these documents, +and they a little disappointed her; but in the mean while there had been more +talk, and it had led to her saying, as if her friend’s guarantee of a +life of elegance were not quite definite: “Well, I see every one at +<i>my</i> place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Every one?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lots of swells. They flock. They live, you know, all round, and the +place is filled with all the smart people, all the fast people, those whose +names are in the papers—mamma has still The <i>Morning Post</i>—and +who come up for the season.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan took this in with complete intelligence. “Yes, and I dare say +it’s some of your people that <i>I</i> do.” +</p> + +<p> +Her companion assented, but discriminated. “I doubt if you +‘do’ them as much as I! Their affairs, their appointments and +arrangements, their little games and secrets and vices—those things all +pass before me.” +</p> + +<p> +This was a picture that could make a clergyman’s widow not imperceptibly +gasp; it was in intention moreover something of a retort to the thousand +tulips. “Their vices? Have they got vices?” +</p> + +<p> +Our young critic even more overtly stared then with a touch of contempt in her +amusement: “Haven’t you found <i>that</i> out?” The homes of +luxury then hadn’t so much to give. “<i>I</i> find out +everything.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan, at bottom a very meek person, was visibly struck. “I see. +You do ‘have’ them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh I don’t care! Much good it does me!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan after an instant recovered her superiority. “No—it +doesn’t lead to much.” Her own initiations so clearly did. +Still—after all; and she was not jealous: “There must be a +charm.” +</p> + +<p> +“In seeing them?” At this the girl suddenly let herself go. +“I hate them. There’s that charm!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan gaped again. “The <i>real</i> ‘smarts’?” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that what you call Mrs. Bubb? Yes—it comes to me; I’ve +had Mrs. Bubb. I don’t think she has been in herself, but there are +things her maid has brought. Well, my dear!”—and the young person +from Cocker’s, recalling these things and summing them up, seemed +suddenly to have much to say. She didn’t say it, however; she checked it; +she only brought out: “Her maid, who’s horrid—<i>she</i> must +have her!” Then she went on with indifference: “They’re +<i>too</i> real! They’re selfish brutes.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan, turning it over, adopted at last the plan of treating it with a +smile. She wished to be liberal. “Well, of course, they do lay it +out.” +</p> + +<p> +“They bore me to death,” her companion pursued with slightly more +temperance. +</p> + +<p> +But this was going too far. “Ah that’s because you’ve no +sympathy!” +</p> + +<p> +The girl gave an ironic laugh, only retorting that nobody could have any who +had to count all day all the words in the dictionary; a contention Mrs. Jordan +quite granted, the more that she shuddered at the notion of ever failing of the +very gift to which she owed the vogue—the rage she might call +it—that had caught her up. Without sympathy—or without imagination, +for it came back again to that—how should she get, for big dinners, down +the middle and toward the far corners at all? It wasn’t the combinations, +which were easily managed: the strain was over the ineffable simplicities, +those that the bachelors above all, and Lord Rye perhaps most of any, threw +off—just blew off like cigarette-puffs—such sketches of. The +betrothed of Mr. Mudge at all events accepted the explanation, which had the +effect, as almost any turn of their talk was now apt to have, of bringing her +round to the terrific question of that gentleman. She was tormented with the +desire to get out of Mrs. Jordan, on this subject, what she was sure was at the +back of Mrs. Jordan’s head; and to get it out of her, queerly enough, if +only to vent a certain irritation at it. She knew that what her friend would +already have risked if she hadn’t been timid and tortuous was: +“Give him up—yes, give him up: you’ll see that with your sure +chances you’ll be able to do much better.” +</p> + +<p> +Our young woman had a sense that if that view could only be put before her with +a particular sniff for poor Mr. Mudge she should hate it as much as she morally +ought. She was conscious of not, as yet, hating it quite so much as that. But +she saw that Mrs. Jordan was conscious of something too, and that there was a +degree of confidence she was waiting little by little to arrive at. The day +came when the girl caught a glimpse of what was still wanting to make her +friend feel strong; which was nothing less than the prospect of being able to +announce the climax of sundry private dreams. The associate of the aristocracy +had personal calculations—matter for brooding and dreaming, even for +peeping out not quite hopelessly from behind the window-curtains of lonely +lodgings. If she did the flowers for the bachelors, in short, didn’t she +expect that to have consequences very different from such an outlook at +Cocker’s as she had pronounced wholly desperate? There seemed in very +truth something auspicious in the mixture of bachelors and flowers, though, +when looked hard in the eye, Mrs. Jordan was not quite prepared to say she had +expected a positive proposal from Lord Rye to pop out of it. Our young woman +arrived at last, none the less, at a definite vision of what was in her mind. +This was a vivid foreknowledge that the betrothed of Mr. Mudge would, unless +conciliated in advance by a successful rescue, almost hate her on the day she +should break a particular piece of news. How could that unfortunate otherwise +endure to hear of what, under the protection of Lady Ventnor, was after all so +possible. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p> +Meanwhile, since irritation sometimes relieved her, the betrothed of Mr. Mudge +found herself indebted to that admirer for amounts of it perfectly proportioned +to her fidelity. She always walked with him on Sundays, usually in the +Regent’s Park, and quite often, once or twice a month he took her, in the +Strand or thereabouts, to see a piece that was having a run. The productions he +always preferred were the really good ones—Shakespeare, Thompson or some +funny American thing; which, as it also happened that she hated vulgar plays, +gave him ground for what was almost the fondest of his approaches, the theory +that their tastes were, blissfully, just the same. He was for ever reminding +her of that, rejoicing over it and being affectionate and wise about it. There +were times when she wondered how in the world she could “put up +with” him, how she could put up with any man so smugly unconscious of the +immensity of her difference. It was just for this difference that, if she was +to be liked at all, she wanted to be liked, and if that was not the source of +Mr. Mudge’s admiration, she asked herself what on earth <i>could</i> be? +She was not different only at one point, she was different all round; unless +perhaps indeed in being practically human, which her mind just barely +recognised that he also was. She would have made tremendous concessions in +other quarters: there was no limit for instance to those she would have made to +Captain Everard; but what I have named was the most she was prepared to do for +Mr. Mudge. It was because <i>he</i> was different that, in the oddest way, she +liked as well as deplored him; which was after all a proof that the disparity, +should they frankly recognise it, wouldn’t necessarily be fatal. She felt +that, oleaginous—too oleaginous—as he was, he was somehow +comparatively primitive: she had once, during the portion of his time at +Cocker’s that had overlapped her own, seen him collar a drunken soldier, +a big violent man who, having come in with a mate to get a postal-order cashed, +had made a grab at the money before his friend could reach it and had so +determined, among the hams and cheeses and the lodgers from Thrupp’s, +immediate and alarming reprisals, a scene of scandal and consternation. Mr. +Buckton and the counter-clerk had crouched within the cage, but Mr. Mudge had, +with a very quiet but very quick step round the counter, an air of masterful +authority she shouldn’t soon forget, triumphantly interposed in the +scrimmage, parted the combatants and shaken the delinquent in his skin. She had +been proud of him at that moment, and had felt that if their affair had not +already been settled the neatness of his execution would have left her without +resistance. +</p> + +<p> +Their affair had been settled by other things: by the evident sincerity of his +passion and by the sense that his high white apron resembled a front of many +floors. It had gone a great way with her that he would build up a business to +his chin, which he carried quite in the air. This could only be a question of +time; he would have all Piccadilly in the pen behind his ear. That was a merit +in itself for a girl who had known what she had known. There were hours at +which she even found him good-looking, though, frankly there could be no crown +for her effort to imagine on the part of the tailor or the barber some such +treatment of his appearance as would make him resemble even remotely a man of +the world. His very beauty was the beauty of a grocer, and the finest future +would offer it none too much room consistently to develop. She had engaged +herself in short to the perfection of a type, and almost anything square and +smooth and whole had its weight for a person still conscious herself of being a +mere bruised fragment of wreckage. But it contributed hugely at present to +carry on the two parallel lines of her experience in the cage and her +experience out of it. After keeping quiet for some time about this opposition +she suddenly—one Sunday afternoon on a penny chair in the Regent’s +Park—broke, for him, capriciously, bewilderingly, into an intimation of +what it came to. He had naturally pressed more and more on the point of her +again placing herself where he could see her hourly, and for her to recognise +that she had as yet given him no sane reason for delay he had small need to +describe himself as unable to make out what she was up to. As if, with her +absurd bad reasons, she could have begun to tell him! Sometimes she thought it +would be amusing to let him have them full in the face, for she felt she should +die of him unless she once in a while stupefied him; and sometimes she thought +it would be disgusting and perhaps even fatal. She liked him, however, to think +her silly, for that gave her the margin which at the best she would always +require; and the only difficulty about this was that he hadn’t enough +imagination to oblige her. It produced none the less something of the desired +effect—to leave him simply wondering why, over the matter of their +reunion, she didn’t yield to his arguments. Then at last, simply as if by +accident and out of mere boredom on a day that was rather flat, she +preposterously produced her own. “Well, wait a bit. Where I am I still +see things.” And she talked to him even worse, if possible, than she had +talked to Jordan. +</p> + +<p> +Little by little, to her own stupefaction, she caught that he was trying to +take it as she meant it and that he was neither astonished nor angry. Oh the +British tradesman—this gave her an idea of his resources! Mr. Mudge would +be angry only with a person who, like the drunken soldier in the shop, should +have an unfavourable effect on business. He seemed positively to enter, for the +time and without the faintest flash of irony or ripple of laughter, into the +whimsical grounds of her enjoyment of Cocker’s custom, and instantly to +be casting up whatever it might, as Mrs. Jordan had said, lead to. What he had +in mind was not of course what Mrs. Jordan had had: it was obviously not a +source of speculation with him that his sweetheart might pick up a husband. She +could see perfectly that this was not for a moment even what he supposed she +herself dreamed of. What she had done was simply to give his sensibility +another push into the dim vast of trade. In that direction it was all alert, +and she had whisked before it the mild fragrance of a “connexion.” +That was the most he could see in any account of her keeping in, on whatever +roundabout lines, with the gentry; and when, getting to the bottom of this, she +quickly proceeded to show him the kind of eye she turned on such people and to +give him a sketch of what that eye discovered, she reduced him to the +particular prostration in which he could still be amusing to her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p> +“They’re the most awful wretches, I assure you—the lot all +about there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why do you want to stay among them?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear man, just because they <i>are</i>. It makes me hate them +so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hate them? I thought you liked them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be stupid. What I ‘like’ is just to loathe them. +You wouldn’t believe what passes before my eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why have you never told me? You didn’t mention anything +before I left.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh I hadn’t got round to it then. It’s the sort of thing you +don’t believe at first; you have to look round you a bit and then you +understand. You work into it more and more. Besides,” the girl went on, +“this is the time of the year when the worst lot come up. They’re +simply packed together in those smart streets. Talk of the numbers of the poor! +What <i>I</i> can vouch for is the numbers of the rich! There are new ones +every day, and they seem to get richer and richer. Oh, they do come up!” +she cried, imitating for her private recreation—she was sure it +wouldn’t reach Mr. Mudge—the low intonation of the counter-clerk. +</p> + +<p> +“And where do they come from?” her companion candidly enquired. +</p> + +<p> +She had to think a moment; then she found something. “From the +‘spring meetings.’ They bet tremendously.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, they bet enough at Chalk Farm, if that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>isn’t</i> all. It isn’t a millionth part!” she +replied with some sharpness. “It’s immense fun”—she +would tantalise him. Then as she had heard Mrs. Jordan say, and as the ladies +at Cocker’s even sometimes wired, “It’s quite too +dreadful!” She could fully feel how it was Mr. Mudge’s propriety, +which was extreme—he had a horror of coarseness and attended a Wesleyan +chapel—that prevented his asking for details. But she gave him some of +the more innocuous in spite of himself, especially putting before him how, at +Simpkin’s and Ladle’s, they all made the money fly. That was indeed +what he liked to hear: the connexion was not direct, but one was somehow more +in the right place where the money was flying than where it was simply and +meagrely nesting. The air felt that stir, he had to acknowledge, much less at +Chalk Farm than in the district in which his beloved so oddly enjoyed her +footing. She gave him, she could see, a restless sense that these might be +familiarities not to be sacrificed; germs, possibilities, faint +foreshowings—heaven knew what—of the initiation it would prove +profitable to have arrived at when in the fulness of time he should have his +own shop in some such paradise. What really touched him—that was +discernible—was that she could feed him with so much mere vividness of +reminder, keep before him, as by the play of a fan, the very wind of the swift +bank-notes and the charm of the existence of a class that Providence had raised +up to be the blessing of grocers. He liked to think that the class was there, +that it was always there, and that she contributed in her slight but +appreciable degree to keep it up to the mark. He couldn’t have formulated +his theory of the matter, but the exuberance of the aristocracy was the +advantage of trade, and everything was knit together in a richness of pattern +that it was good to follow with one’s finger-tips. It was a comfort to +him to be thus assured that there were no symptoms of a drop. What did the +sounder, as she called it, nimbly worked, do but keep the ball going? +</p> + +<p> +What it came to therefore for Mr. Mudge was that all enjoyments were, as might +be said, inter-related, and that the more people had the more they wanted to +have. The more flirtations, as he might roughly express it, the more cheese and +pickles. He had even in his own small way been dimly struck with the +linkèd sweetness connecting the tender passion with cheap champagne, or +perhaps the other way round. What he would have liked to say had he been able +to work out his thought to the end was: “I see, I see. Lash them up then, +lead them on, keep them going: some of it can’t help, some time, coming +<i>our</i> way.” Yet he was troubled by the suspicion of subtleties on +his companion’s part that spoiled the straight view. He couldn’t +understand people’s hating what they liked or liking what they hated; +above all it hurt him somewhere—for he had his private +delicacies—to see anything <i>but</i> money made out of his betters. To +be too enquiring, or in any other way too free, at the expense of the gentry +was vaguely wrong; the only thing that was distinctly right was to be +prosperous at any price. Wasn’t it just because they were up there aloft +that they were lucrative? He concluded at any rate by saying to his young +friend: “If it’s improper for you to remain at Cocker’s, then +that falls in exactly with the other reasons I’ve put before you for your +removal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Improper?”—her smile became a prolonged boldness. “My +dear boy, there’s no one like you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say,” he laughed; “but that doesn’t help the +question.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” she returned, “I can’t give up my friends. +I’m making even more than Mrs. Jordan.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge considered. “How much is <i>she</i> making?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh you dear donkey!”—and, regardless of all the +Regent’s Park, she patted his cheek. This was the sort of moment at which +she was absolutely tempted to tell him that she liked to be near Park Chambers. +There was a fascination in the idea of seeing if, on a mention of Captain +Everard, he wouldn’t do what she thought he might; wouldn’t weigh +against the obvious objection the still more obvious advantage. The advantage +of course could only strike him at the best as rather fantastic; but it was +always to the good to keep hold when you <i>had</i> hold, and such an attitude +would also after all involve a high tribute to her fidelity. Of one thing she +absolutely never doubted: Mr. Mudge believed in her with a belief—! She +believed in herself too, for that matter: if there was a thing in the world no +one could charge her with it was being the kind of low barmaid person who +rinsed tumblers and bandied slang. But she forbore as yet to speak; she had not +spoken even to Mrs. Jordan; and the hush that on her lips surrounded the +Captain’s name maintained itself as a kind of symbol of the success that, +up to this time, had attended something or other—she couldn’t have +said what—that she humoured herself with calling, without words, her +relation with him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<p> +She would have admitted indeed that it consisted of little more than the fact +that his absences, however frequent and however long, always ended with his +turning up again. It was nobody’s business in the world but her own if +that fact continued to be enough for her. It was of course not enough just in +itself; what it had taken on to make it so was the extraordinary possession of +the elements of his life that memory and attention had at last given her. There +came a day when this possession on the girl’s part actually seemed to +enjoy between them, while their eyes met, a tacit recognition that was half a +joke and half a deep solemnity. He bade her good morning always now; he often +quite raised his hat to her. He passed a remark when there was time or room, +and once she went so far as to say to him that she hadn’t seen him for +“ages.” “Ages” was the word she consciously and +carefully, though a trifle tremulously used; “ages” was exactly +what she meant. To this he replied in terms doubtless less anxiously selected, +but perhaps on that account not the less remarkable, “Oh yes, +hasn’t it been awfully wet?” That was a specimen of their give and +take; it fed her fancy that no form of intercourse so transcendent and +distilled had ever been established on earth. Everything, so far as they chose +to consider it so, might mean almost anything. The want of margin in the cage, +when he peeped through the bars, wholly ceased to be appreciable. It was a +drawback only in superficial commerce. With Captain Everard she had simply the +margin of the universe. It may be imagined therefore how their unuttered +reference to all she knew about him could in this immensity play at its ease. +Every time he handed in a telegram it was an addition to her knowledge: what +did his constant smile mean to mark if it didn’t mean to mark that? He +never came into the place without saying to her in this manner: “Oh yes, +you have me by this time so completely at your mercy that it doesn’t in +the least matter what I give you now. You’ve become a comfort, I assure +you!” +</p> + +<p> +She had only two torments; the greatest of which was that she couldn’t, +not even once or twice, touch with him on some individual fact. She would have +given anything to have been able to allude to one of his friends by name, to +one of his engagements by date, to one of his difficulties by the solution. She +would have given almost as much for just the right chance—it would have +to be tremendously right—to show him in some sharp sweet way that she had +perfectly penetrated the greatest of these last and now lived with it in a kind +of heroism of sympathy. He was in love with a woman to whom, and to any view of +whom, a lady-telegraphist, and especially one who passed a life among hams and +cheeses, was as the sand on the floor; and what her dreams desired was the +possibility of its somehow coming to him that her own interest in him could +take a pure and noble account of such an infatuation and even of such an +impropriety. As yet, however, she could only rub along with the hope that an +accident, sooner or later, might give her a lift toward popping out with +something that would surprise and perhaps even, some fine day, assist him. What +could people mean moreover—cheaply sarcastic people—by not feeling +all that could be got out of the weather? <i>She</i> felt it all, and seemed +literally to feel it most when she went quite wrong, speaking of the stuffy +days as cold, of the cold ones as stuffy, and betraying how little she knew, in +her cage, of whether it was foul or fair. It was for that matter always stuffy +at Cocker’s, and she finally settled down to the safe proposition that +the outside element was “changeable.” Anything seemed true that +made him so radiantly assent. +</p> + +<p> +This indeed is a small specimen of her cultivation of insidious ways of making +things easy for him—ways to which of course she couldn’t be at all +sure he did real justice. Real justice was not of this world: she had had too +often to come back to that; yet, strangely, happiness was, and her traps had to +be set for it in a manner to keep them unperceived by Mr. Buckton and the +counter-clerk. The most she could hope for apart from the question, which +constantly flickered up and died down, of the divine chance of his consciously +liking her, would be that, without analysing it, he should arrive at a vague +sense that Cocker’s was—well, attractive; easier, smoother, +sociably brighter, slightly more picturesque, in short more propitious in +general to his little affairs, than any other establishment just thereabouts. +She was quite aware that they couldn’t be, in so huddled a hole, +particularly quick; but she found her account in the slowness—she +certainly could bear it if <i>he</i> could. The great pang was that just +thereabouts post-offices were so awfully thick. She was always seeing him in +imagination in other places and with other girls. But she would defy any other +girl to follow him as she followed. And though they weren’t, for so many +reasons, quick at Cocker’s, she could hurry for him when, through an +intimation light as air, she gathered that he was pressed. +</p> + +<p> +When hurry was, better still, impossible, it was because of the pleasantest +thing of all, the particular element of their contact—she would have +called it their friendship—that consisted of an almost humorous treatment +of the look of some of his words. They would never perhaps have grown half so +intimate if he had not, by the blessing of heaven, formed some of his letters +with a queerness—! It was positive that the queerness could scarce have +been greater if he had practised it for the very purpose of bringing their +heads together over it as far as was possible to heads on different sides of a +wire fence. It had taken her truly but once or twice to master these tricks, +but, at the cost of striking him perhaps as stupid, she could still challenge +them when circumstances favoured. The great circumstance that favoured was that +she sometimes actually believed he knew she only feigned perplexity. If he knew +it therefore he tolerated it; if he tolerated it he came back; and if he came +back he liked her. This was her seventh heaven; and she didn’t ask much +of his liking—she only asked of it to reach the point of his not going +away because of her own. He had at times to be away for weeks; he had to lead +his life; he had to travel—there were places to which he was constantly +wiring for “rooms”: all this she granted him, forgave him; in fact, +in the long run, literally blessed and thanked him for. If he had to lead his +life, that precisely fostered his leading it so much by telegraph: therefore +the benediction was to come in when he could. That was all she asked—that +he shouldn’t wholly deprive her. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes she almost felt that he couldn’t have deprived her even had he +been minded, by reason of the web of revelation that was woven between them. +She quite thrilled herself with thinking what, with such a lot of material, a +bad girl would do. It would be a scene better than many in her ha’penny +novels, this going to him in the dusk of evening at Park Chambers and letting +him at last have it. “I know too much about a certain person now not to +put it to you—excuse my being so lurid—that it’s quite worth +your while to buy me off. Come, therefore; buy me!” There was a point +indeed at which such flights had to drop again—the point of an +unreadiness to name, when it came to that, the purchasing medium. It +wouldn’t certainly be anything so gross as money, and the matter +accordingly remained rather vague, all the more that <i>she</i> was not a bad +girl. It wasn’t for any such reason as might have aggravated a mere minx +that she often hoped he would again bring Cissy. The difficulty of this, +however, was constantly present to her, for the kind of communion to which +Cocker’s so richly ministered rested on the fact that Cissy and he were +so often in different places. She knew by this time all the +places—Suchbury, Monkhouse, Whiteroy, Finches—and even how the +parties on these occasions were composed; but her subtlety found ways to make +her knowledge fairly protect and promote their keeping, as she had heard Mrs. +Jordan say, in touch. So, when he actually sometimes smiled as if he really +felt the awkwardness of giving her again one of the same old addresses, all her +being went out in the desire—which her face must have +expressed—that he should recognise her forbearance to criticise as one of +the finest tenderest sacrifices a woman had ever made for love. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<p> +She was occasionally worried, however this might be, by the impression that +these sacrifices, great as they were, were nothing to those that his own +passion had imposed; if indeed it was not rather the passion of his +confederate, which had caught him up and was whirling him round like a great +steam-wheel. He was at any rate in the strong grip of a dizzy splendid fate; +the wild wind of his life blew him straight before it. Didn’t she catch +in his face at times, even through his smile and his happy habit, the gleam of +that pale glare with which a bewildered victim appeals, as he passes, to some +pair of pitying eyes? He perhaps didn’t even himself know how scared he +was; but <i>she</i> knew. They were in danger, they were in danger, Captain +Everard and Lady Bradeen: it beat every novel in the shop. She thought of Mr. +Mudge and his safe sentiment; she thought of herself and blushed even more for +her tepid response to it. It was a comfort to her at such moments to feel that +in another relation—a relation supplying that affinity with her nature +that Mr. Mudge, deluded creature, would never supply—she should have been +no more tepid than her ladyship. Her deepest soundings were on two or three +occasions of finding herself almost sure that, if she dared, her +ladyship’s lover would have gathered relief from “speaking” +to her. She literally fancied once or twice that, projected as he was toward +his doom, her own eyes struck him, while the air roared in his ears, as the one +pitying pair in the crowd. But how could he speak to her while she sat +sandwiched there between the counter-clerk and the sounder? +</p> + +<p> +She had long ago, in her comings and goings made acquaintance with Park +Chambers and reflected as she looked up at their luxurious front that +<i>they</i>, of course, would supply the ideal setting for the ideal speech. +There was not an object in London that, before the season was over, was more +stamped upon her brain. She went roundabout to pass it, for it was not on the +short way; she passed on the opposite side of the street and always looked up, +though it had taken her a long time to be sure of the particular set of +windows. She had made that out finally by an act of audacity that at the time +had almost stopped her heart-beats and that in retrospect greatly quickened her +blushes. One evening she had lingered late and watched—watched for some +moment when the porter, who was in uniform and often on the steps, had gone in +with a visitor. Then she followed boldly, on the calculation that he would have +taken the visitor up and that the hall would be free. The hall <i>was</i> free, +and the electric light played over the gilded and lettered board that showed +the names and numbers of the occupants of the different floors. What she wanted +looked straight at her—Captain Everard was on the third. It was as if, in +the immense intimacy of this, they were, for the instant and the first time, +face to face outside the cage. Alas! they were face to face but a second or +two: she was whirled out on the wings of a panic fear that he might just then +be entering or issuing. This fear was indeed, in her shameless deflexions, +never very far from her, and was mixed in the oddest way with depressions and +disappointments. It was dreadful, as she trembled by, to run the risk of +looking to him as if she basely hung about; and yet it was dreadful to be +obliged to pass only at such moments as put an encounter out of the question. +</p> + +<p> +At the horrible hour of her first coming to Cocker’s he was +always—it was to be hoped—snug in bed; and at the hour of her final +departure he was of course—she had such things all on her +fingers’-ends—dressing for dinner. We may let it pass that if she +couldn’t bring herself to hover till he was dressed, this was simply +because such a process for such a person could only be terribly prolonged. When +she went in the middle of the day to her own dinner she had too little time to +do anything but go straight, though it must be added that for a real certainty +she would joyously have omitted the repast. She had made up her mind as to +there being on the whole no decent pretext to justify her flitting casually +past at three o’clock in the morning. That was the hour at which, if the +ha’penny novels were not all wrong, he probably came home for the night. +She was therefore reduced to the vainest figuration of the miraculous meeting +toward which a hundred impossibilities would have to conspire. But if nothing +was more impossible than the fact, nothing was more intense than the vision. +What may not, we can only moralise, take place in the quickened muffled +perception of a young person with an ardent soul? All our humble friend’s +native distinction, her refinement of personal grain, of heredity, of pride, +took refuge in this small throbbing spot; for when she was most conscious of +the objection of her vanity and the pitifulness of her little flutters and +manoeuvres, then the consolation and the redemption were most sure to glow +before her in some just discernible sign. He did like her! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<p> +He never brought Cissy back, but Cissy came one day without him, as fresh as +before from the hands of Marguerite, or only, at the season’s end, a +trifle less fresh. She was, however, distinctly less serene. She had brought +nothing with her and looked about with impatience for the forms and the place +to write. The latter convenience, at Cocker’s, was obscure and barely +adequate, and her clear voice had the light note of disgust which her +lover’s never showed as she responded with a “There?” of +surprise to the gesture made by the counter-clerk in answer to her sharp +question. Our young friend was busy with half a dozen people, but she had +dispatched them in her most businesslike manner by the time her ladyship flung +through the bars this light of re-appearance. Then the directness with which +the girl managed to receive the accompanying missive was the result of the +concentration that had caused her to make the stamps fly during the few minutes +occupied by the production of it. This concentration, in turn, may be described +as the effect of the apprehension of imminent relief. It was nineteen days, +counted and checked off, since she had seen the object of her homage; and as, +had he been in London, she should, with his habits, have been sure to see him +often, she was now about to learn what other spot his presence might just then +happen to sanctify. For she thought of them, the other spots, as ecstatically +conscious of it, expressively happy in it. +</p> + +<p> +But, gracious, how handsome <i>was</i> her ladyship, and what an added price it +gave him that the air of intimacy he threw out should have flowed originally +from such a source! The girl looked straight through the cage at the eyes and +lips that must so often have been so near as own—looked at them with a +strange passion that for an instant had the result of filling out some of the +gaps, supplying the missing answers, in his correspondence. Then as she made +out that the features she thus scanned and associated were totally unaware of +it, that they glowed only with the colour of quite other and not at all +guessable thoughts, this directly added to their splendour, gave the girl the +sharpest impression she had yet received of the uplifted, the unattainable +plains of heaven, and yet at the same time caused her to thrill with a sense of +the high company she did somehow keep. She was with the absent through her +ladyship and with her ladyship through the absent. The only pang—but it +didn’t matter—was the proof in the admirable face, in the sightless +preoccupation of its possessor, that the latter hadn’t a notion of her. +Her folly had gone to the point of half believing that the other party to the +affair must sometimes mention in Eaton Square the extraordinary little person +at the place from which he so often wired. Yet the perception of her +visitor’s blankness actually helped this extraordinary little person, the +next instant, to take refuge in a reflexion that could be as proud as it liked. +“How little she knows, how little she knows!” the girl cried to +herself; for what did that show after all but that Captain Everard’s +telegraphic confidant was Captain Everard’s charming secret? Our young +friend’s perusal of her ladyship’s telegram was literally prolonged +by a momentary daze: what swam between her and the words, making her see them +as through rippled shallow sunshot water, was the great, the perpetual flood of +“How much <i>I</i> know—how much <i>I</i> know!” This +produced a delay in her catching that, on the face, these words didn’t +give her what she wanted, though she was prompt enough with her remembrance +that her grasp was, half the time, just of what was <i>not</i> on the face. +“Miss Dolman, Parade Lodge, Parade Terrace, Dover. Let him instantly know +right one, Hôtel de France, Ostend. Make it seven nine four nine six one. Wire +me alternative Burfield’s.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl slowly counted. Then he was at Ostend. This hooked on with so sharp a +click that, not to feel she was as quickly letting it all slip from her, she +had absolutely to hold it a minute longer and to do something to that end. Thus +it was that she did on this occasion what she never did—threw off a +“Reply paid?” that sounded officious, but that she partly made up +for by deliberately affixing the stamps and by waiting till she had done so to +give change. She had, for so much coolness, the strength that she considered +she knew all about Miss Dolman. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—paid.” She saw all sorts of things in this reply, even +to a small suppressed start of surprise at so correct an assumption; even to an +attempt the next minute at a fresh air of detachment. “How much, with the +answer?” The calculation was not abstruse, but our intense observer +required a moment more to make it, and this gave her ladyship time for a second +thought. “Oh just wait!” The white begemmed hand bared to write +rose in sudden nervousness to the side of the wonderful face which, with eyes +of anxiety for the paper on the counter, she brought closer to the bars of the +cage. “I think I must alter a word!” On this she recovered her +telegram and looked over it again; but she had a new, an obvious trouble, and +studied it without deciding and with much of the effect of making our young +woman watch her. +</p> + +<p> +This personage, meanwhile, at the sight of her expression, had decided on the +spot. If she had always been sure they were in danger her ladyship’s +expression was the best possible sign of it. There was a word wrong, but she +had lost the right one, and much clearly depended on her finding it again. The +girl, therefore, sufficiently estimating the affluence of customers and the +distraction of Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk, took the jump and gave it. +“Isn’t it Cooper’s?” +</p> + +<p> +It was as if she had bodily leaped—cleared the top of the cage and +alighted on her interlocutress. “Cooper’s?”—the stare +was heightened by a blush. Yes, she had made Juno blush. +</p> + +<p> +This was all the greater reason for going on. “I mean instead of +Burfield’s.” +</p> + +<p> +Our young friend fairly pitied her; she had made her in an instant so helpless, +and yet not a bit haughty nor outraged. She was only mystified and scared. +“Oh, you know—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know!” Our young friend smiled, meeting the other’s +eyes, and, having made Juno blush, proceeded to patronise her. +“<i>I’ll</i> do it”—she put out a competent hand. Her +ladyship only submitted, confused and bewildered, all presence of mind quite +gone; and the next moment the telegram was in the cage again and its author out +of the shop. Then quickly, boldly, under all the eyes that might have witnessed +her tampering, the extraordinary little person at Cocker’s made the +proper change. People were really too giddy, and if they <i>were</i>, in a +certain case, to be caught, it shouldn’t be the fault of her own grand +memory. Hadn’t it been settled weeks before?—for Miss Dolman it was +always to be “Cooper’s.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<p> +But the summer “holidays” brought a marked difference; they were +holidays for almost every one but the animals in the cage. The August days were +flat and dry, and, with so little to feed it, she was conscious of the ebb of +her interest in the secrets of the refined. She was in a position to follow the +refined to the extent of knowing—they had made so many of their +arrangements with her aid—exactly where they were; yet she felt quite as +if the panorama had ceased unrolling and the band stopped playing. A stray +member of the latter occasionally turned up, but the communications that passed +before her bore now largely on rooms at hotels, prices of furnished houses, +hours of trains, dates of sailings and arrangements for being +“met”; she found them for the most part prosaic and coarse. The +only thing was that they brought into her stuffy corner as straight a whiff of +Alpine meadows and Scotch moors as she might hope ever to inhale; there were +moreover in especial fat hot dull ladies who had out with her, to exasperation, +the terms for seaside lodgings, which struck her as huge, and the matter of the +number of beds required, which was not less portentous: this in reference to +places of which the names—Eastbourne, Folkestone, Cromer, Scarborough, +Whitby—tormented her with something of the sound of the plash of water +that haunts the traveller in the desert. She had not been out of London for a +dozen years, and the only thing to give a taste to the present dead weeks was +the spice of a chronic resentment. The sparse customers, the people she did +see, were the people who were “just off”—off on the decks of +fluttered yachts, off to the uttermost point of rocky headlands where the very +breeze was then playing for the want of which she said to herself that she +sickened. +</p> + +<p> +There was accordingly a sense in which, at such a period, the great differences +of the human condition could press upon her more than ever; a circumstance +drawing fresh force in truth from the very fact of the chance that at last, for +a change, did squarely meet her—the chance to be “off,” for a +bit, almost as far as anybody. They took their turns in the cage as they took +them both in the shop and at Chalk Farm; she had known these two months that +time was to be allowed in September—no less than eleven days—for +her personal private holiday. Much of her recent intercourse with Mr. Mudge had +consisted of the hopes and fears, expressed mainly by himself, involved in the +question of their getting the same dates—a question that, in proportion +as the delight seemed assured, spread into a sea of speculation over the choice +of where and how. All through July, on the Sunday evenings and at such other +odd times as he could seize, he had flooded their talk with wild waves of +calculation. It was practically settled that, with her mother, somewhere +“on the south coast” (a phrase of which she liked the sound) they +should put in their allowance together; but she already felt the prospect quite +weary and worn with the way he went round and round on it. It had become his +sole topic, the theme alike of his most solemn prudences and most placid jests, +to which every opening led for return and revision and in which every little +flower of a foretaste was pulled up as soon as planted. He had announced at the +earliest day—characterising the whole business, from that moment, as +their “plans,” under which name he handled it as a Syndicate +handles a Chinese or other Loan—he had promptly declared that the +question must be thoroughly studied, and he produced, on the whole subject, +from day to day, an amount of information that excited her wonder and even, not +a little, as she frankly let him know, her disdain. When she thought of the +danger in which another pair of lovers rapturously lived she enquired of him +anew why he could leave nothing to chance. Then she got for answer that this +profundity was just his pride, and he pitted Ramsgate against Bournemouth and +even Boulogne against Jersey—for he had great ideas—with all the +mastery of detail that was some day, professionally, to carry him afar. +</p> + +<p> +The longer the time since she had seen Captain Everard the more she was booked, +as she called it, to pass Park Chambers; and this was the sole amusement that +in the lingering August days and the twilights sadly drawn out it was left her +to cultivate. She had long since learned to know it for a feeble one, though +its feebleness was perhaps scarce the reason for her saying to herself each +evening as her time for departure approached: “No, no—not +to-night.” She never failed of that silent remark, any more than she +failed of feeling, in some deeper place than she had even yet fully sounded, +that one’s remarks were as weak as straws and that, however one might +indulge in them at eight o’clock, one’s fate infallibly declared +itself in absolute indifference to them at about eight-fifteen. Remarks were +remarks, and very well for that; but fate was fate, and this young lady’s +was to pass Park Chambers every night in the working week. Out of the immensity +of her knowledge of the life of the world there bloomed on these occasions as +specific remembrance that it was regarded in that region, in August and +September, as rather pleasant just to be caught for something or other in +passing through town. Somebody was always passing and somebody might catch +somebody else. It was in full cognisance of this subtle law that she adhered to +the most ridiculous circuit she could have made to get home. One warm dull +featureless Friday, when an accident had made her start from Cocker’s a +little later than usual, she became aware that something of which the infinite +possibilities had for so long peopled her dreams was at last prodigiously upon +her, though the perfection in which the conditions happened to present it was +almost rich enough to be but the positive creation of a dream. She saw, +straight before her, like a vista painted in a picture, the empty street and +the lamps that burned pale in the dusk not yet established. It was into the +convenience of this quiet twilight that a gentleman on the doorstep of the +Chambers gazed with a vagueness that our young lady’s little figure +violently trembled, in the approach, with the measure of its power to +dissipate. Everything indeed grew in a flash terrific and distinct; her old +uncertainties fell away from her, and, since she was so familiar with fate, she +felt as if the very nail that fixed it were driven in by the hard look with +which, for a moment, Captain Everard awaited her. +</p> + +<p> +The vestibule was open behind him and the porter as absent as on the day she +had peeped in; he had just come out—was in town, in a tweed suit and a +pot hat, but between two journeys—duly bored over his evening and at a +loss what to do with it. Then it was that she was glad she had never met him in +that way before: she reaped with such ecstasy the benefit of his not being able +to think she passed often. She jumped in two seconds to the determination that +he should even suppose it to be the very first time and the very oddest chance: +this was while she still wondered if he would identify or notice her. His +original attention had not, she instinctively knew, been for the young woman at +Cocker’s; it had only been for any young woman who might advance to the +tune of her not troubling the quiet air, and in fact the poetic hour, with +ugliness. Ah but then, and just as she had reached the door, came his second +observation, a long light reach with which, visibly and quite amusedly, he +recalled and placed her. They were on different sides, but the street, narrow +and still, had only made more of a stage for the small momentary drama. It was +not over, besides, it was far from over, even on his sending across the way, +with the pleasantest laugh she had ever heard, a little lift of his hat and an +“Oh good evening!” It was still less over on their meeting, the +next minute, though rather indirectly and awkwardly, in the middle, of the +road—a situation to which three or four steps of her own had +unmistakeably contributed—and then passing not again to the side on which +she had arrived, but back toward the portal of Park Chambers. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know you at first. Are you taking a walk?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah I don’t take walks at night! I’m going home after my +work.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +That was practically what they had meanwhile smiled out, and his exclamation to +which for a minute he appeared to have nothing to add, left them face to face +and in just such an attitude as, for his part, he might have worn had he been +wondering if he could properly ask her to come in. During this interval in fact +she really felt his question to be just “<i>How</i> +properly—?” It was simply a question of the degree of properness. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<p> +She never knew afterwards quite what she had done to settle it, and at the time +she only knew that they presently moved, with vagueness, yet with continuity, +away from the picture of the lighted vestibule and the quiet stairs and well up +the street together. This also must have been in the absence of a definite +permission, of anything vulgarly articulate, for that matter, on the part of +either; and it was to be, later on, a thing of remembrance and reflexion for +her that the limit of what just here for a longish minute passed between them +was his taking in her thoroughly successful deprecation, though conveyed +without pride or sound or touch, of the idea that she might be, out of the +cage, the very shop-girl at large that she hugged the theory she wasn’t. +Yes, it was strange, she afterwards thought, that so much could have come and +gone and yet not disfigured the dear little intense crisis either with +impertinence or with resentment, with any of the horrid notes of that kind of +acquaintance. He had taken no liberty, as she would have so called it; and, +through not having to betray the sense of one, she herself had, still more +charmingly, taken none. On the spot, nevertheless, she could speculate as to +what it meant that, if his relation with Lady Bradeen continued to be what her +mind had built it up to, he should feel free to proceed with marked +independence. This was one of the questions he was to leave her to deal +with—the question whether people of his sort still asked girls up to +their rooms when they were so awfully in love with other women. Could people of +his sort do that without what people of <i>her</i> sort would call being +“false to their love”? She had already a vision of how the true +answer was that people of her sort didn’t, in such cases, +matter—didn’t count as infidelity, counted only as something else: +she might have been curious, since it came to that, to see exactly what. +</p> + +<p> +Strolling together slowly in their summer twilight and their empty corner of +Mayfair, they found themselves emerge at last opposite to one of the smaller +gates of the Park; upon which, without any particular word about it—they +were talking so of other things—they crossed the street and went in and +sat down on a bench. She had gathered by this time one magnificent hope about +him—the hope he would say nothing vulgar. She knew thoroughly what she +meant by that; she meant something quite apart from any matter of his being +“false.” Their bench was not far within; it was near the Park Lane +paling and the patchy lamplight and the rumbling cabs and ‘buses. A +strange emotion had come to her, and she felt indeed excitement within +excitement; above all a conscious joy in testing him with chances he +didn’t take. She had an intense desire he should know the type she really +conformed to without her doing anything so low as tell him, and he had surely +begun to know it from the moment he didn’t seize the opportunities into +which a common man would promptly have blundered. These were on the mere +awkward surface, and <i>their</i> relation was beautiful behind and below them. +She had questioned so little on the way what they might be doing that as soon +as they were seated she took straight hold of it. Her hours, her confinement, +the many conditions of service in the post-office, had—with a glance at +his own postal resources and alternatives—formed, up to this stage, the +subject of their talk. “Well, here we are, and it may be right enough; +but this isn’t the least, you know, where I was going.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were going home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and I was already rather late. I was going to my supper.” +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t had it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you haven’t eaten—?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked of a sudden so extravagantly concerned that she laughed out. +“All day? Yes, we do feed once. But that was long ago. So I must +presently say good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh deary <i>me</i>!” he exclaimed with an intonation so droll and +yet a touch so light and a distress so marked—a confession of +helplessness for such a case, in short, so unrelieved—that she at once +felt sure she had made the great difference plain. He looked at her with the +kindest eyes and still without saying what she had known he wouldn’t. She +had known he wouldn’t say “Then sup with <i>me</i>!” but the +proof of it made her feel as if she had feasted. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not a bit hungry,” she went on. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah you <i>must</i> be, awfully!” he made answer, but settling +himself on the bench as if, after all, that needn’t interfere with his +spending his evening. “I’ve always quite wanted the chance to thank +you for the trouble you so often take for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know,” she replied; uttering the words with a sense of the +situation far deeper than any pretence of not fitting his allusion. She +immediately felt him surprised and even a little puzzled at her frank assent; +but for herself the trouble she had taken could only, in these fleeting +minutes—they would probably never come back—be all there like a +little hoard of gold in her lap. Certainly he might look at it, handle it, take +up the pieces. Yet if he understood anything he must understand all. “I +consider you’ve already immensely thanked me.” The horror was back +upon her of having seemed to hang about for some reward. “It’s +awfully odd you should have been there just the one time—!” +</p> + +<p> +“The one time you’ve passed my place?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; you can fancy I haven’t many minutes to waste. There was a +place to-night I had to stop at.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see, I see—” he knew already so much about her work. +“It must be an awful grind—for a lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is, but I don’t think I groan over it any more than my +companions—and you’ve seen <i>they’re</i> not ladies!” +She mildly jested, but with an intention. “One gets used to things, and +there are employments I should have hated much more.” She had the finest +conception of the beauty of not at least boring him. To whine, to count up her +wrongs, was what a barmaid or a shop-girl would do, and it was quite enough to +sit there like one of these. +</p> + +<p> +“If you had had another employment,” he remarked after a moment, +“we might never have become acquainted.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s highly probable—and certainly not in the same +way.” Then, still with her heap of gold in her lap and something of the +pride of it in her manner of holding her head, she continued not to +move—she only smiled at him. The evening had thickened now; the scattered +lamps were red; the Park, all before them, was full of obscure and ambiguous +life; there were other couples on other benches whom it was impossible not to +see, yet at whom it was impossible to look. “But I’ve walked so +much out of my way with you only just to show you +that—that”—with this she paused; it was not after all so easy +to express—“that anything you may have thought is perfectly +true.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh I’ve thought a tremendous lot!” her companion laughed. +“Do you mind my smoking?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I? You always smoke <i>there</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“At your place? Oh yes, but here it’s different.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said as he lighted a cigarette, “that’s just +what it isn’t. It’s quite the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, that’s because ‘there’ it’s so +wonderful!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’re conscious of how wonderful it is?” she returned. +</p> + +<p> +He jerked his handsome head in literal protest at a doubt. “Why +that’s exactly what I mean by my gratitude for all your trouble. It has +been just as if you took a particular interest.” She only looked at him +by way of answer in such sudden headlong embarrassment, as she was quite aware, +that while she remained silent he showed himself checked by her expression. +“You <i>have</i>—haven’t you?—taken a particular +interest?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh a particular interest!” she quavered out, feeling the whole +thing—her headlong embarrassment—get terribly the better of her, +and wishing, with a sudden scare, all the more to keep her emotion down. She +maintained her fixed smile a moment and turned her eyes over the peopled +darkness, unconfused now, because there was something much more confusing. +This, with a fatal great rush, was simply the fact that they were thus +together. They were near, near, and all she had imagined of that had only +become more true, more dreadful and overwhelming. She stared straight away in +silence till she felt she looked an idiot; then, to say something, to say +nothing, she attempted a sound which ended in a flood of tears. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<p> +Her tears helped her really to dissimulate, for she had instantly, in so public +a situation, to recover herself. They had come and gone in half a minute, and +she immediately explained them. “It‘s only because I’m tired. +It’s that—it’s that!” Then she added a trifle +incoherently: “I shall never see you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah but why not?” The mere tone in which her companion asked this +satisfied her once for all as to the amount of imagination for which she could +count on him. It was naturally not large: it had exhausted itself in having +arrived at what he had already touched upon—the sense of an intention in +her poor zeal at Cocker’s. But any deficiency of this kind was no fault +in him: <i>he</i> wasn’t obliged to have an inferior cleverness—to +have second-rate resources and virtues. It had been as if he almost really +believed she had simply cried for fatigue, and he accordingly put in some kind +confused plea—“You ought really to take something: won’t you +have something or other <i>somewhere</i>?” to which she had made no +response but a headshake of a sharpness that settled it. “Why +shan’t we all the more keep meeting?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean meeting this way—only this way. At my place +there—<i>that</i> I’ve nothing to do with, and I hope of course +you’ll turn up, with your correspondence, when it suits you. Whether I +stay or not, I mean; for I shall probably not stay.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re going somewhere else?” he put it with positive +anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ever so far away—to the other end of London. There are all +sorts of reasons I can’t tell you; and it’s practically settled. +It’s better for me, much; and I’ve only kept on at Cocker’s +for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“For me?” +</p> + +<p> +Making out in the dusk that he fairly blushed, she now measured how far he had +been from knowing too much. Too much, she called it at present; and that was +easy, since it proved so abundantly enough for her that he should simply be +where he was. “As we shall never talk this way but to-night—never, +never again!—here it all is. I’ll say it; I don’t care what +you think; it doesn’t matter; I only want to help you. Besides, +you’re kind—you’re kind. I’ve been thinking then of +leaving for ever so long. But you’ve come so often—at +times—and you’ve had so much to do, and it has been so pleasant and +interesting, that I’ve remained, I’ve kept putting off any change. +More than once, when I had nearly decided, you’ve turned up again and +I’ve thought ‘Oh no!’ That’s the simple fact!” +She had by this time got her confusion down so completely that she could laugh. +“This is what I meant when I said to you just now that I +‘knew.’ I’ve known perfectly that you knew I took trouble for +you; and that knowledge has been for me, and I seemed to see it was for you, as +if there were something—I don’t know what to call it!—between +us. I mean something unusual and good and awfully nice—something not a +bit horrid or vulgar.” +</p> + +<p> +She had by this time, she could see, produced a great effect on him; but she +would have spoken the truth to herself had she at the same moment declared that +she didn’t in the least care: all the more that the effect must be one of +extreme perplexity. What, in it all, was visibly clear for him, none the less, +was that he was tremendously glad he had met her. She held him, and he was +astonished at the force of it; he was intent, immensely considerate. His elbow +was on the back of the seat, and his head, with the pot-hat pushed quite back, +in a boyish way, so that she really saw almost for the first time his forehead +and hair, rested on the hand into which he had crumpled his gloves. +“Yes,” he assented, “it’s not a bit horrid or +vulgar.” +</p> + +<p> +She just hung fire a moment, then she brought out the whole truth. +“I’d do anything for you. I’d do anything for you.” +Never in her life had she known anything so high and fine as this, just letting +him have it and bravely and magnificently leaving it. Didn’t the place, +the associations and circumstances, perfectly make it sound what it +wasn’t? and wasn’t that exactly the beauty? +</p> + +<p> +So she bravely and magnificently left it, and little by little she felt him +take it up, take it down, as if they had been on a satin sofa in a boudoir. She +had never seen a boudoir, but there had been lots of boudoirs in the telegrams. +What she had said at all events sank into him, so that after a minute he simply +made a movement that had the result of placing his hand on her +own—presently indeed that of her feeling herself firmly enough grasped. +There was no pressure she need return, there was none she need decline; she +just sat admirably still, satisfied for the time with the surprise and +bewilderment of the impression she made on him. His agitation was even greater +on the whole than she had at first allowed for. “I say, you know, you +mustn’t think of leaving!” he at last broke out. +</p> + +<p> +“Of leaving Cocker’s, you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you must stay on there, whatever happens, and help a fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +She was silent a little, partly because it was so strange and exquisite to feel +him watch her as if it really mattered to him and he were almost in suspense. +“Then you <i>have</i> quite recognised what I’ve tried to +do?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, wasn’t that exactly what I dashed over from my door just now +to thank you for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; so you said.” +</p> + +<p> +“And don’t you believe it?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked down a moment at his hand, which continued to cover her own; +whereupon he presently drew it back, rather restlessly folding his arms. +Without answering his question she went on: “Have you ever spoken of +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Spoken of you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of my being there—of my knowing, and that sort of thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh never to a human creature!” he eagerly declared. +</p> + +<p> +She had a small drop at this, which was expressed in another pause, and she +then returned to what he had just asked her. “Oh yes, I quite believe you +like it—my always being there and our taking things up so familiarly and +successfully: if not exactly where we left them,” she laughed, +“almost always at least at an interesting point!” He was about to +say something in reply to this, but her friendly gaiety was quicker. “You +want a great many things in life, a great many comforts and helps and +luxuries—you want everything as pleasant as possible. Therefore, so far +as it’s in the power of any particular person to contribute to all +that—” She had turned her face to him smiling, just thinking. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh see here!” But he was highly amused. “Well, what +then?” he enquired as if to humour her. +</p> + +<p> +“Why the particular person must never fail. We must manage it for you +somehow.” +</p> + +<p> +He threw back his head, laughing out; he was really exhilarated. “Oh yes, +somehow!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I think we each do—don’t we?—in one little way +and another and according to our limited lights. I’m pleased at any rate, +for myself, that you are; for I assure you I’ve done my best.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do better than any one!” He had struck a match for another +cigarette, and the flame lighted an instant his responsive finished face, +magnifying into a pleasant grimace the kindness with which he paid her this +tribute. “You’re awfully clever, you know; cleverer, cleverer, +cleverer—!” He had appeared on the point of making some tremendous +statement; then suddenly, puffing his cigarette and shifting almost with +violence on his seat, he let it altogether fall. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<p> +In spite of this drop, if not just by reason of it, she felt as if Lady +Bradeen, all but named out, had popped straight up; and she practically +betrayed her consciousness by waiting a little before she rejoined: +“Cleverer than who?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if I wasn’t afraid you’d think I swagger, I should +say—than anybody! If you leave your place there, where shall you +go?” he more gravely asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh too far for you ever to find me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d find you anywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +The tone of this was so still more serious that she had but her one +acknowledgement. “I’d do anything for you—I’d do +anything for you,” she repeated. She had already, she felt, said it all; +so what did anything more, anything less, matter? That was the very reason +indeed why she could, with a lighter note, ease him generously of any +awkwardness produced by solemnity, either his own or hers. “Of course it +must be nice for you to be able to think there are people all about who feel in +such a way.” +</p> + +<p> +In immediate appreciation of this, however, he only smoked without looking at +her. “But you don’t want to give up your present work?” he at +last threw out. “I mean you <i>will</i> stay in the post-office?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes; I think I’ve a genius for that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather! No one can touch you.” With this he turned more to her +again. “But you can get, with a move, greater advantages?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can get in the suburbs cheaper lodgings. I live with my mother. We +need some space. There’s a particular place that has other +inducements.” +</p> + +<p> +He just hesitated. “Where is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh quite out of <i>your</i> way. You’d never have time.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I tell you I’d go anywhere. Don’t you believe it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, for once or twice. But you’d soon see it wouldn’t do +for you.” +</p> + +<p> +He smoked and considered; seemed to stretch himself a little and, with his legs +out, surrender himself comfortably. “Well, well, well—I believe +everything you say. I take it from you—anything you like—in the +most extraordinary way.” It struck her certainly—and almost without +bitterness—that the way in which she was already, as if she had been an +old friend, arranging for him and preparing the only magnificence she could +muster, was quite the most extraordinary. “Don’t, +<i>don’t</i> go!” he presently went on. “I shall miss you too +horribly!” +</p> + +<p> +“So that you just put it to me as a definite request?”—oh how +she tried to divest this of all sound of the hardness of bargaining! That ought +to have been easy enough, for what was she arranging to get? Before he could +answer she had continued: “To be perfectly fair I should tell you I +recognise at Cocker’s certain strong attractions. All you people come. I +like all the horrors.” +</p> + +<p> +“The horrors?” +</p> + +<p> +“Those you all—you know the set I mean, <i>your</i> set—show +me with as good a conscience as if I had no more feeling than a +letter-box.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked quite excited at the way she put it. “Oh they don’t +know!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t know I’m not stupid? No, how should they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, how should they?” said the Captain sympathetically. +“But isn’t ‘horrors’ rather strong?” +</p> + +<p> +“What you <i>do</i> is rather strong!” the girl promptly returned. +</p> + +<p> +“What <i>I</i> do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your extravagance, your selfishness, your immorality, your +crimes,” she pursued, without heeding his expression. +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>say</i>!”—her companion showed the queerest stare. +</p> + +<p> +“I like them, as I tell you—I revel in them. But we needn’t +go into that,” she quietly went on; “for all I get out of it is the +harmless pleasure of knowing. I know, I know, I know!”—she breathed +it ever so gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; that’s what has been between us,” he answered much more +simply. +</p> + +<p> +She could enjoy his simplicity in silence, and for a moment she did so. +“If I do stay because you want it—and I’m rather capable of +that—there are two or three things I think you ought to remember. One is, +you know, that I’m there sometimes for days and weeks together without +your ever coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh I’ll come every day!” he honestly cried. +</p> + +<p> +She was on the point, at this, of imitating with her hand his movement of +shortly before; but she checked herself, and there was no want of effect in her +soothing substitute. “How can you? How can you?” He had, too +manifestly, only to look at it there, in the vulgarly animated gloom, to see +that he couldn’t; and at this point, by the mere action of his silence, +everything they had so definitely not named, the whole presence round which +they had been circling, became part of their reference, settled in solidly +between them. It was as if then for a minute they sat and saw it all in each +other’s eyes, saw so much that there was no need of a pretext for +sounding it at last. “Your danger, your danger—!” Her voice +indeed trembled with it, and she could only for the moment again leave it so. +</p> + +<p> +During this moment he leaned back on the bench, meeting her in silence and with +a face that grew more strange. It grew so strange that after a further instant +she got straight up. She stood there as if their talk were now over, and he +just sat and watched her. It was as if now—owing to the third person they +had brought in—they must be more careful; so that the most he could +finally say was: “That’s where it is!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s where it is!” the girl as guardedly replied. He sat +still, and she added: “I won’t give you up. Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye?”—he appealed, but without moving. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t quite see my way, but I won’t give you up,” +she repeated. “There. Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +It brought him with a jerk to his feet, tossing away his cigarette. His poor +face was flushed. “See here—see here!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I won’t; but I must leave you now,” she went on as if +not hearing him. +</p> + +<p> +“See here—see here!” He tried, from the bench, to take her +hand again. +</p> + +<p> +But that definitely settled it for her: this would, after all, be as bad as his +asking her to supper. “You mustn’t come with me—no, +no!” +</p> + +<p> +He sank back, quite blank, as if she had pushed him. “I mayn’t see +you home?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; let me go.” He looked almost as if she had struck him, but +she didn’t care; and the manner in which she spoke—it was literally +as if she were angry—had the force of a command. “Stay where you +are!” +</p> + +<p> +“See here—see here!” he nevertheless pleaded. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t give you up!” she cried once more—this time +quite with passion; on which she got away from him as fast as she could and +left him staring after her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge had lately been so occupied with their famous “plans” +that he had neglected for a while the question of her transfer; but down at +Bournemouth, which had found itself selected as the field of their recreation +by a process consisting, it seemed, exclusively of innumerable pages of the +neatest arithmetic in a very greasy but most orderly little pocket-book, the +distracting possible melted away—the fleeting absolute ruled the scene. +The plans, hour by hour, were simply superseded, and it was much of a rest to +the girl, as she sat on the pier and overlooked the sea and the company, to see +them evaporate in rosy fumes and to feel that from moment to moment there was +less left to cipher about. The week proves blissfully fine, and her mother, at +their lodgings—partly to her embarrassment and partly to her +relief—struck up with the landlady an alliance that left the younger +couple a great deal of freedom. This relative took her pleasure of a week at +Bournemouth in a stuffy back-kitchen and endless talks; to that degree even +that Mr. Mudge himself—habitually inclined indeed to a scrutiny of all +mysteries and to seeing, as he sometimes admitted, too much in +things—made remarks on it as he sat on the cliff with his betrothed, or +on the decks of steamers that conveyed them, close-packed items in terrific +totals of enjoyment, to the Isle of Wight and the Dorset coast. +</p> + +<p> +He had a lodging in another house, where he had speedily learned the importance +of keeping his eyes open, and he made no secret of his suspecting that sinister +mutual connivances might spring, under the roof of his companions, from +unnatural sociabilities. At the same time he fully recognised that as a source +of anxiety, not to say of expense, his future mother-in law would have weighted +them more by accompanying their steps than by giving her hostess, in the +interest of the tendency they considered that they never mentioned, equivalent +pledges as to the tea-caddy and the jam-pot. These were the +questions—these indeed the familiar commodities—that he had now to +put into the scales; and his betrothed had in consequence, during her holiday, +the odd and yet pleasant and almost languid sense of an anticlimax. She had +become conscious of an extraordinary collapse, a surrender to stillness and to +retrospect. She cared neither to walk nor to sail; it was enough for her to sit +on benches and wonder at the sea and taste the air and not be at Cocker’s +and not see the counter-clerk. She still seemed to wait for +something—something in the key of the immense discussions that had mapped +out their little week of idleness on the scale of a world-atlas. Something came +at last, but without perhaps appearing quite adequately to crown the monument. +</p> + +<p> +Preparation and precaution were, however, the natural flowers of Mr. +Mudge’s mind, and in proportion as these things declined in one quarter +they inevitably bloomed elsewhere. He could always, at the worst, have on +Tuesday the project of their taking the Swanage boat on Thursday, and on +Thursday that of their ordering minced kidneys on Saturday. He had moreover a +constant gift of inexorable enquiry as to where and what they should have gone +and have done if they hadn’t been exactly as they were. He had in short +his resources, and his mistress had never been so conscious of them; on the +other hand they never interfered so little with her own. She liked to be as she +was—if it could only have lasted. She could accept even without +bitterness a rigour of economy so great that the little fee they paid for +admission to the pier had to be balanced against other delights. The people at +Ladle’s and at Thrupp’s had <i>their</i> ways of amusing +themselves, whereas she had to sit and hear Mr. Mudge talk of what he might do +if he didn’t take a bath, or of the bath he might take if he only +hadn’t taken something else. He was always with her now, of course, +always beside her; she saw him more than “hourly,” more than ever +yet, more even than he had planned she should do at Chalk Farm. She preferred +to sit at the far end, away from the band and the crowd; as to which she had +frequent differences with her friend, who reminded her often that they could +have only in the thick of it the sense of the money they were getting back. +That had little effect on her, for she got back her money by seeing many +things, the things of the past year, fall together and connect themselves, +undergo the happy relegation that transforms melancholy and misery, passion and +effort, into experience and knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +She liked having done with them, as she assured herself she had practically +done, and the strange thing was that she neither missed the procession now nor +wished to keep her place for it. It had become there, in the sun and the breeze +and the sea-smell, a far-away story, a picture of another life. If Mr. Mudge +himself liked processions, liked them at Bournemouth and on the pier quite as +much as at Chalk Farm or anywhere, she learned after a little not to be worried +by his perpetual counting of the figures that made them up. There were dreadful +women in particular, usually fat and in men’s caps and write shoes, whom +he could never let alone—not that <i>she</i> cared; it was not the great +world, the world of Cocker’s and Ladle’s and Thrupp’s, but it +offered an endless field to his faculties of memory, philosophy, and frolic. +She had never accepted him so much, never arranged so successfully for making +him chatter while she carried on secret conversations. This separate commerce +was with herself; and if they both practised a great thrift she had quite +mastered that of merely spending words enough to keep him imperturbably and +continuously going. +</p> + +<p> +He was charmed with the panorama, not knowing—or at any rate not at all +showing that he knew—what far other images peopled her mind than the +women in the navy caps and the shop-boys in the blazers. His observations on +these types, his general interpretation of the show, brought home to her the +prospect of Chalk Farm. She wondered sometimes that he should have derived so +little illumination, during his period, from the society at Cocker’s. But +one evening while their holiday cloudlessly waned he gave her such a proof of +his quality as might have made her ashamed of her many suppressions. He brought +out something that, in all his overflow, he had been able to keep back till +other matters were disposed of. It was the announcement that he was at last +ready to marry—that he saw his way. A rise at Chalk Farm had been offered +him; he was to be taken into the business, bringing with him a capital the +estimation of which by other parties constituted the handsomest recognition yet +made of the head on his shoulders. Therefore their waiting was over—it +could be a question of a near date. They would settle this date before going +back, and he meanwhile had his eye on a sweet little home. He would take her to +see it on their first Sunday. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<p> +His having kept this great news for the last, having had such a card up his +sleeve and not floated it out in the current of his chatter and the luxury of +their leisure, was one of those incalculable strokes by which he could still +affect her; the kind of thing that reminded her of the latent force that had +ejected the drunken soldier—an example of the profundity of which his +promotion was the proof. She listened a while in silence, on this occasion, to +the wafted strains of the music; she took it in as she had not quite done +before that her future was now constituted. Mr. Mudge was distinctly her fate; +yet at this moment she turned her face quite away from him, showing him so long +a mere quarter of her cheek that she at last again heard his voice. He +couldn’t see a pair of tears that were partly the reason of her delay to +give him the assurance he required; but he expressed at a venture the hope that +she had had her fill of Cocker’s. +</p> + +<p> +She was finally able to turn back. “Oh quite. There’s nothing going +on. No one comes but the Americans at Thrupp’s, and <i>they</i> +don’t do much. They don’t seem to have a secret in the +world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the extraordinary reason you’ve been giving me for holding on +there has ceased to work?” +</p> + +<p> +She thought a moment. “Yes, that one. I’ve seen the thing +through—I’ve got them all in my pocket.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you’re ready to come?” +</p> + +<p> +For a little again she made no answer. “No, not yet, all the same. +I’ve still got a reason—a different one.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked her all over as if it might have been something she kept in her mouth +or her glove or under her jacket—something she was even sitting upon. +“Well, I’ll have it, please.” +</p> + +<p> +“I went out the other night and sat in the Park with a gentleman,” +she said at last. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing was ever seen like his confidence in her and she wondered a little now +why it didn’t irritate her. It only gave her ease and space, as she felt, +for telling him the whole truth that no one knew. It had arrived at present at +her really wanting to do that, and yet to do it not in the least for Mr. Mudge, +but altogether and only for herself. This truth filled out for her there the +whole experience about to relinquish, suffused and coloured it as a picture +that she should keep and that, describe it as she might, no one but herself +would ever really see. Moreover she had no desire whatever to make Mr. Mudge +jealous; there would be no amusement in it, for the amusement she had lately +known had spoiled her for lower pleasures. There were even no materials for it. +The odd thing was how she never doubted that, properly handled, his passion was +poisonable; what had happened was that he had cannily selected a partner with +no poison to distil. She read then and there that she should never interest +herself in anybody as to whom some other sentiment, some superior view, +wouldn’t be sure to interfere for him with jealousy. “And what did +you get out of that?” he asked with a concern that was not in the least +for his honour. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing but a good chance to promise him I wouldn’t forsake him. +He’s one of my customers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it’s for him not to forsake <i>you</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he won’t. It’s all right. But I must just keep on as +long as he may want me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Want you to sit with him in the Park?” +</p> + +<p> +“He may want me for that—but I shan’t. I rather liked it, but +once, under the circumstances, is enough. I can do better for him in another +manner.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what manner, pray?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, elsewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Elsewhere?—I <i>say</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +This was an ejaculation used also by Captain Everard, but oh with what a +different sound! “You needn’t ‘say’—there’s +nothing to be said. And yet you ought perhaps to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I ought. But <i>what</i>—up to now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why exactly what I told him. That I’d do anything for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean by ‘anything’?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge’s immediate comment on this statement was to draw from his +pocket a crumpled paper containing the remains of half a pound of +“sundries.” These sundries had figured conspicuously in his +prospective sketch of their tour, but it was only at the end of three days that +they had defined themselves unmistakeably as chocolate-creams. “Have +another?—<i>that</i> one,” he said. She had another, but not the +one he indicated, and then he continued: “What took place +afterwards?” +</p> + +<p> +“Afterwards?” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you do when you had told him you’d do everything?” +</p> + +<p> +“I simply came away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out of the Park?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, leaving him there. I didn’t let him follow me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what did you let him do?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t let him do anything.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge considered an instant. “Then what did you go there for?” +His tone was even slightly critical. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t quite know at the time. It was simply to be with him, I +suppose—just once. He’s in danger, and I wanted him to know I know +it. It makes meeting him—at Cocker’s, since it’s that I want +to stay on for—more interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +“It makes it mighty interesting for <i>me</i>!” Mr. Mudge freely +declared. “Yet he didn’t follow you?” he asked. +“<i>I</i> would!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course. That was the way you began, you know. You’re +awfully inferior to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my dear, you’re not inferior to anybody. You’ve got a +cheek! What’s he in danger of?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of being found out. He’s in love with a lady—and it +isn’t right—and <i>I’ve</i> found him out.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll be a look-out for <i>me</i>!” Mr. Mudge joked. +“You mean she has a husband?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind what she has! They’re in awful danger, but his is the +worst, because he’s in danger from her too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Like me from you—the woman <i>I</i> love? If he’s in the +same funk as me—” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s in a worse one. He’s not only afraid of the +lady—he’s afraid of other things.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge selected another chocolate-cream. “Well, I’m only afraid +of one! But how in the world can you help this party?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know—perhaps not at all. But so long as +there’s a chance—” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t come away?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you’ve got to wait for me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge enjoyed what was in his mouth. “And what will he give +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you do help him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. Nothing in all the wide world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what will he give <i>me</i>?” Mr. Mudge enquired. “I +mean for waiting.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl thought a moment; then she got up to walk. “He never heard of +you,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“You haven’t mentioned me?” +</p> + +<p> +“We never mention anything. What I’ve told you is just what +I’ve found out.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mudge, who had remained on the bench, looked up at her; she often preferred +to be quiet when he proposed to walk, but now that he seemed to wish to sit she +had a desire to move. “But you haven’t told me what <i>he</i> has +found out.” +</p> + +<p> +She considered her lover. “He’d never find <i>you</i>, my +dear!” +</p> + +<p> +Her lover, still on his seat, appealed to her in something of the attitude in +which she had last left Captain Everard, but the impression was not the same. +“Then where do I come in?” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t come in at all. That’s just the beauty of +it!”—and with this she turned to mingle with the multitude +collected round the band. Mr. Mudge presently overtook her and drew her arm +into his own with a quiet force that expressed the serenity of possession; in +consonance with which it was only when they parted for the night at her door +that he referred again to what she had told him. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen him since?” +</p> + +<p> +“Since the night in the Park? No, not once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what a cad!” said Mr. Mudge. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<p> +It was not till the end of October that she saw Captain Everard again, and on +that occasion—the only one of all the series on which hindrance had been +so utter—no communication with him proved possible. She had made out even +from the cage that it was a charming golden day: a patch of hazy autumn +sunlight lay across the sanded floor and also, higher up, quickened into +brightness a row of ruddy bottled syrups. Work was slack and the place in +general empty; the town, as they said in the cage, had not waked up, and the +feeling of the day likened itself to something than in happier conditions she +would have thought of romantically as Saint Martin’s summer. The +counter-clerk had gone to his dinner; she herself was busy with arrears of +postal jobs, in the midst of which she became aware that Captain Everard had +apparently been in the shop a minute and that Mr. Buckton had already seized +him. +</p> + +<p> +He had as usual half a dozen telegrams; and when he saw that she saw him and +their eyes met he gave, on bowing to her, an exaggerated laugh in which she +read a new consciousness. It was a confession of awkwardness; it seemed to tell +her that of course he knew he ought better to have kept his head, ought to have +been clever enough to wait, on some pretext, till he should have found her +free. Mr. Buckton was a long time with him, and her attention was soon demanded +by other visitors; so that nothing passed between them but the fulness of their +silence. The look she took from him was his greeting, and the other one a +simple sign of the eyes sent her before going out. The only token they +exchanged therefore was his tacit assent to her wish that since they +couldn’t attempt a certain frankness they should attempt nothing at all. +This was her intense preference; she could be as still and cold as any one when +that was the sole solution. +</p> + +<p> +Yet more than any contact hitherto achieved these counted instants struck her +as marking a step: they were built so—just in the mere flash—on the +recognition of his now definitely knowing what it was she would do for him. The +“anything, anything” she had uttered in the Park went to and fro +between them and under the poked-out china that interposed. It had all at last +even put on the air of their not needing now clumsily to manoeuvre to converse: +their former little postal make-believes, the intense implications of questions +and answers and change, had become in the light of the personal fact, of their +having had their moment, a possibility comparatively poor. It was as if they +had met for all time—it exerted on their being in presence again an +influence so prodigious. When she watched herself, in the memory of that night, +walk away from him as if she were making an end, she found something too +pitiful in the primness of such a gait. Hadn’t she precisely established +on the part of each a consciousness that could end only with death? +</p> + +<p> +It must be admitted that in spite of this brave margin an irritation, after he +had gone, remained with her; a sense that presently became one with a still +sharper hatred of Mr. Buckton, who, on her friend’s withdrawal, had +retired with the telegrams to the sounder and left her the other work. She knew +indeed she should have a chance to see them, when she would, on file; and she +was divided, as the day went on, between the two impressions of all that was +lost and all that was re-asserted. What beset her above all, and as she had +almost never known it before, was the desire to bound straight out, to overtake +the autumn afternoon before it passed away for ever and hurry off to the Park +and perhaps be with him there again on a bench. It became for an hour a +fantastic vision with her that he might just have gone to sit and wait for her. +She could almost hear him, through the tick of the sounder, scatter with his +stick, in his impatience, the fallen leaves of October. Why should such a +vision seize her at this particular moment with such a shake? There was a +time—from four to five—when she could have cried with happiness and +rage. +</p> + +<p> +Business quickened, it seemed, toward five, as if the town did wake up; she had +therefore more to do, and she went through it with little sharp stampings and +jerkings: she made the crisp postal-orders fairly snap while she breathed to +herself “It’s the last day—the last day!” The last day +of what? She couldn’t have told. All she knew now was that if she +<i>were</i> out of the cage she wouldn’t in the least have minded, this +time, its not yet being dark. She would have gone straight toward Park Chambers +and have hung about there till no matter when. She would have waited, stayed, +rung, asked, have gone in, sat on the stairs. What the day was the last of was +probably, to her strained inner sense, the group of golden ones, of any +occasion for seeing the hazy sunshine slant at that angle into the smelly shop, +of any range of chances for his wishing still to repeat to her the two words +she had in the Park scarcely let him bring out. “See here—see +here!”—the sound of these two words had been with her perpetually; +but it was in her ears to-day without mercy, with a loudness that grew and +grew. What was it they then expressed? what was it he had wanted her to see? +She seemed, whatever it was, perfectly to see it now—to see that if she +should just chuck the whole thing, should have a great and beautiful courage, +he would somehow make everything up to her. When the clock struck five she was +on the very point of saying to Mr. Buckton that she was deadly ill and rapidly +getting worse. This announcement was on her lips, and she had quite composed +the pale hard face she would offer him: “I can’t stop—I must +go home. If I feel better, later on, I’ll come back. I’m very +sorry, but I <i>must</i> go.” At that instant Captain Everard once more +stood there, producing in her agitated spirit, by his real presence, the +strangest, quickest revolution. He stopped her off without knowing it, and by +the time he had been a minute in the shop she felt herself saved. +</p> + +<p> +That was from the first minute how she thought of it. There were again other +persons with whom she was occupied, and again the situation could only be +expressed by their silence. It was expressed, of a truth, in a larger phrase +than ever yet, for her eyes now spoke to him with a kind of supplication. +“Be quiet, be quiet!” they pleaded; and they saw his own reply: +“I’ll do whatever you say; I won’t even look at +you—see, see!” They kept conveying thus, with the friendliest +liberality, that they wouldn’t look, quite positively wouldn’t. +What she was to see was that he hovered at the other end of the counter, Mr. +Buckton’s end, and surrendered himself again to that frustration. It +quickly proved so great indeed that what she was to see further was how he +turned away before he was attended to, and hung off, waiting, smoking, looking +about the shop; how he went over to Mr. Cocker’s own counter and appeared +to price things, gave in fact presently two or three orders and put down money, +stood there a long time with his back to her, considerately abstaining from any +glance round to see if she were free. It at last came to pass in this way that +he had remained in the shop longer than she had ever yet known to do, and that, +nevertheless, when he did turn about she could see him time himself—she +was freshly taken up—and cross straight to her postal subordinate, whom +some one else had released. He had in his hand all this while neither letters +nor telegrams, and now that he was close to her—for she was close to the +counter-clerk—it brought her heart into her mouth merely to see him look +at her neighbour and open his lips. She was too nervous to bear it. He asked +for a Post-Office Guide, and the young man whipped out a new one; whereupon he +said he wished not to purchase, but only to consult one a moment; with which, +the copy kept on loan being produced, he once more wandered off. +</p> + +<p> +What was he doing to her? What did he want of her? Well, it was just the +aggravation of his “See here!” She felt at this moment strangely +and portentously afraid of him—had in her ears the hum of a sense that, +should it come to that kind of tension, she must fly on the spot to Chalk Farm. +Mixed with her dread and with her reflexion was the idea that, if he wanted her +so much as he seemed to show, it might be after all simply to do for him the +“anything” she had promised, the “everything” she had +thought it so fine to bring out to Mr. Mudge. He might want her to help him, +might have some particular appeal; though indeed his manner didn’t denote +that—denoted on the contrary an embarrassment, an indecision, something +of a desire not so much to be helped as to be treated rather more nicely than +she had treated him the other time. Yes, he considered quite probably that he +had help rather to offer than to ask for. Still, none the less, when he again +saw her free he continued to keep away from her; when he came back with his +<i>Guide</i> it was Mr. Buckton he caught—it was from Mr. Buckton he +obtained half-a-crown’s-worth of stamps. +</p> + +<p> +After asking for the stamps he asked, quite as a second thought, for a +postal-order for ten shillings. What did he want with so many stamps when he +wrote so few letters? How could he enclose a postal-order in a telegram? She +expected him, the next thing, to go into the corner and make up one of his +telegrams—half a dozen of them—on purpose to prolong his presence. +She had so completely stopped looking at him that she could only guess his +movements—guess even where his eyes rested. Finally she saw him make a +dash that might have been toward the nook where the forms were hung; and at +this she suddenly felt that she couldn’t keep it up. The counter-clerk +had just taken a telegram from a slavey, and, to give herself something to +cover her, she snatched it out of his hand. The gesture was so violent that he +gave her in return an odd look, and she also perceived that Mr. Buckton noticed +it. The latter personage, with a quick stare at her, appeared for an instant to +wonder whether his snatching it in <i>his</i> turn mightn’t be the thing +she would least like, and she anticipated this practical criticism by the +frankest glare she had ever given him. It sufficed: this time it paralysed him; +and she sought with her trophy the refuge of the sounder. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<p> +It was repeated the next day; it went on for three days; and at the end of that +time she knew what to think. When, at the beginning, she had emerged from her +temporary shelter Captain Everard had quitted the shop; and he had not come +again that evening, as it had struck her he possibly might—might all the +more easily that there were numberless persons who came, morning and afternoon, +numberless times, so that he wouldn’t necessarily have attracted +attention. The second day it was different and yet on the whole worse. His +access to her had become possible—she felt herself even reaping the fruit +of her yesterday’s glare at Mr. Buckton; but transacting his business +with him didn’t simplify—it could, in spite of the rigour of +circumstance, feed so her new conviction. The rigour was tremendous, and his +telegrams—not now mere pretexts for getting at her—were apparently +genuine; yet the conviction had taken but a night to develop. It could be +simply enough expressed; she had had the glimmer of it the day before in her +idea that he needed no more help than she had already given; that it was help +he himself was prepared to render. He had come up to town but for three or four +days; he had been absolutely obliged to be absent after the other time; yet he +would, now that he was face to face with her, stay on as much longer as she +liked. Little by little it was thus clarified, though from the first flash of +his re-appearance she had read into it the real essence. +</p> + +<p> +That was what the night before, at eight o’clock, her hour to go, had +made her hang back and dawdle. She did last things or pretended to do them; to +be in the cage had suddenly become her safety, and she was literally afraid of +the alternate self who might be waiting outside. <i>He</i> might be waiting; it +was he who was her alternate self, and of him she was afraid. The most +extraordinary change had taken place in her from the moment of her catching the +impression he seemed to have returned on purpose to give her. Just before she +had done so, on that bewitched afternoon, she had seen herself approach without +a scruple the porter at Park Chambers; then as the effect of the rush of a +consciousness quite altered she had on at last quitting Cocker’s, gone +straight home for the first time since her return from Bournemouth. She had +passed his door every night for weeks, but nothing would have induced her to +pass it now. This change was the tribute of her fear—the result of a +change in himself as to which she needed no more explanation than his mere face +vividly gave her; strange though it was to find an element of deterrence in the +object that she regarded as the most beautiful in the world. He had taken it +from her in the Park that night that she wanted him not to propose to her to +sup; but he had put away the lesson by this time—he practically proposed +supper every time he looked at her. This was what, for that matter, mainly +filled the three days. He came in twice on each of these, and it was as if he +came in to give her a chance to relent. That was after all, she said to herself +in the intervals, the most that he did. There were ways, she fully recognised, +in which he spared her, and other particular ways as to which she meant that +her silence should be full to him of exquisite pleading. The most particular of +all was his not being outside, at the corner, when she quitted the place for +the night. This he might so easily have been—so easily if he hadn’t +been so nice. She continued to recognise in his forbearance the fruit of her +dumb supplication, and the only compensation he found for it was the harmless +freedom of being able to appear to say: “Yes, I’m in town only for +three or four days, but, you know, I <i>would</i> stay on.” He struck her +as calling attention each day, each hour, to the rapid ebb of time; he +exaggerated to the point of putting it that there were only two days more, that +there was at last, dreadfully, only one. +</p> + +<p> +There were other things still that he struck her as doing with a special +intention; as to the most marked of which—unless indeed it were the most +obscure—she might well have marvelled that it didn’t seem to her +more horrid. It was either the frenzy of her imagination or the disorder of his +baffled passion that gave her once or twice the vision of his putting down +redundant money—sovereigns not concerned with the little payments he was +perpetually making—so that she might give him some sign of helping him to +slip them over to her. What was most extraordinary in this impression was the +amount of excuse that, with some incoherence, she found for him. He wanted to +pay her because there was nothing to pay her for. He wanted to offer her things +he knew she wouldn’t take. He wanted to show her how much he respected +her by giving her the supreme chance to show <i>him</i> she was respectable. +Over the dryest transactions, at any rate, their eyes had out these questions. +On the third day he put in a telegram that had evidently something of the same +point as the stray sovereigns—a message that was in the first place +concocted and that on a second thought he took back from her before she had +stamped it. He had given her time to read it and had only then bethought +himself that he had better not send it. If it was not to Lady Bradeen at +Twindle—where she knew her ladyship then to be—this was because an +address to Doctor Buzzard at Brickwood was just as good, with the added merit +of its not giving away quite so much a person whom he had still, after all, in +a manner to consider. It was of course most complicated, only half lighted; but +there was, discernibly enough, a scheme of communication in which Lady Bradeen +at Twindle and Dr. Buzzard at Brickwood were, within limits, one and the same +person. The words he had shown her and then taken back consisted, at all +events, of the brief but vivid phrase “Absolutely impossible.” The +point was not that she should transmit it; the point was just that she should +see it. What was absolutely impossible was that before he had setted something +at Cocker’s he should go either to Twindle or to Brickwood. +</p> + +<p> +The logic of this, in turn, for herself, was that she could lend herself to no +settlement so long as she so intensely knew. What she knew was that he was, +almost under peril of life, clenched in a situation: therefore how could she +also know where a poor girl in the P.O. might really stand? It was more and +more between them that if he might convey to her he was free, with all the +impossible locked away into a closed chapter, her own case might become +different for her, she might understand and meet him and listen. But he could +convey nothing of the sort, and he only fidgeted and floundered in his want of +power. The chapter wasn’t in the least closed, not for the other party; +and the other party had a pull, somehow and somewhere: this his whole attitude +and expression confessed, at the same time that they entreated her not to +remember and not to mind. So long as she did remember and did mind he could +only circle about and go and come, doing futile things of which he was ashamed. +He was ashamed of his two words to Dr. Buzzard; he went out of the shop as soon +as he had crumpled up the paper again and thrust it into his pocket. It had +been an abject little exposure of dreadful impossible passion. He appeared in +fact to be too ashamed to come back. He had once more left town, and a first +week elapsed, and a second. He had had naturally to return to the real mistress +of his fate; she had insisted—she knew how to insist, and he +couldn’t put in another hour. There was always a day when she called +time. It was known to our young friend moreover that he had now been +dispatching telegrams from other offices. She knew at last so much that she had +quite lost her earlier sense of merely guessing. There were no different shades +of distinctness—it all bounced out. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<p> +Eighteen days elapsed, and she had begun to think it probable she should never +see him again. He too then understood now: he had made out that she had secrets +and reasons and impediments, that even a poor girl at the P.O. might have her +complications. With the charm she had cast on him lightened by distance he had +suffered a final delicacy to speak to him, had made up his mind that it would +be only decent to let her alone. Never so much as during these latter days had +she felt the precariousness of their relation—the happy beautiful +untroubled original one, if it could only have been restored—in which the +public servant and the casual public only were concerned. It hung at the best +by the merest silken thread, which was at the mercy of any accident and might +snap at any minute. She arrived by the end of the fortnight at the highest +sense of actual fitness, never doubting that her decision was now complete. She +would just give him a few days more to come back to her on a proper impersonal +basis—for even to an embarrassing representative of the casual public a +public servant with a conscience did owe something—and then would signify +to Mr. Mudge that she was ready for the little home. It had been visited, in +the further talk she had had with him at Bournemouth, from garret to cellar, +and they had especially lingered, with their respectively darkened brows, +before the niche into which it was to be broached to her mother that she must +find means to fit. +</p> + +<p> +He had put it to her more definitely than before that his calculations had +allowed for that dingy presence, and he had thereby marked the greatest +impression he had ever made on her. It was a stroke superior even again to his +handling of the drunken soldier. What she considered that in the face of it she +hung on at Cocker’s for was something she could only have described as +the common fairness of a last word. Her actual last word had been, till it +should be superseded, that she wouldn’t forsake her other friend, and it +stuck to her through thick and thin that she was still at her post and on her +honour. This other friend had shown so much beauty of conduct already that he +would surely after all just re-appear long enough to relieve her, to give her +something she could take away. She saw it, caught it, at times, his parting +present; and there were moments when she felt herself sitting like a beggar +with a hand held out to almsgiver who only fumbled. She hadn’t taken the +sovereigns, but she <i>would</i> take the penny. She heard, in imagination, on +the counter, the ring of the copper. “Don’t put yourself out any +longer,” he would say, “for so bad a case. You’ve done all +there is to be done. I thank and acquit and release you. Our lives take us. I +don’t know much—though I’ve really been +interested—about yours, but I suppose you’ve got one. Mine at any +rate will take <i>me</i>—and where it will. Heigh-ho! Good-bye.” +And then once more, for the sweetest faintest flower of all: “Only, I +say—see here!” She had framed the whole picture with a squareness +that included also the image of how again she would decline to “see +there,” decline, as she might say, to see anywhere, see anything. Yet it +befell that just in the fury of this escape she saw more than ever. +</p> + +<p> +He came back one night with a rush, near the moment of their closing, and +showed her a face so different and new, so upset and anxious, that almost +anything seemed to look out of it but clear recognition. He poked in a telegram +very much as if the simple sense of pressure, the distress of extreme haste, +had blurred the remembrance of where in particular he was. But as she met his +eyes a light came; it broke indeed on the spot into a positive conscious glare. +That made up for everything, since it was an instant proclamation of the +celebrated “danger”; it seemed to pour things out in a flood. +“Oh yes, here it is—it’s upon me at last! Forget, for +God’s sake, my having worried or bored you, and just help me, just +<i>save</i> me, by getting this off without the loss of a second!” +Something grave had clearly occurred, a crisis declared itself. She recognised +immediately the person to whom the telegram was addressed—the Miss Dolman +of Parade Lodge to whom Lady Bradeen had wired, at Dover, on the last occasion, +and whom she had then, with her recollection of previous arrangements, fitted +into a particular setting. Miss Dolman had figured before and not figured +since, but she was now the subject of an imperative appeal. “Absolutely +necessary to see you. Take last train Victoria if you can catch it. If not, +earliest morning, and answer me direct either way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Reply paid?” said the girl. Mr. Buckton had just departed and the +counter-clerk was at the sounder. There was no other representative of the +public, and she had never yet, as it seemed to her, not even in the street or +in the Park, been so alone with him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, reply paid, and as sharp as possible, please.” +</p> + +<p> +She affixed the stamps in a flash. “She’ll catch the train!” +she then declared to him breathlessly, as if she could absolutely guarantee it. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know—I hope so. It’s awfully important. So +kind of you. Awfully sharp, please.” It was wonderfully innocent now, his +oblivion of all but his danger. Anything else that had ever passed between them +was utterly out of it. Well, she had wanted him to be impersonal! +</p> + +<p> +There was less of the same need therefore, happily, for herself; yet she only +took time, before she flew to the sounder, to gasp at him: “You‘re +in trouble?” +</p> + +<p> +“Horrid, horrid—there’s a row!” But they parted, on it, +in the next breath; and as she dashed at the sounder, almost pushing, in her +violence, the counter-clerk off the stool, she caught the bang with which, at +Cocker’s door, in his further precipitation, he closed the apron of the +cab into which he had leaped. As he rebounded to some other precaution +suggested by his alarm, his appeal to Miss Dolman flashed straight away. +</p> + +<p> +But she had not, on the morrow, been in the place five minutes before he was +with her again, still more discomposed and quite, now, as she said to herself, +like a frightened child coming to its mother. Her companions were there, and +she felt it to be remarkable how, in the presence of his agitation, his mere +scared exposed nature, she suddenly ceased to mind. It came to her as it had +never come to her before that with absolute directness and assurance they might +carry almost anything off. He had nothing to send—she was sure he had +been wiring all over—and yet his business was evidently huge. There was +nothing but that in his eyes—not a glimmer of reference or memory. He was +almost haggard with anxiety and had clearly not slept a wink. Her pity for him +would have given her any courage, and she seemed to know at last why she had +been such a fool. “She didn’t come?” she panted. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, she came; but there has been some mistake. We want a +telegram.” +</p> + +<p> +“A telegram?” +</p> + +<p> +“One that was sent from here ever so long ago. There was something in it +that has to be recovered. Something very, very important, please—we want +it immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +He really spoke to her as if she had been some strange young woman at +Knightsbridge or Paddington; but it had no other effect on her than to give her +the measure of his tremendous flurry. Then it was that, above all, she felt how +much she had missed in the gaps and blanks and absent answers—how much +she had had to dispense with: it was now black darkness save for this little +wild red flare. So much as that she saw, so much her mind dealt with. One of +the lovers was quaking somewhere out of town, and the other was quaking just +where he stood. This was vivid enough, and after an instant she knew it was all +she wanted. She wanted no detail, no fact—she wanted no nearer vision of +discovery or shame. “When was your telegram? Do you mean you sent it from +here?” She tried to do the young woman at Knightsbridge. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, from here—several weeks ago. Five, six, +seven”—he was confused and impatient—“don’t you +remember?” +</p> + +<p> +“Remember?” she could scarcely keep out of her face, at the word, +the strangest of smiles. +</p> + +<p> +But the way he didn’t catch what it meant was perhaps even stranger +still. “I mean, don’t you keep the old ones?” +</p> + +<p> +“For a certain time.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how long?” +</p> + +<p> +She thought; she <i>must</i> do the young woman, and she knew exactly what the +young woman would say and, still more, wouldn’t. “Can you give me +the date?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh God, no! It was some time or other in August—toward the end. It +was to the same address as the one I gave you last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said the girl, knowing at this the deepest thrill she had +ever felt. It came to her there, with her eyes on his face, that she held the +whole thing in her hand, held it as she held her pencil, which might have +broken at that instant in her tightened grip. This made her feel like the very +fountain of fate, but the emotion was such a flood that she had to press it +back with all her force. That was positively the reason, again, of her +flute-like Paddington tone. “You can’t give us anything a little +nearer?” Her “little” and her “us” came straight +from Paddington. These things were no false note for him—his difficulty +absorbed them all. The eyes with which he pressed her, and in the depths of +which she read terror and rage and literal tears, were just the same he would +have shown any other prim person. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know the date. I only know the thing went from here, and +just about the time I speak of. It wasn’t delivered, you see. We’ve +got to recover it.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<p> +She was as struck with the beauty of his plural pronoun as she had judged he +might be with that of her own; but she knew now so well what she was about that +she could almost play with him and with her new-born joy. “You say +‘about the time you speak of.’ But I don’t think you speak of +an exact time—<i>do</i> you?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked splendidly helpless. “That’s just what I want to find +out. Don’t you keep the old ones?—can’t you look it +up?” +</p> + +<p> +Our young lady—still at Paddington—turned the question over. +“It wasn’t delivered?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it <i>was</i>; yet, at the same time, don’t you know? it +wasn’t.” He just hung back, but he brought it out. “I mean it +was intercepted, don’t you know? and there was something in it.” He +paused again and, as if to further his quest and woo and supplicate success and +recovery, even smiled with an effort at the agreeable that was almost ghastly +and that turned the knife in her tenderness. What must be the pain of it all, +of the open gulf and the throbbing fever, when this was the mere hot breath? +“We want to get what was in it—to know what it was.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see—I see.” She managed just the accent they had at +Paddington when they stared like dead fish. “And you have no clue?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all—I’ve the clue I’ve just given you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh the last of August?” If she kept it up long enough she would +make him really angry. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and the address, as I’ve said.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh the same as last night?” +</p> + +<p> +He visibly quivered, as with a gleam of hope; but it only poured oil on her +quietude, and she was still deliberate. She ranged some papers. +“Won’t you look?” he went on. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember your coming,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +He blinked with a new uneasiness; it might have begun to come to him, through +her difference, that he was somehow different himself. “You were much +quicker then, you know!” +</p> + +<p> +“So were you—you must do me that justice,” she answered with +a smile. “But let me see. Wasn’t it Dover?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Miss Dolman—” +</p> + +<p> +“Parade Lodge, Parade Terrace?” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly—thank you so awfully much!” He began to hope again. +“Then you <i>have</i> it—the other one?” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated afresh; she quite dangled him. “It was brought by a +lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and she put in by mistake something wrong. That’s what +we’ve got to get hold of!” Heavens, what was he going to +say?—flooding poor Paddington with wild betrayals! She couldn’t too +much, for her joy, dangle him, yet she couldn’t either, for his dignity, +warn or control or check him. What she found herself doing was just to treat +herself to the middle way. “It was intercepted?” +</p> + +<p> +“It fell into the wrong hands. But there’s something in it,” +he continued to blurt out, “that <i>may</i> be all right. That is, if +it’s wrong, don’t you know? It’s all right if it’s +wrong,” he remarkably explained. +</p> + +<p> +What <i>was</i> he, on earth, going to say? Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk +were already interested; no one <i>would</i> have the decency to come in; and +she was divided between her particular terror for him and her general +curiosity. Yet she already saw with what brilliancy she could add, to carry the +thing off, a little false knowledge to all her real. “I quite +understand,” she said with benevolent, with almost patronising quickness. +“The lady has forgotten what she did put.” +</p> + +<p> +“Forgotten most wretchedly, and it’s an immense inconvenience. It +has only just been found that it didn’t get there; so that if we could +immediately have it—” +</p> + +<p> +“Immediately?” +</p> + +<p> +“Every minute counts. You <i>have</i>,” he pleaded, “surely +got them on file?” +</p> + +<p> +“So that you can see it on the spot?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, please—this very minute.” The counter rang with his +knuckles, with the knob of his stick, with his panic of alarm. “Do, +<i>do</i> hunt it up!” he repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say we could get it for you,” the girl weetly returned. +</p> + +<p> +“Get it?”—he looked aghast. “When?” +</p> + +<p> +“Probably by to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it isn’t here?”—his face was pitiful. +</p> + +<p> +She caught only the uncovered gleams that peeped out of the blackness, and she +wondered what complication, even among the most supposable, the very worst, +could be bad enough to account for the degree of his terror. There were twists +and turns, there were places where the screw drew blood, that she +couldn’t guess. She was more and more glad she didn’t want to. +“It has been sent on.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how do you know if you don’t look?” +</p> + +<p> +She gave him a smile that was meant to be, in the absolute irony of its +propriety, quite divine. “It was August 23rd, and we’ve nothing +later here than August 27th.” +</p> + +<p> +Something leaped into his face. “27th—23rd? Then you’re sure? +You know?” +</p> + +<p> +She felt she scarce knew what—as if she might soon be pounced upon for +some lurid connexion with a scandal. It was the queerest of all sensations, for +she had heard, she had read, of these things, and the wealth of her intimacy +with them at Cocker’s might be supposed to have schooled and seasoned +her. This particular one that she had really quite lived with was, after all, +an old story; yet what it had been before was dim and distant beside the touch +under which she now winced. Scandal?—it had never been but a silly word. +Now it was a great tense surface, and the surface was somehow Captain +Everard’s wonderful face. Deep down in his eyes a picture, a +scene—a great place like a chamber of justice, where, before a watching +crowd, a poor girl, exposed but heroic, swore with a quavering voice to a +document, proved an <i>alibi</i>, supplied a link. In this picture she bravely +took her place. “It was the 23rd.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then can’t you get it this morning—or some time +to-day?” +</p> + +<p> +She considered, still holding him with her look, which she then turned on her +two companions, who were by this time unreservedly enlisted. She didn’t +care—not a scrap, and she glanced about for a piece of paper. With this +she had to recognise the rigour of official thrift—a morsel of blackened +blotter was the only loose paper to be seen. “Have you got a card?” +she said to her visitor. He was quite away from Paddington now, and the next +instant, pocket-book in hand, he had whipped a card out. She gave no glance at +the name on it—only turned it to the other side. She continued to hold +him, she felt at present, as she had never held him; and her command of her +colleagues was for the moment not less marked. She wrote something on the back +of the card and pushed it across to him. +</p> + +<p> +He fairly glared at it. “Seven, nine, four—” +</p> + +<p> +“Nine, six, one”—she obligingly completed the number. +“Is it right?” she smiled. +</p> + +<p> +He took the whole thing in with a flushed intensity; then there broke out in +him a visibility of relief that was simply a tremendous exposure. He shone at +them all like a tall lighthouse, embracing even, for sympathy, the blinking +young men. “By all the powers—it’s wrong!” And without +another look, without a word of thanks, without time for anything or anybody, +he turned on them the broad back of his great stature, straightened his +triumphant shoulders, and strode out of the place. +</p> + +<p> +She was left confronted with her habitual critics. “‘If it’s +wrong it’s all right!’” she extravagantly quoted to them. +</p> + +<p> +The counter-clerk was really awe-stricken. “But how did you know, +dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“I remembered, love!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Buckton, on the contrary, was rude. “And what game is that, +miss?” +</p> + +<p> +No happiness she had ever known came within miles of it, and some minutes +elapsed before she could recall herself sufficiently to reply that it was none +of his business. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<p> +If life at Cocker’s, with the dreadful drop of August, had lost something +of its savour, she had not been slow to infer that a heavier blight had fallen +on the graceful industry of Mrs. Jordan. +</p> + +<p> +With Lord Rye and Lady Ventnor and Mrs. Bubb all out of town, with the blinds +down on all the homes of luxury, this ingenious woman might well have found her +wonderful taste left quite on her hands. She bore up, however, in a way that +began by exciting much of her young friend’s esteem; they perhaps even +more frequently met as the wine of life flowed less free from other sources, +and each, in the lack of better diversion, carried on with more mystification +for the other an intercourse that consisted not a little in peeping out and +drawing back. Each waited for the other to commit herself, each profusely +curtained for the other the limits of low horizons. Mrs. Jordan was indeed +probably the more reckless skirmisher; nothing could exceed her frequent +incoherence unless it was indeed her occasional bursts of confidence. Her +account of her private affairs rose and fell like a flame in the +wind—sometimes the bravest bonfire and sometimes a handful of ashes. This +our young woman took to be an effect of the position, at one moment and +another, of the famous door of the great world. She had been struck in one of +her ha’penny volumes with the translation of a French proverb according +to which such a door, any door, had to be either open or shut; and it seemed +part of the precariousness of Mrs. Jordan’s life that hers mostly managed +to be neither. There had been occasions when it appeared to gape +wide—fairly to woo her across its threshold; there had been others, of an +order distinctly disconcerting, when it was all but banged in her face. On the +whole, however, she had evidently not lost heart; these still belonged to the +class of things in spite of which she looked well. She intimated that the +profits of her trade had swollen so as to float her through any state of the +tide, and she had, besides this, a hundred profundities and explanations. +</p> + +<p> +She rose superior, above all, on the happy fact that there were always +gentlemen in town and that gentlemen were her greatest admirers; gentlemen from +the City in especial—as to whom she was full of information about the +passion and pride excited in such breasts by the elements of her charming +commerce. The City men <i>did</i>, in short, go in for flowers. There was a +certain type of awfully smart stockbroker—Lord Rye called them Jews and +bounders, but she didn’t care—whose extravagance, she more than +once threw out, had really, if one had any conscience, to be forcibly +restrained. It was not perhaps a pure love of beauty: it was a matter of vanity +and a sign of business; they wished to crush their rivals, and that was one of +their weapons. Mrs. Jordan’s shrewdness was extreme; she knew in any case +her customer—she dealt, as she said, with all sorts; and it was at the +worst a race for her—a race even in the dull months—from one set of +chambers to another. And then, after all, there were also still the ladies; the +ladies of stockbroking circles were perpetually up and down. They were not +quite perhaps Mrs. Bubb or Lady Ventnor; but you couldn’t tell the +difference unless you quarrelled with them, and then you knew it only by their +making-up sooner. These ladies formed the branch of her subject on which she +most swayed in the breeze; to that degree that her confidant had ended with an +inference or two tending to banish regret for opportunities not embraced. There +were indeed tea-gowns that Mrs. Jordan described—but tea-gowns were not +the whole of respectability, and it was odd that a clergyman’s widow +should sometimes speak as if she almost thought so. She came back, it was true, +unfailingly to Lord Rye, never, evidently, quite losing sight of him even on +the longest excursions. That he was kindness itself had become in fact the very +moral it all pointed—pointed in strange flashes of the poor woman’s +nearsighted eyes. She launched at her young friend portentous looks, solemn +heralds of some extraordinary communication. The communication itself, from +week to week, hung fire; but it was to the facts over which it hovered that she +owed her power of going on. “They <i>are</i>, in one way <i>and</i> +another,” she often emphasised, “a tower of strength”; and as +the allusion was to the aristocracy the girl could quite wonder why, if they +were so in “one way,” they should require to be so in two. She +thoroughly knew, however, how many ways Mrs. Jordan counted in. It all meant +simply that her fate was pressing her close. If that fate was to be sealed at +the matrimonial altar it was perhaps not remarkable that she shouldn’t +come all at once to the scratch of overwhelming a mere telegraphist. It would +necessarily present to such a person a prospect of regretful sacrifice. Lord +Rye—if it <i>was</i> Lord Rye—wouldn’t be “kind” +to a nonentity of that sort, even though people quite as good had been. +</p> + +<p> +One Sunday afternoon in November they went, by arrangement, to church together; +after which—on the inspiration of the moment the arrangement had not +included it—they proceeded to Mrs. Jordan’s lodging in the region +of Maida Vale. She had raved to her friend about her service of predilection; +she was excessively “high,” and had more than once wished to +introduce the girl to the same comfort and privilege. There was a thick brown +fog and Maida Vale tasted of acrid smoke; but they had been sitting among +chants and incense and wonderful music, during which, though the effect of such +things on her mind was great, our young lady had indulged in a series of +reflexions but indirectly related to them. One of these was the result of Mrs. +Jordan’s having said to her on the way, and with a certain fine +significance, that Lord Rye had been for some time in town. She had spoken as +if it were a circumstance to which little required to be added—as if the +bearing of such an item on her life might easily be grasped. Perhaps it was the +wonder of whether Lord Rye wished to marry her that made her guest, with +thoughts straying to that quarter, quite determine that some other nuptials +also should take place at Saint Julian’s. Mr. Mudge was still an +attendant at his Wesleyan chapel, but this was the least of her +worries—it had never even vexed her enough for her to so much as name it +to Mrs. Jordan. Mr. Mudge’s form of worship was one of several +things—they made up in superiority and beauty for what they wanted in +number—that she had long ago settled he should take from her, and she had +now moreover for the first time definitely established her own. Its principal +feature was that it was to be the same as that of Mrs. Jordan and Lord Rye; +which was indeed very much what she said to her hostess as they sat together +later on. The brown fog was in this hostess’s little parlour, where it +acted as a postponement of the question of there being, besides, anything else +than the teacups and a pewter pot and a very black little fire and a paraffin +lamp without a shade. There was at any rate no sign of a flower; it was not for +herself Mrs. Jordan gathered sweets. The girl waited till they had had a cup of +tea—waited for the announcement that she fairly believed her friend had, +this time, possessed herself of her formally at last to make; but nothing came, +after the interval, save a little poke at the fire, which was like the clearing +of a throat for a speech. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + +<p> +“I think you must have heard me speak of Mr. Drake?” Mrs. Jordan +had never looked so queer, nor her smile so suggestive of a large benevolent +bite. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Drake? Oh yes; isn’t he a friend of Lord Rye?” +</p> + +<p> +“A great and trusted friend. Almost—I may say—a loved +friend.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan’s “almost” had such an oddity that her companion +was moved, rather flippantly perhaps, to take it up. “Don’t people +as good as love their friends when they I trust them?” +</p> + +<p> +It pulled up a little the eulogist of Mr. Drake. “Well, my dear, I love +<i>you</i>—” +</p> + +<p> +“But you don’t trust me?” the girl unmercifully asked. +</p> + +<p> +Again Mrs. Jordan paused—still she looked queer. “Yes,” she +replied with a certain austerity; “that’s exactly what I’m +about to give you rather a remarkable proof of.” The sense of its being +remarkable was already so strong that, while she bridled a little, this held +her auditor in a momentary muteness of submission. “Mr. Drake has +rendered his lordship for several years services that his lordship has highly +appreciated and that make it all the more—a—unexpected that they +should, perhaps a little suddenly, separate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Separate?” Our young lady was mystified, but she tried to be +interested; and she already saw that she had put the saddle on the wrong horse. +She had heard something of Mr. Drake, who was a member of his lordship’s +circle—the member with whom, apparently, Mrs. Jordan’s avocations +had most happened to throw her. She was only a little puzzled at the +“separation.” “Well, at any rate,” she smiled, +“if they separate as friends—!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh his lordship takes the greatest interest in Mr. Drake’s future. +He’ll do anything for him; he has in fact just done a great deal. There +<i>must</i>, you know, be changes—!” +</p> + +<p> +“No one knows it better than I,” the girl said. She wished to draw +her interlocutress out. “There will be changes enough for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re leaving Cocker’s?” +</p> + +<p> +The ornament of that establishment waited a moment to answer, and then it was +indirect. “Tell me what <i>you’re</i> doing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what will you think of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why that you’ve found the opening you were always so sure +of.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan, on this, appeared to muse with embarrassed intensity. “I was +always sure, yes—and yet I often wasn’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope you’re sure now. Sure, I mean, of Mr. Drake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my dear, I think I may say I <i>am</i>. I kept him going till I +was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then he’s yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“My very own.” +</p> + +<p> +“How nice! And awfully rich?” our young woman went on. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan showed promptly enough that she loved for higher things. +“Awfully handsome—six foot two. And he <i>has</i> put by.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite like Mr. Mudge, then!” that gentleman’s friend rather +desperately exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh not <i>quite!</i>” Mr. Drake’s was ambiguous about it, +but the name of Mr. Mudge had evidently given her some sort of stimulus. +“He’ll have more opportunity now, at any rate. He’s going to +Lady Bradeen.” +</p> + +<p> +“To Lady Bradeen?” This was bewilderment. +“‘Going—’?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl had seen, from the way Mrs. Jordan looked at her, that the effect of +the name had been to make her let something out. “Do you know her?” +</p> + +<p> +She floundered, but she found her feet. “Well, you’ll remember +I’ve often told you that if you’ve grand clients I have them +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mrs. Jordan; “but the great difference is that +you hate yours, whereas I really love mine. <i>Do</i> you know Lady +Bradeen?” she pursued. +</p> + +<p> +“Down to the ground! She’s always in and out.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan’s foolish eyes confessed, in fixing themselves on this +sketch, to a degree of wonder and even of envy. But she bore up and, with a +certain gaiety, “Do you hate <i>her</i>?” she demanded. +</p> + +<p> +Her visitor’s reply was prompt. “Dear no!—not nearly so much +as some of them. She’s too outrageously beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan continued to gaze. “Outrageously?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes; deliciously.” What was really delicious was Mrs. +Jordan’s vagueness. “You don’t know her—you’ve +not seen her?” her guest lightly continued. +</p> + +<p> +“No, but I’ve heard a great deal about her.” +</p> + +<p> +“So have I!” our young lady exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +Jordan looked an instant as if she suspected her good faith, or at least her +seriousness. “You know some friend—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of Lady Bradeen’s? Oh yes—I know one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only one?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl laughed out. “Only one—but he’s so intimate.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan just hesitated. “He’s a gentleman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he’s not a lady.” +</p> + +<p> +Her interlocutress appeared to muse. “She’s immensely +surrounded.” +</p> + +<p> +“She <i>will</i> be—with Mr. Drake!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan’s gaze became strangely fixed. “Is she <i>very</i> +good-looking?” +</p> + +<p> +“The handsomest person I know.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan continued to contemplate. “Well, <i>I</i> know some +beauties.” Then with her odd jerkiness: “Do you think she looks +<i>good</i>?” she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Because that’s not always the case with the +good-looking?”—the other took it up. “No, indeed, it +isn’t: that’s one thing Cocker’s has taught me. Still, there +are some people who have everything. Lady Bradeen, at any rate, has enough: +eyes and a nose and a mouth, a complexion, a figure—” +</p> + +<p> +“A figure?” Mrs. Jordan almost broke in. +</p> + +<p> +“A figure, a head of hair!” The girl made a little conscious motion +that seemed to let the hair all down, and her companion watched the wonderful +show. “But Mr. Drake <i>is</i> another—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Another?”—Mrs. Jordan’s thoughts had to come back from +a distance. +</p> + +<p> +“Of her ladyship’s admirers. He’s ‘going,’ you +say, to her?” +</p> + +<p> +At this Mrs. Jordan really faltered. “She has engaged him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Engaged him?”—our young woman was quite at sea. +</p> + +<p> +“In the same capacity as Lord Rye.” +</p> + +<p> +“And was Lord Rye engaged?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan looked away from her now—looked, she thought, rather injured +and, as if trifled with, even a little angry. The mention of Lady Bradeen had +frustrated for a while the convergence of our heroine’s thoughts; but +with this impression of her old friend’s combined impatience and +diffidence they began again to whirl round her, and continued it till one of +them appeared to dart at her, out of the dance, as if with a sharp peck. It +came to her with a lively shock, with a positive sting, that Mr. Drake +was—could it be possible? With the idea she found herself afresh on the +edge of laughter, of a sudden and strange perversity of mirth. Mr. Drake +loomed, in a swift image, before her; such a figure as she had seen in open +doorways of houses in Cocker’s quarter—majestic, middle-aged, +erect, flanked on either side by a footman and taking the name of a visitor. +Mr. Drake then verily <i>was</i> a person who opened the door! Before she had +time, however, to recover from the effect of her evocation, she was offered a +vision which quite engulfed it. It was communicated to her somehow that the +face with which she had seen it rise prompted Mrs. Jordan to dash, a bit +wildly, at something, at anything, that might attenuate criticism. “Lady +Bradeen’s re-arranging—she’s going to be married.” +</p> + +<p> +“Married?” The girl echoed it ever so softly, but there it was at +last. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you know it?” +</p> + +<p> +She summoned all her sturdiness. “No, she hasn’t told me.” +</p> + +<p> +“And her friends—haven’t they?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t seen any of them lately. I’m not so fortunate as +<i>you</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan gathered herself. “Then you haven’t even heard of Lord +Bradeen’s death?” +</p> + +<p> +Her comrade, unable for a moment to speak, gave a slow headshake. “You +know it from Mr. Drake?” It was better surely not to learn things at all +than to learn them by the butler. +</p> + +<p> +“She tells him everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he tells <i>you</i>—I see.” Our young lady got up; +recovering her muff and her gloves she smiled. “Well, I haven’t +unfortunately any Mr. Drake. I congratulate you with all my heart. Even without +your sort of assistance, however, there’s a trifle here and there that I +do pick up. I gather that if she’s to marry any one it must quite +necessarily be my friend.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan was now also on her feet. “Is Captain Everard your +friend?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl considered, drawing on a glove. “I saw, at one time, an immense +deal of him.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan looked hard at the glove, but she hadn’t after all waited for +that to be sorry it wasn’t cleaner. “What time was that?” +</p> + +<p> +“It must have been the time you were seeing so much of Mr. Drake.” +She had now fairly taken it in: the distinguished person Mrs. Jordan was to +marry would answer bells and put on coals and superintend, at least, the +cleaning of boots for the other distinguished person whom she might—well, +whom she might have had, if she had wished, so much more to say to. +“Good-bye,” she added; “good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan, however, again taking her muff from her, turned it over, brushed +it off and thoughtfully peeped into it. “Tell me this before you go. You +spoke just now of your own changes. Do you mean that Mr. Mudge—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Mudge has had great patience with me—he has brought me at last +to the point. We’re to be married next month and have a nice little home. +But he’s only a grocer, you know”—the girl met her +friend’s intent eyes—“so that I’m afraid that, with the +set you’ve got into, you won’t see your way to keep up our +friendship.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan for a moment made no answer to this; she only held the muff up to +her face, after which she gave it back. “You don’t like it. I see, +I see.” +</p> + +<p> +To her guest’s astonishment there were tears now in her eyes. “I +don’t like what?” the girl asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Why my engagement. Only, with your great cleverness,” the poor +lady quavered out, “you put it in your own way. I mean that you’ll +cool off. You already <i>have</i>—!” And on this, the next instant, +her tears began to flow. She succumbed to them and collapsed; she sank down +again, burying her face and trying to smother her sobs. +</p> + +<p> +Her young friend stood there, still in some rigour, but taken much by surprise +even if not yet fully moved to pity. “I don’t put anything in any +‘way,’ and I’m very glad you’re suited. Only, you know, +you did put to <i>me</i> so splendidly what, even for me, if I had listened to +you, it might lead to.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan kept up a mild thin weak wail; then, drying her eyes, as feebly +considered this reminder. “It has led to my not starving!” she +faintly gasped. +</p> + +<p> +Our young lady, at this, dropped into the place beside her, and now, in a rush, +the small silly misery was clear. She took her hand as a sign of pitying it, +then, after another instant, confirmed this expression with a consoling kiss. +They sat there together; they looked out, hand in hand, into the damp dusky +shabby little room and into the future, of no such very different suggestion, +at last accepted by each. There was no definite utterance, on either side, of +Mr. Drake’s position in the great world, but the temporary collapse of +his prospective bride threw all further necessary light; and what our heroine +saw and felt for in the whole business was the vivid reflexion of her own +dreams and delusions and her own return to reality. Reality, for the poor +things they both were, could only be ugliness and obscurity, could never be the +escape, the rise. She pressed her friend—she had tact enough for +that—with no other personal question, brought on no need of further +revelations, only just continued to hold and comfort her and to acknowledge by +stiff little forbearances the common element in their fate. She felt indeed +magnanimous in such matters; since if it was very well, for condolence or +reassurance, to suppress just then invidious shrinkings, she yet by no means +saw herself sitting down, as she might say, to the same table with Mr. Drake. +There would luckily, to all appearance, be little question of tables; and the +circumstance that, on their peculiar lines, her friend’s interests would +still attach themselves to Mayfair flung over Chalk Farm the first radiance it +had shown. Where was one’s pride and one’s passion when the real +way to judge of one’s luck was by making not the wrong but the right +comparison? Before she had again gathered herself to go she felt very small and +cautious and thankful. “We shall have our own house,” she said, +“and you must come very soon and let me show it you.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>We</i> shall have our own too,” Mrs. Jordan replied; +“for, don’t you know? he makes it a condition that he sleeps +out?” +</p> + +<p> +“A condition?”—the girl felt out of it. +</p> + +<p> +“For any new position. It was on that he parted with Lord Rye. His +lordship can’t meet it. So Mr. Drake has given him up.” +</p> + +<p> +“And all for you?”—our young woman put it as cheerfully as +possible. +</p> + +<p> +“For me and Lady Bradeen. Her ladyship’s too glad to get him at any +price. Lord Rye, out of interest in us, has in fact quite <i>made</i> her take +him. So, as I tell you, he will have his own establishment.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan, in the elation of it, had begun to revive; but there was +nevertheless between them rather a conscious pause—a pause in which +neither visitor nor hostess brought out a hope or an invitation. It expressed +in the last resort that, in spite of submission and sympathy, they could now +after all only look at each other across the social gulf. They remained +together as if it would be indeed their last chance, still sitting, though +awkwardly, quite close, and feeling also—and this most +unmistakeably—that there was one thing more to go into. By the time it +came to the surface, moreover, our young friend had recognised the whole of the +main truth, from which she even drew again a slight irritation. It was not the +main truth perhaps that most signified; but after her momentary effort, her +embarrassment and her tears Mrs. Jordan had begun to sound afresh—and +even without speaking—the note of a social connexion. She hadn’t +really let go of it that she was marrying into society. Well, it was a harmless +compensation, and it was all the prospective bride of Mr. Mudge had to leave +with her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + +<p> +This young lady at last rose again, but she lingered before going. “And +has Captain Everard nothing to say to it?” +</p> + +<p> +“To what, dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, to such questions—the domestic arrangements, things in the +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“How <i>can</i> he, with any authority, when nothing in the house is +his?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not his?” The girl wondered, perfectly conscious of the appearance +she thus conferred on Mrs. Jordan of knowing, in comparison with herself, so +tremendously much about it. Well, there were things she wanted so to get at +that she was willing at last, though it hurt her, to pay for them with +humiliation. “Why are they not his?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know, dear, that he has nothing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing?” It was hard to see him in such a light, but Mrs. +Jordan’s power to answer for it had a superiority that began, on the +spot, to grow. “Isn’t he rich?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan looked immensely, looked both generally and particularly, informed. +“It depends upon what you call—! Not at any rate in the least as +<i>she</i> is. What does he bring? Think what she has. And then, love, his +debts.” +</p> + +<p> +“His debts?” His young friend was fairly betrayed into helpless +innocence. She could struggle a little, but she had to let herself go; and if +she had spoken frankly she would have said: “Do tell me, for I +don’t know so much about him as <i>that</i>!” As she didn’t +speak frankly she only said: “His debts are nothing—when she so +adores him.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan began to fix her again, and now she saw that she must only take it +all. That was what it had come to: his having sat with her there on the bench +and under the trees in the summer darkness and put his hand on her, making her +know what he would have said if permitted; his having returned to her +afterwards, repeatedly, with supplicating eyes and a fever in his blood; and +her having, on her side, hard and pedantic, helped by some miracle and with her +impossible condition, only answered him, yet supplicating back, through the +bars of the cage,—all simply that she might hear of him, now for ever +lost, only through Mrs. Jordan, who touched him through Mr. Drake, who reached +him through Lady Bradeen. “She adores him—but of course that +wasn’t all there was about it.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl met her eyes a minute, then quite surrendered. “What was there +else about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, don’t you know?”—Mrs. Jordan was almost +compassionate. +</p> + +<p> +Her interlocutress had, in the cage, sounded depths, but there was a suggestion +here somehow of an abyss quite measureless. “Of course I know she would +never let him alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“How <i>could</i> she—fancy!—when he had so compromised +her?” +</p> + +<p> +The most artless cry they had ever uttered broke, at this, from the younger +pair of lips. “<i>Had</i> he so—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, don’t you know the scandal?” +</p> + +<p> +Our heroine thought, recollected there was something, whatever it was, that she +knew after all much more of than Mrs. Jordan. She saw him again as she had seen +him come that morning to recover the telegram—she saw him as she had seen +him leave the shop. She perched herself a moment on this. “Oh there was +nothing public.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not exactly public—no. But there was an awful scare and an awful +row. It was all on the very point of coming out. Something was +lost—something was found.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah yes,” the girl replied, smiling as if with the revival of a +blurred memory; “something was found.” +</p> + +<p> +“It all got about—and there was a point at which Lord Bradeen had +to act.” +</p> + +<p> +“Had to—yes. But he didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan was obliged to admit it. “No, he didn’t. And then, +luckily for them, he died.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know about his death,” her companion said. +</p> + +<p> +“It was nine weeks ago, and most sudden. It has given them a prompt +chance.” +</p> + +<p> +“To get married?”—this was a wonder—“within nine +weeks?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh not immediately, but—in all the circumstances—very +quietly and, I assure you, very soon. Every preparation’s made. Above all +she holds him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, she holds him!” our young friend threw off. She had this +before her again a minute; then she continued: “You mean through his +having made her talked about?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but not only that. She has still another pull.” +</p> + +<p> +“Another?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan hesitated. “Why, he was <i>in</i> something.” +</p> + +<p> +Her comrade wondered. “In what?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. Something bad. As I tell you, something was +found.” +</p> + +<p> +The girl stared. “Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“It would have been very bad for him. But, she helped him some +way—she recovered it, got hold of it. It’s even said she stole +it!” +</p> + +<p> +Our young woman considered afresh. “Why it was what was found that +precisely saved him.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan, however, was positive. “I beg your pardon. I happen to +know.” +</p> + +<p> +Her disciple faltered but an instant. “Do you mean through Mr. Drake? Do +they tell <i>him</i> these things?” +</p> + +<p> +“A good servant,” said Mrs. Jordan, now thoroughly superior and +proportionately sententious, “doesn’t need to be told! Her ladyship +saved—as a woman so often saves!—the man she loves.” +</p> + +<p> +This time our heroine took longer to recover herself, but she found a voice at +last. “Ah well—of course I don’t know! The great thing was +that he got off. They seem then, in a manner,” she added, “to have +done a great deal for each other.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s she that has done most. She has him tight.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see, I see. Good-bye.” The women had already embraced, and this +was not repeated; but Mrs. Jordan went down with her guest to the door of the +house. Here again the younger lingered, reverting, though three or four other +remarks had on the way passed between them, to Captain Everard and Lady +Bradeen. “Did you mean just now that if she hadn’t saved him, as +you call it, she wouldn’t hold him so tight?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I dare say.” Mrs. Jordan, on the doorstep, smiled with a +reflexion that had come to her; she took one of her big bites of the brown +gloom. “Men always dislike one when they’ve done one an +injury.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what injury had he done her?” +</p> + +<p> +“The one I’ve mentioned. He <i>must</i> marry her, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“And didn’t he want to?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not before she recovered the telegram?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Jordan was pulled up a little. “Was it a telegram?” +</p> + +<p> +The girl hesitated. “I thought you said so. I mean whatever it +was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, whatever it was, I don’t think she saw <i>that</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“So she just nailed him?” +</p> + +<p> +“She just nailed him.” The departing friend was now at the bottom +of the little flight of steps; the other was at the top, with a certain +thickness of fog. “And when am I to think of you in your little +home?—next month?” asked the voice from the top. +</p> + +<p> +“At the very latest. And when am I to think of you in yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh even sooner. I feel, after so much talk with you about it, as if I +were already there!” Then “<i>Good</i>-bye!” came out of the +fog. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-<i>bye</i>!” went into it. Our young lady went into it also, +in the opposed quarter, and presently, after a few sightless turns, came out on +the Paddington canal. Distinguishing vaguely what the low parapet enclosed she +stopped close to it and stood a while very intently, but perhaps still +sightlessly, looking down on it. A policeman; while she remained, strolled past +her; then, going his way a little further and half lost in the atmosphere, +paused and watched her. But she was quite unaware—she was full of her +thoughts. They were too numerous to find a place just here, but two of the +number may at least be mentioned. One of these was that, decidedly, her little +home must be not for next month, but for next week; the other, which came +indeed as she resumed her walk and went her way, was that it was strange such a +matter should be at last settled for her by Mr. Drake +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CAGE ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 1144-h.htm or 1144-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/4/1144/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: In the Cage + +Author: Henry James + +Release Date: February 6, 2005 [eBook #1144] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CAGE*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1919 Martin Secker edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +IN THE CAGE + + +CHAPTER I + + +It had occurred to her early that in her position--that of a young person +spending, in framed and wired confinement, the life of a guinea-pig or a +magpie--she should know a great many persons without their recognising +the acquaintance. That made it an emotion the more lively--though +singularly rare and always, even then, with opportunity still very much +smothered--to see any one come in whom she knew outside, as she called +it, any one who could add anything to the meanness of her function. Her +function was to sit there with two young men--the other telegraphist and +the counter-clerk; to mind the "sounder," which was always going, to dole +out stamps and postal-orders, weigh letters, answer stupid questions, +give difficult change and, more than anything else, count words as +numberless as the sands of the sea, the words of the telegrams thrust, +from morning to night, through the gap left in the high lattice, across +the encumbered shelf that her forearm ached with rubbing. This +transparent screen fenced out or fenced in, according to the side of the +narrow counter on which the human lot was cast, the duskiest corner of a +shop pervaded not a little, in winter, by the poison of perpetual gas, +and at all times by the presence of hams, cheese, dried fish, soap, +varnish, paraffin and other solids and fluids that she came to know +perfectly by their smells without consenting to know them by their names. + +The barrier that divided the little post-and-telegraph-office from the +grocery was a frail structure of wood and wire; but the social, the +professional separation was a gulf that fortune, by a stroke quite +remarkable, had spared her the necessity of contributing at all publicly +to bridge. When Mr. Cocker's young men stepped over from behind the +other counter to change a five-pound note--and Mr. Cocker's situation, +with the cream of the "Court Guide" and the dearest furnished apartments, +Simpkin's, Ladle's, Thrupp's, just round the corner, was so select that +his place was quite pervaded by the crisp rustle of these emblems--she +pushed out the sovereigns as if the applicant were no more to her than +one of the momentary, the practically featureless, appearances in the +great procession; and this perhaps all the more from the very fact of the +connexion (only recognised outside indeed) to which she had lent herself +with ridiculous inconsequence. She recognised the others the less +because she had at last so unreservedly, so irredeemably, recognised Mr. +Mudge. However that might be, she was a little ashamed of having to +admit to herself that Mr. Mudge's removal to a higher sphere--to a more +commanding position, that is, though to a much lower neighbourhood--would +have been described still better as a luxury than as the mere +simplification, the corrected awkwardness, that she contented herself +with calling it. He had at any rate ceased to be all day long in her +eyes, and this left something a little fresh for them to rest on of a +Sunday. During the three months of his happy survival at Cocker's after +her consent to their engagement she had often asked herself what it was +marriage would be able to add to a familiarity that seemed already to +have scraped the platter so clean. Opposite there, behind the counter of +which his superior stature, his whiter apron, his more clustering curls +and more present, too present, _h_'s had been for a couple of years the +principal ornament, he had moved to and fro before her as on the small +sanded floor of their contracted future. She was conscious now of the +improvement of not having to take her present and her future at once. +They were about as much as she could manage when taken separate. + +She had, none the less, to give her mind steadily to what Mr. Mudge had +again written her about, the idea of her applying for a transfer to an +office quite similar--she couldn't yet hope for a place in a bigger--under +the very roof where he was foreman, so that, dangled before her every +minute of the day, he should see her, as he called it, "hourly," and in a +part, the far N.W. district, where, with her mother, she would save on +their two rooms alone nearly three shillings. It would be far from +dazzling to exchange Mayfair for Chalk Farm, and it wore upon her much +that he could never drop a subject; still, it didn't wear as things _had_ +worn, the worries of the early times of their great misery, her own, her +mother's and her elder sister's--the last of whom had succumbed to all +but absolute want when, as conscious and incredulous ladies, suddenly +bereft, betrayed, overwhelmed, they had slipped faster and faster down +the steep slope at the bottom of which she alone had rebounded. Her +mother had never rebounded any more at the bottom than on the way; had +only rumbled and grumbled down and down, making, in respect of caps, +topics and "habits," no effort whatever--which simply meant smelling much +of the time of whiskey. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +It was always rather quiet at Cocker's while the contingent from Ladle's +and Thrupp's and all the other great places were at luncheon, or, as the +young men used vulgarly to say, while the animals were feeding. She had +forty minutes in advance of this to go home for her own dinner; and when +she came back and one of the young men took his turn there was often half +an hour during which she could pull out a bit of work or a book--a book +from the place where she borrowed novels, very greasy, in fine print and +all about fine folks, at a ha'penny a day. This sacred pause was one of +the numerous ways in which the establishment kept its finger on the pulse +of fashion and fell into the rhythm of the larger life. It had something +to do, one day, with the particular flare of importance of an arriving +customer, a lady whose meals were apparently irregular, yet whom she was +destined, she afterwards found, not to forget. The girl was blasee; +nothing could belong more, as she perfectly knew, to the intense +publicity of her profession; but she had a whimsical mind and wonderful +nerves; she was subject, in short, to sudden flickers of antipathy and +sympathy, red gleams in the grey, fitful needs to notice and to "care," +odd caprices of curiosity. She had a friend who had invented a new +career for women--that of being in and out of people's houses to look +after the flowers. Mrs. Jordan had a manner of her own of sounding this +allusion; "the flowers," on her lips, were, in fantastic places, in happy +homes, as usual as the coals or the daily papers. She took charge of +them, at any rate, in all the rooms, at so much a month, and people were +quickly finding out what it was to make over this strange burden of the +pampered to the widow of a clergyman. The widow, on her side, dilating +on the initiations thus opened up to her, had been splendid to her young +friend, over the way she was made free of the greatest houses--the way, +especially when she did the dinner-tables, set out so often for twenty, +she felt that a single step more would transform her whole social +position. On its being asked of her then if she circulated only in a +sort of tropical solitude, with the upper servants for picturesque +natives, and on her having to assent to this glance at her limitations, +she had found a reply to the girl's invidious question. "You've no +imagination, my dear!"--that was because a door more than half open to +the higher life couldn't be called anything but a thin partition. Mrs. +Jordan's imagination quite did away with the thickness. + +Our young lady had not taken up the charge, had dealt with it +good-humouredly, just because she knew so well what to think of it. It +was at once one of her most cherished complaints and most secret supports +that people didn't understand her, and it was accordingly a matter of +indifference to her that Mrs. Jordan shouldn't; even though Mrs. Jordan, +handed down from their early twilight of gentility and also the victim of +reverses, was the only member of her circle in whom she recognised an +equal. She was perfectly aware that her imaginative life was the life in +which she spent most of her time; and she would have been ready, had it +been at all worth while, to contend that, since her outward occupation +didn't kill it, it must be strong indeed. Combinations of flowers and +green-stuff, forsooth! What _she_ could handle freely, she said to +herself, was combinations of men and women. The only weakness in her +faculty came from the positive abundance of her contact with the human +herd; this was so constant, it had so the effect of cheapening her +privilege, that there were long stretches in which inspiration, +divination and interest quite dropped. The great thing was the flashes, +the quick revivals, absolute accidents all, and neither to be counted on +nor to be resisted. Some one had only sometimes to put in a penny for a +stamp and the whole thing was upon her. She was so absurdly constructed +that these were literally the moments that made up--made up for the long +stiffness of sitting there in the stocks, made up for the cunning +hostility of Mr. Buckton and the importunate sympathy of the +counter-clerk, made up for the daily deadly flourishy letter from Mr. +Mudge, made up even for the most haunting of her worries, the rage at +moments of not knowing how her mother did "get it." + +She had surrendered herself moreover of late to a certain expansion of +her consciousness; something that seemed perhaps vulgarly accounted for +by the fact that, as the blast of the season roared louder and the waves +of fashion tossed their spray further over the counter, there were more +impressions to be gathered and really--for it came to that--more life to +be led. Definite at any rate it was that by the time May was well +started the kind of company she kept at Cocker's had begun to strike her +as a reason--a reason she might almost put forward for a policy of +procrastination. It sounded silly, of course, as yet, to plead such a +motive, especially as the fascination of the place was after all a sort +of torment. But she liked her torment; it was a torment she should miss +at Chalk Farm. She was ingenious and uncandid, therefore, about leaving +the breadth of London a little longer between herself and that austerity. +If she hadn't quite the courage in short to say to Mr. Mudge that her +actual chance for a play of mind was worth any week the three shillings +he desired to help her to save, she yet saw something happen in the +course of the month that in her heart of hearts at least answered the +subtle question. This was connected precisely with the appearance of the +memorable lady. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +She pushed in three bescribbled forms which the girl's hand was quick to +appropriate, Mr. Buckton having so frequent a perverse instinct for +catching first any eye that promised the sort of entertainment with which +she had her peculiar affinity. The amusements of captives are full of a +desperate contrivance, and one of our young friend's ha'pennyworths had +been the charming tale of "Picciola." It was of course the law of the +place that they were never to take no notice, as Mr. Buckton said, whom +they served; but this also never prevented, certainly on the same +gentleman's own part, what he was fond of describing as the underhand +game. Both her companions, for that matter, made no secret of the number +of favourites they had among the ladies; sweet familiarities in spite of +which she had repeatedly caught each of them in stupidities and mistakes, +confusions of identity and lapses of observation that never failed to +remind her how the cleverness of men ends where the cleverness of women +begins. "Marguerite, Regent Street. Try on at six. All Spanish lace. +Pearls. The full length." That was the first; it had no signature. +"Lady Agnes Orme, Hyde Park Place. Impossible to-night, dining Haddon. +Opera to-morrow, promised Fritz, but could do play Wednesday. Will try +Haddon for Savoy, and anything in the world you like, if you can get +Gussy. Sunday Montenero. Sit Mason Monday, Tuesday. Marguerite awful. +Cissy." That was the second. The third, the girl noted when she took +it, was on a foreign form: "Everard, Hotel Brighton, Paris. Only +understand and believe. 22nd to 26th, and certainly 8th and 9th. Perhaps +others. Come. Mary." + +Mary was very handsome, the handsomest woman, she felt in a moment, she +had ever seen--or perhaps it was only Cissy. Perhaps it was both, for +she had seen stranger things than that--ladies wiring to different +persons under different names. She had seen all sorts of things and +pieced together all sorts of mysteries. There had once been one--not +long before--who, without winking, sent off five over five different +signatures. Perhaps these represented five different friends who had +asked her--all women, just as perhaps now Mary and Cissy, or one or other +of them, were wiring by deputy. Sometimes she put in too much--too much +of her own sense; sometimes she put in too little; and in either case +this often came round to her afterwards, for she had an extraordinary way +of keeping clues. When she noticed she noticed; that was what it came +to. There were days and days, there were weeks sometimes, of vacancy. +This arose often from Mr. Buckton's devilish and successful subterfuges +for keeping her at the sounder whenever it looked as if anything might +arouse; the sounder, which it was equally his business to mind, being the +innermost cell of captivity, a cage within the cage, fenced oft from the +rest by a frame of ground glass. The counter-clerk would have played +into her hands; but the counter-clerk was really reduced to idiocy by the +effect of his passion for her. She flattered herself moreover, nobly, +that with the unpleasant conspicuity of this passion she would never have +consented to be obliged to him. The most she would ever do would be +always to shove off on him whenever she could the registration of +letters, a job she happened particularly to loathe. After the long +stupors, at all events, there almost always suddenly would come a sharp +taste of something; it was in her mouth before she knew it; it was in her +mouth now. + +To Cissy, to Mary, whichever it was, she found her curiosity going out +with a rush, a mute effusion that floated back to her, like a returning +tide, the living colour and splendour of the beautiful head, the light of +eyes that seemed to reflect such utterly other things than the mean +things actually before them; and, above all, the high curt consideration +of a manner that even at bad moments was a magnificent habit and of the +very essence of the innumerable things--her beauty, her birth, her father +and mother, her cousins and all her ancestors--that its possessor +couldn't have got rid of even had she wished. How did our obscure little +public servant know that for the lady of the telegrams this was a bad +moment? How did she guess all sorts of impossible things, such as, +almost on the very spot, the presence of drama at a critical stage and +the nature of the tie with the gentleman at the Hotel Brighton? More +than ever before it floated to her through the bars of the cage that this +at last was the high reality, the bristling truth that she had hitherto +only patched up and eked out--one of the creatures, in fine, in whom all +the conditions for happiness actually met, and who, in the air they made, +bloomed with an unwitting insolence. What came home to the girl was the +way the insolence was tempered by something that was equally a part of +the distinguished life, the custom of a flowerlike bend to the less +fortunate--a dropped fragrance, a mere quick breath, but which in fact +pervaded and lingered. The apparition was very young, but certainly +married, and our fatigued friend had a sufficient store of mythological +comparison to recognise the port of Juno. Marguerite might be "awful," +but she knew how to dress a goddess. + +Pearls and Spanish lace--she herself, with assurance, could see them, and +the "full length" too, and also red velvet bows, which, disposed on the +lace in a particular manner (she could have placed them with the turn of +a hand) were of course to adorn the front of a black brocade that would +be like a dress in a picture. However, neither Marguerite nor Lady Agnes +nor Haddon nor Fritz nor Gussy was what the wearer of this garment had +really come in for. She had come in for Everard--and that was doubtless +not his true name either. If our young lady had never taken such jumps +before it was simply that she had never before been so affected. She +went all the way. Mary and Cissy had been round together, in their +single superb person, to see him--he must live round the corner; they had +found that, in consequence of something they had come, precisely, to make +up for or to have another scene about, he had gone off--gone off just on +purpose to make them feel it; on which they had come together to Cocker's +as to the nearest place; where they had put in the three forms partly in +order not to put in the one alone. The two others in a manner, covered +it, muffled it, passed it off. Oh yes, she went all the way, and this +was a specimen of how she often went. She would know the hand again any +time. It was as handsome and as everything else as the woman herself. +The woman herself had, on learning his flight, pushed past Everard's +servant and into his room; she had written her missive at his table and +with his pen. All this, every inch of it, came in the waft that she blew +through and left behind her, the influence that, as I have said, +lingered. And among the things the girl was sure of, happily, was that +she should see her again. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +She saw her in fact, and only ten days later; but this time not alone, +and that was exactly a part of the luck of it. Not unaware--as how could +her observation have left her so?--of the possibilities through which it +could range, our young lady had ever since had in her mind a dozen +conflicting theories about Everard's type; as to which, the instant they +came into the place, she felt the point settled with a thump that seemed +somehow addressed straight to her heart. That organ literally beat +faster at the approach of the gentleman who was this time with Cissy, and +who, as seen from within the cage, became on the spot the happiest of the +happy circumstances with which her mind had invested the friend of Fritz +and Gussy. He was a very happy circumstance indeed as, with his +cigarette in his lips and his broken familiar talk caught by his +companion, he put down the half-dozen telegrams it would take them +together several minutes to dispatch. And here it occurred, oddly +enough, that if, shortly before the girl's interest in his companion had +sharpened her sense for the messages then transmitted, her immediate +vision of himself had the effect, while she counted his seventy words, of +preventing intelligibility. His words were mere numbers, they told her +nothing whatever; and after he had gone she was in possession of no name, +of no address, of no meaning, of nothing but a vague sweet sound and an +immense impression. He had been there but five minutes, he had smoked in +her face, and, busy with his telegrams, with the tapping pencil and the +conscious danger, the odious betrayal that would come from a mistake, she +had had no wandering glances nor roundabout arts to spare. Yet she had +taken him in; she knew everything; she had made up her mind. + +He had come back from Paris; everything was re-arranged; the pair were +again shoulder to shoulder in their high encounter with life, their large +and complicated game. The fine soundless pulse of this game was in the +air for our young woman while they remained in the shop. While they +remained? They remained all day; their presence continued and abode with +her, was in everything she did till nightfall, in the thousands of other +words she counted, she transmitted, in all the stamps she detached and +the letters she weighed and the change she gave, equally unconscious and +unerring in each of these particulars, and not, as the run on the little +office thickened with the afternoon hours, looking up at a single ugly +face in the long sequence, nor really hearing the stupid questions that +she patiently and perfectly answered. All patience was possible now, all +questions were stupid after his, all faces were ugly. She had been sure +she should see the lady again; and even now she should perhaps, she +should probably, see her often. But for him it was totally different; +she should never never see him. She wanted it too much. There was a +kind of wanting that helped--she had arrived, with her rich experience, +at that generalisation; and there was another kind that was fatal. It +was this time the fatal kind; it would prevent. + +Well, she saw him the very next day, and on this second occasion it was +quite different; the sense of every syllable he paid for was fiercely +distinct; she indeed felt her progressive pencil, dabbing as if with a +quick caress the marks of his own, put life into every stroke. He was +there a long time--had not brought his forms filled out but worked them +off in a nook on the counter; and there were other people as well--a +changing pushing cluster, with every one to mind at once and endless +right change to make and information to produce. But she kept hold of +him throughout; she continued, for herself, in a relation with him as +close as that in which, behind the hated ground glass, Mr. Buckton +luckily continued with the sounder. This morning everything changed, but +rather to dreariness; she had to swallow the rebuff to her theory about +fatal desires, which she did without confusion and indeed with absolute +levity; yet if it was now flagrant that he did live close at hand--at +Park Chambers--and belonged supremely to the class that wired everything, +even their expensive feelings (so that, as he never wrote, his +correspondence cost him weekly pounds and pounds, and he might be in and +out five times a day) there was, all the same, involved in the prospect, +and by reason of its positive excess of light, a perverse melancholy, a +gratuitous misery. This was at once to give it a place in an order of +feelings on which I shall presently touch. + +Meanwhile, for a month, he was very constant. Cissy, Mary, never +re-appeared with him; he was always either alone or accompanied only by +some gentleman who was lost in the blaze of his glory. There was another +sense, however--and indeed there was more than one--in which she mostly +found herself counting in the splendid creature with whom she had +originally connected him. He addressed this correspondent neither as +Mary nor as Cissy; but the girl was sure of whom it was, in Eaten Square, +that he was perpetually wiring to--and all so irreproachably!--as Lady +Bradeen. Lady Bradeen was Cissy, Lady Bradeen was Mary, Lady Bradeen was +the friend of Fritz and of Gussy, the customer of Marguerite, and the +close ally in short (as was ideally right, only the girl had not yet +found a descriptive term that was) of the most magnificent of men. +Nothing could equal the frequency and variety of his communications to +her ladyship but their extraordinary, their abysmal propriety. It was +just the talk--so profuse sometimes that she wondered what was left for +their real meetings--of the very happiest people. Their real meetings +must have been constant, for half of it was appointments and allusions, +all swimming in a sea of other allusions still, tangled in a complexity +of questions that gave a wondrous image of their life. If Lady Bradeen +was Juno it was all certainly Olympian. If the girl, missing the +answers, her ladyship's own outpourings, vainly reflected that Cocker's +should have been one of the bigger offices where telegrams arrived as +well as departed, there were yet ways in which, on the whole, she pressed +the romance closer by reason of the very quantity of imagination it +demanded and consumed. The days and hours of this new friend, as she +came to account him, were at all events unrolled, and however much more +she might have known she would still have wished to go beyond. In fact +she did go beyond; she went quite far enough. + +But she could none the less, even after a month, scarce have told if the +gentlemen who came in with him recurred or changed; and this in spite of +the fact that they too were always posting and wiring, smoking in her +face and signing or not signing. The gentlemen who came in with him were +nothing when he was there. They turned up alone at other times--then +only perhaps with a dim richness of reference. He himself, absent as +well as present, was all. He was very tall, very fair, and had, in spite +of his thick preoccupations, a good-humour that was exquisite, +particularly as it so often had the effect of keeping him on. He could +have reached over anybody, and anybody--no matter who--would have let +him; but he was so extraordinarily kind that he quite pathetically +waited, never waggling things at her out of his turn nor saying "Here!" +with horrid sharpness. He waited for pottering old ladies, for gaping +slaveys, for the perpetual Buttonses from Thrupp's; and the thing in all +this that she would have liked most unspeakably to put to the test was +the possibility of her having for him a personal identity that might in a +particular way appeal. There were moments when he actually struck her as +on her side, as arranging to help, to support, to spare her. + +But such was the singular spirit of our young friend that she could +remind herself with a pang that when people had awfully good +manners--people of that class,--you couldn't tell. These manners were +for everybody, and it might be drearily unavailing for any poor +particular body to be overworked and unusual. What he did take for +granted was all sorts of facility; and his high pleasantness, his +relighting of cigarettes while he waited, his unconscious bestowal of +opportunities, of boons, of blessings, were all a part of his splendid +security, the instinct that told him there was nothing such an existence +as his could ever lose by. He was somehow all at once very bright and +very grave, very young and immensely complete; and whatever he was at any +moment it was always as much as all the rest the mere bloom of his +beatitude. He was sometimes Everard, as he had been at the Hotel +Brighton, and he was sometimes Captain Everard. He was sometimes Philip +with his surname and sometimes Philip without it. In some directions he +was merely Phil, in others he was merely Captain. There were relations +in which he was none of these things, but a quite different person--"the +Count." There were several friends for whom he was William. There were +several for whom, in allusion perhaps to his complexion, he was "the Pink +'Un." Once, once only by good luck, he had, coinciding comically, quite +miraculously, with another person also near to her, been "Mudge." Yes, +whatever he was, it was a part of his happiness--whatever he was and +probably whatever he wasn't. And his happiness was a part--it became so +little by little--of something that, almost from the first of her being +at Cocker's, had been deeply with the girl. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +This was neither more nor less than the queer extension of her +experience, the double life that, in the cage, she grew at last to lead. +As the weeks went on there she lived more and more into the world of +whiffs and glimpses, she found her divinations work faster and stretch +further. It was a prodigious view as the pressure heightened, a panorama +fed with facts and figures, flushed with a torrent of colour and +accompanied with wondrous world-music. What it mainly came to at this +period was a picture of how London could amuse itself; and that, with the +running commentary of a witness so exclusively a witness, turned for the +most part to a hardening of the heart. The nose of this observer was +brushed by the bouquet, yet she could never really pluck even a daisy. +What could still remain fresh in her daily grind was the immense +disparity, the difference and contrast, from class to class, of every +instant and every motion. There were times when all the wires in the +country seemed to start from the little hole-and-corner where she plied +for a livelihood, and where, in the shuffle of feet, the flutter of +"forms," the straying of stamps and the ring of change over the counter, +the people she had fallen into the habit of remembering and fitting +together with others, and of having her theories and interpretations of, +kept up before her their long procession and rotation. What twisted the +knife in her vitals was the way the profligate rich scattered about them, +in extravagant chatter over their extravagant pleasures and sins, an +amount of money that would have held the stricken household of her +frightened childhood, her poor pinched mother and tormented father and +lost brother and starved sister, together for a lifetime. During her +first weeks she had often gasped at the sums people were willing to pay +for the stuff they transmitted--the "much love"s, the "awful" regrets, +the compliments and wonderments and vain vague gestures that cost the +price of a new pair of boots. She had had a way then of glancing at the +people's faces, but she had early learnt that if you became a +telegraphist you soon ceased to be astonished. Her eye for types +amounted nevertheless to genius, and there were those she liked and those +she hated, her feeling for the latter of which grew to a positive +possession, an instinct of observation and detection. There were the +brazen women, as she called them, of the higher and the lower fashion, +whose squanderings and graspings, whose struggles and secrets and love- +affairs and lies, she tracked and stored up against them till she had at +moments, in private, a triumphant vicious feeling of mastery and ease, a +sense of carrying their silly guilty secrets in her pocket, her small +retentive brain, and thereby knowing so much more about them than they +suspected or would care to think. There were those she would have liked +to betray, to trip up, to bring down with words altered and fatal; and +all through a personal hostility provoked by the lightest signs, by their +accidents of tone and manner, by the particular kind of relation she +always happened instantly to feel. + +There were impulses of various kinds, alternately soft and severe, to +which she was constitutionally accessible and which were determined by +the smallest accidents. She was rigid in general on the article of +making the public itself affix its stamps, and found a special enjoyment +in dealing to that end with some of the ladies who were too grand to +touch them. She had thus a play of refinement and subtlety greater, she +flattered herself, than any of which she could be made the subject; and +though most people were too stupid to be conscious of this it brought her +endless small consolations and revenges. She recognised quite as much +those of her sex whom she would have liked to help, to warn, to rescue, +to see more of; and that alternative as well operated exactly through the +hazard of personal sympathy, her vision for silver threads and moonbeams +and her gift for keeping the clues and finding her way in the tangle. The +moonbeams and silver threads presented at moments all the vision of what +poor _she_ might have made of happiness. Blurred and blank as the whole +thing often inevitably, or mercifully, became, she could still, through +crevices and crannies, be stupefied, especially by what, in spite of all +seasoning, touched the sorest place in her consciousness, the revelation +of the golden shower flying about without a gleam of gold for herself. It +remained prodigious to the end, the money her fine friends were able to +spend to get still more, or even to complain to fine friends of their own +that they were in want. The pleasures they proposed were equalled only +by those they declined, and they made their appointments often so +expensively that she was left wondering at the nature of the delights to +which the mere approaches were so paved with shillings. She quivered on +occasion into the perception of this and that one whom she would on the +chance have just simply liked to _be_. Her conceit, her baffled vanity, +was possibly monstrous; she certainly often threw herself into a defiant +conviction that she would have done the whole thing much better. But her +greatest comfort, mostly, was her comparative vision of the men; by whom +I mean the unmistakeable gentlemen, for she had no interest in the +spurious or the shabby and no mercy at all for the poor. She could have +found a sixpence, outside, for an appearance of want; but her fancy, in +some directions so alert, had never a throb of response for any sign of +the sordid. The men she did track, moreover, she tracked mainly in one +relation, the relation as to which the cage convinced her, she believed, +more than anything else could have done, that it was quite the most +diffused. + +She found her ladies, in short, almost always in communication with her +gentlemen, and her gentlemen with her ladies, and she read into the +immensity of their intercourse stories and meanings without end. +Incontestably she grew to think that the men cut the best figure; and in +this particular, as in many others, she arrived at a philosophy of her +own, all made up of her private notations and cynicisms. It was a +striking part of the business, for example, that it was much more the +women, on the whole, who were after the men than the men who were after +the women: it was literally visible that the general attitude of the one +sex was that of the object pursued and defensive, apologetic and +attenuating, while the light of her own nature helped her more or less to +conclude as to the attitude of the other. Perhaps she herself a little +even fell into the custom of pursuit in occasionally deviating only for +gentlemen from her high rigour about the stamps. She had early in the +day made up her mind, in fine, that they had the best manners; and if +there were none of them she noticed when Captain Everard was there, there +were plenty she could place and trace and name at other times, plenty +who, with their way of being "nice" to her, and of handling, as if their +pockets were private tills loose mixed masses of silver and gold, were +such pleasant appearances that she could envy them without dislike. +_They_ never had to give change--they only had to get it. They ranged +through every suggestion, every shade of fortune, which evidently +included indeed lots of bad luck as well as of good, declining even +toward Mr. Mudge and his bland firm thrift, and ascending, in wild +signals and rocket-flights, almost to within hail of her highest +standard. So from month to month she went on with them all, through a +thousand ups and downs and a thousand pangs and indifferences. What +virtually happened was that in the shuffling herd that passed before her +by far the greater part only passed--a proportion but just appreciable +stayed. Most of the elements swam straight away, lost themselves in the +bottomless common, and by so doing really kept the page clear. On the +clearness therefore what she did retain stood sharply out; she nipped and +caught it, turned it over and interwove it. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +She met Mrs. Jordan when she could, and learned from her more and more +how the great people, under her gentle shake and after going through +everything with the mere shops, were waking up to the gain of putting +into the hands of a person of real refinement the question that the shop- +people spoke of so vulgarly as that of the floral decorations. The +regular dealers in these decorations were all very well; but there was a +peculiar magic in the play of taste of a lady who had only to remember, +through whatever intervening dusk, all her own little tables, little +bowls and little jars and little other arrangements, and the wonderful +thing she had made of the garden of the vicarage. This small domain, +which her young friend had never seen, bloomed in Mrs. Jordan's discourse +like a new Eden, and she converted the past into a bank of violets by the +tone in which she said "Of course you always knew my one passion!" She +obviously met now, at any rate, a big contemporary need, measured what it +was rapidly becoming for people to feel they could trust her without a +tremor. It brought them a peace that--during the quarter of an hour +before dinner in especial--was worth more to them than mere payment could +express. Mere payment, none the less, was tolerably prompt; she engaged +by the month, taking over the whole thing; and there was an evening on +which, in respect to our heroine, she at last returned to the charge. +"It's growing and growing, and I see that I must really divide the work. +One wants an associate--of one's own kind, don't you know? You know the +look they want it all to have?--of having come, not from a florist, but +from one of themselves. Well, I'm sure _you_ could give it--because you +_are_ one. Then we _should_ win. Therefore just come in with me." + +"And leave the P.O.?" + +"Let the P.O. simply bring you your letters. It would bring you lots, +you'd see: orders, after a bit, by the score." It was on this, in due +course, that the great advantage again came up: "One seems to live again +with one's own people." It had taken some little time (after their +having parted company in the tempest of their troubles and then, in the +glimmering dawn, finally sighted each other again) for each to admit that +the other was, in her private circle, her only equal, but the admission +came, when it did come, with an honest groan; and since equality was +named, each found much personal profit in exaggerating the other's +original grandeur. Mrs. Jordan was ten years the older, but her young +friend was struck with the smaller difference this now made: it had +counted otherwise at the time when, much more as a friend of her +mother's, the bereaved lady, without a penny of provision and with +stopgaps, like their own, all gone, had, across the sordid landing on +which the opposite doors of the pair of scared miseries opened and to +which they were bewilderedly bolted, borrowed coals and umbrellas that +were repaid in potatoes and postage-stamps. It had been a questionable +help, at that time, to ladies submerged, floundering, panting, swimming +for their lives, that they were ladies; but such an advantage could come +up again in proportion as others vanished, and it had grown very great by +the time it was the only ghost of one they possessed. They had literally +watched it take to itself a portion of the substance of each that had +departed; and it became prodigious now, when they could talk of it +together, when they could look back at it across a desert of accepted +derogation, and when, above all, they could together work up a credulity +about it that neither could otherwise work up. Nothing was really so +marked as that they felt the need to cultivate this legend much more +after having found their feet and stayed their stomachs in the ultimate +obscure than they had done in the upper air of mere frequent shocks. The +thing they could now oftenest say to each other was that they knew what +they meant; and the sentiment with which, all round, they knew it was +known had well-nigh amounted to a promise not again to fall apart. + +Mrs. Jordan was at present fairly dazzling on the subject of the way +that, in the practice of her fairy art, as she called it, she more than +peeped in--she penetrated. There was not a house of the great kind--and +it was of course only a question of those, real homes of luxury--in which +she was not, at the rate such people now had things, all over the place. +The girl felt before the picture the cold breath of disinheritance as +much as she had ever felt it in the cage; she knew moreover how much she +betrayed this, for the experience of poverty had begun, in her life, too +early, and her ignorance of the requirements of homes of luxury had +grown, with other active knowledge, a depth of simplification. She had +accordingly at first often found that in these colloquies she could only +pretend she understood. Educated as she had rapidly been by her chances +at Cocker's, there were still strange gaps in her learning--she could +never, like Mrs. Jordan, have found her way about one of the "homes." +Little by little, however, she had caught on, above all in the light of +what Mrs. Jordan's redemption had materially made of that lady, giving +her, though the years and the struggles had naturally not straightened a +feature, an almost super-eminent air. There were women in and out of +Cocker's who were quite nice and who yet didn't look well; whereas Mrs. +Jordan looked well and yet, with her extraordinarily protrusive teeth, +was by no means quite nice. It would seem, mystifyingly, that it might +really come from all the greatness she could live with. It was fine to +hear her talk so often of dinners of twenty and of her doing, as she +said, exactly as she liked with them. She spoke as if, for that matter, +she invited the company. "They simply give me the table--all the rest, +all the other effects, come afterwards." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +"Then you _do_ see them?" the girl again asked. + +Mrs. Jordan hesitated, and indeed the point had been ambiguous before. +"Do you mean the guests?" + +Her young friend, cautious about an undue exposure of innocence, was not +quite sure. "Well--the people who live there." + +"Lady Ventnor? Mrs. Bubb? Lord Rye? Dear, yes. Why they _like_ one." + +"But does one personally _know_ them?" our young lady went on, since that +was the way to speak. "I mean socially, don't you know?--as you know +_me_." + +"They're not so nice as you!" Mrs. Jordan charmingly cried. "But I +_shall_ see more and more of them." + +Ah this was the old story. "But how soon?" + +"Why almost any day. Of course," Mrs. Jordan honestly added, "they're +nearly always out." + +"Then why do they want flowers all over?" + +"Oh that doesn't make any difference." Mrs. Jordan was not philosophic; +she was just evidently determined it _shouldn't_ make any. "They're +awfully interested in my ideas, and it's inevitable they should meet me +over them." + +Her interlocutress was sturdy enough. "What do you call your ideas?" + +Mrs. Jordan's reply was fine. "If you were to see me some day with a +thousand tulips you'd discover." + +"A thousand?"--the girl gaped at such a revelation of the scale of it; +she felt for the instant fairly planted out. "Well, but if in fact they +never do meet you?" she none the less pessimistically insisted. + +"Never? They _often_ do--and evidently quite on purpose. We have grand +long talks." + +There was something in our young lady that could still stay her from +asking for a personal description of these apparitions; that showed too +starved a state. But while she considered she took in afresh the whole +of the clergyman's widow. Mrs. Jordan couldn't help her teeth, and her +sleeves were a distinct rise in the world. A thousand tulips at a +shilling clearly took one further than a thousand words at a penny; and +the betrothed of Mr. Mudge, in whom the sense of the race for life was +always acute, found herself wondering, with a twinge of her easy +jealousy, if it mightn't after all then, for _her_ also, be better--better +than where she was--to follow some such scent. Where she was was where +Mr. Buckton's elbow could freely enter her right side and the counter- +clerk's breathing--he had something the matter with his nose--pervade her +left ear. It was something to fill an office under Government, and she +knew but too well there were places commoner still than Cocker's; but it +needed no great range of taste to bring home to her the picture of +servitude and promiscuity she couldn't but offer to the eye of +comparative freedom. She was so boxed up with her young men, and +anything like a margin so absent, that it needed more art than she should +ever possess to pretend in the least to compass, with any one in the +nature of an acquaintance--say with Mrs. Jordan herself, flying in, as it +might happen, to wire sympathetically to Mrs. Bubb--an approach to a +relation of elegant privacy. She remembered the day when Mrs. Jordan +_had_, in fact, by the greatest chance, come in with fifty-three words +for Lord Rye and a five-pound note to change. This had been the dramatic +manner of their reunion--their mutual recognition was so great an event. +The girl could at first only see her from the waist up, besides making +but little of her long telegram to his lordship. It was a strange +whirligig that had converted the clergyman's widow into such a specimen +of the class that went beyond the sixpence. + +Nothing of the occasion, all the more, had ever become dim; least of all +the way that, as her recovered friend looked up from counting, Mrs. +Jordan had just blown, in explanation, through her teeth and through the +bars of the cage: "I _do_ flowers, you know." Our young woman had +always, with her little finger crooked out, a pretty movement for +counting; and she had not forgotten the small secret advantage, a +sharpness of triumph it might even have been called, that fell upon her +at this moment and avenged her for the incoherence of the message, an +unintelligible enumeration of numbers, colours, days, hours. The +correspondence of people she didn't know was one thing; but the +correspondence of people she did had an aspect of its own for her even +when she couldn't understand it. The speech in which Mrs. Jordan had +defined a position and announced a profession was like a tinkle of +bluebells; but for herself her one idea about flowers was that people had +them at funerals, and her present sole gleam of light was that lords +probably had them most. When she watched, a minute later, through the +cage, the swing of her visitor's departing petticoats, she saw the sight +from the waist down; and when the counter-clerk, after a mere male +glance, remarked, with an intention unmistakeably low, "Handsome woman!" +she had for him the finest of her chills: "She's the widow of a bishop." +She always felt, with the counter-clerk, that it was impossible +sufficiently to put it on; for what she wished to express to him was the +maximum of her contempt, and that element in her nature was confusedly +stored. "A bishop" was putting it on, but the counter-clerk's approaches +were vile. The night, after this, when, in the fulness of time, Mrs. +Jordan mentioned the grand long talks, the girl at last brought out: +"Should _I_ see them?--I mean if I _were_ to give up everything for you." + +Mrs. Jordan at this became most arch. "I'd send you to all the +bachelors!" + +Our young lady could be reminded by such a remark that she usually struck +her friend as pretty. "Do _they_ have their flowers?" + +"Oceans. And they're the most particular." Oh it was a wonderful world. +"You should see Lord Rye's." + +"His flowers?" + +"Yes, and his letters. He writes me pages on pages--with the most +adorable little drawings and plans. You should see his diagrams!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The girl had in course of time every opportunity to inspect these +documents, and they a little disappointed her; but in the mean while +there had been more talk, and it had led to her saying, as if her +friend's guarantee of a life of elegance were not quite definite: "Well, +I see every one at _my_ place." + +"Every one?" + +"Lots of swells. They flock. They live, you know, all round, and the +place is filled with all the smart people, all the fast people, those +whose names are in the papers--mamma has still The Morning Post--and who +come up for the season." + +Mrs. Jordan took this in with complete intelligence. "Yes, and I dare +say it's some of your people that _I_ do." + +Her companion assented, but discriminated. "I doubt if you 'do' them as +much as I! Their affairs, their appointments and arrangements, their +little games and secrets and vices--those things all pass before me." + +This was a picture that could make a clergyman's widow not imperceptibly +gasp; it was in intention moreover something of a retort to the thousand +tulips. "Their vices? Have they got vices?" + +Our young critic even more overtly stared then with a touch of contempt +in her amusement: "Haven't you found _that_ out?" The homes of luxury +then hadn't so much to give. "_I_ find out everything." + +Mrs. Jordan, at bottom a very meek person, was visibly struck. "I see. +You do 'have' them." + +"Oh I don't care! Much good it does me!" + +Mrs. Jordan after an instant recovered her superiority. "No--it doesn't +lead to much." Her own initiations so clearly did. Still--after all; +and she was not jealous: "There must be a charm." + +"In seeing them?" At this the girl suddenly let herself go. "I hate +them. There's that charm!" + +Mrs. Jordan gaped again. "The _real_ 'smarts'?" + +"Is that what you call Mrs. Bubb? Yes--it comes to me; I've had Mrs. +Bubb. I don't think she has been in herself, but there are things her +maid has brought. Well, my dear!"--and the young person from Cocker's, +recalling these things and summing them up, seemed suddenly to have much +to say. She didn't say it, however; she checked it; she only brought +out: "Her maid, who's horrid--_she_ must have her!" Then she went on +with indifference: "They're _too_ real! They're selfish brutes." + +Mrs. Jordan, turning it over, adopted at last the plan of treating it +with a smile. She wished to be liberal. "Well, of course, they do lay +it out." + +"They bore me to death," her companion pursued with slightly more +temperance. + +But this was going too far. "Ah that's because you've no sympathy!" + +The girl gave an ironic laugh, only retorting that nobody could have any +who had to count all day all the words in the dictionary; a contention +Mrs. Jordan quite granted, the more that she shuddered at the notion of +ever failing of the very gift to which she owed the vogue--the rage she +might call it--that had caught her up. Without sympathy--or without +imagination, for it came back again to that--how should she get, for big +dinners, down the middle and toward the far corners at all? It wasn't +the combinations, which were easily managed: the strain was over the +ineffable simplicities, those that the bachelors above all, and Lord Rye +perhaps most of any, threw off--just blew off like cigarette-puffs--such +sketches of. The betrothed of Mr. Mudge at all events accepted the +explanation, which had the effect, as almost any turn of their talk was +now apt to have, of bringing her round to the terrific question of that +gentleman. She was tormented with the desire to get out of Mrs. Jordan, +on this subject, what she was sure was at the back of Mrs. Jordan's head; +and to get it out of her, queerly enough, if only to vent a certain +irritation at it. She knew that what her friend would already have +risked if she hadn't been timid and tortuous was: "Give him up--yes, give +him up: you'll see that with your sure chances you'll be able to do much +better." + +Our young woman had a sense that if that view could only be put before +her with a particular sniff for poor Mr. Mudge she should hate it as much +as she morally ought. She was conscious of not, as yet, hating it quite +so much as that. But she saw that Mrs. Jordan was conscious of something +too, and that there was a degree of confidence she was waiting little by +little to arrive at. The day came when the girl caught a glimpse of what +was still wanting to make her friend feel strong; which was nothing less +than the prospect of being able to announce the climax of sundry private +dreams. The associate of the aristocracy had personal +calculations--matter for brooding and dreaming, even for peeping out not +quite hopelessly from behind the window-curtains of lonely lodgings. If +she did the flowers for the bachelors, in short, didn't she expect that +to have consequences very different from such an outlook at Cocker's as +she had pronounced wholly desperate? There seemed in very truth +something auspicious in the mixture of bachelors and flowers, though, +when looked hard in the eye, Mrs. Jordan was not quite prepared to say +she had expected a positive proposal from Lord Rye to pop out of it. Our +young woman arrived at last, none the less, at a definite vision of what +was in her mind. This was a vivid foreknowledge that the betrothed of +Mr. Mudge would, unless conciliated in advance by a successful rescue, +almost hate her on the day she should break a particular piece of news. +How could that unfortunate otherwise endure to hear of what, under the +protection of Lady Ventnor, was after all so possible. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Meanwhile, since irritation sometimes relieved her, the betrothed of Mr. +Mudge found herself indebted to that admirer for amounts of it perfectly +proportioned to her fidelity. She always walked with him on Sundays, +usually in the Regent's Park, and quite often, once or twice a month he +took her, in the Strand or thereabouts, to see a piece that was having a +run. The productions he always preferred were the really good +ones--Shakespeare, Thompson or some funny American thing; which, as it +also happened that she hated vulgar plays, gave him ground for what was +almost the fondest of his approaches, the theory that their tastes were, +blissfully, just the same. He was for ever reminding her of that, +rejoicing over it and being affectionate and wise about it. There were +times when she wondered how in the world she could "put up with" him, how +she could put up with any man so smugly unconscious of the immensity of +her difference. It was just for this difference that, if she was to be +liked at all, she wanted to be liked, and if that was not the source of +Mr. Mudge's admiration, she asked herself what on earth _could_ be? She +was not different only at one point, she was different all round; unless +perhaps indeed in being practically human, which her mind just barely +recognised that he also was. She would have made tremendous concessions +in other quarters: there was no limit for instance to those she would +have made to Captain Everard; but what I have named was the most she was +prepared to do for Mr. Mudge. It was because _he_ was different that, in +the oddest way, she liked as well as deplored him; which was after all a +proof that the disparity, should they frankly recognise it, wouldn't +necessarily be fatal. She felt that, oleaginous--too oleaginous--as he +was, he was somehow comparatively primitive: she had once, during the +portion of his time at Cocker's that had overlapped her own, seen him +collar a drunken soldier, a big violent man who, having come in with a +mate to get a postal-order cashed, had made a grab at the money before +his friend could reach it and had so determined, among the hams and +cheeses and the lodgers from Thrupp's, immediate and alarming reprisals, +a scene of scandal and consternation. Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk +had crouched within the cage, but Mr. Mudge had, with a very quiet but +very quick step round the counter, an air of masterful authority she +shouldn't soon forget, triumphantly interposed in the scrimmage, parted +the combatants and shaken the delinquent in his skin. She had been proud +of him at that moment, and had felt that if their affair had not already +been settled the neatness of his execution would have left her without +resistance. + +Their affair had been settled by other things: by the evident sincerity +of his passion and by the sense that his high white apron resembled a +front of many floors. It had gone a great way with her that he would +build up a business to his chin, which he carried quite in the air. This +could only be a question of time; he would have all Piccadilly in the pen +behind his ear. That was a merit in itself for a girl who had known what +she had known. There were hours at which she even found him +good-looking, though, frankly there could be no crown for her effort to +imagine on the part of the tailor or the barber some such treatment of +his appearance as would make him resemble even remotely a man of the +world. His very beauty was the beauty of a grocer, and the finest future +would offer it none too much room consistently to develop. She had +engaged herself in short to the perfection of a type, and almost anything +square and smooth and whole had its weight for a person still conscious +herself of being a mere bruised fragment of wreckage. But it contributed +hugely at present to carry on the two parallel lines of her experience in +the cage and her experience out of it. After keeping quiet for some time +about this opposition she suddenly--one Sunday afternoon on a penny chair +in the Regent's Park--broke, for him, capriciously, bewilderingly, into +an intimation of what it came to. He had naturally pressed more and more +on the point of her again placing herself where he could see her hourly, +and for her to recognise that she had as yet given him no sane reason for +delay he had small need to describe himself as unable to make out what +she was up to. As if, with her absurd bad reasons, she could have begun +to tell him! Sometimes she thought it would be amusing to let him have +them full in the face, for she felt she should die of him unless she once +in a while stupefied him; and sometimes she thought it would be +disgusting and perhaps even fatal. She liked him, however, to think her +silly, for that gave her the margin which at the best she would always +require; and the only difficulty about this was that he hadn't enough +imagination to oblige her. It produced none the less something of the +desired effect--to leave him simply wondering why, over the matter of +their reunion, she didn't yield to his arguments. Then at last, simply +as if by accident and out of mere boredom on a day that was rather flat, +she preposterously produced her own. "Well, wait a bit. Where I am I +still see things." And she talked to him even worse, if possible, than +she had talked to Jordan. + +Little by little, to her own stupefaction, she caught that he was trying +to take it as she meant it and that he was neither astonished nor angry. +Oh the British tradesman--this gave her an idea of his resources! Mr. +Mudge would be angry only with a person who, like the drunken soldier in +the shop, should have an unfavourable effect on business. He seemed +positively to enter, for the time and without the faintest flash of irony +or ripple of laughter, into the whimsical grounds of her enjoyment of +Cocker's custom, and instantly to be casting up whatever it might, as +Mrs. Jordan had said, lead to. What he had in mind was not of course +what Mrs. Jordan had had: it was obviously not a source of speculation +with him that his sweetheart might pick up a husband. She could see +perfectly that this was not for a moment even what he supposed she +herself dreamed of. What she had done was simply to give his sensibility +another push into the dim vast of trade. In that direction it was all +alert, and she had whisked before it the mild fragrance of a "connexion." +That was the most he could see in any account of her keeping in, on +whatever roundabout lines, with the gentry; and when, getting to the +bottom of this, she quickly proceeded to show him the kind of eye she +turned on such people and to give him a sketch of what that eye +discovered, she reduced him to the particular prostration in which he +could still be amusing to her. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +"They're the most awful wretches, I assure you--the lot all about there." + +"Then why do you want to stay among them?" + +"My dear man, just because they _are_. It makes me hate them so." + +"Hate them? I thought you liked them." + +"Don't be stupid. What I 'like' is just to loathe them. You wouldn't +believe what passes before my eyes." + +"Then why have you never told me? You didn't mention anything before I +left." + +"Oh I hadn't got round to it then. It's the sort of thing you don't +believe at first; you have to look round you a bit and then you +understand. You work into it more and more. Besides," the girl went on, +"this is the time of the year when the worst lot come up. They're simply +packed together in those smart streets. Talk of the numbers of the poor! +What _I_ can vouch for is the numbers of the rich! There are new ones +every day, and they seem to get richer and richer. Oh, they do come up!" +she cried, imitating for her private recreation--she was sure it wouldn't +reach Mr. Mudge--the low intonation of the counter-clerk. + +"And where do they come from?" her companion candidly enquired. + +She had to think a moment; then she found something. "From the 'spring +meetings.' They bet tremendously." + +"Well, they bet enough at Chalk Farm, if that's all." + +"It _isn't_ all. It isn't a millionth part!" she replied with some +sharpness. "It's immense fun"--she _had_ to tantalise him. Then as she +had heard Mrs. Jordan say, and as the ladies at Cocker's even sometimes +wired, "It's quite too dreadful!" She could fully feel how it was Mr. +Mudge's propriety, which was extreme--he had a horror of coarseness and +attended a Wesleyan chapel--that prevented his asking for details. But +she gave him some of the more innocuous in spite of himself, especially +putting before him how, at Simpkin's and Ladle's, they all made the money +fly. That was indeed what he liked to hear: the connexion was not +direct, but one was somehow more in the right place where the money was +flying than where it was simply and meagrely nesting. The air felt that +stir, he had to acknowledge, much less at Chalk Farm than in the district +in which his beloved so oddly enjoyed her footing. She gave him, she +could see, a restless sense that these might be familiarities not to be +sacrificed; germs, possibilities, faint foreshowings--heaven knew what--of +the initiation it would prove profitable to have arrived at when in the +fulness of time he should have his own shop in some such paradise. What +really touched him--that was discernible--was that she could feed him +with so much mere vividness of reminder, keep before him, as by the play +of a fan, the very wind of the swift bank-notes and the charm of the +existence of a class that Providence had raised up to be the blessing of +grocers. He liked to think that the class was there, that it was always +there, and that she contributed in her slight but appreciable degree to +keep it up to the mark. He couldn't have formulated his theory of the +matter, but the exuberance of the aristocracy was the advantage of trade, +and everything was knit together in a richness of pattern that it was +good to follow with one's finger-tips. It was a comfort to him to be +thus assured that there were no symptoms of a drop. What did the +sounder, as she called it, nimbly worked, do but keep the ball going? + +What it came to therefore for Mr. Mudge was that all enjoyments were, as +might be said, inter-related, and that the more people had the more they +wanted to have. The more flirtations, as he might roughly express it, +the more cheese and pickles. He had even in his own small way been dimly +struck with the linked sweetness connecting the tender passion with cheap +champagne, or perhaps the other way round. What he would have liked to +say had he been able to work out his thought to the end was: "I see, I +see. Lash them up then, lead them on, keep them going: some of it can't +help, some time, coming _our_ way." Yet he was troubled by the suspicion +of subtleties on his companion's part that spoiled the straight view. He +couldn't understand people's hating what they liked or liking what they +hated; above all it hurt him somewhere--for he had his private +delicacies--to see anything _but_ money made out of his betters. To be +too enquiring, or in any other way too free, at the expense of the gentry +was vaguely wrong; the only thing that was distinctly right was to be +prosperous at any price. Wasn't it just because they were up there aloft +that they were lucrative? He concluded at any rate by saying to his +young friend: "If it's improper for you to remain at Cocker's, then that +falls in exactly with the other reasons I've put before you for your +removal." + +"Improper?"--her smile became a prolonged boldness. "My dear boy, +there's no one like you!" + +"I dare say," he laughed; "but that doesn't help the question." + +"Well," she returned, "I can't give up my friends. I'm making even more +than Mrs. Jordan." + +Mr. Mudge considered. "How much is _she_ making?" + +"Oh you dear donkey!"--and, regardless of all the Regent's Park, she +patted his cheek. This was the sort of moment at which she was +absolutely tempted to tell him that she liked to be near Park Chambers. +There was a fascination in the idea of seeing if, on a mention of Captain +Everard, he wouldn't do what she thought he might; wouldn't weigh against +the obvious objection the still more obvious advantage. The advantage of +course could only strike him at the best as rather fantastic; but it was +always to the good to keep hold when you _had_ hold, and such an attitude +would also after all involve a high tribute to her fidelity. Of one +thing she absolutely never doubted: Mr. Mudge believed in her with a +belief--! She believed in herself too, for that matter: if there was a +thing in the world no one could charge her with it was being the kind of +low barmaid person who rinsed tumblers and bandied slang. But she +forbore as yet to speak; she had not spoken even to Mrs. Jordan; and the +hush that on her lips surrounded the Captain's name maintained itself as +a kind of symbol of the success that, up to this time, had attended +something or other--she couldn't have said what--that she humoured +herself with calling, without words, her relation with him. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +She would have admitted indeed that it consisted of little more than the +fact that his absences, however frequent and however long, always ended +with his turning up again. It was nobody's business in the world but her +own if that fact continued to be enough for her. It was of course not +enough just in itself; what it had taken on to make it so was the +extraordinary possession of the elements of his life that memory and +attention had at last given her. There came a day when this possession +on the girl's part actually seemed to enjoy between them, while their +eyes met, a tacit recognition that was half a joke and half a deep +solemnity. He bade her good morning always now; he often quite raised +his hat to her. He passed a remark when there was time or room, and once +she went so far as to say to him that she hadn't seen him for "ages." +"Ages" was the word she consciously and carefully, though a trifle +tremulously used; "ages" was exactly what she meant. To this he replied +in terms doubtless less anxiously selected, but perhaps on that account +not the less remarkable, "Oh yes, hasn't it been awfully wet?" That was +a specimen of their give and take; it fed her fancy that no form of +intercourse so transcendent and distilled had ever been established on +earth. Everything, so far as they chose to consider it so, might mean +almost anything. The want of margin in the cage, when he peeped through +the bars, wholly ceased to be appreciable. It was a drawback only in +superficial commerce. With Captain Everard she had simply the margin of +the universe. It may be imagined therefore how their unuttered reference +to all she knew about him could in this immensity play at its ease. Every +time he handed in a telegram it was an addition to her knowledge: what +did his constant smile mean to mark if it didn't mean to mark that? He +never came into the place without saying to her in this manner: "Oh yes, +you have me by this time so completely at your mercy that it doesn't in +the least matter what I give you now. You've become a comfort, I assure +you!" + +She had only two torments; the greatest of which was that she couldn't, +not even once or twice, touch with him on some individual fact. She +would have given anything to have been able to allude to one of his +friends by name, to one of his engagements by date, to one of his +difficulties by the solution. She would have given almost as much for +just the right chance--it would have to be tremendously right--to show +him in some sharp sweet way that she had perfectly penetrated the +greatest of these last and now lived with it in a kind of heroism of +sympathy. He was in love with a woman to whom, and to any view of whom, +a lady-telegraphist, and especially one who passed a life among hams and +cheeses, was as the sand on the floor; and what her dreams desired was +the possibility of its somehow coming to him that her own interest in him +could take a pure and noble account of such an infatuation and even of +such an impropriety. As yet, however, she could only rub along with the +hope that an accident, sooner or later, might give her a lift toward +popping out with something that would surprise and perhaps even, some +fine day, assist him. What could people mean moreover--cheaply sarcastic +people--by not feeling all that could be got out of the weather? _She_ +felt it all, and seemed literally to feel it most when she went quite +wrong, speaking of the stuffy days as cold, of the cold ones as stuffy, +and betraying how little she knew, in her cage, of whether it was foul or +fair. It was for that matter always stuffy at Cocker's, and she finally +settled down to the safe proposition that the outside element was +"changeable." Anything seemed true that made him so radiantly assent. + +This indeed is a small specimen of her cultivation of insidious ways of +making things easy for him--ways to which of course she couldn't be at +all sure he did real justice. Real justice was not of this world: she +had had too often to come back to that; yet, strangely, happiness was, +and her traps had to be set for it in a manner to keep them unperceived +by Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk. The most she could hope for apart +from the question, which constantly flickered up and died down, of the +divine chance of his consciously liking her, would be that, without +analysing it, he should arrive at a vague sense that Cocker's was--well, +attractive; easier, smoother, sociably brighter, slightly more +picturesque, in short more propitious in general to his little affairs, +than any other establishment just thereabouts. She was quite aware that +they couldn't be, in so huddled a hole, particularly quick; but she found +her account in the slowness--she certainly could bear it if _he_ could. +The great pang was that just thereabouts post-offices were so awfully +thick. She was always seeing him in imagination in other places and with +other girls. But she would defy any other girl to follow him as she +followed. And though they weren't, for so many reasons, quick at +Cocker's, she could hurry for him when, through an intimation light as +air, she gathered that he was pressed. + +When hurry was, better still, impossible, it was because of the +pleasantest thing of all, the particular element of their contact--she +would have called it their friendship--that consisted of an almost +humorous treatment of the look of some of his words. They would never +perhaps have grown half so intimate if he had not, by the blessing of +heaven, formed some of his letters with a queerness--! It was positive +that the queerness could scarce have been greater if he had practised it +for the very purpose of bringing their heads together over it as far as +was possible to heads on different sides of a wire fence. It had taken +her truly but once or twice to master these tricks, but, at the cost of +striking him perhaps as stupid, she could still challenge them when +circumstances favoured. The great circumstance that favoured was that +she sometimes actually believed he knew she only feigned perplexity. If +he knew it therefore he tolerated it; if he tolerated it he came back; +and if he came back he liked her. This was her seventh heaven; and she +didn't ask much of his liking--she only asked of it to reach the point of +his not going away because of her own. He had at times to be away for +weeks; he had to lead lets life; he had to travel--there were places to +which he was constantly wiring for "rooms": all this she granted him, +forgave him; in fact, in the long run, literally blessed and thanked him +for. If he had to lead his life, that precisely fostered his leading it +so much by telegraph: therefore the benediction was to come in when he +could. That was all she asked--that he shouldn't wholly deprive her. + +Sometimes she almost felt that he couldn't have deprived her even had he +been minded, by reason of the web of revelation that was woven between +them. She quite thrilled herself with thinking what, with such a lot of +material, a bad girl would do. It would be a scene better than many in +her ha'penny novels, this going to him in the dusk of evening at Park +Chambers and letting him at last have it. "I know too much about a +certain person now not to put it to you--excuse my being so lurid--that +it's quite worth your while to buy me off. Come, therefore; buy me!" +There was a point indeed at which such flights had to drop again--the +point of an unreadiness to name, when it came to that, the purchasing +medium. It wouldn't certainly be anything so gross as money, and the +matter accordingly remained rather vague, all the more that _she_ was not +a bad girl. It wasn't for any such reason as might have aggravated a +mere minx that she often hoped he would again bring Cissy. The +difficulty of this, however, was constantly present to her, for the kind +of communion to which Cocker's so richly ministered rested on the fact +that Cissy and he were so often in different places. She knew by this +time all the places--Suchbury, Monkhouse, Whiteroy, Finches--and even how +the parties on these occasions were composed; but her subtlety found ways +to make her knowledge fairly protect and promote their keeping, as she +had heard Mrs. Jordan say, in touch. So, when he actually sometimes +smiled as if he really felt the awkwardness of giving her again one of +the same old addresses, all her being went out in the desire--which her +face must have expressed--that he should recognise her forbearance to +criticise as one of the finest tenderest sacrifices a woman had ever made +for love. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +She was occasionally worried, however this might be, by the impression +that these sacrifices, great as they were, were nothing to those that his +own passion had imposed; if indeed it was not rather the passion of his +confederate, which had caught him up and was whirling him round like a +great steam-wheel. He was at any rate in the strong grip of a dizzy +splendid fate; the wild wind of his life blew him straight before it. +Didn't she catch in his face at times, even through his smile and his +happy habit, the gleam of that pale glare with which a bewildered victim +appeals, as he passes, to some pair of pitying eyes? He perhaps didn't +even himself know how scared he was; but _she_ knew. They were in +danger, they were in danger, Captain Everard and Lady Bradeen: it beat +every novel in the shop. She thought of Mr. Mudge and his safe +sentiment; she thought of herself and blushed even more for her tepid +response to it. It was a comfort to her at such moments to feel that in +another relation--a relation supplying that affinity with her nature that +Mr. Mudge, deluded creature, would never supply--she should have been no +more tepid than her ladyship. Her deepest soundings were on two or three +occasions of finding herself almost sure that, if she dared, her +ladyship's lover would have gathered relief from "speaking" to her. She +literally fancied once or twice that, projected as he was toward his +doom, her own eyes struck him, while the air roared in his ears, as the +one pitying pair in the crowd. But how could he speak to her while she +sat sandwiched there between the counter-clerk and the sounder? + +She had long ago, in her comings and goings made acquaintance with Park +Chambers and reflected as she looked up at their luxurious front that +they of course would supply the ideal setting for the ideal speech. There +was not an object in London that, before the season was over, was more +stamped upon her brain. She went roundabout to pass it, for it was not +on the short way; she passed on the opposite side of the street and +always looked up, though it had taken her a long time to be sure of the +particular set of windows. She had made that out finally by an act of +audacity that at the time had almost stopped her heart-beats and that in +retrospect greatly quickened her blushes. One evening she had lingered +late and watched--watched for some moment when the porter, who was in +uniform and often on the steps, had gone in with a visitor. Then she +followed boldly, on the calculation that he would have taken the visitor +up and that the hall would be free. The hall _was_ free, and the +electric light played over the gilded and lettered board that showed the +names and numbers of the occupants of the different floors. What she +wanted looked straight at her--Captain Everard was on the third. It was +as if, in the immense intimacy of this, they were, for the instant and +the first time, face to face outside the cage. Alas! they were face to +face but a second or two: she was whirled out on the wings of a panic +fear that he might just then be entering or issuing. This fear was +indeed, in her shameless deflexions, never very far from her, and was +mixed in the oddest way with depressions and disappointments. It was +dreadful, as she trembled by, to run the risk of looking to him as if she +basely hung about; and yet it was dreadful to be obliged to pass only at +such moments as put an encounter out of the question. + +At the horrible hour of her first coming to Cocker's he was always--it +was to be hoped--snug in bed; and at the hour of her final departure he +was of course--she had such things all on her fingers'-ends--dressing for +dinner. We may let it pass that if she couldn't bring herself to hover +till he was dressed, this was simply because such a process for such a +person could only be terribly prolonged. When she went in the middle of +the day to her own dinner she had too little time to do anything but go +straight, though it must be added that for a real certainty she would +joyously have omitted the repast. She had made up her mind as to there +being on the whole no decent pretext to justify her flitting casually +past at three o'clock in the morning. That was the hour at which, if the +ha'penny novels were not all wrong, he probably came home for the night. +She was therefore reduced to the vainest figuration of the miraculous +meeting toward which a hundred impossibilities would have to conspire. +But if nothing was more impossible than the fact, nothing was more +intense than the vision. What may not, we can only moralise, take place +in the quickened muffled perception of a young person with an ardent +soul? All our humble friend's native distinction, her refinement of +personal grain, of heredity, of pride, took refuge in this small +throbbing spot; for when she was most conscious of the objection of her +vanity and the pitifulness of her little flutters and manoeuvres, then +the consolation and the redemption were most sure to glow before her in +some just discernible sign. He did like her! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +He never brought Cissy back, but Cissy came one day without him, as fresh +as before from the hands of Marguerite, or only, at the season's end, a +trifle less fresh. She was, however, distinctly less serene. She had +brought nothing with her and looked about with impatience for the forms +and the place to write. The latter convenience, at Cocker's, was obscure +and barely adequate, and her clear voice had the light note of disgust +which her lover's never showed as she responded with a "There?" of +surprise to the gesture made by the counter-clerk in answer to her sharp +question. Our young friend was busy with half a dozen people, but she +had dispatched them in her most businesslike manner by the time her +ladyship flung through the bars this light of re-appearance. Then the +directness with which the girl managed to receive the accompanying +missive was the result of the concentration that had caused her to make +the stamps fly during the few minutes occupied by the production of it. +This concentration, in turn, may be described as the effect of the +apprehension of imminent relief. It was nineteen days, counted and +checked off, since she had seen the object of her homage; and as, had he +been in London, she should, with his habits, have been sure to see him +often, she was now about to learn what other spot his presence might just +then happen to sanctify. For she thought of them, the other spots, as +ecstatically conscious of it, expressively happy in it. + +But, gracious, how handsome was her ladyship, and what an added price it +gave him that the air of intimacy he threw out should have flowed +originally from such a source! The girl looked straight through the cage +at the eyes and lips that must so often have been so near as own--looked +at them with a strange passion that for an instant had the result of +filling out some of the gaps, supplying the missing answers, in his +correspondence. Then as she made out that the features she thus scanned +and associated were totally unaware of it, that they glowed only with the +colour of quite other and not at all guessable thoughts, this directly +added to their splendour, gave the girl the sharpest impression she had +yet received of the uplifted, the unattainable plains of heaven, and yet +at the same time caused her to thrill with a sense of the high company +she did somehow keep. She was with the absent through her ladyship and +with her ladyship through the absent. The only pang--but it didn't +matter--was the proof in the admirable face, in the sightless +preoccupation of its possessor, that the latter hadn't a notion of her. +Her folly had gone to the point of half believing that the other party to +the affair must sometimes mention in Eaton Square the extraordinary +little person at the place from which he so often wired. Yet the +perception of her visitor's blankness actually helped this extraordinary +little person, the next instant, to take refuge in a reflexion that could +be as proud as it liked. "How little she knows, how little she knows!" +the girl cried to herself; for what did that show after all but that +Captain Everard's telegraphic confidant was Captain Everard's charming +secret? Our young friend's perusal of her ladyship's telegram was +literally prolonged by a momentary daze: what swam between her and the +words, making her see them as through rippled shallow sunshot water, was +the great, the perpetual flood of "How much _I_ know--how much _I_ know!" +This produced a delay in her catching that, on the face, these words +didn't give her what she wanted, though she was prompt enough with her +remembrance that her grasp was, half the time, just of what was _not_ on +the face. "Miss Dolman, Parade Lodge, Parade Terrace, Dover. Let him +instantly know right one, Hotel de France, Ostend. Make it seven nine +four nine six one. Wire me alternative Burfield's." + +The girl slowly counted. Then he was at Ostend. This hooked on with so +sharp a click that, not to feel she was as quickly letting it all slip +from her, she had absolutely to hold it a minute longer and to do +something to that end. Thus it was that she did on this occasion what +she never did--threw off a "Reply paid?" that sounded officious, but that +she partly made up for by deliberately affixing the stamps and by waiting +till she had done so to give change. She had, for so much coolness, the +strength that she considered she knew all about Miss Dolman. + +"Yes--paid." She saw all sorts of things in this reply, even to a small +suppressed start of surprise at so correct an assumption; even to an +attempt the next minute at a fresh air of detachment. "How much, with +the answer?" The calculation was not abstruse, but our intense observer +required a moment more to make it, and this gave her ladyship time for a +second thought. "Oh just wait!" The white begemmed hand bared to write +rose in sudden nervousness to the side of the wonderful face which, with +eyes of anxiety for the paper on the counter, she brought closer to the +bars of the cage. "I think I must alter a word!" On this she recovered +her telegram and looked over it again; but she had a new, an obvious +trouble, and studied it without deciding and with much of the effect of +making our young woman watch her. + +This personage, meanwhile, at the sight of her expression, had decided on +the spot. If she had always been sure they were in danger her ladyship's +expression was the best possible sign of it. There was a word wrong, but +she had lost the right one, and much clearly depended on her finding it +again. The girl, therefore, sufficiently estimating the affluence of +customers and the distraction of Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk, took +the jump and gave it. "Isn't it Cooper's?" + +It was as if she had bodily leaped--cleared the top of the cage and +alighted on her interlocutress. "Cooper's?"--the stare was heightened by +a blush. Yes, she had made Juno blush. + +This was all the greater reason for going on. "I mean instead of +Burfield's." + +Our young friend fairly pitied her; she had made her in an instant so +helpless, and yet not a bit haughty nor outraged. She was only mystified +and scared. "Oh, you know--?" + +"Yes, I know!" Our young friend smiled, meeting the other's eyes, and, +having made Juno blush, proceeded to patronise her. "_I'll_ do it"--she +put out a competent hand. Her ladyship only submitted, confused and +bewildered, all presence of mind quite gone; and the next moment the +telegram was in the cage again and its author out of the shop. Then +quickly, boldly, under all the eyes that might have witnessed her +tampering, the extraordinary little person at Cocker's made the proper +change. People were really too giddy, and if they _were_, in a certain +case, to be caught, it shouldn't be the fault of her own grand memory. +Hadn't it been settled weeks before?--for Miss Dolman it was always to be +"Cooper's." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +But the summer "holidays" brought a marked difference; they were holidays +for almost every one but the animals in the cage. The August days were +flat and dry, and, with so little to feed it, she was conscious of the +ebb of her interest in the secrets of the refined. She was in a position +to follow the refined to the extent of knowing--they had made so many of +their arrangements with her aid--exactly where they were; yet she felt +quite as if the panorama had ceased unrolling and the band stopped +playing. A stray member of the latter occasionally turned up, but the +communications that passed before her bore now largely on rooms at +hotels, prices of furnished houses, hours of trains, dates of sailings +and arrangements for being "met"; she found them for the most part +prosaic and coarse. The only thing was that they brought into her stuffy +corner as straight a whiff of Alpine meadows and Scotch moors as she +might hope ever to inhale; there were moreover in especial fat hot dull +ladies who had out with her, to exasperation, the terms for seaside +lodgings, which struck her as huge, and the matter of the number of beds +required, which was not less portentous: this in reference to places of +which the names--Eastbourne, Folkestone, Cromer, Scarborough, +Whitby--tormented her with something of the sound of the plash of water +that haunts the traveller in the desert. She had not been out of London +for a dozen years, and the only thing to give a taste to the present dead +weeks was the spice of a chronic resentment. The sparse customers, the +people she did see, were the people who were "just off"--off on the decks +of fluttered yachts, off to the uttermost point of rocky headlands where +the very breeze was then playing for the want of which she said to +herself that she sickened. + +There was accordingly a sense in which, at such a period, the great +differences of the human condition could press upon her more than ever; a +circumstance drawing fresh force in truth from the very fact of the +chance that at last, for a change, did squarely meet her--the chance to +be "off," for a bit, almost as far as anybody. They took their turns in +the cage as they took them both in the shop and at Chalk Farm; she had +known these two months that time was to be allowed in September--no less +than eleven days--for her personal private holiday. Much of her recent +intercourse with Mr. Mudge had consisted of the hopes and fears, +expressed mainly by himself, involved in the question of their getting +the same dates--a question that, in proportion as the delight seemed +assured, spread into a sea of speculation over the choice of where and +how. All through July, on the Sunday evenings and at such other odd +times as he could seize, he had flooded their talk with wild waves of +calculation. It was practically settled that, with her mother, somewhere +"on the south coast" (a phrase of which she liked the sound) they should +put in their allowance together; but she already felt the prospect quite +weary and worn with the way he went round and round on it. It had become +his sole topic, the theme alike of his most solemn prudences and most +placid jests, to which every opening led for return and revision and in +which every little flower of a foretaste was pulled up as soon as +planted. He had announced at the earliest day--characterising the whole +business, from that moment, as their "plans," under which name he handled +it as a Syndicate handles a Chinese or other Loan--he had promptly +declared that the question must be thoroughly studied, and he produced, +on the whole subject, from day to day, an amount of information that +excited her wonder and even, not a little, as she frankly let him know, +her disdain. When she thought of the danger in which another pair of +lovers rapturously lived she enquired of him anew why he could leave +nothing to chance. Then she got for answer that this profundity was just +his pride, and he pitted Ramsgate against Bournemouth and even Boulogne +against Jersey--for he had great ideas--with all the mastery of detail +that was some day, professionally, to carry him afar. + +The longer the time since she had seen Captain Everard the more she was +booked, as she called it, to pass Park Chambers; and this was the sole +amusement that in the lingering August days and the twilights sadly drawn +out it was left her to cultivate. She had long since learned to know it +for a feeble one, though its feebleness was perhaps scarce the reason for +her saying to herself each evening as her time for departure approached: +"No, no--not to-night." She never failed of that silent remark, any more +than she failed of feeling, in some deeper place than she had even yet +fully sounded, that one's remarks were as weak as straws and that, +however one might indulge in them at eight o'clock, one's fate infallibly +declared itself in absolute indifference to them at about eight-fifteen. +Remarks were remarks, and very well for that; but fate was fate, and this +young lady's was to pass Park Chambers every night in the working week. +Out of the immensity of her knowledge of the life of the world there +bloomed on these occasions as specific remembrance that it was regarded +in that region, in August and September, as rather pleasant just to be +caught for something or other in passing through town. Somebody was +always passing and somebody might catch somebody else. It was in full +cognisance of this subtle law that she adhered to the most ridiculous +circuit she could have made to get home. One warm dull featureless +Friday, when an accident had made her start from Cocker's a little later +than usual, she became aware that something of which the infinite +possibilities had for so long peopled her dreams was at last prodigiously +upon her, though the perfection in which the conditions happened to +present it was almost rich enough to be but the positive creation of a +dream. She saw, straight before her, like a vista painted in a picture, +the empty street and the lamps that burned pale in the dusk not yet +established. It was into the convenience of this quiet twilight that a +gentleman on the doorstep of the Chambers gazed with a vagueness that our +young lady's little figure violently trembled, in the approach, with the +measure of its power to dissipate. Everything indeed grew in a flash +terrific and distinct; her old uncertainties fell away from her, and, +since she was so familiar with fate, she felt as if the very nail that +fixed it were driven in by the hard look with which, for a moment, +Captain Everard awaited her. + +The vestibule was open behind him and the porter as absent as on the day +she had peeped in; he had just come out--was in town, in a tweed suit and +a pot hat, but between two journeys--duly bored over his evening and at a +loss what to do with it. Then it was that she was glad she had never met +him in that way before: she reaped with such ecstasy the benefit of his +not being able to think she passed often. She jumped in two seconds to +the determination that he should even suppose it to be the very first +time and the very oddest chance: this was while she still wondered if he +would identify or notice her. His original attention had not, she +instinctively knew, been for the young woman at Cocker's; it had only +been for any young woman who might advance to the tune of her not +troubling the quiet air, and in fact the poetic hour, with ugliness. Ah +but then, and just as she had reached the door, came his second +observation, a long light reach with which, visibly and quite amusedly, +he recalled and placed her. They were on different sides, but the +street, narrow and still, had only made more of a stage for the small +momentary drama. It was not over, besides, it was far from over, even on +his sending across the way, with the pleasantest laugh she had ever +heard, a little lift of his hat and an "Oh good evening!" It was still +less over on their meeting, the next minute, though rather indirectly and +awkwardly, in the middle, of the road--a situation to which three or four +steps of her own had unmistakeably contributed--and then passing not +again to the side on which she had arrived, but back toward the portal of +Park Chambers. + +"I didn't know you at first. Are you taking a walk?" + +"Ah I don't take walks at night! I'm going home after my work." + +"Oh!" + +That was practically what they had meanwhile smiled out, and his +exclamation to which for a minute he appeared to have nothing to add, +left them face to face and in just such an attitude as, for his part, he +might have worn had he been wondering if he could properly ask her to +come in. During this interval in fact she really felt his question to be +just "_How_ properly--?" It was simply a question of the degree of +properness. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +She never knew afterwards quite what she had done to settle it, and at +the time she only knew that they presently moved, with vagueness, yet +with continuity, away from the picture of the lighted vestibule and the +quiet stairs and well up the street together. This also must have been +in the absence of a definite permission, of anything vulgarly articulate, +for that matter, on the part of either; and it was to be, later on, a +thing of remembrance and reflexion for her that the limit of what just +here for a longish minute passed between them was his taking in her +thoroughly successful deprecation, though conveyed without pride or sound +or touch, of the idea that she might be, out of the cage, the very shop- +girl at large that she hugged the theory she wasn't. Yes, it was +strange, she afterwards thought, that so much could have come and gone +and yet not disfigured the dear little intense crisis either with +impertinence or with resentment, with any of the horrid notes of that +kind of acquaintance. He had taken no liberty, as she would have so +called it; and, through not having to betray the sense of one, she +herself had, still more charmingly, taken none. On the spot, +nevertheless, she could speculate as to what it meant that, if his +relation with Lady Bradeen continued to be what her mind had built it up +to, he should feel free to proceed with marked independence. This was +one of the questions he was to leave her to deal with--the question +whether people of his sort still asked girls up to their rooms when they +were so awfully in love with other women. Could people of his sort do +that without what people of her sort would call being "false to their +love"? She had already a vision of how the true answer was that people +of her sort didn't, in such cases, matter--didn't count as infidelity, +counted only as something else: she might have been curious, since it +came to that, to see exactly what. + +Strolling together slowly in their summer twilight and their empty corner +of Mayfair, they found themselves emerge at last opposite to one of the +smaller gates of the Park; upon which, without any particular word about +it--they were talking so of other things--they crossed the street and +went in and sat down on a bench. She had gathered by this time one +magnificent hope about him--the hope he would say nothing vulgar. She +knew thoroughly what she meant by that; she meant something quite apart +from any matter of his being "false." Their bench was not far within; it +was near the Park Lane paling and the patchy lamplight and the rumbling +cabs and 'buses. A strange emotion had come to her, and she felt indeed +excitement within excitement; above all a conscious joy in testing him +with chances he didn't take. She had an intense desire he should know +the type she really conformed to without her doing anything so low as +tell him, and he had surely begun to know it from the moment he didn't +seize the opportunities into which a common man would promptly have +blundered. These were on the mere awkward surface, and _their_ relation +was beautiful behind and below them. She had questioned so little on the +way what they might be doing that as soon as they were seated she took +straight hold of it. Her hours, her confinement, the many conditions of +service in the post-office, had--with a glance at his own postal +resources and alternatives--formed, up to this stage, the subject of +their talk. "Well, here we are, and it may be right enough; but this +isn't the least, you know, where I was going." + +"You were going home?" + +"Yes, and I was already rather late. I was going to my supper." + +"You haven't had it?" + +"No indeed!" + +"Then you haven't eaten--?" + +He looked of a sudden so extravagantly concerned that she laughed out. +"All day? Yes, we do feed once. But that was long ago. So I must +presently say good-bye." + +"Oh deary _me_!" he exclaimed with an intonation so droll and yet a touch +so light and a distress so marked--a confession of helplessness for such +a case, in short, so unrelieved--that she at once felt sure she had made +the great difference plain. He looked at her with the kindest eyes and +still without saying what she had known he wouldn't. She had known he +wouldn't say "Then sup with _me_!" but the proof of it made her feel as +if she had feasted. + +"I'm not a bit hungry," she went on. + +"Ah you _must_ be, awfully!" he made answer, but settling himself on the +bench as if, after all, that needn't interfere with his spending his +evening. "I've always quite wanted the chance to thank you for the +trouble you so often take for me." + +"Yes, I know," she replied; uttering the words with a sense of the +situation far deeper than any pretence of not fitting his allusion. She +immediately felt him surprised and even a little puzzled at her frank +assent; but for herself the trouble she had taken could only, in these +fleeting minutes--they would probably never come back--be all there like +a little hoard of gold in her lap. Certainly he might look at it, handle +it, take up the pieces. Yet if he understood anything he must understand +all. "I consider you've already immensely thanked me." The horror was +back upon her of having seemed to hang about for some reward. "It's +awfully odd you should have been there just the one time--!" + +"The one time you've passed my place?" + +"Yes; you can fancy I haven't many minutes to waste. There was a place +to-night I had to stop at." + +"I see, I see--" he knew already so much about her work. "It must be an +awful grind--for a lady." + +"It is, but I don't think I groan over it any more than my companions--and +you've seen _they're_ not ladies!" She mildly jested, but with an +intention. "One gets used to things, and there are employments I should +have hated much more." She had the finest conception of the beauty of +not at least boring him. To whine, to count up her wrongs, was what a +barmaid or a shop-girl would do, and it was quite enough to sit there +like one of these. + +"If you had had another employment," he remarked after a moment, "we +might never have become acquainted." + +"It's highly probable--and certainly not in the same way." Then, still +with her heap of gold in her lap and something of the pride of it in her +manner of holding her head, she continued not to move--she only smiled at +him. The evening had thickened now; the scattered lamps were red; the +Park, all before them, was full of obscure and ambiguous life; there were +other couples on other benches whom it was impossible not to see, yet at +whom it was impossible to look. "But I've walked so much out of my way +with you only just to show you that--that"--with this she paused; it was +not after all so easy to express--"that anything you may have thought is +perfectly true." + +"Oh I've thought a tremendous lot!" her companion laughed. "Do you mind +my smoking?" + +"Why should I? You always smoke _there_." + +"At your place? Oh yes, but here it's different." + +"No," she said as he lighted a cigarette, "that's just what it isn't. +It's quite the same." + +"Well, then, that's because 'there' it's so wonderful!" + +"Then you're conscious of how wonderful it is?" she returned. + +He jerked his handsome head in literal protest at a doubt. "Why that's +exactly what I mean by my gratitude for all your trouble. It has been +just as if you took a particular interest." She only looked at him by +way of answer in such sudden headlong embarrassment, as she was quite +aware, that while she remained silent he showed himself checked by her +expression. "You _have_--haven't you?--taken a particular interest?" + +"Oh a particular interest!" she quavered out, feeling the whole thing--her +headlong embarrassment--get terribly the better of her, and wishing, with +a sudden scare, all the more to keep her emotion down. She maintained +her fixed smile a moment and turned her eyes over the peopled darkness, +unconfused now, because there was something much more confusing. This, +with a fatal great rush, was simply the fact that they were thus +together. They were near, near, and all she had imagined of that had +only become more true, more dreadful and overwhelming. She stared +straight away in silence till she felt she looked an idiot; then, to say +something, to say nothing, she attempted a sound which ended in a flood +of tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Her tears helped her really to dissimulate, for she had instantly, in so +public a situation, to recover herself. They had come and gone in half a +minute, and she immediately explained them. "It's only because I'm +tired. It's that--it's that!" Then she added a trifle incoherently: "I +shall never see you again." + +"Ah but why not?" The mere tone in which her companion asked this +satisfied her once for all as to the amount of imagination for which she +could count on him. It was naturally not large: it had exhausted itself +in having arrived at what he had already touched upon--the sense of an +intention in her poor zeal at Cocker's. But any deficiency of this kind +was no fault in him: he wasn't obliged to have an inferior cleverness--to +have second-rate resources and virtues. It had been as if he almost +really believed she had simply cried for fatigue, and he accordingly put +in some kind confused plea--"You ought really to take something: won't +you have something or other _somewhere_?" to which she had made no +response but a headshake of a sharpness that settled it. "Why shan't we +all the more keep meeting?" + +"I mean meeting this way--only this way. At my place there--_that_ I've +nothing to do with, and I hope of course you'll turn up, with your +correspondence, when it suits you. Whether I stay or not, I mean; for I +shall probably not stay." + +"You're going somewhere else?" he put it with positive anxiety. + +"Yes, ever so far away--to the other end of London. There are all sorts +of reasons I can't tell you; and it's practically settled. It's better +for me, much; and I've only kept on at Cocker's for _you_." + +"For me?" + +Making out in the dusk that he fairly blushed, she now measured how far +he had been from knowing too much. Too much, she called it at present; +and that was easy, since it proved so abundantly enough for her that he +should simply be where he was. "As we shall never talk this way but to- +night--never, never again!--here it all is. I'll say it; I don't care +what you think; it doesn't matter; I only want to help you. Besides, +you're kind--you're kind. I've been thinking then of leaving for ever so +long. But you've come so often--at times--and you've had so much to do, +and it has been so pleasant and interesting, that I've remained, I've +kept putting off any change. More than once, when I had nearly decided, +you've turned up again and I've thought 'Oh no!' That's the simple +fact!" She had by this time got her confusion down so completely that +she could laugh. "This is what I meant when I said to you just now that +I 'knew.' I've known perfectly that you knew I took trouble for you; and +that knowledge has been for me, and I seemed to see it was for you, as if +there were something--I don't know what to call it!--between us. I mean +something unusual and good and awfully nice--something not a bit horrid +or vulgar." + +She had by this time, she could see, produced a great effect on him; but +she would have spoken the truth to herself had she at the same moment +declared that she didn't in the least care: all the more that the effect +must be one of extreme perplexity. What, in it all, was visibly clear +for him, none the less, was that he was tremendously glad he had met her. +She held him, and he was astonished at the force of it; he was intent, +immensely considerate. His elbow was on the back of the seat, and his +head, with the pot-hat pushed quite back, in a boyish way, so that she +really saw almost for the first time his forehead and hair, rested on the +hand into which he had crumpled his gloves. "Yes," he assented, "it's +not a bit horrid or vulgar." + +She just hung fire a moment, then she brought out the whole truth. "I'd +do anything for you. I'd do anything for you." Never in her life had +she known anything so high and fine as this, just letting him have it and +bravely and magnificently leaving it. Didn't the place, the associations +and circumstances, perfectly make it sound what it wasn't? and wasn't +that exactly the beauty? + +So she bravely and magnificently left it, and little by little she felt +him take it up, take it down, as if they had been on a satin sofa in a +boudoir. She had never seen a boudoir, but there had been lots of +boudoirs in the telegrams. What she had said at all events sank into +him, so that after a minute he simply made a movement that had the result +of placing his hand on her own--presently indeed that of her feeling +herself firmly enough grasped. There was no pressure she need return, +there was none she need decline; she just sat admirably still, satisfied +for the time with the surprise and bewilderment of the impression she +made on him. His agitation was even greater on the whole than she had at +first allowed for. "I say, you know, you mustn't think of leaving!" he +at last broke out. + +"Of leaving Cocker's, you mean?" + +"Yes, you must stay on there, whatever happens, and help a fellow." + +She was silent a little, partly because it was so strange and exquisite +to feel him watch her as if it really mattered to him and he were almost +in suspense. "Then you _have_ quite recognised what I've tried to do?" +she asked. + +"Why, wasn't that exactly what I dashed over from my door just now to +thank you for?" + +"Yes; so you said." + +"And don't you believe it?" + +She looked down a moment at his hand, which continued to cover her own; +whereupon he presently drew it back, rather restlessly folding his arms. +Without answering his question she went on: "Have you ever spoken of me?" + +"Spoken of you?" + +"Of my being there--of my knowing, and that sort of thing." + +"Oh never to a human creature!" he eagerly declared. + +She had a small drop at this, which was expressed in another pause, and +she then returned to what he had just asked her. "Oh yes, I quite +believe you like it--my always being there and our taking things up so +familiarly and successfully: if not exactly where we left them," she +laughed, "almost always at least at an interesting point!" He was about +to say something in reply to this, but her friendly gaiety was quicker. +"You want a great many things in life, a great many comforts and helps +and luxuries--you want everything as pleasant as possible. Therefore, so +far as it's in the power of any particular person to contribute to all +that--" She had turned her face to him smiling, just thinking. + +"Oh see here!" But he was highly amused. "Well, what then?" he enquired +as if to humour her. + +"Why the particular person must never fail. We must manage it for you +somehow." + +He threw back his head, laughing out; he was really exhilarated. "Oh +yes, somehow!" + +"Well, I think we each do--don't we?--in one little way and another and +according to our limited lights. I'm pleased at any rate, for myself, +that you are; for I assure you I've done my best." + +"You do better than any one!" He had struck a match for another +cigarette, and the flame lighted an instant his responsive finished face, +magnifying into a pleasant grimace the kindness with which he paid her +this tribute. "You're awfully clever, you know; cleverer, cleverer, +cleverer--!" He had appeared on the point of making some tremendous +statement; then suddenly, puffing his cigarette and shifting almost with +violence on his seat, he let it altogether fall. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +In spite of this drop, if not just by reason of it, she felt as if Lady +Bradeen, all but named out, had popped straight up; and she practically +betrayed her consciousness by waiting a little before she rejoined: +"Cleverer than who?" + +"Well, if I wasn't afraid you'd think I swagger, I should say--than +anybody! If you leave your place there, where shall you go?" he more +gravely asked. + +"Oh too far for you ever to find me!" + +"I'd find you anywhere." + +The tone of this was so still more serious that she had but her one +acknowledgement. "I'd do anything for you--I'd do anything for you," she +repeated. She had already, she felt, said it all; so what did anything +more, anything less, matter? That was the very reason indeed why she +could, with a lighter note, ease him generously of any awkwardness +produced by solemnity, either his own or hers. "Of course it must be +nice for you to be able to think there are people all about who feel in +such a way." + +In immediate appreciation of this, however, he only smoked without +looking at her. "But you don't want to give up your present work?" he at +last threw out. "I mean you _will_ stay in the post-office?" + +"Oh yes; I think I've a genius for that." + +"Rather! No one can touch you." With this he turned more to her again. +"But you can get, with a move, greater advantages?" + +"I can get in the suburbs cheaper lodgings. I live with my mother. We +need some space. There's a particular place that has other inducements." + +He just hesitated. "Where is it?" + +"Oh quite out of _your_ way. You'd never have time." + +"But I tell you I'd go anywhere. Don't you believe it?" + +"Yes, for once or twice. But you'd soon see it wouldn't do for you." + +He smoked and considered; seemed to stretch himself a little and, with +his legs out, surrender himself comfortably. "Well, well, well--I +believe everything you say. I take it from you--anything you like--in +the most extraordinary way." It struck her certainly--and almost without +bitterness--that the way in which she was already, as if she had been an +old friend, arranging for him and preparing the only magnificence she +could muster, was quite the most extraordinary. "Don't, _don't_ go!" he +presently went on. "I shall miss you too horribly!" + +"So that you just put it to me as a definite request?"--oh how she tried +to divest this of all sound of the hardness of bargaining! That ought to +have been easy enough, for what was she arranging to get? Before he +could answer she had continued: "To be perfectly fair I should tell you I +recognise at Cocker's certain strong attractions. All you people come. I +like all the horrors." + +"The horrors?" + +"Those you all--you know the set I mean, _your_ set--show me with as good +a conscience as if I had no more feeling than a letter-box." + +He looked quite excited at the way she put it. "Oh they don't know!" + +"Don't know I'm not stupid? No, how should they?" + +"Yes, how should they?" said the Captain sympathetically. "But isn't +'horrors' rather strong?" + +"What you _do_ is rather strong!" the girl promptly returned. + +"What _I_ do?" + +"Your extravagance, your selfishness, your immorality, your crimes," she +pursued, without heeding his expression. + +"I _say_!"--her companion showed the queerest stare. + +"I like them, as I tell you--I revel in them. But we needn't go into +that," she quietly went on; "for all I get out of it is the harmless +pleasure of knowing. I know, I know, I know!"--she breathed it ever so +gently. + +"Yes; that's what has been between us," he answered much more simply. + +She could enjoy his simplicity in silence, and for a moment she did so. +"If I do stay because you want it--and I'm rather capable of that--there +are two or three things I think you ought to remember. One is, you know, +that I'm there sometimes for days and weeks together without your ever +coming." + +"Oh I'll come every day!" he honestly cried. + +She was on the point, at this, of imitating with her hand his movement of +shortly before; but she checked herself, and there was no want of effect +in her soothing substitute. "How can you? How can you?" He had, too +manifestly, only to look at it there, in the vulgarly animated gloom, to +see that he couldn't; and at this point, by the mere action of his +silence, everything they had so definitely not named, the whole presence +round which they had been circling, became part of their reference, +settled in solidly between them. It was as if then for a minute they sat +and saw it all in each other's eyes, saw so much that there was no need +of a pretext for sounding it at last. "Your danger, your danger--!" Her +voice indeed trembled with it, and she could only for the moment again +leave it so. + +During this moment he leaned back on the bench, meeting her in silence +and with a face that grew more strange. It grew so strange that after a +further instant she got straight up. She stood there as if their talk +were now over, and he just sat and watched her. It was as if now--owing +to the third person they had brought in--they must be more careful; so +that the most he could finally say was: "That's where it is!" + +"That's where it is!" the girl as guardedly replied. He sat still, and +she added: "I won't give you up. Good-bye." + +"Good-bye?"--he appealed, but without moving. + +"I don't quite see my way, but I won't give you up," she repeated. +"There. Good-bye." + +It brought him with a jerk to his feet, tossing away his cigarette. His +poor face was flushed. "See here--see here!" + +"No, I won't; but I must leave you now," she went on as if not hearing +him. + +"See here--see here!" He tried, from the bench, to take her hand again. + +But that definitely settled it for her: this would, after all, be as bad +as his asking her to supper. "You mustn't come with me--no, no!" + +He sank back, quite blank, as if she had pushed him. "I mayn't see you +home?" + +"No, no; let me go." He looked almost as if she had struck him, but she +didn't care; and the manner in which she spoke--it was literally as if +she were angry--had the force of a command. "Stay where you are!" + +"See here--see here!" he nevertheless pleaded. + +"I won't give you up!" she cried once more--this time quite with passion; +on which she got away from him as fast as she could and left him staring +after her. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Mr. Mudge had lately been so occupied with their famous "plans" that he +had neglected for a while the question of her transfer; but down at +Bournemouth, which had found itself selected as the field of their +recreation by a process consisting, it seemed, exclusively of innumerable +pages of the neatest arithmetic in a very greasy but most orderly little +pocket-book, the distracting possible melted away--the fleeting absolute +ruled the scene. The plans, hour by hour, were simply superseded, and it +was much of a rest to the girl, as she sat on the pier and overlooked the +sea and the company, to see them evaporate in rosy fumes and to feel that +from moment to moment there was less left to cipher about. The week +proves blissfully fine, and her mother, at their lodgings--partly to her +embarrassment and partly to her relief--struck up with the landlady an +alliance that left the younger couple a great deal of freedom. This +relative took her pleasure of a week at Bournemouth in a stuffy +back-kitchen and endless talks; to that degree even that Mr. Mudge +himself--habitually inclined indeed to a scrutiny of all mysteries and to +seeing, as he sometimes admitted, too much in things--made remarks on it +as he sat on the cliff with his betrothed, or on the decks of steamers +that conveyed them, close-packed items in terrific totals of enjoyment, +to the Isle of Wight and the Dorset coast. + +He had a lodging in another house, where he had speedily learned the +importance of keeping his eyes open, and he made no secret of his +suspecting that sinister mutual connivances might spring, under the roof +of his companions, from unnatural sociabilities. At the same time he +fully recognised that as a source of anxiety, not to say of expense, his +future mother-in law would have weighted them more by accompanying their +steps than by giving her hostess, in the interest of the tendency they +considered that they never mentioned, equivalent pledges as to the tea- +caddy and the jam-pot. These were the questions--these indeed the +familiar commodities--that he had now to put into the scales; and his +betrothed had in consequence, during her holiday, the odd and yet +pleasant and almost languid sense of an anticlimax. She had become +conscious of an extraordinary collapse, a surrender to stillness and to +retrospect. She cared neither to walk nor to sail; it was enough for her +to sit on benches and wonder at the sea and taste the air and not be at +Cocker's and not see the counter-clerk. She still seemed to wait for +something--something in the key of the immense discussions that had +mapped out their little week of idleness on the scale of a world-atlas. +Something came at last, but without perhaps appearing quite adequately to +crown the monument. + +Preparation and precaution were, however, the natural flowers of Mr. +Mudge's mind, and in proportion as these things declined in one quarter +they inevitably bloomed elsewhere. He could always, at the worst, have +on Tuesday the project of their taking the Swanage boat on Thursday, and +on Thursday that of their ordering minced kidneys on Saturday. He had +moreover a constant gift of inexorable enquiry as to where and what they +should have gone and have done if they hadn't been exactly as they were. +He had in short his resources, and his mistress had never been so +conscious of them; on the other hand they never interfered so little with +her own. She liked to be as she was--if it could only have lasted. She +could accept even without bitterness a rigour of economy so great that +the little fee they paid for admission to the pier had to be balanced +against other delights. The people at Ladle's and at Thrupp's had +_their_ ways of amusing themselves, whereas she had to sit and hear Mr. +Mudge talk of what he might do if he didn't take a bath, or of the bath +he might take if he only hadn't taken something else. He was always with +her now, of course, always beside her; she saw him more than "hourly," +more than ever yet, more even than he had planned she should do at Chalk +Farm. She preferred to sit at the far end, away from the band and the +crowd; as to which she had frequent differences with her friend, who +reminded her often that they could have only in the thick of it the sense +of the money they were getting back. That had little effect on her, for +she got back her money by seeing many things, the things of the past +year, fall together and connect themselves, undergo the happy relegation +that transforms melancholy and misery, passion and effort, into +experience and knowledge. + +She liked having done with them, as she assured herself she had +practically done, and the strange thing was that she neither missed the +procession now nor wished to keep her place for it. It had become there, +in the sun and the breeze and the sea-smell, a far-away story, a picture +of another life. If Mr. Mudge himself liked processions, liked them at +Bournemouth and on the pier quite as much as at Chalk Farm or anywhere, +she learned after a little not to be worried by his perpetual counting of +the figures that made them up. There were dreadful women in particular, +usually fat and in men's caps and write shoes, whom he could never let +alone--not that she cared; it was not the great world, the world of +Cocker's and Ladle's and Thrupp's, but it offered an endless field to his +faculties of memory, philosophy, and frolic. She had never accepted him +so much, never arranged so successfully for making him chatter while she +carried on secret conversations. This separate commerce was with +herself; and if they both practised a great thrift she had quite mastered +that of merely spending words enough to keep him imperturbably and +continuously going. + +He was charmed with the panorama, not knowing--or at any rate not at all +showing that he knew--what far other images peopled her mind than the +women in the navy caps and the shop-boys in the blazers. His +observations on these types, his general interpretation of the show, +brought home to her the prospect of Chalk Farm. She wondered sometimes +that he should have derived so little illumination, during his period, +from the society at Cocker's. But one evening while their holiday +cloudlessly waned he gave her such a proof of his quality as might have +made her ashamed of her many suppressions. He brought out something +that, in all his overflow, he had been able to keep back till other +matters were disposed of. It was the announcement that he was at last +ready to marry--that he saw his way. A rise at Chalk Farm had been +offered him; he was to be taken into the business, bringing with him a +capital the estimation of which by other parties constituted the +handsomest recognition yet made of the head on his shoulders. Therefore +their waiting was over--it could be a question of a near date. They +would settle this date before going back, and he meanwhile had his eye on +a sweet little home. He would take her to see it on their first Sunday. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +His having kept this great news for the last, having had such a card up +his sleeve and not floated it out in the current of his chatter and the +luxury of their leisure, was one of those incalculable strokes by which +he could still affect her; the kind of thing that reminded her of the +latent force that had ejected the drunken soldier--an example of the +profundity of which his promotion was the proof. She listened a while in +silence, on this occasion, to the wafted strains of the music; she took +it in as she had not quite done before that her future was now +constituted. Mr. Mudge was distinctly her fate; yet at this moment she +turned her face quite away from him, showing him so long a mere quarter +of her cheek that she at last again heard his voice. He couldn't see a +pair of tears that were partly the reason of her delay to give him the +assurance he required; but he expressed at a venture the hope that she +had had her fill of Cocker's. + +She was finally able to turn back. "Oh quite. There's nothing going on. +No one comes but the Americans at Thrupp's, and they don't do much. They +don't seem to have a secret in the world." + +"Then the extraordinary reason you've been giving me for holding on there +has ceased to work?" + +She thought a moment. "Yes, that one. I've seen the thing through--I've +got them all in my pocket." + +"So you're ready to come?" + +For a little again she made no answer. "No, not yet, all the same. I've +still got a reason--a different one." + +He looked her all over as if it might have been something she kept in her +mouth or her glove or under her jacket--something she was even sitting +upon. "Well, I'll have it, please." + +"I went out the other night and sat in the Park with a gentleman," she +said at last. + +Nothing was ever seen like his confidence in her and she wondered a +little now why it didn't irritate her. It only gave her ease and space, +as she felt, for telling him the whole truth that no one knew. It had +arrived at present at her really wanting to do that, and yet to do it not +in the least for Mr. Mudge, but altogether and only for herself. This +truth filled out for her there the whole experience about to relinquish, +suffused and coloured it as a picture that she should keep and that, +describe it as she might, no one but herself would ever really see. +Moreover she had no desire whatever to make Mr. Mudge jealous; there +would be no amusement in it, for the amusement she had lately known had +spoiled her for lower pleasures. There were even no materials for it. +The odd thing was how she never doubted that, properly handled, his +passion was poisonable; what had happened was that he had cannily +selected a partner with no poison to distil. She read then and there +that she should never interest herself in anybody as to whom some other +sentiment, some superior view, wouldn't be sure to interfere for him with +jealousy. "And what did you get out of that?" he asked with a concern +that was not in the least for his honour. + +"Nothing but a good chance to promise him I wouldn't forsake him. He's +one of my customers." + +"Then it's for him not to forsake _you_." + +"Well, he won't. It's all right. But I must just keep on as long as he +may want me." + +"Want you to sit with him in the Park?" + +"He may want me for that--but I shan't. I rather liked it, but once, +under the circumstances, is enough. I can do better for him in another +manner." + +"And what manner, pray?" + +"Well, elsewhere." + +"Elsewhere?--I _say_!" + +This was an ejaculation used also by Captain Everard, but oh with what a +different sound! "You needn't 'say'--there's nothing to be said. And +yet you ought perhaps to know." + +"Certainly I ought. But _what_--up to now?" + +"Why exactly what I told him. That I'd do anything for him." + +"What do you mean by 'anything'?" + +"Everything." + +Mr. Mudge's immediate comment on this statement was to draw from his +pocket a crumpled paper containing the remains of half a pound of +"sundries." These sundries had figured conspicuously in his prospective +sketch of their tour, but it was only at the end of three days that they +had defined themselves unmistakeably as chocolate-creams. "Have +another?--_that_ one," he said. She had another, but not the one he +indicated, and then he continued: "What took place afterwards?" + +"Afterwards?" + +"What did you do when you had told him you'd do everything?" + +"I simply came away." + +"Out of the Park?" + +"Yes, leaving him there. I didn't let him follow me." + +"Then what did you let him do?" + +"I didn't let him do anything." + +Mr. Mudge considered an instant. "Then what did you go there for?" His +tone was even slightly critical. + +"I didn't quite know at the time. It was simply to be with him, I +suppose--just once. He's in danger, and I wanted him to know I know it. +It makes meeting him--at Cocker's, since it's that I want to stay on +for--more interesting." + +"It makes it mighty interesting for _me_!" Mr. Mudge freely declared. +"Yet he didn't follow you?" he asked. "_I_ would!" + +"Yes, of course. That was the way you began, you know. You're awfully +inferior to him." + +"Well, my dear, you're not inferior to anybody. You've got a cheek! +What's he in danger of?" + +"Of being found out. He's in love with a lady--and it isn't right--and +I've found him out." + +"That'll be a look-out for _me_!" Mr. Mudge joked. "You mean she has a +husband?" + +"Never mind what she has! They're in awful danger, but his is the worst, +because he's in danger from her too." + +"Like me from you--the woman _I_ love? If he's in the same funk as me--" + +"He's in a worse one. He's not only afraid of the lady--he's afraid of +other things." + +Mr. Mudge selected another chocolate-cream. "Well, I'm only afraid of +one! But how in the world can you help this party?" + +"I don't know--perhaps not at all. But so long as there's a chance--" + +"You won't come away?" + +"No, you've got to wait for me." + +Mr. Mudge enjoyed what was in his mouth. "And what will he give you?" + +"Give me?" + +"If you do help him." + +"Nothing. Nothing in all the wide world." + +"Then what will he give _me_?" Mr. Mudge enquired. "I mean for waiting." + +The girl thought a moment; then she got up to walk. "He never heard of +you," she replied. + +"You haven't mentioned me?" + +"We never mention anything. What I've told you is just what I've found +out." + +Mr. Mudge, who had remained on the bench, looked up at her; she often +preferred to be quiet when he proposed to walk, but now that he seemed to +wish to sit she had a desire to move. "But you haven't told me what _he_ +has found out." + +She considered her lover. "He'd never find _you_, my dear!" + +Her lover, still on his seat, appealed to her in something of the +attitude in which she had last left Captain Everard, but the impression +was not the same. "Then where do I come in?" + +"You don't come in at all. That's just the beauty of it!"--and with this +she turned to mingle with the multitude collected round the band. Mr. +Mudge presently overtook her and drew her arm into his own with a quiet +force that expressed the serenity of possession; in consonance with which +it was only when they parted for the night at her door that he referred +again to what she had told him. + +"Have you seen him since?" + +"Since the night in the Park? No, not once." + +"Oh, what a cad!" said Mr. Mudge. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +It was not till the end of October that she saw Captain Everard again, +and on that occasion--the only one of all the series on which hindrance +had been so utter--no communication with him proved possible. She had +made out even from the cage that it was a charming golden day: a patch of +hazy autumn sunlight lay across the sanded floor and also, higher up, +quickened into brightness a row of ruddy bottled syrups. Work was slack +and the place in general empty; the town, as they said in the cage, had +not waked up, and the feeling of the day likened itself to something than +in happier conditions she would have thought of romantically as Saint +Martin's summer. The counter-clerk had gone to his dinner; she herself +was busy with arrears of postal jobs, in the midst of which she became +aware that Captain Everard had apparently been in the shop a minute and +that Mr. Buckton had already seized him. + +He had as usual half a dozen telegrams; and when he saw that she saw him +and their eyes met he gave, on bowing to her, an exaggerated laugh in +which she read a new consciousness. It was a confession of awkwardness; +it seemed to tell her that of course he knew he ought better to have kept +his head, ought to have been clever enough to wait, on some pretext, till +he should have found her free. Mr. Buckton was a long time with him, and +her attention was soon demanded by other visitors; so that nothing passed +between them but the fulness of their silence. The look she took from +him was his greeting, and the other one a simple sign of the eyes sent +her before going out. The only token they exchanged therefore was his +tacit assent to her wish that since they couldn't attempt a certain +frankness they should attempt nothing at all. This was her intense +preference; she could be as still and cold as any one when that was the +sole solution. + +Yet more than any contact hitherto achieved these counted instants struck +her as marking a step: they were built so--just in the mere flash--on the +recognition of his now definitely knowing what it was she would do for +him. The "anything, anything" she had uttered in the Park went to and +fro between them and under the poked-out china that interposed. It had +all at last even put on the air of their not needing now clumsily to +manoeuvre to converse: their former little postal make-believes, the +intense implications of questions and answers and change, had become in +the light of the personal fact, of their having had their moment, a +possibility comparatively poor. It was as if they had met for all +time--it exerted on their being in presence again an influence so +prodigious. When she watched herself, in the memory of that night, walk +away from him as if she were making an end, she found something too +pitiful in the primness of such a gait. Hadn't she precisely established +on the part of each a consciousness that could end only with death? + +It must be admitted that in spite of this brave margin an irritation, +after he had gone, remained with her; a sense that presently became one +with a still sharper hatred of Mr. Buckton, who, on her friend's +withdrawal, had retired with the telegrams to the sounder and left her +the other work. She knew indeed she should have a chance to see them, +when she would, on file; and she was divided, as the day went on, between +the two impressions of all that was lost and all that was re-asserted. +What beset her above all, and as she had almost never known it before, +was the desire to bound straight out, to overtake the autumn afternoon +before it passed away for ever and hurry off to the Park and perhaps be +with him there again on a bench. It became for an hour a fantastic +vision with her that he might just have gone to sit and wait for her. She +could almost hear him, through the tick of the sounder, scatter with his +stick, in his impatience, the fallen leaves of October. Why should such +a vision seize her at this particular moment with such a shake? There +was a time--from four to five--when she could have cried with happiness +and rage. + +Business quickened, it seemed, toward five, as if the town did wake up; +she had therefore more to do, and she went through it with little sharp +stampings and jerkings: she made the crisp postal-orders fairly snap +while she breathed to herself "It's the last day--the last day!" The +last day of what? She couldn't have told. All she knew now was that if +she _were_ out of the cage she wouldn't in the least have minded, this +time, its not yet being dark. She would have gone straight toward Park +Chambers and have hung about there till no matter when. She would have +waited, stayed, rung, asked, have gone in, sat on the stairs. What the +day was the last of was probably, to her strained inner sense, the group +of golden ones, of any occasion for seeing the hazy sunshine slant at +that angle into the smelly shop, of any range of chances for his wishing +still to repeat to her the two words she had in the Park scarcely let him +bring out. "See here--see here!"--the sound of these two words had been +with her perpetually; but it was in her ears to-day without mercy, with a +loudness that grew and grew. What was it they then expressed? what was +it he had wanted her to see? She seemed, whatever it was, perfectly to +see it now--to see that if she should just chuck the whole thing, should +have a great and beautiful courage, he would somehow make everything up +to her. When the clock struck five she was on the very point of saying +to Mr. Buckton that she was deadly ill and rapidly getting worse. This +announcement was on her lips, and she had quite composed the pale hard +face she would offer him: "I can't stop--I must go home. If I feel +better, later on, I'll come back. I'm very sorry, but I _must_ go." At +that instant Captain Everard once more stood there, producing in her +agitated spirit, by his real presence, the strangest, quickest +revolution. He stopped her off without knowing it, and by the time he +had been a minute in the shop she felt herself saved. + +That was from the first minute how she thought of it. There were again +other persons with whom she was occupied, and again the situation could +only be expressed by their silence. It was expressed, of a truth, in a +larger phrase than ever yet, for her eyes now spoke to him with a kind of +supplication. "Be quiet, be quiet!" they pleaded; and they saw his own +reply: "I'll do whatever you say; I won't even look at you--see, see!" +They kept conveying thus, with the friendliest liberality, that they +wouldn't look, quite positively wouldn't. What she was to see was that +he hovered at the other end of the counter, Mr. Buckton's end, and +surrendered himself again to that frustration. It quickly proved so +great indeed that what she was to see further was how he turned away +before he was attended to, and hung off, waiting, smoking, looking about +the shop; how he went over to Mr. Cocker's own counter and appeared to +price things, gave in fact presently two or three orders and put down +money, stood there a long time with his back to her, considerately +abstaining from any glance round to see if she were free. It at last +came to pass in this way that he had remained in the shop longer than she +had ever yet known to do, and that, nevertheless, when he did turn about +she could see him time himself--she was freshly taken up--and cross +straight to her postal subordinate, whom some one else had released. He +had in his hand all this while neither letters nor telegrams, and now +that he was close to her--for she was close to the counter-clerk--it +brought her heart into her mouth merely to see him look at her neighbour +and open his lips. She was too nervous to bear it. He asked for a Post- +Office Guide, and the young man whipped out a new one; whereupon he said +he wished not to purchase, but only to consult one a moment; with which, +the copy kept on loan being produced, he once more wandered off. + +What was he doing to her? What did he want of her? Well, it was just +the aggravation of his "See here!" She felt at this moment strangely and +portentously afraid of him--had in her ears the hum of a sense that, +should it come to that kind of tension, she must fly on the spot to Chalk +Farm. Mixed with her dread and with her reflexion was the idea that, if +he wanted her so much as he seemed to show, it might be after all simply +to do for him the "anything" she had promised, the "everything" she had +thought it so fine to bring out to Mr. Mudge. He might want her to help +him, might have some particular appeal; though indeed his manner didn't +denote that--denoted on the contrary an embarrassment, an indecision, +something of a desire not so much to be helped as to be treated rather +more nicely than she had treated him the other time. Yes, he considered +quite probably that he had help rather to offer than to ask for. Still, +none the less, when he again saw her free he continued to keep away from +her; when he came back with his thumbed Guide it was Mr. Buckton he +caught--it was from Mr. Buckton he obtained half-a-crown's-worth of +stamps. + +After asking for the stamps he asked, quite as a second thought, for a +postal-order for ten shillings. What did he want with so many stamps +when he wrote so few letters? How could he enclose a postal-order in a +telegram? She expected him, the next thing, to go into the corner and +make up one of his telegrams--half a dozen of them--on purpose to prolong +his presence. She had so completely stopped looking at him that she +could only guess his movements--guess even where his eyes rested. Finally +she saw him make a dash that might have been toward the nook where the +forms were hung; and at this she suddenly felt that she couldn't keep it +up. The counter-clerk had just taken a telegram from a slavey, and, to +give herself something to cover her, she snatched it out of his hand. The +gesture was so violent that he gave her in return an odd look, and she +also perceived that Mr. Buckton noticed it. The latter personage, with a +quick stare at her, appeared for an instant to wonder whether his +snatching it in _his_ turn mightn't be the thing she would least like, +and she anticipated this practical criticism by the frankest glare she +had ever given him. It sufficed: this time it paralysed him; and she +sought with her trophy the refuge of the sounder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +It was repeated the next day; it went on for three days; and at the end +of that time she knew what to think. When, at the beginning, she had +emerged from her temporary shelter Captain Everard had quitted the shop; +and he had not come again that evening, as it had struck her he possibly +might--might all the more easily that there were numberless persons who +came, morning and afternoon, numberless times, so that he wouldn't +necessarily have attracted attention. The second day it was different +and yet on the whole worse. His access to her had become possible--she +felt herself even reaping the fruit of her yesterday's glare at Mr. +Buckton; but transacting his business with him didn't simplify--it could, +in spite of the rigour of circumstance, feed so her new conviction. The +rigour was tremendous, and his telegrams--not now mere pretexts for +getting at her--were apparently genuine; yet the conviction had taken but +a night to develop. It could be simply enough expressed; she had had the +glimmer of it the day before in her idea that he needed no more help than +she had already given; that it was help he himself was prepared to +render. He had come up to town but for three or four days; he had been +absolutely obliged to be absent after the other time; yet he would, now +that he was face to face with her, stay on as much longer as she liked. +Little by little it was thus clarified, though from the first flash of +his re-appearance she had read into it the real essence. + +That was what the night before, at eight o'clock, her hour to go, had +made her hang back and dawdle. She did last things or pretended to do +them; to be in the cage had suddenly become her safety, and she was +literally afraid of the alternate self who might be waiting outside. _He_ +might be waiting; it was he who was her alternate self, and of him she +was afraid. The most extraordinary change had taken place in her from +the moment of her catching the impression he seemed to have returned on +purpose to give her. Just before she had done so, on that bewitched +afternoon, she had seen herself approach without a scruple the porter at +Park Chambers; then as the effect of the rush of a consciousness quite +altered she had on at last quitting Cocker's, gone straight home for the +first time since her return from Bournemouth. She had passed his door +every night for weeks, but nothing would have induced her to pass it now. +This change was the tribute of her fear--the result of a change in +himself as to which she needed no more explanation than his mere face +vividly gave her; strange though it was to find an element of deterrence +in the object that she regarded as the most beautiful in the world. He +had taken it from her in the Park that night that she wanted him not to +propose to her to sup; but he had put away the lesson by this time--he +practically proposed supper every time he looked at her. This was what, +for that matter, mainly filled the three days. He came in twice on each +of these, and it was as if he came in to give her a chance to relent. +That was after all, she said to herself in the intervals, the most that +he did. There were ways, she fully recognised, in which he spared her, +and other particular ways as to which she meant that her silence should +be full to him of exquisite pleading. The most particular of all was his +not being outside, at the corner, when she quitted the place for the +night. This he might so easily have been--so easily if he hadn't been so +nice. She continued to recognise in his forbearance the fruit of her +dumb supplication, and the only compensation he found for it was the +harmless freedom of being able to appear to say: "Yes, I'm in town only +for three or four days, but, you know, I _would_ stay on." He struck her +as calling attention each day, each hour, to the rapid ebb of time; he +exaggerated to the point of putting it that there were only two days +more, that there was at last, dreadfully, only one. + +There were other things still that he struck her as doing with a special +intention; as to the most marked of which--unless indeed it were the most +obscure--she might well have marvelled that it didn't seem to her more +horrid. It was either the frenzy of her imagination or the disorder of +his baffled passion that gave her once or twice the vision of his putting +down redundant money--sovereigns not concerned with the little payments +he was perpetually making--so that she might give him some sign of +helping him to slip them over to her. What was most extraordinary in +this impression was the amount of excuse that, with some incoherence, she +found for him. He wanted to pay her because there was nothing to pay her +for. He wanted to offer her things he knew she wouldn't take. He wanted +to show her how much he respected her by giving her the supreme chance to +show _him_ she was respectable. Over the dryest transactions, at any +rate, their eyes had out these questions. On the third day he put in a +telegram that had evidently something of the same point as the stray +sovereigns--a message that was in the first place concocted and that on a +second thought he took back from her before she had stamped it. He had +given her time to read it and had only then bethought himself that he had +better not send it. If it was not to Lady Bradeen at Twindle--where she +knew her ladyship then to be--this was because an address to Doctor +Buzzard at Brickwood was just as good, with the added merit of its not +giving away quite so much a person whom he had still, after all, in a +manner to consider. It was of course most complicated, only half +lighted; but there was, discernibly enough, a scheme of communication in +which Lady Bradeen at Twindle and Dr. Buzzard at Brickwood were, within +limits, one and the same person. The words he had shown her and then +taken back consisted, at all events, of the brief but vivid phrase +"Absolutely impossible." The point was not that she should transmit it; +the point was just that she should see it. What was absolutely +impossible was that before he had setted something at Cocker's he should +go either to Twindle or to Brickwood. + +The logic of this, in turn, for herself, was that she could lend herself +to no settlement so long as she so intensely knew. What she knew was +that he was, almost under peril of life, clenched in a situation: +therefore how could she also know where a poor girl in the P.O. might +really stand? It was more and more between them that if he might convey +to her he was free, with all the impossible locked away into a closed +chapter, her own case might become different for her, she might +understand and meet him and listen. But he could convey nothing of the +sort, and he only fidgeted and floundered in his want of power. The +chapter wasn't in the least closed, not for the other party; and the +other party had a pull, somehow and somewhere: this his whole attitude +and expression confessed, at the same time that they entreated her not to +remember and not to mind. So long as she did remember and did mind he +could only circle about and go and come, doing futile things of which he +was ashamed. He was ashamed of his two words to Dr. Buzzard; he went out +of the shop as soon as he had crumpled up the paper again and thrust it +into his pocket. It had been an abject little exposure of dreadful +impossible passion. He appeared in fact to be too ashamed to come back. +He had once more left town, and a first week elapsed, and a second. He +had had naturally to return to the real mistress of his fate; she had +insisted--she knew how to insist, and he couldn't put in another hour. +There was always a day when she called time. It was known to our young +friend moreover that he had now been dispatching telegrams from other +offices. She knew at last so much that she had quite lost her earlier +sense of merely guessing. There were no different shades of +distinctness--it all bounced out. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +Eighteen days elapsed, and she had begun to think it probable she should +never see him again. He too then understood now: he had made out that +she had secrets and reasons and impediments, that even a poor girl at the +P.O. might have her complications. With the charm she had cast on him +lightened by distance he had suffered a final delicacy to speak to him, +had made up his mind that it would be only decent to let her alone. Never +so much as during these latter days had she felt the precariousness of +their relation--the happy beautiful untroubled original one, if it could +only have been restored--in which the public servant and the casual +public only were concerned. It hung at the best by the merest silken +thread, which was at the mercy of any accident and might snap at any +minute. She arrived by the end of the fortnight at the highest sense of +actual fitness, never doubting that her decision was now complete. She +would just give him a few days more to come back to her on a proper +impersonal basis--for even to an embarrassing representative of the +casual public a public servant with a conscience did owe something--and +then would signify to Mr. Mudge that she was ready for the little home. +It had been visited, in the further talk she had had with him at +Bournemouth, from garret to cellar, and they had especially lingered, +with their respectively darkened brows, before the niche into which it +was to be broached to her mother that she must find means to fit. + +He had put it to her more definitely than before that his calculations +had allowed for that dingy presence, and he had thereby marked the +greatest impression he had ever made on her. It was a stroke superior +even again to his handling of the drunken soldier. What she considered +that in the face of it she hung on at Cocker's for was something she +could only have described as the common fairness of a last word. Her +actual last word had been, till it should be superseded, that she +wouldn't forsake her other friend, and it stuck to her through thick and +thin that she was still at her post and on her honour. This other friend +had shown so much beauty of conduct already that he would surely after +all just re-appear long enough to relieve her, to give her something she +could take away. She saw it, caught it, at times, his parting present; +and there were moments when she felt herself sitting like a beggar with a +hand held out to almsgiver who only fumbled. She hadn't taken the +sovereigns, but she _would_ take the penny. She heard, in imagination, +on the counter, the ring of the copper. "Don't put yourself out any +longer," he would say, "for so bad a case. You've done all there is to +be done. I thank and acquit and release you. Our lives take us. I +don't know much--though I've really been interested--about yours, but I +suppose you've got one. Mine at any rate will take _me_--and where it +will. Heigh-ho! Good-bye." And then once more, for the sweetest +faintest flower of all: "Only, I say--see here!" She had framed the +whole picture with a squareness that included also the image of how again +she would decline to "see there," decline, as she might say, to see +anywhere, see anything. Yet it befell that just in the fury of this +escape she saw more than ever. + +He came back one night with a rush, near the moment of their closing, and +showed her a face so different and new, so upset and anxious, that almost +anything seemed to look out of it but clear recognition. He poked in a +telegram very much as if the simple sense of pressure, the distress of +extreme haste, had blurred the remembrance of where in particular he was. +But as she met his eyes a light came; it broke indeed on the spot into a +positive conscious glare. That made up for everything, since it was an +instant proclamation of the celebrated "danger"; it seemed to pour things +out in a flood. "Oh yes, here it is--it's upon me at last! Forget, for +God's sake, my having worried or bored you, and just help me, just _save_ +me, by getting this off without the loss of a second!" Something grave +had clearly occurred, a crisis declared itself. She recognised +immediately the person to whom the telegram was addressed--the Miss +Dolman of Parade Lodge to whom Lady Bradeen had wired, at Dover, on the +last occasion, and whom she had then, with her recollection of previous +arrangements, fitted into a particular setting. Miss Dolman had figured +before and not figured since, but she was now the subject of an +imperative appeal. "Absolutely necessary to see you. Take last train +Victoria if you can catch it. If not, earliest morning, and answer me +direct either way." + +"Reply paid?" said the girl. Mr. Buckton had just departed and the +counter-clerk was at the sounder. There was no other representative of +the public, and she had never yet, as it seemed to her, not even in the +street or in the Park, been so alone with him. + +"Oh yes, reply paid, and as sharp as possible, please." + +She affixed the stamps in a flash. "She'll catch the train!" she then +declared to him breathlessly, as if she could absolutely guarantee it. + +"I don't know--I hope so. It's awfully important. So kind of you. +Awfully sharp, please." It was wonderfully innocent now, his oblivion of +all but his danger. Anything else that had ever passed between them was +utterly out of it. Well, she had wanted him to be impersonal! + +There was less of the same need therefore, happily, for herself; yet she +only took time, before she flew to the sounder, to gasp at him: "You're +in trouble?" + +"Horrid, horrid--there's a row!" But they parted, on it, in the next +breath; and as she dashed at the sounder, almost pushing, in her +violence, the counter-clerk off the stool, she caught the bang with +which, at Cocker's door, in his further precipitation, he closed the +apron of the cab into which he had leaped. As he rebounded to some other +precaution suggested by his alarm, his appeal to Miss Dolman flashed +straight away. + +But she had not, on the morrow, been in the place five minutes before he +was with her again, still more discomposed and quite, now, as she said to +herself, like a frightened child coming to its mother. Her companions +were there, and she felt it to be remarkable how, in the presence of his +agitation, his mere scared exposed nature, she suddenly ceased to mind. +It came to her as it had never come to her before that with absolute +directness and assurance they might carry almost anything off. He had +nothing to send--she was sure he had been wiring all over--and yet his +business was evidently huge. There was nothing but that in his eyes--not +a glimmer of reference or memory. He was almost haggard with anxiety and +had clearly not slept a wink. Her pity for him would have given her any +courage, and she seemed to know at last why she had been such a fool. +"She didn't come?" she panted. + +"Oh yes, she came; but there has been some mistake. We want a telegram." + +"A telegram?" + +"One that was sent from here ever so long ago. There was something in it +that has to be recovered. Something very, very important, please--we +want it immediately." + +He really spoke to her as if she had been some strange young woman at +Knightsbridge or Paddington; but it had no other effect on her than to +give her the measure of his tremendous flurry. Then it was that, above +all, she felt how much she had missed in the gaps and blanks and absent +answers--how much she had had to dispense with: it was now black darkness +save for this little wild red flare. So much as that she saw, so much +her mind dealt with. One of the lovers was quaking somewhere out of +town, and the other was quaking just where he stood. This was vivid +enough, and after an instant she knew it was all she wanted. She wanted +no detail, no fact--she wanted no nearer vision of discovery or shame. +"When was your telegram? Do you mean you sent it from here?" She tried +to do the young woman at Knightsbridge. + +"Oh yes, from here--several weeks ago. Five, six, seven"--he was +confused and impatient--"don't you remember?" + +"Remember?" she could scarcely keep out of her face, at the word, the +strangest of smiles. + +But the way he didn't catch what it meant was perhaps even stranger +still. "I mean, don't you keep the old ones?" + +"For a certain time." + +"But how long?" + +She thought; she must do the young woman, and she knew exactly what the +young woman would say and, still more, wouldn't. "Can you give me the +date?" + +"Oh God, no! It was some time or other in August--toward the end. It +was to the same address as the one I gave you last night." + +"Oh!" said the girl, knowing at this the deepest thrill she had ever +felt. It came to her there, with her eyes on his face, that she held the +whole thing in her hand, held it as she held her pencil, which might have +broken at that instant in her tightened grip. This made her feel like +the very fountain of fate, but the emotion was such a flood that she had +to press it back with all her force. That was positively the reason, +again, of her flute-like Paddington tone. "You can't give us anything a +little nearer?" Her "little" and her "us" came straight from Paddington. +These things were no false note for him--his difficulty absorbed them +all. The eyes with which he pressed her, and in the depths of which she +read terror and rage and literal tears, were just the same he would have +shown any other prim person. + +"I don't know the date. I only know the thing went from here, and just +about the time I speak of. It wasn't delivered, you see. We've got to +recover it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +She was as struck with the beauty of his plural pronoun as she had judged +he might be with that of her own; but she knew now so well what she was +about that she could almost play with him and with her new-born joy. "You +say 'about the time you speak of.' But I don't think you speak of an +exact time--do you?" + +He looked splendidly helpless. "That's just what I want to find out. +Don't you keep the old ones?--can't you look it up?" + +Our young lady--still at Paddington--turned the question over. "It +wasn't delivered?" + +"Yes, it _was_; yet, at the same time, don't you know? it wasn't." He +just hung back, but he brought it out. "I mean it was intercepted, don't +you know? and there was something in it." He paused again and, as if to +further his quest and woo and supplicate success and recovery, even +smiled with an effort at the agreeable that was almost ghastly and that +turned the knife in her tenderness. What must be the pain of it all, of +the open gulf and the throbbing fever, when this was the mere hot breath? +"We want to get what was in it--to know what it was." + +"I see--I see." She managed just the accent they had at Paddington when +they stared like dead fish. "And you have no clue?" + +"Not at all--I've the clue I've just given you." + +"Oh the last of August?" If she kept it up long enough she would make +him really angry. + +"Yes, and the address, as I've said." + +"Oh the same as last night?" + +He visibly quivered, as with a gleam of hope; but it only poured oil on +her quietude, and she was still deliberate. She ranged some papers. +"Won't you look?" he went on. + +"I remember your coming," she replied. + +He blinked with a new uneasiness; it might have begun to come to him, +through her difference, that he was somehow different himself. "You were +much quicker then, you know!" + +"So were you--you must do me that justice," she answered with a smile. +"But let me see. Wasn't it Dover?" + +"Yes, Miss Dolman--" + +"Parade Lodge, Parade Terrace?" + +"Exactly--thank you so awfully much!" He began to hope again. "Then you +_have_ it--the other one?" + +She hesitated afresh; she quite dangled him. "It was brought by a lady?" + +"Yes; and she put in by mistake something wrong. That's what we've got +to get hold of!" Heavens, what was he going to say?--flooding poor +Paddington with wild betrayals! She couldn't too much, for her joy, +dangle him, yet she couldn't either, for his dignity, warn or control or +check him. What she found herself doing was just to treat herself to the +middle way. "It was intercepted?" + +"It fell into the wrong hands. But there's something in it," he +continued to blurt out, "that _may_ be all right. That is, if it's +wrong, don't you know? It's all right if it's wrong," he remarkably +explained. + +What _was_ he, on earth, going to say? Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk +were already interested; no one would have the decency to come in; and +she was divided between her particular terror for him and her general +curiosity. Yet she already saw with what brilliancy she could add, to +carry the thing off, a little false knowledge to all her real. "I quite +understand," she said with benevolent, with almost patronising quickness. +"The lady has forgotten what she did put." + +"Forgotten most wretchedly, and it's an immense inconvenience. It has +only just been found that it didn't get there; so that if we could +immediately have it--" + +"Immediately?" + +"Every minute counts. You have," he pleaded, "surely got them on file?" + +"So that you can see it on the spot?" + +"Yes, please--this very minute." The counter rang with his knuckles, +with the knob of his stick, with his panic of alarm. "Do, _do_ hunt it +up!" he repeated. + +"I dare say we could get it for you," the girl weetly returned. + +"Get it?"--he looked aghast. "When?" + +"Probably by to-morrow." + +"Then it isn't here?"--his face was pitiful. + +She caught only the uncovered gleams that peeped out of the blackness, +and she wondered what complication, even among the most supposable, the +very worst, could be bad enough to account for the degree of his terror. +There were twists and turns, there were places where the screw drew +blood, that she couldn't guess. She was more and more glad she didn't +want to. "It has been sent on." + +"But how do you know if you don't look?" + +She gave him a smile that was meant to be, in the absolute irony of its +propriety, quite divine. "It was August 23rd, and we've nothing later +here than August 27th." + +Something leaped into his face. "27th--23rd? Then you're sure? You +know?" + +She felt she scarce knew what--as if she might soon be pounced upon for +some lurid connexion with a scandal. It was the queerest of all +sensations, for she had heard, she had read, of these things, and the +wealth of her intimacy with them at Cocker's might be supposed to have +schooled and seasoned her. This particular one that she had really quite +lived with was, after all, an old story; yet what it had been before was +dim and distant beside the touch under which she now winced. Scandal?--it +had never been but a silly word. Now it was a great tense surface, and +the surface was somehow Captain Everard's wonderful face. Deep down in +his eyes a picture, a scene--a great place like a chamber of justice, +where, before a watching crowd, a poor girl, exposed but heroic, swore +with a quavering voice to a document, proved an _alibi_, supplied a link. +In this picture she bravely took her place. "It was the 23rd." + +"Then can't you get it this morning--or some time to-day?" + +She considered, still holding him with her look, which she then turned on +her two companions, who were by this time unreservedly enlisted. She +didn't care--not a scrap, and she glanced about for a piece of paper. +With this she had to recognise the rigour of official thrift--a morsel of +blackened blotter was the only loose paper to be seen. "Have you got a +card?" she said to her visitor. He was quite away from Paddington now, +and the next instant, pocket-book in hand, he had whipped a card out. She +gave no glance at the name on it--only turned it to the other side. She +continued to hold him, she felt at present, as she had never held him; +and her command of her colleagues was for the moment not less marked. She +wrote something on the back of the card and pushed it across to him. + +He fairly glared at it. "Seven, nine, four--" + +"Nine, six, one"--she obligingly completed the number. "Is it right?" +she smiled. + +He took the whole thing in with a flushed intensity; then there broke out +in him a visibility of relief that was simply a tremendous exposure. He +shone at them all like a tall lighthouse, embracing even, for sympathy, +the blinking young men. "By all the powers--it's _wrong_!" And without +another look, without a word of thanks, without time for anything or +anybody, he turned on them the broad back of his great stature, +straightened his triumphant shoulders, and strode out of the place. + +She was left confronted with her habitual critics. "'If it's wrong it's +all right!'" she extravagantly quoted to them. + +The counter-clerk was really awe-stricken. "But how did you know, dear?" + +"I remembered, love!" + +Mr. Buckton, on the contrary, was rude. "And what game is that, miss?" + +No happiness she had ever known came within miles of it, and some minutes +elapsed before she could recall herself sufficiently to reply that it was +none of his business. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +If life at Cocker's, with the dreadful drop of August, had lost something +of its savour, she had not been slow to infer that a heavier blight had +fallen on the graceful industry of Mrs. Jordan. + +With Lord Rye and Lady Ventnor and Mrs. Bubb all out of town, with the +blinds down on all the homes of luxury, this ingenious woman might well +have found her wonderful taste left quite on her hands. She bore up, +however, in a way that began by exciting much of her young friend's +esteem; they perhaps even more frequently met as the wine of life flowed +less free from other sources, and each, in the lack of better diversion, +carried on with more mystification for the other an intercourse that +consisted not a little in peeping out and drawing back. Each waited for +the other to commit herself, each profusely curtained for the other the +limits of low horizons. Mrs. Jordan was indeed probably the more +reckless skirmisher; nothing could exceed her frequent incoherence unless +it was indeed her occasional bursts of confidence. Her account of her +private affairs rose and fell like a flame in the wind--sometimes the +bravest bonfire and sometimes a handful of ashes. This our young woman +took to be an effect of the position, at one moment and another, of the +famous door of the great world. She had been struck in one of her +ha'penny volumes with the translation of a French proverb according to +which such a door, any door, had to be either open or shut; and it seemed +part of the precariousness of Mrs. Jordan's life that hers mostly managed +to be neither. There had been occasions when it appeared to gape +wide--fairly to woo her across its threshold; there had been others, of +an order distinctly disconcerting, when it was all but banged in her +face. On the whole, however, she had evidently not lost heart; these +still belonged to the class of things in spite of which she looked well. +She intimated that the profits of her trade had swollen so as to float +her through any state of the tide, and she had, besides this, a hundred +profundities and explanations. + +She rose superior, above all, on the happy fact that there were always +gentlemen in town and that gentlemen were her greatest admirers; +gentlemen from the City in especial--as to whom she was full of +information about the passion and pride excited in such breasts by the +elements of her charming commerce. The City men did in short go in for +flowers. There was a certain type of awfully smart stockbroker--Lord Rye +called them Jews and bounders, but she didn't care--whose extravagance, +she more than once threw out, had really, if one had any conscience, to +be forcibly restrained. It was not perhaps a pure love of beauty: it was +a matter of vanity and a sign of business; they wished to crush their +rivals, and that was one of their weapons. Mrs. Jordan's shrewdness was +extreme; she knew in any case her customer--she dealt, as she said, with +all sorts; and it was at the worst a race for her--a race even in the +dull months--from one set of chambers to another. And then, after all, +there were also still the ladies; the ladies of stockbroking circles were +perpetually up and down. They were not quite perhaps Mrs. Bubb or Lady +Ventnor; but you couldn't tell the difference unless you quarrelled with +them, and then you knew it only by their making-up sooner. These ladies +formed the branch of her subject on which she most swayed in the breeze; +to that degree that her confidant had ended with an inference or two +tending to banish regret for opportunities not embraced. There were +indeed tea-gowns that Mrs. Jordan described--but tea-gowns were not the +whole of respectability, and it was odd that a clergyman's widow should +sometimes speak as if she almost thought so. She came back, it was true, +unfailingly to Lord Rye, never, evidently, quite losing sight of him even +on the longest excursions. That he was kindness itself had become in +fact the very moral it all pointed--pointed in strange flashes of the +poor woman's nearsighted eyes. She launched at her young friend +portentous looks, solemn heralds of some extraordinary communication. The +communication itself, from week to week, hung fire; but it was to the +facts over which it hovered that she owed her power of going on. "They +are, in one way and another," she often emphasised, "a tower of +strength"; and as the allusion was to the aristocracy the girl could +quite wonder why, if they were so in "one way," they should require to be +so in two. She thoroughly knew, however, how many ways Mrs. Jordan +counted in. It all meant simply that her fate was pressing her close. If +that fate was to be sealed at the matrimonial altar it was perhaps not +remarkable that she shouldn't come all at once to the scratch of +overwhelming a mere telegraphist. It would necessarily present to such a +person a prospect of regretful sacrifice. Lord Rye--if it _was_ Lord +Rye--wouldn't be "kind" to a nonentity of that sort, even though people +quite as good had been. + +One Sunday afternoon in November they went, by arrangement, to church +together; after which--on the inspiration of the moment the arrangement +had not included it--they proceeded to Mrs. Jordan's lodging in the +region of Maida Vale. She had raved to her friend about her service of +predilection; she was excessively "high," and had more than once wished +to introduce the girl to the same comfort and privilege. There was a +thick brown fog and Maida Vale tasted of acrid smoke; but they had been +sitting among chants and incense and wonderful music, during which, +though the effect of such things on her mind was great, our young lady +had indulged in a series of reflexions but indirectly related to them. +One of these was the result of Mrs. Jordan's having said to her on the +way, and with a certain fine significance, that Lord Rye had been for +some time in town. She had spoken as if it were a circumstance to which +little required to be added--as if the bearing of such an item on her +life might easily be grasped. Perhaps it was the wonder of whether Lord +Rye wished to marry her that made her guest, with thoughts straying to +that quarter, quite determine that some other nuptials also should take +place at Saint Julian's. Mr. Mudge was still an attendant at his +Wesleyan chapel, but this was the least of her worries--it had never even +vexed her enough for her to so much as name it to Mrs. Jordan. Mr. +Mudge's form of worship was one of several things--they made up in +superiority and beauty for what they wanted in number--that she had long +ago settled he should take from her, and she had now moreover for the +first time definitely established her own. Its principal feature was +that it was to be the same as that of Mrs. Jordan and Lord Rye; which was +indeed very much what she said to her hostess as they sat together later +on. The brown fog was in this hostess's little parlour, where it acted +as a postponement of the question of there being, besides, anything else +than the teacups and a pewter pot and a very black little fire and a +paraffin lamp without a shade. There was at any rate no sign of a +flower; it was not for herself Mrs. Jordan gathered sweets. The girl +waited till they had had a cup of tea--waited for the announcement that +she fairly believed her friend had, this time, possessed herself of her +formally at last to make; but nothing came, after the interval, save a +little poke at the fire, which was like the clearing of a throat for a +speech. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +"I think you must have heard me speak of Mr. Drake?" Mrs. Jordan had +never looked so queer, nor her smile so suggestive of a large benevolent +bite. + +"Mr. Drake? Oh yes; isn't he a friend of Lord Rye?" + +"A great and trusted friend. Almost--I may say--a loved friend." + +Mrs. Jordan's "almost" had such an oddity that her companion was moved, +rather flippantly perhaps, to take it up. "Don't people as good as love +their friends when they I trust them?" + +It pulled up a little the eulogist of Mr. Drake. "Well, my dear, I love +_you_--" + +"But you don't trust me?" the girl unmercifully asked. + +Again Mrs. Jordan paused--still she looked queer. "Yes," she replied +with a certain austerity; "that's exactly what I'm about to give you +rather a remarkable proof of." The sense of its being remarkable was +already so strong that, while she bridled a little, this held her auditor +in a momentary muteness of submission. "Mr. Drake has rendered his +lordship for several years services that his lordship has highly +appreciated and that make it all the more--a--unexpected that they +should, perhaps a little suddenly, separate." + +"Separate?" Our young lady was mystified, but she tried to be +interested; and she already saw that she had put the saddle on the wrong +horse. She had heard something of Mr. Drake, who was a member of his +lordship's circle--the member with whom, apparently, Mrs. Jordan's +avocations had most happened to throw her. She was only a little puzzled +at the "separation." "Well, at any rate," she smiled, "if they separate +as friends--!" + +"Oh his lordship takes the greatest interest in Mr. Drake's future. He'll +do anything for him; he has in fact just done a great deal. There +_must_, you know, be changes--!" + +"No one knows it better than I," the girl said. She wished to draw her +interlocutress out. "There will be changes enough for me." + +"You're leaving Cocker's?" + +The ornament of that establishment waited a moment to answer, and then it +was indirect. "Tell me what _you're_ doing." + +"Well, what will you think of it?" + +"Why that you've found the opening you were always so sure of." + +Mrs. Jordan, on this, appeared to muse with embarrassed intensity. "I +was always sure, yes--and yet I often wasn't!" + +"Well, I hope you're sure now. Sure, I mean, of Mr. Drake." + +"Yes, my dear, I think I may say I _am_. I kept him going till I was." + +"Then he's yours?" + +"My very own." + +"How nice! And awfully rich?" our young woman went on. + +Mrs. Jordan showed promptly enough that she loved for higher things. +"Awfully handsome--six foot two. And he _has_ put by." + +"Quite like Mr. Mudge, then!" that gentleman's friend rather desperately +exclaimed. + +"Oh not quite!" Mr. Drake's was ambiguous about it, but the name of Mr. +Mudge had evidently given her some sort of stimulus. "He'll have more +opportunity now, at any rate. He's going to Lady Bradeen." + +"To Lady Bradeen?" This was bewilderment. "'Going--'?" + +The girl had seen, from the way Mrs. Jordan looked at her, that the +effect of the name had been to make her let something out. "Do you know +her?" + +She floundered, but she found her feet. "Well, you'll remember I've +often told you that if you've grand clients I have them too." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Jordan; "but the great difference is that you hate +yours, whereas I really love mine. _Do_ you know Lady Bradeen?" she +pursued. + +"Down to the ground! She's always in and out." + +Mrs. Jordan's foolish eyes confessed, in fixing themselves on this +sketch, to a degree of wonder and even of envy. But she bore up and, +with a certain gaiety, "Do you hate _her_?" she demanded. + +Her visitor's reply was prompt. "Dear no!--not nearly so much as some of +them. She's too outrageously beautiful." + +Mrs. Jordan continued to gaze. "Outrageously?" + +"Well, yes; deliciously." What was really delicious was Mrs. Jordan's +vagueness. "You don't know her--you've not seen her?" her guest lightly +continued. + +"No, but I've heard a great deal about her." + +"So have I!" our young lady exclaimed. + +Jordan looked an instant as if she suspected her good faith, or at least +her seriousness. "You know some friend--?" + +"Of Lady Bradeen's? Oh yes--I know one." + +"Only one?" + +The girl laughed out. "Only one--but he's so intimate." + +Mrs. Jordan just hesitated. "He's a gentleman?" + +"Yes, he's not a lady." + +Her interlocutress appeared to muse. "She's immensely surrounded." + +"She _will_ be--with Mr. Drake!" + +Mrs. Jordan's gaze became strangely fixed. "Is she _very_ good-looking?" + +"The handsomest person I know." + +Mrs. Jordan continued to brood. "Well, I know some beauties." Then with +her odd jerkiness: "Do you think she looks _good_?" + +"Because that's not always the case with the good-looking?"--the other +took it up. "No, indeed, it isn't: that's one thing Cocker's has taught +me. Still, there are some people who have everything. Lady Bradeen, at +any rate, has enough: eyes and a nose and a mouth, a complexion, a +figure--" + +"A figure?" Mrs. Jordan almost broke in. + +"A figure, a head of hair!" The girl made a little conscious motion that +seemed to let the hair all down, and her companion watched the wonderful +show. "But Mr. Drake _is_ another--?" + +"Another?"--Mrs. Jordan's thoughts had to come back from a distance. + +"Of her ladyship's admirers. He's 'going,' you say, to her?" + +At this Mrs. Jordan really faltered. "She has engaged him." + +"Engaged him?"--our young woman was quite at sea. + +"In the same capacity as Lord Rye." + +"And was Lord Rye engaged?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Mrs. Jordan looked away from her now--looked, she thought, rather injured +and, as if trifled with, even a little angry. The mention of Lady +Bradeen had frustrated for a while the convergence of our heroine's +thoughts; but with this impression of her old friend's combined +impatience and diffidence they began again to whirl round her, and +continued it till one of them appeared to dart at her, out of the dance, +as if with a sharp peck. It came to her with a lively shock, with a +positive sting, that Mr. Drake was--could it be possible? With the idea +she found herself afresh on the edge of laughter, of a sudden and strange +perversity of mirth. Mr. Drake loomed, in a swift image, before her; +such a figure as she had seen in open doorways of houses in Cocker's +quarter--majestic, middle-aged, erect, flanked on either side by a +footman and taking the name of a visitor. Mr. Drake then verily _was_ a +person who opened the door! Before she had time, however, to recover +from the effect of her evocation, she was offered a vision which quite +engulfed it. It was communicated to her somehow that the face with which +she had seen it rise prompted Mrs. Jordan to dash, a bit wildly, at +something, at anything, that might attenuate criticism. "Lady Bradeen's +re-arranging--she's going to be married." + +"Married?" The girl echoed it ever so softly, but there it was at last. + +"Didn't you know it?" + +She summoned all her sturdiness. "No, she hasn't told me." + +"And her friends--haven't they?" + +"I haven't seen any of them lately. I'm not so fortunate as you." + +Mrs. Jordan gathered herself. "Then you haven't even heard of Lord +Bradeen's death?" + +Her comrade, unable for a moment to speak, gave a slow headshake. "You +know it from Mr. Drake?" It was better surely not to learn things at all +than to learn them by the butler. + +"She tells him everything." + +"And he tells _you_--I see." Our young lady got up; recovering her muff +and her gloves she smiled. "Well, I haven't unfortunately any Mr. Drake. +I congratulate you with all my heart. Even without your sort of +assistance, however, there's a trifle here and there that I do pick up. I +gather that if she's to marry any one it must quite necessarily be my +friend." + +Mrs. Jordan was now also on her feet. "Is Captain Everard your friend?" + +The girl considered, drawing on a glove. "I saw, at one time, an immense +deal of him." + +Mrs. Jordan looked hard at the glove, but she hadn't after all waited for +that to be sorry it wasn't cleaner. "What time was that?" + +"It must have been the time you were seeing so much of Mr. Drake." She +had now fairly taken it in: the distinguished person Mrs. Jordan was to +marry would answer bells and put on coals and superintend, at least, the +cleaning of boots for the other distinguished person whom she might--well, +whom she might have had, if she had wished, so much more to say to. "Good- +bye," she added; "good-bye." + +Mrs. Jordan, however, again taking her muff from her, turned it over, +brushed it off and thoughtfully peeped into it. "Tell me this before you +go. You spoke just now of your own changes. Do you mean that Mr. +Mudge--?" + +"Mr. Mudge has had great patience with me--he has brought me at last to +the point. We're to be married next month and have a nice little home. +But he's only a grocer, you know"--the girl met her friend's intent +eyes--"so that I'm afraid that, with the set you've got into, you won't +see your way to keep up our friendship." + +Mrs. Jordan for a moment made no answer to this; she only held the muff +up to her face, after which she gave it back. "You don't like it. I +see, I see." + +To her guest's astonishment there were tears now in her eyes. "I don't +like what?" the girl asked. + +"Why my engagement. Only, with your great cleverness," the poor lady +quavered out, "you put it in your own way. I mean that you'll cool off. +You already have--!" And on this, the next instant, her tears began to +flow. She succumbed to them and collapsed; she sank down again, burying +her face and trying to smother her sobs. + +Her young friend stood there, still in some rigour, but taken much by +surprise even if not yet fully moved to pity. "I don't put anything in +any 'way,' and I'm very glad you're suited. Only, you know, you did put +to me so splendidly what, even for me, if I had listened to you, it might +lead to." + +Mrs. Jordan kept up a mild thin weak wail; then, drying her eyes, as +feebly considered this reminder. "It has led to my not starving!" she +faintly gasped. + +Our young lady, at this, dropped into the place beside her, and now, in a +rush, the small silly misery was clear. She took her hand as a sign of +pitying it, then, after another instant, confirmed this expression with a +consoling kiss. They sat there together; they looked out, hand in hand, +into the damp dusky shabby little room and into the future, of no such +very different suggestion, at last accepted by each. There was no +definite utterance, on either side, of Mr. Drake's position in the great +world, but the temporary collapse of his prospective bride threw all +further necessary light; and what our heroine saw and felt for in the +whole business was the vivid reflexion of her own dreams and delusions +and her own return to reality. Reality, for the poor things they both +were, could only be ugliness and obscurity, could never be the escape, +the rise. She pressed her friend--she had tact enough for that--with no +other personal question, brought on no need of further revelations, only +just continued to hold and comfort her and to acknowledge by stiff little +forbearances the common element in their fate. She felt indeed +magnanimous in such matters; since if it was very well, for condolence or +reassurance, to suppress just then invidious shrinkings, she yet by no +means saw herself sitting down, as she might say, to the same table with +Mr. Drake. There would luckily, to all appearance, be little question of +tables; and the circumstance that, on their peculiar lines, her friend's +interests would still attach themselves to Mayfair flung over Chalk Farm +the first radiance it had shown. Where was one's pride and one's passion +when the real way to judge of one's luck was by making not the wrong but +the right comparison? Before she had again gathered herself to go she +felt very small and cautious and thankful. "We shall have our own +house," she said, "and you must come very soon and let me show it you." + +"_We_ shall have our own too," Mrs. Jordan replied; "for, don't you know? +he makes it a condition that he sleeps out?" + +"A condition?"--the girl felt out of it. + +"For any new position. It was on that he parted with Lord Rye. His +lordship can't meet it. So Mr. Drake has given him up." + +"And all for you?"--our young woman put it as cheerfully as possible. + +"For me and Lady Bradeen. Her ladyship's too glad to get him at any +price. Lord Rye, out of interest in us, has in fact quite _made_ her +take him. So, as I tell you, he will have his own establishment." + +Mrs. Jordan, in the elation of it, had begun to revive; but there was +nevertheless between them rather a conscious pause--a pause in which +neither visitor nor hostess brought out a hope or an invitation. It +expressed in the last resort that, in spite of submission and sympathy, +they could now after all only look at each other across the social gulf. +They remained together as if it would be indeed their last chance, still +sitting, though awkwardly, quite close, and feeling also--and this most +unmistakeably--that there was one thing more to go into. By the time it +came to the surface, moreover, our young friend had recognised the whole +of the main truth, from which she even drew again a slight irritation. It +was not the main truth perhaps that most signified; but after her +momentary effort, her embarrassment and her tears Mrs. Jordan had begun +to sound afresh--and even without speaking--the note of a social +connexion. She hadn't really let go of it that she was marrying into +society. Well, it was a harmless compensation, and it was all the +prospective bride of Mr. Mudge had to leave with her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +This young lady at last rose again, but she lingered before going. "And +has Captain Everard nothing to say to it?" + +"To what, dear?" + +"Why, to such questions--the domestic arrangements, things in the house." + +"How can he, with any authority, when nothing in the house is his?" + +"Not his?" The girl wondered, perfectly conscious of the appearance she +thus conferred on Mrs. Jordan of knowing, in comparison with herself, so +tremendously much about it. Well, there were things she wanted so to get +at that she was willing at last, though it hurt her, to pay for them with +humiliation. "Why are they not his?" + +"Don't you know, dear, that he has nothing?" + +"Nothing?" It was hard to see him in such a light, but Mrs. Jordan's +power to answer for it had a superiority that began, on the spot, to +grow. "Isn't he rich?" + +Mrs. Jordan looked immensely, looked both generally and particularly, +informed. "It depends upon what you call--! Not at any rate in the +least as she is. What does he bring? Think what she has. And then, +love, his debts." + +"His debts?" His young friend was fairly betrayed into helpless +innocence. She could struggle a little, but she had to let herself go; +and if she had spoken frankly she would have said: "Do tell me, for I +don't know so much about him as _that_!" As she didn't speak frankly she +only said: "His debts are nothing--when she so adores him." + +Mrs. Jordan began to fix her again, and now she saw that she must only +take it all. That was what it had come to: his having sat with her there +on the bench and under the trees in the summer darkness and put his hand +on her, making her know what he would have said if permitted; his having +returned to her afterwards, repeatedly, with supplicating eyes and a +fever in his blood; and her having, on her side, hard and pedantic, +helped by some miracle and with her impossible condition, only answered +him, yet supplicating back, through the bars of the cage,--all simply +that she might hear of him, now for ever lost, only through Mrs. Jordan, +who touched him through Mr. Drake, who reached him through Lady Bradeen. +"She adores him--but of course that wasn't all there was about it." + +The girl met her eyes a minute, then quite surrendered. "What was there +else about it?" + +"Why, don't you know?"--Mrs. Jordan was almost compassionate. + +Her interlocutress had, in the cage, sounded depths, but there was a +suggestion here somehow of an abyss quite measureless. "Of course I know +she would never let him alone." + +"How _could_ she--fancy!--when he had so compromised her?" + +The most artless cry they had ever uttered broke, at this, from the +younger pair of lips. "_Had_ he so--?" + +"Why, don't you know the scandal?" + +Our heroine thought, recollected there was something, whatever it was, +that she knew after all much more of than Mrs. Jordan. She saw him again +as she had seen him come that morning to recover the telegram--she saw +him as she had seen him leave the shop. She perched herself a moment on +this. "Oh there was nothing public." + +"Not exactly public--no. But there was an awful scare and an awful row. +It was all on the very point of coming out. Something was lost--something +was found." + +"Ah yes," the girl replied, smiling as if with the revival of a blurred +memory; "something was found." + +"It all got about--and there was a point at which Lord Bradeen had to +act." + +"Had to--yes. But he didn't." + +Mrs. Jordan was obliged to admit it. "No, he didn't. And then, luckily +for them, he died." + +"I didn't know about his death," her companion said. + +"It was nine weeks ago, and most sudden. It has given them a prompt +chance." + +"To get married?"--this was a wonder--"within nine weeks?" + +"Oh not immediately, but--in all the circumstances--very quietly and, I +assure you, very soon. Every preparation's made. Above all she holds +him." + +"Oh yes, she holds him!" our young friend threw off. She had this before +her again a minute; then she continued: "You mean through his having made +her talked about?" + +"Yes, but not only that. She has still another pull." + +"Another?" + +Mrs. Jordan hesitated. "Why, he was _in_ something." + +Her comrade wondered. "In what?" + +"I don't know. Something bad. As I tell you, something was found." + +The girl stared. "Well?" + +"It would have been very bad for him. But, she helped him some way--she +recovered it, got hold of it. It's even said she stole it!" + +Our young woman considered afresh. "Why it was what was found that +precisely saved him." + +Mrs. Jordan, however, was positive. "I beg your pardon. I happen to +know." + +Her disciple faltered but an instant. "Do you mean through Mr. Drake? Do +they tell him these things?" + +"A good servant," said Mrs. Jordan, now thoroughly superior and +proportionately sententious, "doesn't need to be told! Her ladyship +saved--as a woman so often saves!--the man she loves." + +This time our heroine took longer to recover herself, but she found a +voice at last. "Ah well--of course I don't know! The great thing was +that he got off. They seem then, in a manner," she added, "to have done +a great deal for each other." + +"Well, it's she that has done most. She has him tight." + +"I see, I see. Good-bye." The women had already embraced, and this was +not repeated; but Mrs. Jordan went down with her guest to the door of the +house. Here again the younger lingered, reverting, though three or four +other remarks had on the way passed between them, to Captain Everard and +Lady Bradeen. "Did you mean just now that if she hadn't saved him, as +you call it, she wouldn't hold him so tight?" + +"Well, I dare say." Mrs. Jordan, on the doorstep, smiled with a +reflexion that had come to her; she took one of her big bites of the +brown gloom. "Men always dislike one when they've done one an injury." + +"But what injury had he done her?" + +"The one I've mentioned. He _must_ marry her, you know." + +"And didn't he want to?" + +"Not before." + +"Not before she recovered the telegram?" + +Mrs. Jordan was pulled up a little. "Was it a telegram?" + +The girl hesitated. "I thought you said so. I mean whatever it was." + +"Yes, whatever it was, I don't think she saw _that_." + +"So she just nailed him?" + +"She just nailed him." The departing friend was now at the bottom of the +little flight of steps; the other was at the top, with a certain +thickness of fog. "And when am I to think of you in your little +home?--next month?" asked the voice from the top. + +"At the very latest. And when am I to think of you in yours?" + +"Oh even sooner. I feel, after so much talk with you about it, as if I +were already there!" Then "_Good_-bye!" came out of the fog. + +"Good-_bye_!" went into it. Our young lady went into it also, in the +opposed quarter, and presently, after a few sightless turns, came out on +the Paddington canal. Distinguishing vaguely what the low parapet +enclosed she stopped close to it and stood a while very intently, but +perhaps still sightlessly, looking down on it. A policeman; while she +remained, strolled past her; then, going his way a little further and +half lost in the atmosphere, paused and watched her. But she was quite +unaware--she was full of her thoughts. They were too numerous to find a +place just here, but two of the number may at least be mentioned. One of +these was that, decidedly, her little home must be not for next month, +but for next week; the other, which came indeed as she resumed her walk +and went her way, was that it was strange such a matter should be at last +settled for her by Mr. Drake + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE CAGE*** + + +******* This file should be named 1144.txt or 1144.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/4/1144 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by David Price +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, from the 1919 Martin Secker. + + + + + +In the Cage + + + + +CHAPTER I + + + +It had occurred to her early that in her position--that of a young +person spending, in framed and wired confinement, the life of a +guinea-pig or a magpie--she should know a great many persons +without their recognising the acquaintance. That made it an +emotion the more lively--though singularly rare and always, even +then, with opportunity still very much smothered--to see any one +come in whom she knew outside, as she called it, any one who could +add anything to the meanness of her function. Her function was to +sit there with two young men--the other telegraphist and the +counter-clerk; to mind the "sounder," which was always going, to +dole out stamps and postal-orders, weigh letters, answer stupid +questions, give difficult change and, more than anything else, +count words as numberless as the sands of the sea, the words of the +telegrams thrust, from morning to night, through the gap left in +the high lattice, across the encumbered shelf that her forearm +ached with rubbing. This transparent screen fenced out or fenced +in, according to the side of the narrow counter on which the human +lot was cast, the duskiest corner of a shop pervaded not a little, +in winter, by the poison of perpetual gas, and at all times by the +presence of hams, cheese, dried fish, soap, varnish, paraffin and +other solids and fluids that she came to know perfectly by their +smells without consenting to know them by their names. + +The barrier that divided the little post-and-telegraph-office from +the grocery was a frail structure of wood and wire; but the social, +the professional separation was a gulf that fortune, by a stroke +quite remarkable, had spared her the necessity of contributing at +all publicly to bridge. When Mr. Cocker's young men stepped over +from behind the other counter to change a five-pound note--and Mr. +Cocker's situation, with the cream of the "Court Guide" and the +dearest furnished apartments, Simpkin's, Ladle's, Thrupp's, just +round the corner, was so select that his place was quite pervaded +by the crisp rustle of these emblems--she pushed out the sovereigns +as if the applicant were no more to her than one of the momentary, +the practically featureless, appearances in the great procession; +and this perhaps all the more from the very fact of the connexion +(only recognised outside indeed) to which she had lent herself with +ridiculous inconsequence. She recognised the others the less +because she had at last so unreservedly, so irredeemably, +recognised Mr. Mudge. However that might be, she was a little +ashamed of having to admit to herself that Mr. Mudge's removal to a +higher sphere--to a more commanding position, that is, though to a +much lower neighbourhood--would have been described still better as +a luxury than as the mere simplification, the corrected +awkwardness, that she contented herself with calling it. He had at +any rate ceased to be all day long in her eyes, and this left +something a little fresh for them to rest on of a Sunday. During +the three months of his happy survival at Cocker's after her +consent to their engagement she had often asked herself what it was +marriage would be able to add to a familiarity that seemed already +to have scraped the platter so clean. Opposite there, behind the +counter of which his superior stature, his whiter apron, his more +clustering curls and more present, too present, H's had been for a +couple of years the principal ornament, he had moved to and fro +before her as on the small sanded floor of their contracted future. +She was conscious now of the improvement of not having to take her +present and her future at once. They were about as much as she +could manage when taken separate. + +She had, none the less, to give her mind steadily to what Mr. Mudge +had again written her about, the idea of her applying for a +transfer to an office quite similar--she couldn't yet hope for a +place in a bigger--under the very roof where he was foreman, so +that, dangled before her every minute of the day, he should see +her, as he called it, "hourly," and in a part, the far N.W. +district, where, with her mother, she would save on their two rooms +alone nearly three shillings. It would be far from dazzling to +exchange Mayfair for Chalk Farm, and it wore upon her much that he +could never drop a subject; still, it didn't wear as things HAD +worn, the worries of the early times of their great misery, her +own, her mother's and her elder sister's--the last of whom had +succumbed to all but absolute want when, as conscious and +incredulous ladies, suddenly bereft, betrayed, overwhelmed, they +had slipped faster and faster down the steep slope at the bottom of +which she alone had rebounded. Her mother had never rebounded any +more at the bottom than on the way; had only rumbled and grumbled +down and down, making, in respect of caps, topics and "habits," no +effort whatever--which simply meant smelling much of the time of +whiskey. + + + +CHAPTER II + + + +It was always rather quiet at Cocker's while the contingent from +Ladle's and Thrupp's and all the other great places were at +luncheon, or, as the young men used vulgarly to say, while the +animals were feeding. She had forty minutes in advance of this to +go home for her own dinner; and when she came back and one of the +young men took his turn there was often half an hour during which +she could pull out a bit of work or a book--a book from the place +where she borrowed novels, very greasy, in fine print and all about +fine folks, at a ha'penny a day. This sacred pause was one of the +numerous ways in which the establishment kept its finger on the +pulse of fashion and fell into the rhythm of the larger life. It +had something to do, one day, with the particular flare of +importance of an arriving customer, a lady whose meals were +apparently irregular, yet whom she was destined, she afterwards +found, not to forget. The girl was blasee; nothing could belong +more, as she perfectly knew, to the intense publicity of her +profession; but she had a whimsical mind and wonderful nerves; she +was subject, in short, to sudden flickers of antipathy and +sympathy, red gleams in the grey, fitful needs to notice and to +"care," odd caprices of curiosity. She had a friend who had +invented a new career for women--that of being in and out of +people's houses to look after the flowers. Mrs. Jordan had a +manner of her own of sounding this allusion; "the flowers," on her +lips, were, in fantastic places, in happy homes, as usual as the +coals or the daily papers. She took charge of them, at any rate, +in all the rooms, at so much a month, and people were quickly +finding out what it was to make over this strange burden of the +pampered to the widow of a clergyman. The widow, on her side, +dilating on the initiations thus opened up to her, had been +splendid to her young friend, over the way she was made free of the +greatest houses--the way, especially when she did the dinner- +tables, set out so often for twenty, she felt that a single step +more would transform her whole social position. On its being asked +of her then if she circulated only in a sort of tropical solitude, +with the upper servants for picturesque natives, and on her having +to assent to this glance at her limitations, she had found a reply +to the girl's invidious question. "You've no imagination, my +dear!"--that was because a door more than half open to the higher +life couldn't be called anything but a thin partition. Mrs. +Jordan's imagination quite did away with the thickness. + +Our young lady had not taken up the charge, had dealt with it good- +humouredly, just because she knew so well what to think of it. It +was at once one of her most cherished complaints and most secret +supports that people didn't understand her, and it was accordingly +a matter of indifference to her that Mrs. Jordan shouldn't; even +though Mrs. Jordan, handed down from their early twilight of +gentility and also the victim of reverses, was the only member of +her circle in whom she recognised an equal. She was perfectly +aware that her imaginative life was the life in which she spent +most of her time; and she would have been ready, had it been at all +worth while, to contend that, since her outward occupation didn't +kill it, it must be strong indeed. Combinations of flowers and +green-stuff, forsooth! What SHE could handle freely, she said to +herself, was combinations of men and women. The only weakness in +her faculty came from the positive abundance of her contact with +the human herd; this was so constant, it had so the effect of +cheapening her privilege, that there were long stretches in which +inspiration, divination and interest quite dropped. The great +thing was the flashes, the quick revivals, absolute accidents all, +and neither to be counted on nor to be resisted. Some one had only +sometimes to put in a penny for a stamp and the whole thing was +upon her. She was so absurdly constructed that these were +literally the moments that made up--made up for the long stiffness +of sitting there in the stocks, made up for the cunning hostility +of Mr. Buckton and the importunate sympathy of the counter-clerk, +made up for the daily deadly flourishy letter from Mr. Mudge, made +up even for the most haunting of her worries, the rage at moments +of not knowing how her mother did "get it." + +She had surrendered herself moreover of late to a certain expansion +of her consciousness; something that seemed perhaps vulgarly +accounted for by the fact that, as the blast of the season roared +louder and the waves of fashion tossed their spray further over the +counter, there were more impressions to be gathered and really--for +it came to that--more life to be led. Definite at any rate it was +that by the time May was well started the kind of company she kept +at Cocker's had begun to strike her as a reason--a reason she might +almost put forward for a policy of procrastination. It sounded +silly, of course, as yet, to plead such a motive, especially as the +fascination of the place was after all a sort of torment. But she +liked her torment; it was a torment she should miss at Chalk Farm. +She was ingenious and uncandid, therefore, about leaving the +breadth of London a little longer between herself and that +austerity. If she hadn't quite the courage in short to say to Mr. +Mudge that her actual chance for a play of mind was worth any week +the three shillings he desired to help her to save, she yet saw +something happen in the course of the month that in her heart of +hearts at least answered the subtle question. This was connected +precisely with the appearance of the memorable lady. + + + +CHAPTER III + + + +She pushed in three bescribbled forms which the girl's hand was +quick to appropriate, Mr. Buckton having so frequent a perverse +instinct for catching first any eye that promised the sort of +entertainment with which she had her peculiar affinity. The +amusements of captives are full of a desperate contrivance, and one +of our young friend's ha'pennyworths had been the charming tale of +"Picciola." It was of course the law of the place that they were +never to take no notice, as Mr. Buckton said, whom they served; but +this also never prevented, certainly on the same gentleman's own +part, what he was fond of describing as the underhand game. Both +her companions, for that matter, made no secret of the number of +favourites they had among the ladies; sweet familiarities in spite +of which she had repeatedly caught each of them in stupidities and +mistakes, confusions of identity and lapses of observation that +never failed to remind her how the cleverness of men ends where the +cleverness of women begins. "Marguerite, Regent Street. Try on at +six. All Spanish lace. Pearls. The full length." That was the +first; it had no signature. "Lady Agnes Orme, Hyde Park Place. +Impossible to-night, dining Haddon. Opera to-morrow, promised +Fritz, but could do play Wednesday. Will try Haddon for Savoy, and +anything in the world you like, if you can get Gussy. Sunday +Montenero. Sit Mason Monday, Tuesday. Marguerite awful. Cissy." +That was the second. The third, the girl noted when she took it, +was on a foreign form: "Everard, Hotel Brighton, Paris. Only +understand and believe. 22nd to 26th, and certainly 8th and 9th. +Perhaps others. Come. Mary." + +Mary was very handsome, the handsomest woman, she felt in a moment, +she had ever seen--or perhaps it was only Cissy. Perhaps it was +both, for she had seen stranger things than that--ladies wiring to +different persons under different names. She had seen all sorts of +things and pieced together all sorts of mysteries. There had once +been one--not long before--who, without winking, sent off five over +five different signatures. Perhaps these represented five +different friends who had asked her--all women, just as perhaps now +Mary and Cissy, or one or other of them, were wiring by deputy. +Sometimes she put in too much--too much of her own sense; sometimes +she put in too little; and in either case this often came round to +her afterwards, for she had an extraordinary way of keeping clues. +When she noticed she noticed; that was what it came to. There were +days and days, there were weeks sometimes, of vacancy. This arose +often from Mr. Buckton's devilish and successful subterfuges for +keeping her at the sounder whenever it looked as if anything might +arouse; the sounder, which it was equally his business to mind, +being the innermost cell of captivity, a cage within the cage, +fenced oft from the rest by a frame of ground glass. The counter- +clerk would have played into her hands; but the counter-clerk was +really reduced to idiocy by the effect of his passion for her. She +flattered herself moreover, nobly, that with the unpleasant +conspicuity of this passion she would never have consented to be +obliged to him. The most she would ever do would be always to +shove off on him whenever she could the registration of letters, a +job she happened particularly to loathe. After the long stupors, +at all events, there almost always suddenly would come a sharp +taste of something; it was in her mouth before she knew it; it was +in her mouth now. + +To Cissy, to Mary, whichever it was, she found her curiosity going +out with a rush, a mute effusion that floated back to her, like a +returning tide, the living colour and splendour of the beautiful +head, the light of eyes that seemed to reflect such utterly other +things than the mean things actually before them; and, above all, +the high curt consideration of a manner that even at bad moments +was a magnificent habit and of the very essence of the innumerable +things--her beauty, her birth, her father and mother, her cousins +and all her ancestors--that its possessor couldn't have got rid of +even had she wished. How did our obscure little public servant +know that for the lady of the telegrams this was a bad moment? How +did she guess all sorts of impossible things, such as, almost on +the very spot, the presence of drama at a critical stage and the +nature of the tie with the gentleman at the Hotel Brighton? More +than ever before it floated to her through the bars of the cage +that this at last was the high reality, the bristling truth that +she had hitherto only patched up and eked out--one of the +creatures, in fine, in whom all the conditions for happiness +actually met, and who, in the air they made, bloomed with an +unwitting insolence. What came home to the girl was the way the +insolence was tempered by something that was equally a part of the +distinguished life, the custom of a flowerlike bend to the less +fortunate--a dropped fragrance, a mere quick breath, but which in +fact pervaded and lingered. The apparition was very young, but +certainly married, and our fatigued friend had a sufficient store +of mythological comparison to recognise the port of Juno. +Marguerite might be "awful," but she knew how to dress a goddess. + +Pearls and Spanish lace--she herself, with assurance, could see +them, and the "full length" too, and also red velvet bows, which, +disposed on the lace in a particular manner (she could have placed +them with the turn of a hand) were of course to adorn the front of +a black brocade that would be like a dress in a picture. However, +neither Marguerite nor Lady Agnes nor Haddon nor Fritz nor Gussy +was what the wearer of this garment had really come in for. She +had come in for Everard--and that was doubtless not his true name +either. If our young lady had never taken such jumps before it was +simply that she had never before been so affected. She went all +the way. Mary and Cissy had been round together, in their single +superb person, to see him--he must live round the corner; they had +found that, in consequence of something they had come, precisely, +to make up for or to have another scene about, he had gone off-- +gone off just on purpose to make them feel it; on which they had +come together to Cocker's as to the nearest place; where they had +put in the three forms partly in order not to put in the one alone. +The two others in a manner, covered it, muffled it, passed it off. +Oh yes, she went all the way, and this was a specimen of how she +often went. She would know the hand again any time. It was as +handsome and as everything else as the woman herself. The woman +herself had, on learning his flight, pushed past Everard's servant +and into his room; she had written her missive at his table and +with his pen. All this, every inch of it, came in the waft that +she blew through and left behind her, the influence that, as I have +said, lingered. And among the things the girl was sure of, +happily, was that she should see her again. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + +She saw her in fact, and only ten days later; but this time not +alone, and that was exactly a part of the luck of it. Not unaware- +-as how could her observation have left her so?--of the +possibilities through which it could range, our young lady had ever +since had in her mind a dozen conflicting theories about Everard's +type; as to which, the instant they came into the place, she felt +the point settled with a thump that seemed somehow addressed +straight to her heart. That organ literally beat faster at the +approach of the gentleman who was this time with Cissy, and who, as +seen from within the cage, became on the spot the happiest of the +happy circumstances with which her mind had invested the friend of +Fritz and Gussy. He was a very happy circumstance indeed as, with +his cigarette in his lips and his broken familiar talk caught by +his companion, he put down the half-dozen telegrams it would take +them together several minutes to dispatch. And here it occurred, +oddly enough, that if, shortly before the girl's interest in his +companion had sharpened her sense for the messages then +transmitted, her immediate vision of himself had the effect, while +she counted his seventy words, of preventing intelligibility. His +words were mere numbers, they told her nothing whatever; and after +he had gone she was in possession of no name, of no address, of no +meaning, of nothing but a vague sweet sound and an immense +impression. He had been there but five minutes, he had smoked in +her face, and, busy with his telegrams, with the tapping pencil and +the conscious danger, the odious betrayal that would come from a +mistake, she had had no wandering glances nor roundabout arts to +spare. Yet she had taken him in; she knew everything; she had made +up her mind. + +He had come back from Paris; everything was re-arranged; the pair +were again shoulder to shoulder in their high encounter with life, +their large and complicated game. The fine soundless pulse of this +game was in the air for our young woman while they remained in the +shop. While they remained? They remained all day; their presence +continued and abode with her, was in everything she did till +nightfall, in the thousands of other words she counted, she +transmitted, in all the stamps she detached and the letters she +weighed and the change she gave, equally unconscious and unerring +in each of these particulars, and not, as the run on the little +office thickened with the afternoon hours, looking up at a single +ugly face in the long sequence, nor really hearing the stupid +questions that she patiently and perfectly answered. All patience +was possible now, all questions were stupid after his, all faces +were ugly. She had been sure she should see the lady again; and +even now she should perhaps, she should probably, see her often. +But for him it was totally different; she should never never see +him. She wanted it too much. There was a kind of wanting that +helped--she had arrived, with her rich experience, at that +generalisation; and there was another kind that was fatal. It was +this time the fatal kind; it would prevent. + +Well, she saw him the very next day, and on this second occasion it +was quite different; the sense of every syllable he paid for was +fiercely distinct; she indeed felt her progressive pencil, dabbing +as if with a quick caress the marks of his own, put life into every +stroke. He was there a long time--had not brought his forms filled +out but worked them off in a nook on the counter; and there were +other people as well--a changing pushing cluster, with every one to +mind at once and endless right change to make and information to +produce. But she kept hold of him throughout; she continued, for +herself, in a relation with him as close as that in which, behind +the hated ground glass, Mr. Buckton luckily continued with the +sounder. This morning everything changed, but rather to +dreariness; she had to swallow the rebuff to her theory about fatal +desires, which she did without confusion and indeed with absolute +levity; yet if it was now flagrant that he did live close at hand-- +at Park Chambers--and belonged supremely to the class that wired +everything, even their expensive feelings (so that, as he never +wrote, his correspondence cost him weekly pounds and pounds, and he +might be in and out five times a day) there was, all the same, +involved in the prospect, and by reason of its positive excess of +light, a perverse melancholy, a gratuitous misery. This was at +once to give it a place in an order of feelings on which I shall +presently touch. + +Meanwhile, for a month, he was very constant. Cissy, Mary, never +re-appeared with him; he was always either alone or accompanied +only by some gentleman who was lost in the blaze of his glory. +There was another sense, however--and indeed there was more than +one--in which she mostly found herself counting in the splendid +creature with whom she had originally connected him. He addressed +this correspondent neither as Mary nor as Cissy; but the girl was +sure of whom it was, in Eaten Square, that he was perpetually +wiring to--and all so irreproachably!--as Lady Bradeen. Lady +Bradeen was Cissy, Lady Bradeen was Mary, Lady Bradeen was the +friend of Fritz and of Gussy, the customer of Marguerite, and the +close ally in short (as was ideally right, only the girl had not +yet found a descriptive term that was) of the most magnificent of +men. Nothing could equal the frequency and variety of his +communications to her ladyship but their extraordinary, their +abysmal propriety. It was just the talk--so profuse sometimes that +she wondered what was left for their real meetings--of the very +happiest people. Their real meetings must have been constant, for +half of it was appointments and allusions, all swimming in a sea of +other allusions still, tangled in a complexity of questions that +gave a wondrous image of their life. If Lady Bradeen was Juno it +was all certainly Olympian. If the girl, missing the answers, her +ladyship's own outpourings, vainly reflected that Cocker's should +have been one of the bigger offices where telegrams arrived as well +as departed, there were yet ways in which, on the whole, she +pressed the romance closer by reason of the very quantity of +imagination it demanded and consumed. The days and hours of this +new friend, as she came to account him, were at all events +unrolled, and however much more she might have known she would +still have wished to go beyond. In fact she did go beyond; she +went quite far enough. + +But she could none the less, even after a month, scarce have told +if the gentlemen who came in with him recurred or changed; and this +in spite of the fact that they too were always posting and wiring, +smoking in her face and signing or not signing. The gentlemen who +came in with him were nothing when he was there. They turned up +alone at other times--then only perhaps with a dim richness of +reference. He himself, absent as well as present, was all. He was +very tall, very fair, and had, in spite of his thick +preoccupations, a good-humour that was exquisite, particularly as +it so often had the effect of keeping him on. He could have +reached over anybody, and anybody--no matter who--would have let +him; but he was so extraordinarily kind that he quite pathetically +waited, never waggling things at her out of his turn nor saying +"Here!" with horrid sharpness. He waited for pottering old ladies, +for gaping slaveys, for the perpetual Buttonses from Thrupp's; and +the thing in all this that she would have liked most unspeakably to +put to the test was the possibility of her having for him a +personal identity that might in a particular way appeal. There +were moments when he actually struck her as on her side, as +arranging to help, to support, to spare her. + +But such was the singular spirit of our young friend that she could +remind herself with a pang that when people had awfully good +manners--people of that class,--you couldn't tell. These manners +were for everybody, and it might be drearily unavailing for any +poor particular body to be overworked and unusual. What he did +take for granted was all sorts of facility; and his high +pleasantness, his relighting of cigarettes while he waited, his +unconscious bestowal of opportunities, of boons, of blessings, were +all a part of his splendid security, the instinct that told him +there was nothing such an existence as his could ever lose by. He +was somehow all at once very bright and very grave, very young and +immensely complete; and whatever he was at any moment it was always +as much as all the rest the mere bloom of his beatitude. He was +sometimes Everard, as he had been at the Hotel Brighton, and he was +sometimes Captain Everard. He was sometimes Philip with his +surname and sometimes Philip without it. In some directions he was +merely Phil, in others he was merely Captain. There were relations +in which he was none of these things, but a quite different person- +-"the Count." There were several friends for whom he was William. +There were several for whom, in allusion perhaps to his complexion, +he was "the Pink 'Un." Once, once only by good luck, he had, +coinciding comically, quite miraculously, with another person also +near to her, been "Mudge." Yes, whatever he was, it was a part of +his happiness--whatever he was and probably whatever he wasn't. +And his happiness was a part--it became so little by little--of +something that, almost from the first of her being at Cocker's, had +been deeply with the girl. + + + +CHAPTER V + + + +This was neither more nor less than the queer extension of her +experience, the double life that, in the cage, she grew at last to +lead. As the weeks went on there she lived more and more into the +world of whiffs and glimpses, she found her divinations work faster +and stretch further. It was a prodigious view as the pressure +heightened, a panorama fed with facts and figures, flushed with a +torrent of colour and accompanied with wondrous world-music. What +it mainly came to at this period was a picture of how London could +amuse itself; and that, with the running commentary of a witness so +exclusively a witness, turned for the most part to a hardening of +the heart. The nose of this observer was brushed by the bouquet, +yet she could never really pluck even a daisy. What could still +remain fresh in her daily grind was the immense disparity, the +difference and contrast, from class to class, of every instant and +every motion. There were times when all the wires in the country +seemed to start from the little hole-and-corner where she plied for +a livelihood, and where, in the shuffle of feet, the flutter of +"forms," the straying of stamps and the ring of change over the +counter, the people she had fallen into the habit of remembering +and fitting together with others, and of having her theories and +interpretations of, kept up before her their long procession and +rotation. What twisted the knife in her vitals was the way the +profligate rich scattered about them, in extravagant chatter over +their extravagant pleasures and sins, an amount of money that would +have held the stricken household of her frightened childhood, her +poor pinched mother and tormented father and lost brother and +starved sister, together for a lifetime. During her first weeks +she had often gasped at the sums people were willing to pay for the +stuff they transmitted--the "much love"s, the "awful" regrets, the +compliments and wonderments and vain vague gestures that cost the +price of a new pair of boots. She had had a way then of glancing +at the people's faces, but she had early learnt that if you became +a telegraphist you soon ceased to be astonished. Her eye for types +amounted nevertheless to genius, and there were those she liked and +those she hated, her feeling for the latter of which grew to a +positive possession, an instinct of observation and detection. +There were the brazen women, as she called them, of the higher and +the lower fashion, whose squanderings and graspings, whose +struggles and secrets and love-affairs and lies, she tracked and +stored up against them till she had at moments, in private, a +triumphant vicious feeling of mastery and ease, a sense of carrying +their silly guilty secrets in her pocket, her small retentive +brain, and thereby knowing so much more about them than they +suspected or would care to think. There were those she would have +liked to betray, to trip up, to bring down with words altered and +fatal; and all through a personal hostility provoked by the +lightest signs, by their accidents of tone and manner, by the +particular kind of relation she always happened instantly to feel. + +There were impulses of various kinds, alternately soft and severe, +to which she was constitutionally accessible and which were +determined by the smallest accidents. She was rigid in general on +the article of making the public itself affix its stamps, and found +a special enjoyment in dealing to that end with some of the ladies +who were too grand to touch them. She had thus a play of +refinement and subtlety greater, she flattered herself, than any of +which she could be made the subject; and though most people were +too stupid to be conscious of this it brought her endless small +consolations and revenges. She recognised quite as much those of +her sex whom she would have liked to help, to warn, to rescue, to +see more of; and that alternative as well operated exactly through +the hazard of personal sympathy, her vision for silver threads and +moonbeams and her gift for keeping the clues and finding her way in +the tangle. The moonbeams and silver threads presented at moments +all the vision of what poor SHE might have made of happiness. +Blurred and blank as the whole thing often inevitably, or +mercifully, became, she could still, through crevices and crannies, +be stupefied, especially by what, in spite of all seasoning, +touched the sorest place in her consciousness, the revelation of +the golden shower flying about without a gleam of gold for herself. +It remained prodigious to the end, the money her fine friends were +able to spend to get still more, or even to complain to fine +friends of their own that they were in want. The pleasures they +proposed were equalled only by those they declined, and they made +their appointments often so expensively that she was left wondering +at the nature of the delights to which the mere approaches were so +paved with shillings. She quivered on occasion into the perception +of this and that one whom she would on the chance have just simply +liked to BE. Her conceit, her baffled vanity, was possibly +monstrous; she certainly often threw herself into a defiant +conviction that she would have done the whole thing much better. +But her greatest comfort, mostly, was her comparative vision of the +men; by whom I mean the unmistakeable gentlemen, for she had no +interest in the spurious or the shabby and no mercy at all for the +poor. She could have found a sixpence, outside, for an appearance +of want; but her fancy, in some directions so alert, had never a +throb of response for any sign of the sordid. The men she did +track, moreover, she tracked mainly in one relation, the relation +as to which the cage convinced her, she believed, more than +anything else could have done, that it was quite the most diffused. + +She found her ladies, in short, almost always in communication with +her gentlemen, and her gentlemen with her ladies, and she read into +the immensity of their intercourse stories and meanings without +end. Incontestably she grew to think that the men cut the best +figure; and in this particular, as in many others, she arrived at a +philosophy of her own, all made up of her private notations and +cynicisms. It was a striking part of the business, for example, +that it was much more the women, on the whole, who were after the +men than the men who were after the women: it was literally +visible that the general attitude of the one sex was that of the +object pursued and defensive, apologetic and attenuating, while the +light of her own nature helped her more or less to conclude as to +the attitude of the other. Perhaps she herself a little even fell +into the custom of pursuit in occasionally deviating only for +gentlemen from her high rigour about the stamps. She had early in +the day made up her mind, in fine, that they had the best manners; +and if there were none of them she noticed when Captain Everard was +there, there were plenty she could place and trace and name at +other times, plenty who, with their way of being "nice" to her, and +of handling, as if their pockets were private tills loose mixed +masses of silver and gold, were such pleasant appearances that she +could envy them without dislike. THEY never had to give change-- +they only had to get it. They ranged through every suggestion, +every shade of fortune, which evidently included indeed lots of bad +luck as well as of good, declining even toward Mr. Mudge and his +bland firm thrift, and ascending, in wild signals and rocket- +flights, almost to within hail of her highest standard. So from +month to month she went on with them all, through a thousand ups +and downs and a thousand pangs and indifferences. What virtually +happened was that in the shuffling herd that passed before her by +far the greater part only passed--a proportion but just appreciable +stayed. Most of the elements swam straight away, lost themselves +in the bottomless common, and by so doing really kept the page +clear. On the clearness therefore what she did retain stood +sharply out; she nipped and caught it, turned it over and interwove +it. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + +She met Mrs. Jordan when she could, and learned from her more and +more how the great people, under her gentle shake and after going +through everything with the mere shops, were waking up to the gain +of putting into the hands of a person of real refinement the +question that the shop-people spoke of so vulgarly as that of the +floral decorations. The regular dealers in these decorations were +all very well; but there was a peculiar magic in the play of taste +of a lady who had only to remember, through whatever intervening +dusk, all her own little tables, little bowls and little jars and +little other arrangements, and the wonderful thing she had made of +the garden of the vicarage. This small domain, which her young +friend had never seen, bloomed in Mrs. Jordan's discourse like a +new Eden, and she converted the past into a bank of violets by the +tone in which she said "Of course you always knew my one passion!" +She obviously met now, at any rate, a big contemporary need, +measured what it was rapidly becoming for people to feel they could +trust her without a tremor. It brought them a peace that--during +the quarter of an hour before dinner in especial--was worth more to +them than mere payment could express. Mere payment, none the less, +was tolerably prompt; she engaged by the month, taking over the +whole thing; and there was an evening on which, in respect to our +heroine, she at last returned to the charge. "It's growing and +growing, and I see that I must really divide the work. One wants +an associate--of one's own kind, don't you know? You know the look +they want it all to have?--of having come, not from a florist, but +from one of themselves. Well, I'm sure YOU could give it--because +you ARE one. Then we SHOULD win. Therefore just come in with me." + +"And leave the P.O.?" + +"Let the P.O. simply bring you your letters. It would bring you +lots, you'd see: orders, after a bit, by the score." It was on +this, in due course, that the great advantage again came up: "One +seems to live again with one's own people." It had taken some +little time (after their having parted company in the tempest of +their troubles and then, in the glimmering dawn, finally sighted +each other again) for each to admit that the other was, in her +private circle, her only equal, but the admission came, when it did +come, with an honest groan; and since equality was named, each +found much personal profit in exaggerating the other's original +grandeur. Mrs. Jordan was ten years the older, but her young +friend was struck with the smaller difference this now made: it +had counted otherwise at the time when, much more as a friend of +her mother's, the bereaved lady, without a penny of provision and +with stopgaps, like their own, all gone, had, across the sordid +landing on which the opposite doors of the pair of scared miseries +opened and to which they were bewilderedly bolted, borrowed coals +and umbrellas that were repaid in potatoes and postage-stamps. It +had been a questionable help, at that time, to ladies submerged, +floundering, panting, swimming for their lives, that they were +ladies; but such an advantage could come up again in proportion as +others vanished, and it had grown very great by the time it was the +only ghost of one they possessed. They had literally watched it +take to itself a portion of the substance of each that had +departed; and it became prodigious now, when they could talk of it +together, when they could look back at it across a desert of +accepted derogation, and when, above all, they could together work +up a credulity about it that neither could otherwise work up. +Nothing was really so marked as that they felt the need to +cultivate this legend much more after having found their feet and +stayed their stomachs in the ultimate obscure than they had done in +the upper air of mere frequent shocks. The thing they could now +oftenest say to each other was that they knew what they meant; and +the sentiment with which, all round, they knew it was known had +well-nigh amounted to a promise not again to fall apart. + +Mrs. Jordan was at present fairly dazzling on the subject of the +way that, in the practice of her fairy art, as she called it, she +more than peeped in--she penetrated. There was not a house of the +great kind--and it was of course only a question of those, real +homes of luxury--in which she was not, at the rate such people now +had things, all over the place. The girl felt before the picture +the cold breath of disinheritance as much as she had ever felt it +in the cage; she knew moreover how much she betrayed this, for the +experience of poverty had begun, in her life, too early, and her +ignorance of the requirements of homes of luxury had grown, with +other active knowledge, a depth of simplification. She had +accordingly at first often found that in these colloquies she could +only pretend she understood. Educated as she had rapidly been by +her chances at Cocker's, there were still strange gaps in her +learning--she could never, like Mrs. Jordan, have found her way +about one of the "homes." Little by little, however, she had +caught on, above all in the light of what Mrs. Jordan's redemption +had materially made of that lady, giving her, though the years and +the struggles had naturally not straightened a feature, an almost +super-eminent air. There were women in and out of Cocker's who +were quite nice and who yet didn't look well; whereas Mrs. Jordan +looked well and yet, with her extraordinarily protrusive teeth, was +by no means quite nice. It would seem, mystifyingly, that it might +really come from all the greatness she could live with. It was +fine to hear her talk so often of dinners of twenty and of her +doing, as she said, exactly as she liked with them. She spoke as +if, for that matter, she invited the company. "They simply give me +the table--all the rest, all the other effects, come afterwards." + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + +"Then you DO see them?" the girl again asked. + +Mrs. Jordan hesitated, and indeed the point had been ambiguous +before. "Do you mean the guests?" + +Her young friend, cautious about an undue exposure of innocence, +was not quite sure. "Well--the people who live there." + +"Lady Ventnor? Mrs. Bubb? Lord Rye? Dear, yes. Why they LIKE +one." + +"But does one personally KNOW them?" our young lady went on, since +that was the way to speak. "I mean socially, don't you know?--as +you know ME." + +"They're not so nice as you!" Mrs. Jordan charmingly cried. "But I +SHALL see more and more of them." + +Ah this was the old story. "But how soon?" + +"Why almost any day. Of course," Mrs. Jordan honestly added, +"they're nearly always out." + +"Then why do they want flowers all over?" + +"Oh that doesn't make any difference." Mrs. Jordan was not +philosophic; she was just evidently determined it SHOULDN'T make +any. "They're awfully interested in my ideas, and it's inevitable +they should meet me over them." + +Her interlocutress was sturdy enough. "What do you call your +ideas?" + +Mrs. Jordan's reply was fine. "If you were to see me some day with +a thousand tulips you'd discover." + +"A thousand?"--the girl gaped at such a revelation of the scale of +it; she felt for the instant fairly planted out. "Well, but if in +fact they never do meet you?" she none the less pessimistically +insisted. + +"Never? They OFTEN do--and evidently quite on purpose. We have +grand long talks." + +There was something in our young lady that could still stay her +from asking for a personal description of these apparitions; that +showed too starved a state. But while she considered she took in +afresh the whole of the clergyman's widow. Mrs. Jordan couldn't +help her teeth, and her sleeves were a distinct rise in the world. +A thousand tulips at a shilling clearly took one further than a +thousand words at a penny; and the betrothed of Mr. Mudge, in whom +the sense of the race for life was always acute, found herself +wondering, with a twinge of her easy jealousy, if it mightn't after +all then, for HER also, be better--better than where she was--to +follow some such scent. Where she was was where Mr. Buckton's +elbow could freely enter her right side and the counter-clerk's +breathing--he had something the matter with his nose--pervade her +left ear. It was something to fill an office under Government, and +she knew but too well there were places commoner still than +Cocker's; but it needed no great range of taste to bring home to +her the picture of servitude and promiscuity she couldn't but offer +to the eye of comparative freedom. She was so boxed up with her +young men, and anything like a margin so absent, that it needed +more art than she should ever possess to pretend in the least to +compass, with any one in the nature of an acquaintance--say with +Mrs. Jordan herself, flying in, as it might happen, to wire +sympathetically to Mrs. Bubb--an approach to a relation of elegant +privacy. She remembered the day when Mrs. Jordan HAD, in fact, by +the greatest chance, come in with fifty-three words for Lord Rye +and a five-pound note to change. This had been the dramatic manner +of their reunion--their mutual recognition was so great an event. +The girl could at first only see her from the waist up, besides +making but little of her long telegram to his lordship. It was a +strange whirligig that had converted the clergyman's widow into +such a specimen of the class that went beyond the sixpence. + +Nothing of the occasion, all the more, had ever become dim; least +of all the way that, as her recovered friend looked up from +counting, Mrs. Jordan had just blown, in explanation, through her +teeth and through the bars of the cage: "I DO flowers, you know." +Our young woman had always, with her little finger crooked out, a +pretty movement for counting; and she had not forgotten the small +secret advantage, a sharpness of triumph it might even have been +called, that fell upon her at this moment and avenged her for the +incoherence of the message, an unintelligible enumeration of +numbers, colours, days, hours. The correspondence of people she +didn't know was one thing; but the correspondence of people she did +had an aspect of its own for her even when she couldn't understand +it. The speech in which Mrs. Jordan had defined a position and +announced a profession was like a tinkle of bluebells; but for +herself her one idea about flowers was that people had them at +funerals, and her present sole gleam of light was that lords +probably had them most. When she watched, a minute later, through +the cage, the swing of her visitor's departing petticoats, she saw +the sight from the waist down; and when the counter-clerk, after a +mere male glance, remarked, with an intention unmistakeably low, +"Handsome woman!" she had for him the finest of her chills: "She's +the widow of a bishop." She always felt, with the counter-clerk, +that it was impossible sufficiently to put it on; for what she +wished to express to him was the maximum of her contempt, and that +element in her nature was confusedly stored. "A bishop" was +putting it on, but the counter-clerk's approaches were vile. The +night, after this, when, in the fulness of time, Mrs. Jordan +mentioned the grand long talks, the girl at last brought out: +"Should I see them?--I mean if I WERE to give up everything for +you." + +Mrs. Jordan at this became most arch. "I'd send you to all the +bachelors!" + +Our young lady could be reminded by such a remark that she usually +struck her friend as pretty. "Do THEY have their flowers?" + +"Oceans. And they're the most particular." Oh it was a wonderful +world. "You should see Lord Rye's." + +"His flowers?" + +"Yes, and his letters. He writes me pages on pages--with the most +adorable little drawings and plans. You should see his diagrams!" + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + +The girl had in course of time every opportunity to inspect these +documents, and they a little disappointed her; but in the mean +while there had been more talk, and it had led to her saying, as if +her friend's guarantee of a life of elegance were not quite +definite: "Well, I see every one at MY place." + +"Every one?" + +"Lots of swells. They flock. They live, you know, all round, and +the place is filled with all the smart people, all the fast people, +those whose names are in the papers--mamma has still The Morning +Post--and who come up for the season." + +Mrs. Jordan took this in with complete intelligence. "Yes, and I +dare say it's some of your people that I do." + +Her companion assented, but discriminated. "I doubt if you 'do' +them as much as I! Their affairs, their appointments and +arrangements, their little games and secrets and vices--those +things all pass before me." + +This was a picture that could make a clergyman's widow not +imperceptibly gasp; it was in intention moreover something of a +retort to the thousand tulips. "Their vices? Have they got +vices?" + +Our young critic even more overtly stared then with a touch of +contempt in her amusement: "Haven't you found THAT out?" The +homes of luxury then hadn't so much to give. "I find out +everything." + +Mrs. Jordan, at bottom a very meek person, was visibly struck. "I +see. You do 'have' them." + +"Oh I don't care! Much good it does me!" + +Mrs. Jordan after an instant recovered her superiority. "No--it +doesn't lead to much." Her own initiations so clearly did. Still- +-after all; and she was not jealous: "There must be a charm." + +"In seeing them?" At this the girl suddenly let herself go. "I +hate them. There's that charm!" + +Mrs. Jordan gaped again. "The REAL 'smarts'?" + +"Is that what you call Mrs. Bubb? Yes--it comes to me; I've had +Mrs. Bubb. I don't think she has been in herself, but there are +things her maid has brought. Well, my dear!"--and the young person +from Cocker's, recalling these things and summing them up, seemed +suddenly to have much to say. She didn't say it, however; she +checked it; she only brought out: "Her maid, who's horrid--SHE +must have her!" Then she went on with indifference: "They're TOO +real! They're selfish brutes." + +Mrs. Jordan, turning it over, adopted at last the plan of treating +it with a smile. She wished to be liberal. "Well, of course, they +do lay it out." + +"They bore me to death," her companion pursued with slightly more +temperance. + +But this was going too far. "Ah that's because you've no +sympathy!" + +The girl gave an ironic laugh, only retorting that nobody could +have any who had to count all day all the words in the dictionary; +a contention Mrs. Jordan quite granted, the more that she shuddered +at the notion of ever failing of the very gift to which she owed +the vogue--the rage she might call it--that had caught her up. +Without sympathy--or without imagination, for it came back again to +that--how should she get, for big dinners, down the middle and +toward the far corners at all? It wasn't the combinations, which +were easily managed: the strain was over the ineffable +simplicities, those that the bachelors above all, and Lord Rye +perhaps most of any, threw off--just blew off like cigarette-puffs- +-such sketches of. The betrothed of Mr. Mudge at all events +accepted the explanation, which had the effect, as almost any turn +of their talk was now apt to have, of bringing her round to the +terrific question of that gentleman. She was tormented with the +desire to get out of Mrs. Jordan, on this subject, what she was +sure was at the back of Mrs. Jordan's head; and to get it out of +her, queerly enough, if only to vent a certain irritation at it. +She knew that what her friend would already have risked if she +hadn't been timid and tortuous was: "Give him up--yes, give him +up: you'll see that with your sure chances you'll be able to do +much better." + +Our young woman had a sense that if that view could only be put +before her with a particular sniff for poor Mr. Mudge she should +hate it as much as she morally ought. She was conscious of not, as +yet, hating it quite so much as that. But she saw that Mrs. Jordan +was conscious of something too, and that there was a degree of +confidence she was waiting little by little to arrive at. The day +came when the girl caught a glimpse of what was still wanting to +make her friend feel strong; which was nothing less than the +prospect of being able to announce the climax of sundry private +dreams. The associate of the aristocracy had personal +calculations--matter for brooding and dreaming, even for peeping +out not quite hopelessly from behind the window-curtains of lonely +lodgings. If she did the flowers for the bachelors, in short, +didn't she expect that to have consequences very different from +such an outlook at Cocker's as she had pronounced wholly desperate? +There seemed in very truth something auspicious in the mixture of +bachelors and flowers, though, when looked hard in the eye, Mrs. +Jordan was not quite prepared to say she had expected a positive +proposal from Lord Rye to pop out of it. Our young woman arrived +at last, none the less, at a definite vision of what was in her +mind. This was a vivid foreknowledge that the betrothed of Mr. +Mudge would, unless conciliated in advance by a successful rescue, +almost hate her on the day she should break a particular piece of +news. How could that unfortunate otherwise endure to hear of what, +under the protection of Lady Ventnor, was after all so possible + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + +Meanwhile, since irritation sometimes relieved her, the betrothed +of Mr. Mudge found herself indebted to that admirer for amounts of +it perfectly proportioned to her fidelity. She always walked with +him on Sundays, usually in the Regent's Park, and quite often, once +or twice a month he took her, in the Strand or thereabouts, to see +a piece that was having a run. The productions he always preferred +were the really good ones--Shakespeare, Thompson or some funny +American thing; which, as it also happened that she hated vulgar +plays, gave him ground for what was almost the fondest of his +approaches, the theory that their tastes were, blissfully, just the +same. He was for ever reminding her of that, rejoicing over it and +being affectionate and wise about it. There were times when she +wondered how in the world she could "put up with" him, how she +could put up with any man so smugly unconscious of the immensity of +her difference. It was just for this difference that, if she was +to be liked at all, she wanted to be liked, and if that was not the +source of Mr. Mudge's admiration, she asked herself what on earth +COULD be? She was not different only at one point, she was +different all round; unless perhaps indeed in being practically +human, which her mind just barely recognised that he also was. She +would have made tremendous concessions in other quarters: there +was no limit for instance to those she would have made to Captain +Everard; but what I have named was the most she was prepared to do +for Mr. Mudge. It was because HE was different that, in the oddest +way, she liked as well as deplored him; which was after all a proof +that the disparity, should they frankly recognise it, wouldn't +necessarily be fatal. She felt that, oleaginous--too oleaginous-- +as he was, he was somehow comparatively primitive: she had once, +during the portion of his time at Cocker's that had overlapped her +own, seen him collar a drunken soldier, a big violent man who, +having come in with a mate to get a postal-order cashed, had made a +grab at the money before his friend could reach it and had so +determined, among the hams and cheeses and the lodgers from +Thrupp's, immediate and alarming reprisals, a scene of scandal and +consternation. Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk had crouched +within the cage, but Mr. Mudge had, with a very quiet but very +quick step round the counter, an air of masterful authority she +shouldn't soon forget, triumphantly interposed in the scrimmage, +parted the combatants and shaken the delinquent in his skin. She +had been proud of him at that moment, and had felt that if their +affair had not already been settled the neatness of his execution +would have left her without resistance. + +Their affair had been settled by other things: by the evident +sincerity of his passion and by the sense that his high white apron +resembled a front of many floors. It had gone a great way with her +that he would build up a business to his chin, which he carried +quite in the air. This could only be a question of time; he would +have all Piccadilly in the pen behind his ear. That was a merit in +itself for a girl who had known what she had known. There were +hours at which she even found him good-looking, though, frankly +there could be no crown for her effort to imagine on the part of +the tailor or the barber some such treatment of his appearance as +would make him resemble even remotely a man of the world. His very +beauty was the beauty of a grocer, and the finest future would +offer it none too much room consistently to develop. She had +engaged herself in short to the perfection of a type, and almost +anything square and smooth and whole had its weight for a person +still conscious herself of being a mere bruised fragment of +wreckage. But it contributed hugely at present to carry on the two +parallel lines of her experience in the cage and her experience out +of it. After keeping quiet for some time about this opposition she +suddenly--one Sunday afternoon on a penny chair in the Regent's +Park--broke, for him, capriciously, bewilderingly, into an +intimation of what it came to. He had naturally pressed more and +more on the point of her again placing herself where he could see +her hourly, and for her to recognise that she had as yet given him +no sane reason for delay he had small need to describe himself as +unable to make out what she was up to. As if, with her absurd bad +reasons, she could have begun to tell him! Sometimes she thought +it would be amusing to let him have them full in the face, for she +felt she should die of him unless she once in a while stupefied +him; and sometimes she thought it would be disgusting and perhaps +even fatal. She liked him, however, to think her silly, for that +gave her the margin which at the best she would always require; and +the only difficulty about this was that he hadn't enough +imagination to oblige her. It produced none the less something of +the desired effect--to leave him simply wondering why, over the +matter of their reunion, she didn't yield to his arguments. Then +at last, simply as if by accident and out of mere boredom on a day +that was rather flat, she preposterously produced her own. "Well, +wait a bit. Where I am I still see things." And she talked to him +even worse, if possible, than she had talked to Jordan. + +Little by little, to her own stupefaction, she caught that he was +trying to take it as she meant it and that he was neither +astonished nor angry. Oh the British tradesman--this gave her an +idea of his resources! Mr. Mudge would be angry only with a person +who, like the drunken soldier in the shop, should have an +unfavourable effect on business. He seemed positively to enter, +for the time and without the faintest flash of irony or ripple of +laughter, into the whimsical grounds of her enjoyment of Cocker's +custom, and instantly to be casting up whatever it might, as Mrs. +Jordan had said, lead to. What he had in mind was not of course +what Mrs. Jordan had had: it was obviously not a source of +speculation with him that his sweetheart might pick up a husband. +She could see perfectly that this was not for a moment even what he +supposed she herself dreamed of. What she had done was simply to +give his sensibility another push into the dim vast of trade. In +that direction it was all alert, and she had whisked before it the +mild fragrance of a "connexion." That was the most he could see in +any account of her keeping in, on whatever roundabout lines, with +the gentry; and when, getting to the bottom of this, she quickly +proceeded to show him the kind of eye she turned on such people and +to give him a sketch of what that eye discovered, she reduced him +to the particular prostration in which he could still be amusing to +her. + + + +CHAPTER X + + + +"They're the most awful wretches, I assure you--the lot all about +there." + +"Then why do you want to stay among them?" + +"My dear man, just because they ARE. It makes me hate them so." + +"Hate them? I thought you liked them." + +"Don't be stupid. What I 'like' is just to loathe them. You +wouldn't believe what passes before my eyes." + +"Then why have you never told me? You didn't mention anything +before I left." + +"Oh I hadn't got round to it then. It's the sort of thing you +don't believe at first; you have to look round you a bit and then +you understand. You work into it more and more. Besides," the +girl went on, "this is the time of the year when the worst lot come +up. They're simply packed together in those smart streets. Talk +of the numbers of the poor! What I can vouch for is the numbers of +the rich! There are new ones every day, and they seem to get +richer and richer. Oh, they do come up!" she cried, imitating for +her private recreation--she was sure it wouldn't reach Mr. Mudge-- +the low intonation of the counter-clerk. + +"And where do they come from?" her companion candidly enquired. + +She had to think a moment; then she found something. "From the +'spring meetings.' They bet tremendously." + +"Well, they bet enough at Chalk Farm, if that's all." + +"It ISN'T all. It isn't a millionth part!" she replied with some +sharpness. "It's immense fun"--she HAD to tantalise him. Then as +she had heard Mrs. Jordan say, and as the ladies at Cocker's even +sometimes wired, "It's quite too dreadful!" She could fully feel +how it was Mr. Mudge's propriety, which was extreme--he had a +horror of coarseness and attended a Wesleyan chapel--that prevented +his asking for details. But she gave him some of the more +innocuous in spite of himself, especially putting before him how, +at Simpkin's and Ladle's, they all made the money fly. That was +indeed what he liked to hear: the connexion was not direct, but +one was somehow more in the right place where the money was flying +than where it was simply and meagrely nesting. The air felt that +stir, he had to acknowledge, much less at Chalk Farm than in the +district in which his beloved so oddly enjoyed her footing. She +gave him, she could see, a restless sense that these might be +familiarities not to be sacrificed; germs, possibilities, faint +foreshowings--heaven knew what--of the initiation it would prove +profitable to have arrived at when in the fulness of time he should +have his own shop in some such paradise. What really touched him-- +that was discernible--was that she could feed him with so much mere +vividness of reminder, keep before him, as by the play of a fan, +the very wind of the swift bank-notes and the charm of the +existence of a class that Providence had raised up to be the +blessing of grocers. He liked to think that the class was there, +that it was always there, and that she contributed in her slight +but appreciable degree to keep it up to the mark. He couldn't have +formulated his theory of the matter, but the exuberance of the +aristocracy was the advantage of trade, and everything was knit +together in a richness of pattern that it was good to follow with +one's finger-tips. It was a comfort to him to be thus assured that +there were no symptoms of a drop. What did the sounder, as she +called it, nimbly worked, do but keep the ball going? + +What it came to therefore for Mr. Mudge was that all enjoyments +were, as might be said, inter-related, and that the more people had +the more they wanted to have. The more flirtations, as he might +roughly express it, the more cheese and pickles. He had even in +his own small way been dimly struck with the linked sweetness +connecting the tender passion with cheap champagne, or perhaps the +other way round. What he would have liked to say had he been able +to work out his thought to the end was: "I see, I see. Lash them +up then, lead them on, keep them going: some of it can't help, +some time, coming OUR way." Yet he was troubled by the suspicion +of subtleties on his companion's part that spoiled the straight +view. He couldn't understand people's hating what they liked or +liking what they hated; above all it hurt him somewhere--for he had +his private delicacies--to see anything BUT money made out of his +betters. To be too enquiring, or in any other way too free, at the +expense of the gentry was vaguely wrong; the only thing that was +distinctly right was to be prosperous at any price. Wasn't it just +because they were up there aloft that they were lucrative? He +concluded at any rate by saying to his young friend: "If it's +improper for you to remain at Cocker's, then that falls in exactly +with the other reasons I've put before you for your removal." + +"Improper?"--her smile became a prolonged boldness. "My dear boy, +there's no one like you!" + +"I dare say," he laughed; "but that doesn't help the question." + +"Well," she returned, "I can't give up my friends. I'm making even +more than Mrs. Jordan." + +Mr. Mudge considered. "How much is SHE making?" + +"Oh you dear donkey!"--and, regardless of all the Regent's Park, +she patted his cheek. This was the sort of moment at which she was +absolutely tempted to tell him that she liked to be near Park +Chambers. There was a fascination in the idea of seeing if, on a +mention of Captain Everard, he wouldn't do what she thought he +might; wouldn't weigh against the obvious objection the still more +obvious advantage. The advantage of course could only strike him +at the best as rather fantastic; but it was always to the good to +keep hold when you HAD hold, and such an attitude would also after +all involve a high tribute to her fidelity. Of one thing she +absolutely never doubted: Mr. Mudge believed in her with a belief- +-! She believed in herself too, for that matter: if there was a +thing in the world no one could charge her with it was being the +kind of low barmaid person who rinsed tumblers and bandied slang. +But she forbore as yet to speak; she had not spoken even to Mrs. +Jordan; and the hush that on her lips surrounded the Captain's name +maintained itself as a kind of symbol of the success that, up to +this time, had attended something or other--she couldn't have said +what--that she humoured herself with calling, without words, her +relation with him. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + + +She would have admitted indeed that it consisted of little more +than the fact that his absences, however frequent and however long, +always ended with his turning up again. It was nobody's business +in the world but her own if that fact continued to be enough for +her. It was of course not enough just in itself; what it had taken +on to make it so was the extraordinary possession of the elements +of his life that memory and attention had at last given her. There +came a day when this possession on the girl's part actually seemed +to enjoy between them, while their eyes met, a tacit recognition +that was half a joke and half a deep solemnity. He bade her good +morning always now; he often quite raised his hat to her. He +passed a remark when there was time or room, and once she went so +far as to say to him that she hadn't seen him for "ages." "Ages" +was the word she consciously and carefully, though a trifle +tremulously used; "ages" was exactly what she meant. To this he +replied in terms doubtless less anxiously selected, but perhaps on +that account not the less remarkable, "Oh yes, hasn't it been +awfully wet?" That was a specimen of their give and take; it fed +her fancy that no form of intercourse so transcendent and distilled +had ever been established on earth. Everything, so far as they +chose to consider it so, might mean almost anything. The want of +margin in the cage, when he peeped through the bars, wholly ceased +to be appreciable. It was a drawback only in superficial commerce. +With Captain Everard she had simply the margin of the universe. It +may be imagined therefore how their unuttered reference to all she +knew about him could in this immensity play at its ease. Every +time he handed in a telegram it was an addition to her knowledge: +what did his constant smile mean to mark if it didn't mean to mark +that? He never came into the place without saying to her in this +manner: "Oh yes, you have me by this time so completely at your +mercy that it doesn't in the least matter what I give you now. +You've become a comfort, I assure you!" + +She had only two torments; the greatest of which was that she +couldn't, not even once or twice, touch with him on some individual +fact. She would have given anything to have been able to allude to +one of his friends by name, to one of his engagements by date, to +one of his difficulties by the solution. She would have given +almost as much for just the right chance--it would have to be +tremendously right--to show him in some sharp sweet way that she +had perfectly penetrated the greatest of these last and now lived +with it in a kind of heroism of sympathy. He was in love with a +woman to whom, and to any view of whom, a lady-telegraphist, and +especially one who passed a life among hams and cheeses, was as the +sand on the floor; and what her dreams desired was the possibility +of its somehow coming to him that her own interest in him could +take a pure and noble account of such an infatuation and even of +such an impropriety. As yet, however, she could only rub along +with the hope that an accident, sooner or later, might give her a +lift toward popping out with something that would surprise and +perhaps even, some fine day, assist him. What could people mean +moreover--cheaply sarcastic people--by not feeling all that could +be got out of the weather? SHE felt it all, and seemed literally +to feel it most when she went quite wrong, speaking of the stuffy +days as cold, of the cold ones as stuffy, and betraying how little +she knew, in her cage, of whether it was foul or fair. It was for +that matter always stuffy at Cocker's, and she finally settled down +to the safe proposition that the outside element was "changeable." +Anything seemed true that made him so radiantly assent. + +This indeed is a small specimen of her cultivation of insidious +ways of making things easy for him--ways to which of course she +couldn't be at all sure he did real justice. Real justice was not +of this world: she had had too often to come back to that; yet, +strangely, happiness was, and her traps had to be set for it in a +manner to keep them unperceived by Mr. Buckton and the counter- +clerk. The most she could hope for apart from the question, which +constantly flickered up and died down, of the divine chance of his +consciously liking her, would be that, without analysing it, he +should arrive at a vague sense that Cocker's was--well, attractive; +easier, smoother, sociably brighter, slightly more picturesque, in +short more propitious in general to his little affairs, than any +other establishment just thereabouts. She was quite aware that +they couldn't be, in so huddled a hole, particularly quick; but she +found her account in the slowness--she certainly could bear it if +HE could. The great pang was that just thereabouts post-offices +were so awfully thick. She was always seeing him in imagination in +other places and with other girls. But she would defy any other +girl to follow him as she followed. And though they weren't, for +so many reasons, quick at Cocker's, she could hurry for him when, +through an intimation light as air, she gathered that he was +pressed. + +When hurry was, better still, impossible, it was because of the +pleasantest thing of all, the particular element of their contact-- +she would have called it their friendship--that consisted of an +almost humorous treatment of the look of some of his words. They +would never perhaps have grown half so intimate if he had not, by +the blessing of heaven, formed some of his letters with a +queerness--! It was positive that the queerness could scarce have +been greater if he had practised it for the very purpose of +bringing their heads together over it as far as was possible to +heads on different sides of a wire fence. It had taken her truly +but once or twice to master these tricks, but, at the cost of +striking him perhaps as stupid, she could still challenge them when +circumstances favoured. The great circumstance that favoured was +that she sometimes actually believed he knew she only feigned +perplexity. If he knew it therefore he tolerated it; if he +tolerated it he came back; and if he came back he liked her. This +was her seventh heaven; and she didn't ask much of his liking--she +only asked of it to reach the point of his not going away because +of her own. He had at times to be away for weeks; he had to lead +lets life; he had to travel--there were places to which he was +constantly wiring for "rooms": all this she granted him, forgave +him; in fact, in the long run, literally blessed and thanked him +for. If he had to lead his life, that precisely fostered his +leading it so much by telegraph: therefore the benediction was to +come in when he could. That was all she asked--that he shouldn't +wholly deprive her. + +Sometimes she almost felt that he couldn't have deprived her even +had he been minded, by reason of the web of revelation that was +woven between them. She quite thrilled herself with thinking what, +with such a lot of material, a bad girl would do. It would be a +scene better than many in her ha'penny novels, this going to him in +the dusk of evening at Park Chambers and letting him at last have +it. "I know too much about a certain person now not to put it to +you--excuse my being so lurid--that it's quite worth your while to +buy me off. Come, therefore; buy me!" There was a point indeed at +which such flights had to drop again--the point of an unreadiness +to name, when it came to that, the purchasing medium. It wouldn't +certainly be anything so gross as money, and the matter accordingly +remained rather vague, all the more that SHE was not a bad girl. +It wasn't for any such reason as might have aggravated a mere minx +that she often hoped he would again bring Cissy. The difficulty of +this, however, was constantly present to her, for the kind of +communion to which Cocker's so richly ministered rested on the fact +that Cissy and he were so often in different places. She knew by +this time all the places--Suchbury, Monkhouse, Whiteroy, Finches-- +and even how the parties on these occasions were composed; but her +subtlety found ways to make her knowledge fairly protect and +promote their keeping, as she had heard Mrs. Jordan say, in touch. +So, when he actually sometimes smiled as if he really felt the +awkwardness of giving her again one of the same old addresses, all +her being went out in the desire--which her face must have +expressed--that he should recognise her forbearance to criticise as +one of the finest tenderest sacrifices a woman had ever made for +love. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + + +She was occasionally worried, however this might be, by the +impression that these sacrifices, great as they were, were nothing +to those that his own passion had imposed; if indeed it was not +rather the passion of his confederate, which had caught him up and +was whirling him round like a great steam-wheel. He was at any +rate in the strong grip of a dizzy splendid fate; the wild wind of +his life blew him straight before it. Didn't she catch in his face +at times, even through his smile and his happy habit, the gleam of +that pale glare with which a bewildered victim appeals, as he +passes, to some pair of pitying eyes? He perhaps didn't even +himself know how scared he was; but SHE knew. They were in danger, +they were in danger, Captain Everard and Lady Bradeen: it beat +every novel in the shop. She thought of Mr. Mudge and his safe +sentiment; she thought of herself and blushed even more for her +tepid response to it. It was a comfort to her at such moments to +feel that in another relation--a relation supplying that affinity +with her nature that Mr. Mudge, deluded creature, would never +supply--she should have been no more tepid than her ladyship. Her +deepest soundings were on two or three occasions of finding herself +almost sure that, if she dared, her ladyship's lover would have +gathered relief from "speaking" to her. She literally fancied once +or twice that, projected as he was toward his doom, her own eyes +struck him, while the air roared in his ears, as the one pitying +pair in the crowd. But how could he speak to her while she sat +sandwiched there between the counter-clerk and the sounder? + +She had long ago, in her comings and goings made acquaintance with +Park Chambers and reflected as she looked up at their luxurious +front that they of course would supply the ideal setting for the +ideal speech. There was not an object in London that, before the +season was over, was more stamped upon her brain. She went +roundabout to pass it, for it was not on the short way; she passed +on the opposite side of the street and always looked up, though it +had taken her a long time to be sure of the particular set of +windows. She had made that out finally by an act of audacity that +at the time had almost stopped her heart-beats and that in +retrospect greatly quickened her blushes. One evening she had +lingered late and watched--watched for some moment when the porter, +who was in uniform and often on the steps, had gone in with a +visitor. Then she followed boldly, on the calculation that he +would have taken the visitor up and that the hall would be free. +The hall WAS free, and the electric light played over the gilded +and lettered board that showed the names and numbers of the +occupants of the different floors. What she wanted looked straight +at her--Captain Everard was on the third. It was as if, in the +immense intimacy of this, they were, for the instant and the first +time, face to face outside the cage. Alas! they were face to face +but a second or two: she was whirled out on the wings of a panic +fear that he might just then be entering or issuing. This fear was +indeed, in her shameless deflexions, never very far from her, and +was mixed in the oddest way with depressions and disappointments. +It was dreadful, as she trembled by, to run the risk of looking to +him as if she basely hung about; and yet it was dreadful to be +obliged to pass only at such moments as put an encounter out of the +question. + +At the horrible hour of her first coming to Cocker's he was always- +-it was to be hoped--snug in bed; and at the hour of her final +departure he was of course--she had such things all on her +fingers'-ends--dressing for dinner. We may let it pass that if she +couldn't bring herself to hover till he was dressed, this was +simply because such a process for such a person could only be +terribly prolonged. When she went in the middle of the day to her +own dinner she had too little time to do anything but go straight, +though it must be added that for a real certainty she would +joyously have omitted the repast. She had made up her mind as to +there being on the whole no decent pretext to justify her flitting +casually past at three o'clock in the morning. That was the hour +at which, if the ha'penny novels were not all wrong, he probably +came home for the night. She was therefore reduced to the vainest +figuration of the miraculous meeting toward which a hundred +impossibilities would have to conspire. But if nothing was more +impossible than the fact, nothing was more intense than the vision. +What may not, we can only moralise, take place in the quickened +muffled perception of a young person with an ardent soul? All our +humble friend's native distinction, her refinement of personal +grain, of heredity, of pride, took refuge in this small throbbing +spot; for when she was most conscious of the objection of her +vanity and the pitifulness of her little flutters and manoeuvres, +then the consolation and the redemption were most sure to glow +before her in some just discernible sign. He did like her! + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + + +He never brought Cissy back, but Cissy came one day without him, as +fresh as before from the hands of Marguerite, or only, at the +season's end, a trifle less fresh. She was, however, distinctly +less serene. She had brought nothing with her and looked about +with impatience for the forms and the place to write. The latter +convenience, at Cocker's, was obscure and barely adequate, and her +clear voice had the light note of disgust which her lover's never +showed as she responded with a "There?" of surprise to the gesture +made by the counter-clerk in answer to her sharp question. Our +young friend was busy with half a dozen people, but she had +dispatched them in her most businesslike manner by the time her +ladyship flung through the bars this light of re-appearance. Then +the directness with which the girl managed to receive the +accompanying missive was the result of the concentration that had +caused her to make the stamps fly during the few minutes occupied +by the production of it. This concentration, in turn, may be +described as the effect of the apprehension of imminent relief. It +was nineteen days, counted and checked off, since she had seen the +object of her homage; and as, had he been in London, she should, +with his habits, have been sure to see him often, she was now about +to learn what other spot his presence might just then happen to +sanctify. For she thought of them, the other spots, as +ecstatically conscious of it, expressively happy in it. + +But, gracious, how handsome was her ladyship, and what an added +price it gave him that the air of intimacy he threw out should have +flowed originally from such a source! The girl looked straight +through the cage at the eyes and lips that must so often have been +so near as own--looked at them with a strange passion that for an +instant had the result of filling out some of the gaps, supplying +the missing answers, in his correspondence. Then as she made out +that the features she thus scanned and associated were totally +unaware of it, that they glowed only with the colour of quite other +and not at all guessable thoughts, this directly added to their +splendour, gave the girl the sharpest impression she had yet +received of the uplifted, the unattainable plains of heaven, and +yet at the same time caused her to thrill with a sense of the high +company she did somehow keep. She was with the absent through her +ladyship and with her ladyship through the absent. The only pang-- +but it didn't matter--was the proof in the admirable face, in the +sightless preoccupation of its possessor, that the latter hadn't a +notion of her. Her folly had gone to the point of half believing +that the other party to the affair must sometimes mention in Eaton +Square the extraordinary little person at the place from which he +so often wired. Yet the perception of her visitor's blankness +actually helped this extraordinary little person, the next instant, +to take refuge in a reflexion that could be as proud as it liked. +"How little she knows, how little she knows!" the girl cried to +herself; for what did that show after all but that Captain +Everard's telegraphic confidant was Captain Everard's charming +secret? Our young friend's perusal of her ladyship's telegram was +literally prolonged by a momentary daze: what swam between her and +the words, making her see them as through rippled shallow sunshot +water, was the great, the perpetual flood of "How much I know--how +much I know!" This produced a delay in her catching that, on the +face, these words didn't give her what she wanted, though she was +prompt enough with her remembrance that her grasp was, half the +time, just of what was NOT on the face. "Miss Dolman, Parade +Lodge, Parade Terrace, Dover. Let him instantly know right one, +Hotel de France, Ostend. Make it seven nine four nine six one. +Wire me alternative Burfield's." + +The girl slowly counted. Then he was at Ostend. This hooked on +with so sharp a click that, not to feel she was as quickly letting +it all slip from her, she had absolutely to hold it a minute longer +and to do something to that end. Thus it was that she did on this +occasion what she never did--threw off a "Reply paid?" that sounded +officious, but that she partly made up for by deliberately affixing +the stamps and by waiting till she had done so to give change. She +had, for so much coolness, the strength that she considered she +knew all about Miss Dolman. + +"Yes--paid." She saw all sorts of things in this reply, even to a +small suppressed start of surprise at so correct an assumption; +even to an attempt the next minute at a fresh air of detachment. +"How much, with the answer?" The calculation was not abstruse, but +our intense observer required a moment more to make it, and this +gave her ladyship time for a second thought. "Oh just wait!" The +white begemmed hand bared to write rose in sudden nervousness to +the side of the wonderful face which, with eyes of anxiety for the +paper on the counter, she brought closer to the bars of the cage. +"I think I must alter a word!" On this she recovered her telegram +and looked over it again; but she had a new, an obvious trouble, +and studied it without deciding and with much of the effect of +making our young woman watch her. + +This personage, meanwhile, at the sight of her expression, had +decided on the spot. If she had always been sure they were in +danger her ladyship's expression was the best possible sign of it. +There was a word wrong, but she had lost the right one, and much +clearly depended on her finding it again. The girl, therefore, +sufficiently estimating the affluence of customers and the +distraction of Mr. Buckton and the counter-clerk, took the jump and +gave it. "Isn't it Cooper's?" + +It was as if she had bodily leaped--cleared the top of the cage and +alighted on her interlocutress. "Cooper's?"--the stare was +heightened by a blush. Yes, she had made Juno blush. + +This was all the greater reason for going on. "I mean instead of +Burfield's." + +Our young friend fairly pitied her; she had made her in an instant +so helpless, and yet not a bit haughty nor outraged. She was only +mystified and scared. "Oh, you know--?" + +"Yes, I know!" Our young friend smiled, meeting the other's eyes, +and, having made Juno blush, proceeded to patronise her. "I'LL do +it"--she put out a competent hand. Her ladyship only submitted, +confused and bewildered, all presence of mind quite gone; and the +next moment the telegram was in the cage again and its author out +of the shop. Then quickly, boldly, under all the eyes that might +have witnessed her tampering, the extraordinary little person at +Cocker's made the proper change. People were really too giddy, and +if they WERE, in a certain case, to be caught, it shouldn't be the +fault of her own grand memory. Hadn't it been settled weeks +before?--for Miss Dolman it was always to be "Cooper's." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + + +But the summer "holidays" brought a marked difference; they were +holidays for almost every one but the animals in the cage. The +August days were flat and dry, and, with so little to feed it, she +was conscious of the ebb of her interest in the secrets of the +refined. She was in a position to follow the refined to the extent +of knowing--they had made so many of their arrangements with her +aid--exactly where they were; yet she felt quite as if the panorama +had ceased unrolling and the band stopped playing. A stray member +of the latter occasionally turned up, but the communications that +passed before her bore now largely on rooms at hotels, prices of +furnished houses, hours of trains, dates of sailings and +arrangements for being "met"; she found them for the most part +prosaic and coarse. The only thing was that they brought into her +stuffy corner as straight a whiff of Alpine meadows and Scotch +moors as she might hope ever to inhale; there were moreover in +especial fat hot dull ladies who had out with her, to exasperation, +the terms for seaside lodgings, which struck her as huge, and the +matter of the number of beds required, which was not less +portentous: this in reference to places of which the names-- +Eastbourne, Folkestone, Cromer, Scarborough, Whitby--tormented her +with something of the sound of the plash of water that haunts the +traveller in the desert. She had not been out of London for a +dozen years, and the only thing to give a taste to the present dead +weeks was the spice of a chronic resentment. The sparse customers, +the people she did see, were the people who were "just off"--off on +the decks of fluttered yachts, off to the uttermost point of rocky +headlands where the very breeze was then playing for the want of +which she said to herself that she sickened. + +There was accordingly a sense in which, at such a period, the great +differences of the human condition could press upon her more than +ever; a circumstance drawing fresh force in truth from the very +fact of the chance that at last, for a change, did squarely meet +her--the chance to be "off," for a bit, almost as far as anybody. +They took their turns in the cage as they took them both in the +shop and at Chalk Farm; she had known these two months that time +was to be allowed in September--no less than eleven days--for her +personal private holiday. Much of her recent intercourse with Mr. +Mudge had consisted of the hopes and fears, expressed mainly by +himself, involved in the question of their getting the same dates-- +a question that, in proportion as the delight seemed assured, +spread into a sea of speculation over the choice of where and how. +All through July, on the Sunday evenings and at such other odd +times as he could seize, he had flooded their talk with wild waves +of calculation. It was practically settled that, with her mother, +somewhere "on the south coast" (a phrase of which she liked the +sound) they should put in their allowance together; but she already +felt the prospect quite weary and worn with the way he went round +and round on it. It had become his sole topic, the theme alike of +his most solemn prudences and most placid jests, to which every +opening led for return and revision and in which every little +flower of a foretaste was pulled up as soon as planted. He had +announced at the earliest day--characterising the whole business, +from that moment, as their "plans," under which name he handled it +as a Syndicate handles a Chinese or other Loan--he had promptly +declared that the question must be thoroughly studied, and he +produced, on the whole subject, from day to day, an amount of +information that excited her wonder and even, not a little, as she +frankly let him know, her disdain. When she thought of the danger +in which another pair of lovers rapturously lived she enquired of +him anew why he could leave nothing to chance. Then she got for +answer that this profundity was just his pride, and he pitted +Ramsgate against Bournemouth and even Boulogne against Jersey--for +he had great ideas--with all the mastery of detail that was some +day, professionally, to carry him afar. + +The longer the time since she had seen Captain Everard the more she +was booked, as she called it, to pass Park Chambers; and this was +the sole amusement that in the lingering August days and the +twilights sadly drawn out it was left her to cultivate. She had +long since learned to know it for a feeble one, though its +feebleness was perhaps scarce the reason for her saying to herself +each evening as her time for departure approached: "No, no--not +to-night." She never failed of that silent remark, any more than +she failed of feeling, in some deeper place than she had even yet +fully sounded, that one's remarks were as weak as straws and that, +however one might indulge in them at eight o'clock, one's fate +infallibly declared itself in absolute indifference to them at +about eight-fifteen. Remarks were remarks, and very well for that; +but fate was fate, and this young lady's was to pass Park Chambers +every night in the working week. Out of the immensity of her +knowledge of the life of the world there bloomed on these occasions +as specific remembrance that it was regarded in that region, in +August and September, as rather pleasant just to be caught for +something or other in passing through town. Somebody was always +passing and somebody might catch somebody else. It was in full +cognisance of this subtle law that she adhered to the most +ridiculous circuit she could have made to get home. One warm dull +featureless Friday, when an accident had made her start from +Cocker's a little later than usual, she became aware that something +of which the infinite possibilities had for so long peopled her +dreams was at last prodigiously upon her, though the perfection in +which the conditions happened to present it was almost rich enough +to be but the positive creation of a dream. She saw, straight +before her, like a vista painted in a picture, the empty street and +the lamps that burned pale in the dusk not yet established. It was +into the convenience of this quiet twilight that a gentleman on the +doorstep of the Chambers gazed with a vagueness that our young +lady's little figure violently trembled, in the approach, with the +measure of its power to dissipate. Everything indeed grew in a +flash terrific and distinct; her old uncertainties fell away from +her, and, since she was so familiar with fate, she felt as if the +very nail that fixed it were driven in by the hard look with which, +for a moment, Captain Everard awaited her. + +The vestibule was open behind him and the porter as absent as on +the day she had peeped in; he had just come out--was in town, in a +tweed suit and a pot hat, but between two journeys--duly bored over +his evening and at a loss what to do with it. Then it was that she +was glad she had never met him in that way before: she reaped with +such ecstasy the benefit of his not being able to think she passed +often. She jumped in two seconds to the determination that he +should even suppose it to be the very first time and the very +oddest chance: this was while she still wondered if he would +identify or notice her. His original attention had not, she +instinctively knew, been for the young woman at Cocker's; it had +only been for any young woman who might advance to the tune of her +not troubling the quiet air, and in fact the poetic hour, with +ugliness. Ah but then, and just as she had reached the door, came +his second observation, a long light reach with which, visibly and +quite amusedly, he recalled and placed her. They were on different +sides, but the street, narrow and still, had only made more of a +stage for the small momentary drama. It was not over, besides, it +was far from over, even on his sending across the way, with the +pleasantest laugh she had ever heard, a little lift of his hat and +an "Oh good evening!" It was still less over on their meeting, the +next minute, though rather indirectly and awkwardly, in the middle, +of the road--a situation to which three or four steps of her own +had unmistakeably contributed--and then passing not again to the +side on which she had arrived, but back toward the portal of Park +Chambers. + +"I didn't know you at first. Are you taking a walk?" + +"Ah I don't take walks at night! I'm going home after my work." + +"Oh!" + +That was practically what they had meanwhile smiled out, and his +exclamation to which for a minute he appeared to have nothing to +add, left them face to face and in just such an attitude as, for +his part, he might have worn had he been wondering if he could +properly ask her to come in. During this interval in fact she +really felt his question to be just "HOW properly--?" It was +simply a question of the degree of properness. + + + +CHAPTER XV + + + +She never knew afterwards quite what she had done to settle it, and +at the time she only knew that they presently moved, with +vagueness, yet with continuity, away from the picture of the +lighted vestibule and the quiet stairs and well up the street +together. This also must have been in the absence of a definite +permission, of anything vulgarly articulate, for that matter, on +the part of either; and it was to be, later on, a thing of +remembrance and reflexion for her that the limit of what just here +for a longish minute passed between them was his taking in her +thoroughly successful deprecation, though conveyed without pride or +sound or touch, of the idea that she might be, out of the cage, the +very shop-girl at large that she hugged the theory she wasn't. +Yes, it was strange, she afterwards thought, that so much could +have come and gone and yet not disfigured the dear little intense +crisis either with impertinence or with resentment, with any of the +horrid notes of that kind of acquaintance. He had taken no +liberty, as she would have so called it; and, through not having to +betray the sense of one, she herself had, still more charmingly, +taken none. On the spot, nevertheless, she could speculate as to +what it meant that, if his relation with Lady Bradeen continued to +be what her mind had built it up to, he should feel free to proceed +with marked independence. This was one of the questions he was to +leave her to deal with--the question whether people of his sort +still asked girls up to their rooms when they were so awfully in +love with other women. Could people of his sort do that without +what people of her sort would call being "false to their love"? +She had already a vision of how the true answer was that people of +her sort didn't, in such cases, matter--didn't count as infidelity, +counted only as something else: she might have been curious, since +it came to that, to see exactly what. + +Strolling together slowly in their summer twilight and their empty +corner of Mayfair, they found themselves emerge at last opposite to +one of the smaller gates of the Park; upon which, without any +particular word about it--they were talking so of other things-- +they crossed the street and went in and sat down on a bench. She +had gathered by this time one magnificent hope about him--the hope +he would say nothing vulgar. She knew thoroughly what she meant by +that; she meant something quite apart from any matter of his being +"false." Their bench was not far within; it was near the Park Lane +paling and the patchy lamplight and the rumbling cabs and 'buses. +A strange emotion had come to her, and she felt indeed excitement +within excitement; above all a conscious joy in testing him with +chances he didn't take. She had an intense desire he should know +the type she really conformed to without her doing anything so low +as tell him, and he had surely begun to know it from the moment he +didn't seize the opportunities into which a common man would +promptly have blundered. These were on the mere awkward surface, +and THEIR relation was beautiful behind and below them. She had +questioned so little on the way what they might be doing that as +soon as they were seated she took straight hold of it. Her hours, +her confinement, the many conditions of service in the post-office, +had--with a glance at his own postal resources and alternatives-- +formed, up to this stage, the subject of their talk. "Well, here +we are, and it may be right enough; but this isn't the least, you +know, where I was going." + +"You were going home?" + +"Yes, and I was already rather late. I was going to my supper." + +"You haven't had it?" + +"No indeed!" + +"Then you haven't eaten--?" + +He looked of a sudden so extravagantly concerned that she laughed +out. "All day? Yes, we do feed once. But that was long ago. So +I must presently say good-bye." + +"Oh deary ME!" he exclaimed with an intonation so droll and yet a +touch so light and a distress so marked--a confession of +helplessness for such a case, in short, so unrelieved--that she at +once felt sure she had made the great difference plain. He looked +at her with the kindest eyes and still without saying what she had +known he wouldn't. She had known he wouldn't say "Then sup with +ME!" but the proof of it made her feel as if she had feasted. + +"I'm not a bit hungry," she went on. + +"Ah you MUST be, awfully!" he made answer, but settling himself on +the bench as if, after all, that needn't interfere with his +spending his evening. "I've always quite wanted the chance to +thank you for the trouble you so often take for me." + +"Yes, I know," she replied; uttering the words with a sense of the +situation far deeper than any pretence of not fitting his allusion. +She immediately felt him surprised and even a little puzzled at her +frank assent; but for herself the trouble she had taken could only, +in these fleeting minutes--they would probably never come back--be +all there like a little hoard of gold in her lap. Certainly he +might look at it, handle it, take up the pieces. Yet if he +understood anything he must understand all. "I consider you've +already immensely thanked me." The horror was back upon her of +having seemed to hang about for some reward. "It's awfully odd you +should have been there just the one time--!" + +"The one time you've passed my place?" + +"Yes; you can fancy I haven't many minutes to waste. There was a +place to-night I had to stop at." + +"I see, I see--" he knew already so much about her work. "It must +be an awful grind--for a lady." + +"It is, but I don't think I groan over it any more than my +companions--and you've seen THEY'RE not ladies!" She mildly +jested, but with an intention. "One gets used to things, and there +are employments I should have hated much more." She had the finest +conception of the beauty of not at least boring him. To whine, to +count up her wrongs, was what a barmaid or a shop-girl would do, +and it was quite enough to sit there like one of these. + +"If you had had another employment," he remarked after a moment, +"we might never have become acquainted." + +"It's highly probable--and certainly not in the same way." Then, +still with her heap of gold in her lap and something of the pride +of it in her manner of holding her head, she continued not to move- +-she only smiled at him. The evening had thickened now; the +scattered lamps were red; the Park, all before them, was full of +obscure and ambiguous life; there were other couples on other +benches whom it was impossible not to see, yet at whom it was +impossible to look. "But I've walked so much out of my way with +you only just to show you that--that"--with this she paused; it was +not after all so easy to express--"that anything you may have +thought is perfectly true." + +"Oh I've thought a tremendous lot!" her companion laughed. "Do you +mind my smoking?" + +"Why should I? You always smoke THERE." + +"At your place? Oh yes, but here it's different." + +"No," she said as he lighted a cigarette, "that's just what it +isn't. It's quite the same." + +"Well, then, that's because 'there' it's so wonderful!" + +"Then you're conscious of how wonderful it is?" she returned. + +He jerked his handsome head in literal protest at a doubt. "Why +that's exactly what I mean by my gratitude for all your trouble. +It has been just as if you took a particular interest." She only +looked at him by way of answer in such sudden headlong +embarrassment, as she was quite aware, that while she remained +silent he showed himself checked by her expression. "You HAVE-- +haven't you?--taken a particular interest?" + +"Oh a particular interest!" she quavered out, feeling the whole +thing--her headlong embarrassment--get terribly the better of her, +and wishing, with a sudden scare, all the more to keep her emotion +down. She maintained her fixed smile a moment and turned her eyes +over the peopled darkness, unconfused now, because there was +something much more confusing. This, with a fatal great rush, was +simply the fact that they were thus together. They were near, +near, and all she had imagined of that had only become more true, +more dreadful and overwhelming. She stared straight away in +silence till she felt she looked an idiot; then, to say something, +to say nothing, she attempted a sound which ended in a flood of +tears. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + + +Her tears helped her really to dissimulate, for she had instantly, +in so public a situation, to recover herself. They had come and +gone in half a minute, and she immediately explained them. "It's +only because I'm tired. It's that--it's that!" Then she added a +trifle incoherently: "I shall never see you again." + +"Ah but why not?" The mere tone in which her companion asked this +satisfied her once for all as to the amount of imagination for +which she could count on him. It was naturally not large: it had +exhausted itself in having arrived at what he had already touched +upon--the sense of an intention in her poor zeal at Cocker's. But +any deficiency of this kind was no fault in him: he wasn't obliged +to have an inferior cleverness--to have second-rate resources and +virtues. It had been as if he almost really believed she had +simply cried for fatigue, and he accordingly put in some kind +confused plea--"You ought really to take something: won't you have +something or other SOMEWHERE?" to which she had made no response +but a headshake of a sharpness that settled it. "Why shan't we all +the more keep meeting?" + +"I mean meeting this way--only this way. At my place there--THAT +I've nothing to do with, and I hope of course you'll turn up, with +your correspondence, when it suits you. Whether I stay or not, I +mean; for I shall probably not stay." + +"You're going somewhere else?" he put it with positive anxiety. + +"Yes, ever so far away--to the other end of London. There are all +sorts of reasons I can't tell you; and it's practically settled. +It's better for me, much; and I've only kept on at Cocker's for +YOU." + +"For me?" + +Making out in the dusk that he fairly blushed, she now measured how +far he had been from knowing too much. Too much, she called it at +present; and that was easy, since it proved so abundantly enough +for her that he should simply be where he was. "As we shall never +talk this way but to-night--never, never again!--here it all is. +I'll say it; I don't care what you think; it doesn't matter; I only +want to help you. Besides, you're kind--you're kind. I've been +thinking then of leaving for ever so long. But you've come so +often--at times--and you've had so much to do, and it has been so +pleasant and interesting, that I've remained, I've kept putting off +any change. More than once, when I had nearly decided, you've +turned up again and I've thought 'Oh no!' That's the simple fact!" +She had by this time got her confusion down so completely that she +could laugh. "This is what I meant when I said to you just now +that I 'knew.' I've known perfectly that you knew I took trouble +for you; and that knowledge has been for me, and I seemed to see it +was for you, as if there were something--I don't know what to call +it!--between us. I mean something unusual and good and awfully +nice--something not a bit horrid or vulgar." + +She had by this time, she could see, produced a great effect on +him; but she would have spoken the truth to herself had she at the +same moment declared that she didn't in the least care: all the +more that the effect must be one of extreme perplexity. What, in +it all, was visibly clear for him, none the less, was that he was +tremendously glad he had met her. She held him, and he was +astonished at the force of it; he was intent, immensely +considerate. His elbow was on the back of the seat, and his head, +with the pot-hat pushed quite back, in a boyish way, so that she +really saw almost for the first time his forehead and hair, rested +on the hand into which he had crumpled his gloves. "Yes," he +assented, "it's not a bit horrid or vulgar." + +She just hung fire a moment, then she brought out the whole truth. +"I'd do anything for you. I'd do anything for you." Never in her +life had she known anything so high and fine as this, just letting +him have it and bravely and magnificently leaving it. Didn't the +place, the associations and circumstances, perfectly make it sound +what it wasn't? and wasn't that exactly the beauty? + +So she bravely and magnificently left it, and little by little she +felt him take it up, take it down, as if they had been on a satin +sofa in a boudoir. She had never seen a boudoir, but there had +been lots of boudoirs in the telegrams. What she had said at all +events sank into him, so that after a minute he simply made a +movement that had the result of placing his hand on her own-- +presently indeed that of her feeling herself firmly enough grasped. +There was no pressure she need return, there was none she need +decline; she just sat admirably still, satisfied for the time with +the surprise and bewilderment of the impression she made on him. +His agitation was even greater on the whole than she had at first +allowed for. "I say, you know, you mustn't think of leaving!" he +at last broke out. + +"Of leaving Cocker's, you mean?" + +"Yes, you must stay on there, whatever happens, and help a fellow." + +She was silent a little, partly because it was so strange and +exquisite to feel him watch her as if it really mattered to him and +he were almost in suspense. "Then you HAVE quite recognised what +I've tried to do?" she asked. + +"Why, wasn't that exactly what I dashed over from my door just now +to thank you for?" + +"Yes; so you said." + +"And don't you believe it?" + +She looked down a moment at his hand, which continued to cover her +own; whereupon he presently drew it back, rather restlessly folding +his arms. Without answering his question she went on: "Have you +ever spoken of me?" + +"Spoken of you?" + +"Of my being there--of my knowing, and that sort of thing." + +"Oh never to a human creature!" he eagerly declared. + +She had a small drop at this, which was expressed in another pause, +and she then returned to what he had just asked her. "Oh yes, I +quite believe you like it--my always being there and our taking +things up so familiarly and successfully: if not exactly where we +left them," she laughed, "almost always at least at an interesting +point!" He was about to say something in reply to this, but her +friendly gaiety was quicker. "You want a great many things in +life, a great many comforts and helps and luxuries--you want +everything as pleasant as possible. Therefore, so far as it's in +the power of any particular person to contribute to all that--" +She had turned her face to him smiling, just thinking. + +"Oh see here!" But he was highly amused. "Well, what then?" he +enquired as if to humour her. + +"Why the particular person must never fail. We must manage it for +you somehow." + +He threw back his head, laughing out; he was really exhilarated. +"Oh yes, somehow!" + +"Well, I think we each do--don't we?--in one little way and another +and according to our limited lights. I'm pleased at any rate, for +myself, that you are; for I assure you I've done my best." + +"You do better than any one!" He had struck a match for another +cigarette, and the flame lighted an instant his responsive finished +face, magnifying into a pleasant grimace the kindness with which he +paid her this tribute. "You're awfully clever, you know; cleverer, +cleverer, cleverer--!" He had appeared on the point of making some +tremendous statement; then suddenly, puffing his cigarette and +shifting almost with violence on his seat, he let it altogether +fall. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + + +In spite of this drop, if not just by reason of it, she felt as if +Lady Bradeen, all but named out, had popped straight up; and she +practically betrayed her consciousness by waiting a little before +she rejoined: "Cleverer than who?" + +"Well, if I wasn't afraid you'd think I swagger, I should say--than +anybody! If you leave your place there, where shall you go?" he +more gravely asked. + +"Oh too far for you ever to find me!" + +"I'd find you anywhere." + +The tone of this was so still more serious that she had but her one +acknowledgement. "I'd do anything for you--I'd do anything for +you," she repeated. She had already, she felt, said it all; so +what did anything more, anything less, matter? That was the very +reason indeed why she could, with a lighter note, ease him +generously of any awkwardness produced by solemnity, either his own +or hers. "Of course it must be nice for you to be able to think +there are people all about who feel in such a way." + +In immediate appreciation of this, however, he only smoked without +looking at her. "But you don't want to give up your present work?" +he at last threw out. "I mean you WILL stay in the post-office?" + +"Oh yes; I think I've a genius for that." + +"Rather! No one can touch you." With this he turned more to her +again. "But you can get, with a move, greater advantages?" + +"I can get in the suburbs cheaper lodgings. I live with my mother. +We need some space. There's a particular place that has other +inducements." + +He just hesitated. "Where is it?" + +"Oh quite out of YOUR way. You'd never have time." + +"But I tell you I'd go anywhere. Don't you believe it?" + +"Yes, for once or twice. But you'd soon see it wouldn't do for +you." + +He smoked and considered; seemed to stretch himself a little and, +with his legs out, surrender himself comfortably. "Well, well, +well--I believe everything you say. I take it from you--anything +you like--in the most extraordinary way." It struck her certainly- +-and almost without bitterness--that the way in which she was +already, as if she had been an old friend, arranging for him and +preparing the only magnificence she could muster, was quite the +most extraordinary. "Don't, DON'T go!" he presently went on. "I +shall miss you too horribly!" + +"So that you just put it to me as a definite request?"--oh how she +tried to divest this of all sound of the hardness of bargaining! +That ought to have been easy enough, for what was she arranging to +get? Before he could answer she had continued: "To be perfectly +fair I should tell you I recognise at Cocker's certain strong +attractions. All you people come. I like all the horrors." + +"The horrors?" + +"Those you all--you know the set I mean, YOUR set--show me with as +good a conscience as if I had no more feeling than a letter-box." + +He looked quite excited at the way she put it. "Oh they don't +know!" + +"Don't know I'm not stupid? No, how should they?" + +"Yes, how should they?" said the Captain sympathetically. "But +isn't 'horrors' rather strong?" + +"What you DO is rather strong!" the girl promptly returned. + +"What I do?" + +"Your extravagance, your selfishness, your immorality, your +crimes," she pursued, without heeding his expression. + +"I SAY!"--her companion showed the queerest stare. + +"I like them, as I tell you--I revel in them. But we needn't go +into that," she quietly went on; "for all I get out of it is the +harmless pleasure of knowing. I know, I know, I know!"--she +breathed it ever so gently. + +"Yes; that's what has been between us," he answered much more +simply. + +She could enjoy his simplicity in silence, and for a moment she did +so. "If I do stay because you want it--and I'm rather capable of +that--there are two or three things I think you ought to remember. +One is, you know, that I'm there sometimes for days and weeks +together without your ever coming." + +"Oh I'll come every day!" he honestly cried. + +She was on the point, at this, of imitating with her hand his +movement of shortly before; but she checked herself, and there was +no want of effect in her soothing substitute. "How can you? How +can you?" He had, too manifestly, only to look at it there, in the +vulgarly animated gloom, to see that he couldn't; and at this +point, by the mere action of his silence, everything they had so +definitely not named, the whole presence round which they had been +circling, became part of their reference, settled in solidly +between them. It was as if then for a minute they sat and saw it +all in each other's eyes, saw so much that there was no need of a +pretext for sounding it at last. "Your danger, your danger--!" +Her voice indeed trembled with it, and she could only for the +moment again leave it so. + +During this moment he leaned back on the bench, meeting her in +silence and with a face that grew more strange. It grew so strange +that after a further instant she got straight up. She stood there +as if their talk were now over, and he just sat and watched her. +It was as if now--owing to the third person they had brought in-- +they must be more careful; so that the most he could finally say +was: "That's where it is!" + +"That's where it is!" the girl as guardedly replied. He sat still, +and she added: "I won't give you up. Good-bye." + +"Good-bye?"--he appealed, but without moving. + +"I don't quite see my way, but I won't give you up," she repeated. +"There. Good-bye." + +It brought him with a jerk to his feet, tossing away his cigarette. +His poor face was flushed. "See here--see here!" + +"No, I won't; but I must leave you now," she went on as if not +hearing him. + +"See here--see here!" He tried, from the bench, to take her hand +again. + +But that definitely settled it for her: this would, after all, be +as bad as his asking her to supper. "You mustn't come with me--no, +no!" + +He sank back, quite blank, as if she had pushed him. "I mayn't see +you home?" + +"No, no; let me go." He looked almost as if she had struck him, +but she didn't care; and the manner in which she spoke--it was +literally as if she were angry--had the force of a command. "Stay +where you are!" + +"See here--see here!" he nevertheless pleaded. + +"I won't give you up!" she cried once more--this time quite with +passion; on which she got away from him as fast as she could and +left him staring after her. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + + +Mr. Mudge had lately been so occupied with their famous "plans" +that he had neglected for a while the question of her transfer; but +down at Bournemouth, which had found itself selected as the field +of their recreation by a process consisting, it seemed, exclusively +of innumerable pages of the neatest arithmetic in a very greasy but +most orderly little pocket-book, the distracting possible melted +away--the fleeting absolute ruled the scene. The plans, hour by +hour, were simply superseded, and it was much of a rest to the +girl, as she sat on the pier and overlooked the sea and the +company, to see them evaporate in rosy fumes and to feel that from +moment to moment there was less left to cipher about. The week +proves blissfully fine, and her mother, at their lodgings--partly +to her embarrassment and partly to her relief--struck up with the +landlady an alliance that left the younger couple a great deal of +freedom. This relative took her pleasure of a week at Bournemouth +in a stuffy back-kitchen and endless talks; to that degree even +that Mr. Mudge himself--habitually inclined indeed to a scrutiny of +all mysteries and to seeing, as he sometimes admitted, too much in +things--made remarks on it as he sat on the cliff with his +betrothed, or on the decks of steamers that conveyed them, close- +packed items in terrific totals of enjoyment, to the Isle of Wight +and the Dorset coast. + +He had a lodging in another house, where he had speedily learned +the importance of keeping his eyes open, and he made no secret of +his suspecting that sinister mutual connivances might spring, under +the roof of his companions, from unnatural sociabilities. At the +same time he fully recognised that as a source of anxiety, not to +say of expense, his future mother-in law would have weighted them +more by accompanying their steps than by giving her hostess, in the +interest of the tendency they considered that they never mentioned, +equivalent pledges as to the tea-caddy and the jam-pot. These were +the questions--these indeed the familiar commodities--that he had +now to put into the scales; and his betrothed had in consequence, +during her holiday, the odd and yet pleasant and almost languid +sense of an anticlimax. She had become conscious of an +extraordinary collapse, a surrender to stillness and to retrospect. +She cared neither to walk nor to sail; it was enough for her to sit +on benches and wonder at the sea and taste the air and not be at +Cocker's and not see the counter-clerk. She still seemed to wait +for something--something in the key of the immense discussions that +had mapped out their little week of idleness on the scale of a +world-atlas. Something came at last, but without perhaps appearing +quite adequately to crown the monument. + +Preparation and precaution were, however, the natural flowers of +Mr. Mudge's mind, and in proportion as these things declined in one +quarter they inevitably bloomed elsewhere. He could always, at the +worst, have on Tuesday the project of their taking the Swanage boat +on Thursday, and on Thursday that of their ordering minced kidneys +on Saturday. He had moreover a constant gift of inexorable enquiry +as to where and what they should have gone and have done if they +hadn't been exactly as they were. He had in short his resources, +and his mistress had never been so conscious of them; on the other +hand they never interfered so little with her own. She liked to be +as she was--if it could only have lasted. She could accept even +without bitterness a rigour of economy so great that the little fee +they paid for admission to the pier had to be balanced against +other delights. The people at Ladle's and at Thrupp's had THEIR +ways of amusing themselves, whereas she had to sit and hear Mr. +Mudge talk of what he might do if he didn't take a bath, or of the +bath he might take if he only hadn't taken something else. He was +always with her now, of course, always beside her; she saw him more +than "hourly," more than ever yet, more even than he had planned +she should do at Chalk Farm. She preferred to sit at the far end, +away from the band and the crowd; as to which she had frequent +differences with her friend, who reminded her often that they could +have only in the thick of it the sense of the money they were +getting back. That had little effect on her, for she got back her +money by seeing many things, the things of the past year, fall +together and connect themselves, undergo the happy relegation that +transforms melancholy and misery, passion and effort, into +experience and knowledge. + +She liked having done with them, as she assured herself she had +practically done, and the strange thing was that she neither missed +the procession now nor wished to keep her place for it. It had +become there, in the sun and the breeze and the sea-smell, a far- +away story, a picture of another life. If Mr. Mudge himself liked +processions, liked them at Bournemouth and on the pier quite as +much as at Chalk Farm or anywhere, she learned after a little not +to be worried by his perpetual counting of the figures that made +them up. There were dreadful women in particular, usually fat and +in men's caps and write shoes, whom he could never let alone--not +that she cared; it was not the great world, the world of Cocker's +and Ladle's and Thrupp's, but it offered an endless field to his +faculties of memory, philosophy, and frolic. She had never +accepted him so much, never arranged so successfully for making him +chatter while she carried on secret conversations. This separate +commerce was with herself; and if they both practised a great +thrift she had quite mastered that of merely spending words enough +to keep him imperturbably and continuously going. + +He was charmed with the panorama, not knowing--or at any rate not +at all showing that he knew--what far other images peopled her mind +than the women in the navy caps and the shop-boys in the blazers. +His observations on these types, his general interpretation of the +show, brought home to her the prospect of Chalk Farm. She wondered +sometimes that he should have derived so little illumination, +during his period, from the society at Cocker's. But one evening +while their holiday cloudlessly waned he gave her such a proof of +his quality as might have made her ashamed of her many +suppressions. He brought out something that, in all his overflow, +he had been able to keep back till other matters were disposed of. +It was the announcement that he was at last ready to marry--that he +saw his way. A rise at Chalk Farm had been offered him; he was to +be taken into the business, bringing with him a capital the +estimation of which by other parties constituted the handsomest +recognition yet made of the head on his shoulders. Therefore their +waiting was over--it could be a question of a near date. They +would settle this date before going back, and he meanwhile had his +eye on a sweet little home. He would take her to see it on their +first Sunday. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + + +His having kept this great news for the last, having had such a +card up his sleeve and not floated it out in the current of his +chatter and the luxury of their leisure, was one of those +incalculable strokes by which he could still affect her; the kind +of thing that reminded her of the latent force that had ejected the +drunken soldier--an example of the profundity of which his +promotion was the proof. She listened a while in silence, on this +occasion, to the wafted strains of the music; she took it in as she +had not quite done before that her future was now constituted. Mr. +Mudge was distinctly her fate; yet at this moment she turned her +face quite away from him, showing him so long a mere quarter of her +cheek that she at last again heard his voice. He couldn't see a +pair of tears that were partly the reason of her delay to give him +the assurance he required; but he expressed at a venture the hope +that she had had her fill of Cocker's. + +She was finally able to turn back. "Oh quite. There's nothing +going on. No one comes but the Americans at Thrupp's, and they +don't do much. They don't seem to have a secret in the world." + +"Then the extraordinary reason you've been giving me for holding on +there has ceased to work?" + +She thought a moment. "Yes, that one. I've seen the thing +through--I've got them all in my pocket." + +"So you're ready to come?" + +For a little again she made no answer. "No, not yet, all the same. +I've still got a reason--a different one." + +He looked her all over as if it might have been something she kept +in her mouth or her glove or under her jacket--something she was +even sitting upon. "Well, I'll have it, please." + +"I went out the other night and sat in the Park with a gentleman," +she said at last. + +Nothing was ever seen like his confidence in her and she wondered a +little now why it didn't irritate her. It only gave her ease and +space, as she felt, for telling him the whole truth that no one +knew. It had arrived at present at her really wanting to do that, +and yet to do it not in the least for Mr. Mudge, but altogether and +only for herself. This truth filled out for her there the whole +experience about to relinquish, suffused and coloured it as a +picture that she should keep and that, describe it as she might, no +one but herself would ever really see. Moreover she had no desire +whatever to make Mr. Mudge jealous; there would be no amusement in +it, for the amusement she had lately known had spoiled her for +lower pleasures. There were even no materials for it. The odd +thing was how she never doubted that, properly handled, his passion +was poisonable; what had happened was that he had cannily selected +a partner with no poison to distil. She read then and there that +she should never interest herself in anybody as to whom some other +sentiment, some superior view, wouldn't be sure to interfere for +him with jealousy. "And what did you get out of that?" he asked +with a concern that was not in the least for his honour. + +"Nothing but a good chance to promise him I wouldn't forsake him. +He's one of my customers." + +"Then it's for him not to forsake YOU." + +"Well, he won't. It's all right. But I must just keep on as long +as he may want me." + +"Want you to sit with him in the Park?" + +"He may want me for that--but I shan't. I rather liked it, but +once, under the circumstances, is enough. I can do better for him +in another manner." + +"And what manner, pray?" + +"Well, elsewhere." + +"Elsewhere?--I SAY!" + +This was an ejaculation used also by Captain Everard, but oh with +what a different sound! "You needn't 'say'--there's nothing to be +said. And yet you ought perhaps to know." + +"Certainly I ought. But WHAT--up to now?" + +"Why exactly what I told him. That I'd do anything for him." + +"What do you mean by 'anything'?" + +"Everything." + +Mr. Mudge's immediate comment on this statement was to draw from +his pocket a crumpled paper containing the remains of half a pound +of "sundries." These sundries had figured conspicuously in his +prospective sketch of their tour, but it was only at the end of +three days that they had defined themselves unmistakeably as +chocolate-creams. "Have another?--THAT one," he said. She had +another, but not the one he indicated, and then he continued: +"What took place afterwards?" + +"Afterwards?" + +"What did you do when you had told him you'd do everything?" + +"I simply came away." + +"Out of the Park?" + +"Yes, leaving him there. I didn't let him follow me." + +"Then what did you let him do?" + +"I didn't let him do anything." + +Mr. Mudge considered an instant. "Then what did you go there for?" +His tone was even slightly critical. + +"I didn't quite know at the time. It was simply to be with him, I +suppose--just once. He's in danger, and I wanted him to know I +know it. It makes meeting him--at Cocker's, since it's that I want +to stay on for--more interesting." + +"It makes it mighty interesting for ME!" Mr. Mudge freely declared. +"Yet he didn't follow you?" he asked. "I would!" + +"Yes, of course. That was the way you began, you know. You're +awfully inferior to him." + +"Well, my dear, you're not inferior to anybody. You've got a +cheek! What's he in danger of?" + +"Of being found out. He's in love with a lady--and it isn't right- +-and I've found him out." + +"That'll be a look-out for ME!" Mr. Mudge joked. "You mean she has +a husband?" + +"Never mind what she has! They're in awful danger, but his is the +worst, because he's in danger from her too." + +"Like me from you--the woman I love? If he's in the same funk as +me--" + +"He's in a worse one. He's not only afraid of the lady--he's +afraid of other things." + +Mr. Mudge selected another chocolate-cream. "Well, I'm only afraid +of one! But how in the world can you help this party?" + +"I don't know--perhaps not at all. But so long as there's a +chance--" + +"You won't come away?" + +"No, you've got to wait for me." + +Mr. Mudge enjoyed what was in his mouth. "And what will he give +you?" + +"Give me?" + +"If you do help him." + +"Nothing. Nothing in all the wide world." + +"Then what will he give ME?" Mr. Mudge enquired. "I mean for +waiting." + +The girl thought a moment; then she got up to walk. "He never +heard of you," she replied. + +"You haven't mentioned me?" + +"We never mention anything. What I've told you is just what I've +found out." + +Mr. Mudge, who had remained on the bench, looked up at her; she +often preferred to be quiet when he proposed to walk, but now that +he seemed to wish to sit she had a desire to move. "But you +haven't told me what HE has found out." + +She considered her lover. "He'd never find YOU, my dear!" + +Her lover, still on his seat, appealed to her in something of the +attitude in which she had last left Captain Everard, but the +impression was not the same. "Then where do I come in?" + +"You don't come in at all. That's just the beauty of it!"--and +with this she turned to mingle with the multitude collected round +the band. Mr. Mudge presently overtook her and drew her arm into +his own with a quiet force that expressed the serenity of +possession; in consonance with which it was only when they parted +for the night at her door that he referred again to what she had +told him. + +"Have you seen him since?" + +"Since the night in the Park? No, not once." + +"Oh, what a cad!" said Mr. Mudge. + + + +CHAPTER XX + + + +It was not till the end of October that she saw Captain Everard +again, and on that occasion--the only one of all the series on +which hindrance had been so utter--no communication with him proved +possible. She had made out even from the cage that it was a +charming golden day: a patch of hazy autumn sunlight lay across +the sanded floor and also, higher up, quickened into brightness a +row of ruddy bottled syrups. Work was slack and the place in +general empty; the town, as they said in the cage, had not waked +up, and the feeling of the day likened itself to something than in +happier conditions she would have thought of romantically as Saint +Martin's summer. The counter-clerk had gone to his dinner; she +herself was busy with arrears of postal jobs, in the midst of which +she became aware that Captain Everard had apparently been in the +shop a minute and that Mr. Buckton had already seized him. + +He had as usual half a dozen telegrams; and when he saw that she +saw him and their eyes met he gave, on bowing to her, an +exaggerated laugh in which she read a new consciousness. It was a +confession of awkwardness; it seemed to tell her that of course he +knew he ought better to have kept his head, ought to have been +clever enough to wait, on some pretext, till he should have found +her free. Mr. Buckton was a long time with him, and her attention +was soon demanded by other visitors; so that nothing passed between +them but the fulness of their silence. The look she took from him +was his greeting, and the other one a simple sign of the eyes sent +her before going out. The only token they exchanged therefore was +his tacit assent to her wish that since they couldn't attempt a +certain frankness they should attempt nothing at all. This was her +intense preference; she could be as still and cold as any one when +that was the sole solution. + +Yet more than any contact hitherto achieved these counted instants +struck her as marking a step: they were built so--just in the mere +flash--on the recognition of his now definitely knowing what it was +she would do for him. The "anything, anything" she had uttered in +the Park went to and fro between them and under the poked-out china +that interposed. It had all at last even put on the air of their +not needing now clumsily to manoeuvre to converse: their former +little postal make-believes, the intense implications of questions +and answers and change, had become in the light of the personal +fact, of their having had their moment, a possibility comparatively +poor. It was as if they had met for all time--it exerted on their +being in presence again an influence so prodigious. When she +watched herself, in the memory of that night, walk away from him as +if she were making an end, she found something too pitiful in the +primness of such a gait. Hadn't she precisely established on the +part of each a consciousness that could end only with death? + +It must be admitted that in spite of this brave margin an +irritation, after he had gone, remained with her; a sense that +presently became one with a still sharper hatred of Mr. Buckton, +who, on her friend's withdrawal, had retired with the telegrams to +the sounder and left her the other work. She knew indeed she +should have a chance to see them, when she would, on file; and she +was divided, as the day went on, between the two impressions of all +that was lost and all that was re-asserted. What beset her above +all, and as she had almost never known it before, was the desire to +bound straight out, to overtake the autumn afternoon before it +passed away for ever and hurry off to the Park and perhaps be with +him there again on a bench. It became for an hour a fantastic +vision with her that he might just have gone to sit and wait for +her. She could almost hear him, through the tick of the sounder, +scatter with his stick, in his impatience, the fallen leaves of +October. Why should such a vision seize her at this particular +moment with such a shake? There was a time--from four to five-- +when she could have cried with happiness and rage. + +Business quickened, it seemed, toward five, as if the town did wake +up; she had therefore more to do, and she went through it with +little sharp stampings and jerkings: she made the crisp postal- +orders fairly snap while she breathed to herself "It's the last +day--the last day!" The last day of what? She couldn't have told. +All she knew now was that if she WERE out of the cage she wouldn't +in the least have minded, this time, its not yet being dark. She +would have gone straight toward Park Chambers and have hung about +there till no matter when. She would have waited, stayed, rung, +asked, have gone in, sat on the stairs. What the day was the last +of was probably, to her strained inner sense, the group of golden +ones, of any occasion for seeing the hazy sunshine slant at that +angle into the smelly shop, of any range of chances for his wishing +still to repeat to her the two words she had in the Park scarcely +let him bring out. "See here--see here!"--the sound of these two +words had been with her perpetually; but it was in her ears to-day +without mercy, with a loudness that grew and grew. What was it +they then expressed? what was it he had wanted her to see? She +seemed, whatever it was, perfectly to see it now--to see that if +she should just chuck the whole thing, should have a great and +beautiful courage, he would somehow make everything up to her. +When the clock struck five she was on the very point of saying to +Mr. Buckton that she was deadly ill and rapidly getting worse. +This announcement was on her lips, and she had quite composed the +pale hard face she would offer him: "I can't stop--I must go home. +If I feel better, later on, I'll come back. I'm very sorry, but I +MUST go." At that instant Captain Everard once more stood there, +producing in her agitated spirit, by his real presence, the +strangest, quickest revolution. He stopped her off without knowing +it, and by the time he had been a minute in the shop she felt +herself saved. + +That was from the first minute how she thought of it. There were +again other persons with whom she was occupied, and again the +situation could only be expressed by their silence. It was +expressed, of a truth, in a larger phrase than ever yet, for her +eyes now spoke to him with a kind of supplication. "Be quiet, be +quiet!" they pleaded; and they saw his own reply: "I'll do +whatever you say; I won't even look at you--see, see!" They kept +conveying thus, with the friendliest liberality, that they wouldn't +look, quite positively wouldn't. What she was to see was that he +hovered at the other end of the counter, Mr. Buckton's end, and +surrendered himself again to that frustration. It quickly proved +so great indeed that what she was to see further was how he turned +away before he was attended to, and hung off, waiting, smoking, +looking about the shop; how he went over to Mr. Cocker's own +counter and appeared to price things, gave in fact presently two or +three orders and put down money, stood there a long time with his +back to her, considerately abstaining from any glance round to see +if she were free. It at last came to pass in this way that he had +remained in the shop longer than she had ever yet known to do, and +that, nevertheless, when he did turn about she could see him time +himself--she was freshly taken up--and cross straight to her postal +subordinate, whom some one else had released. He had in his hand +all this while neither letters nor telegrams, and now that he was +close to her--for she was close to the counter-clerk--it brought +her heart into her mouth merely to see him look at her neighbour +and open his lips. She was too nervous to bear it. He asked for a +Post-Office Guide, and the young man whipped out a new one; +whereupon he said he wished not to purchase, but only to consult +one a moment; with which, the copy kept on loan being produced, he +once more wandered off. + +What was he doing to her? What did he want of her? Well, it was +just the aggravation of his "See here!" She felt at this moment +strangely and portentously afraid of him--had in her ears the hum +of a sense that, should it come to that kind of tension, she must +fly on the spot to Chalk Farm. Mixed with her dread and with her +reflexion was the idea that, if he wanted her so much as he seemed +to show, it might be after all simply to do for him the "anything" +she had promised, the "everything" she had thought it so fine to +bring out to Mr. Mudge. He might want her to help him, might have +some particular appeal; though indeed his manner didn't denote +that--denoted on the contrary an embarrassment, an indecision, +something of a desire not so much to be helped as to be treated +rather more nicely than she had treated him the other time. Yes, +he considered quite probably that he had help rather to offer than +to ask for. Still, none the less, when he again saw her free he +continued to keep away from her; when he came back with his thumbed +Guide it was Mr. Buckton he caught--it was from Mr. Buckton he +obtained half-a-crown's-worth of stamps. + +After asking for the stamps he asked, quite as a second thought, +for a postal-order for ten shillings. What did he want with so +many stamps when he wrote so few letters? How could he enclose a +postal-order in a telegram? She expected him, the next thing, to +go into the corner and make up one of his telegrams--half a dozen +of them--on purpose to prolong his presence. She had so completely +stopped looking at him that she could only guess his movements-- +guess even where his eyes rested. Finally she saw him make a dash +that might have been toward the nook where the forms were hung; and +at this she suddenly felt that she couldn't keep it up. The +counter-clerk had just taken a telegram from a slavey, and, to give +herself something to cover her, she snatched it out of his hand. +The gesture was so violent that he gave her in return an odd look, +and she also perceived that Mr. Buckton noticed it. The latter +personage, with a quick stare at her, appeared for an instant to +wonder whether his snatching it in HIS turn mightn't be the thing +she would least like, and she anticipated this practical criticism +by the frankest glare she had ever given him. It sufficed: this +time it paralysed him; and she sought with her trophy the refuge of +the sounder. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + + +It was repeated the next day; it went on for three days; and at the +end of that time she knew what to think. When, at the beginning, +she had emerged from her temporary shelter Captain Everard had +quitted the shop; and he had not come again that evening, as it had +struck her he possibly might--might all the more easily that there +were numberless persons who came, morning and afternoon, numberless +times, so that he wouldn't necessarily have attracted attention. +The second day it was different and yet on the whole worse. His +access to her had become possible--she felt herself even reaping +the fruit of her yesterday's glare at Mr. Buckton; but transacting +his business with him didn't simplify--it could, in spite of the +rigour of circumstance, feed so her new conviction. The rigour was +tremendous, and his telegrams--not now mere pretexts for getting at +her--were apparently genuine; yet the conviction had taken but a +night to develop. It could be simply enough expressed; she had had +the glimmer of it the day before in her idea that he needed no more +help than she had already given; that it was help he himself was +prepared to render. He had come up to town but for three or four +days; he had been absolutely obliged to be absent after the other +time; yet he would, now that he was face to face with her, stay on +as much longer as she liked. Little by little it was thus +clarified, though from the first flash of his re-appearance she had +read into it the real essence. + +That was what the night before, at eight o'clock, her hour to go, +had made her hang back and dawdle. She did last things or +pretended to do them; to be in the cage had suddenly become her +safety, and she was literally afraid of the alternate self who +might be waiting outside. HE might be waiting; it was he who was +her alternate self, and of him she was afraid. The most +extraordinary change had taken place in her from the moment of her +catching the impression he seemed to have returned on purpose to +give her. Just before she had done so, on that bewitched +afternoon, she had seen herself approach without a scruple the +porter at Park Chambers; then as the effect of the rush of a +consciousness quite altered she had on at last quitting Cocker's, +gone straight home for the first time since her return from +Bournemouth. She had passed his door every night for weeks, but +nothing would have induced her to pass it now. This change was the +tribute of her fear--the result of a change in himself as to which +she needed no more explanation than his mere face vividly gave her; +strange though it was to find an element of deterrence in the +object that she regarded as the most beautiful in the world. He +had taken it from her in the Park that night that she wanted him +not to propose to her to sup; but he had put away the lesson by +this time--he practically proposed supper every time he looked at +her. This was what, for that matter, mainly filled the three days. +He came in twice on each of these, and it was as if he came in to +give her a chance to relent. That was after all, she said to +herself in the intervals, the most that he did. There were ways, +she fully recognised, in which he spared her, and other particular +ways as to which she meant that her silence should be full to him +of exquisite pleading. The most particular of all was his not +being outside, at the corner, when she quitted the place for the +night. This he might so easily have been--so easily if he hadn't +been so nice. She continued to recognise in his forbearance the +fruit of her dumb supplication, and the only compensation he found +for it was the harmless freedom of being able to appear to say: +"Yes, I'm in town only for three or four days, but, you know, I +WOULD stay on." He struck her as calling attention each day, each +hour, to the rapid ebb of time; he exaggerated to the point of +putting it that there were only two days more, that there was at +last, dreadfully, only one. + +There were other things still that he struck her as doing with a +special intention; as to the most marked of which--unless indeed it +were the most obscure--she might well have marvelled that it didn't +seem to her more horrid. It was either the frenzy of her +imagination or the disorder of his baffled passion that gave her +once or twice the vision of his putting down redundant money-- +sovereigns not concerned with the little payments he was +perpetually making--so that she might give him some sign of helping +him to slip them over to her. What was most extraordinary in this +impression was the amount of excuse that, with some incoherence, +she found for him. He wanted to pay her because there was nothing +to pay her for. He wanted to offer her things he knew she wouldn't +take. He wanted to show her how much he respected her by giving +her the supreme chance to show HIM she was respectable. Over the +dryest transactions, at any rate, their eyes had out these +questions. On the third day he put in a telegram that had +evidently something of the same point as the stray sovereigns--a +message that was in the first place concocted and that on a second +thought he took back from her before she had stamped it. He had +given her time to read it and had only then bethought himself that +he had better not send it. If it was not to Lady Bradeen at +Twindle--where she knew her ladyship then to be--this was because +an address to Doctor Buzzard at Brickwood was just as good, with +the added merit of its not giving away quite so much a person whom +he had still, after all, in a manner to consider. It was of course +most complicated, only half lighted; but there was, discernibly +enough, a scheme of communication in which Lady Bradeen at Twindle +and Dr. Buzzard at Brickwood were, within limits, one and the same +person. The words he had shown her and then taken back consisted, +at all events, of the brief but vivid phrase "Absolutely +impossible." The point was not that she should transmit it; the +point was just that she should see it. What was absolutely +impossible was that before he had setted something at Cocker's he +should go either to Twindle or to Brickwood. + +The logic of this, in turn, for herself, was that she could lend +herself to no settlement so long as she so intensely knew. What +she knew was that he was, almost under peril of life, clenched in a +situation: therefore how could she also know where a poor girl in +the P.O. might really stand? It was more and more between them +that if he might convey to her he was free, with all the impossible +locked away into a closed chapter, her own case might become +different for her, she might understand and meet him and listen. +But he could convey nothing of the sort, and he only fidgeted and +floundered in his want of power. The chapter wasn't in the least +closed, not for the other party; and the other party had a pull, +somehow and somewhere: this his whole attitude and expression +confessed, at the same time that they entreated her not to remember +and not to mind. So long as she did remember and did mind he could +only circle about and go and come, doing futile things of which he +was ashamed. He was ashamed of his two words to Dr. Buzzard; he +went out of the shop as soon as he had crumpled up the paper again +and thrust it into his pocket. It had been an abject little +exposure of dreadful impossible passion. He appeared in fact to be +too ashamed to come back. He had once more left town, and a first +week elapsed, and a second. He had had naturally to return to the +real mistress of his fate; she had insisted--she knew how to +insist, and he couldn't put in another hour. There was always a +day when she called time. It was known to our young friend +moreover that he had now been dispatching telegrams from other +offices. She knew at last so much that she had quite lost her +earlier sense of merely guessing. There were no different shades +of distinctness--it all bounced out. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + + +Eighteen days elapsed, and she had begun to think it probable she +should never see him again. He too then understood now: he had +made out that she had secrets and reasons and impediments, that +even a poor girl at the P.O. might have her complications. With +the charm she had cast on him lightened by distance he had suffered +a final delicacy to speak to him, had made up his mind that it +would be only decent to let her alone. Never so much as during +these latter days had she felt the precariousness of their +relation--the happy beautiful untroubled original one, if it could +only have been restored--in which the public servant and the casual +public only were concerned. It hung at the best by the merest +silken thread, which was at the mercy of any accident and might +snap at any minute. She arrived by the end of the fortnight at the +highest sense of actual fitness, never doubting that her decision +was now complete. She would just give him a few days more to come +back to her on a proper impersonal basis--for even to an +embarrassing representative of the casual public a public servant +with a conscience did owe something--and then would signify to Mr. +Mudge that she was ready for the little home. It had been visited, +in the further talk she had had with him at Bournemouth, from +garret to cellar, and they had especially lingered, with their +respectively darkened brows, before the niche into which it was to +be broached to her mother that she must find means to fit. + +He had put it to her more definitely than before that his +calculations had allowed for that dingy presence, and he had +thereby marked the greatest impression he had ever made on her. It +was a stroke superior even again to his handling of the drunken +soldier. What she considered that in the face of it she hung on at +Cocker's for was something she could only have described as the +common fairness of a last word. Her actual last word had been, +till it should be superseded, that she wouldn't forsake her other +friend, and it stuck to her through thick and thin that she was +still at her post and on her honour. This other friend had shown +so much beauty of conduct already that he would surely after all +just re-appear long enough to relieve her, to give her something +she could take away. She saw it, caught it, at times, his parting +present; and there were moments when she felt herself sitting like +a beggar with a hand held out to almsgiver who only fumbled. She +hadn't taken the sovereigns, but she WOULD take the penny. She +heard, in imagination, on the counter, the ring of the copper. +"Don't put yourself out any longer," he would say, "for so bad a +case. You've done all there is to be done. I thank and acquit and +release you. Our lives take us. I don't know much--though I've +really been interested--about yours, but I suppose you've got one. +Mine at any rate will take ME--and where it will. Heigh-ho! Good- +bye." And then once more, for the sweetest faintest flower of all: +"Only, I say--see here!" She had framed the whole picture with a +squareness that included also the image of how again she would +decline to "see there," decline, as she might say, to see anywhere, +see anything. Yet it befell that just in the fury of this escape +she saw more than ever. + +He came back one night with a rush, near the moment of their +closing, and showed her a face so different and new, so upset and +anxious, that almost anything seemed to look out of it but clear +recognition. He poked in a telegram very much as if the simple +sense of pressure, the distress of extreme haste, had blurred the +remembrance of where in particular he was. But as she met his eyes +a light came; it broke indeed on the spot into a positive conscious +glare. That made up for everything, since it was an instant +proclamation of the celebrated "danger"; it seemed to pour things +out in a flood. "Oh yes, here it is--it's upon me at last! +Forget, for God's sake, my having worried or bored you, and just +help me, just SAVE me, by getting this off without the loss of a +second!" Something grave had clearly occurred, a crisis declared +itself. She recognised immediately the person to whom the telegram +was addressed--the Miss Dolman of Parade Lodge to whom Lady Bradeen +had wired, at Dover, on the last occasion, and whom she had then, +with her recollection of previous arrangements, fitted into a +particular setting. Miss Dolman had figured before and not figured +since, but she was now the subject of an imperative appeal. +"Absolutely necessary to see you. Take last train Victoria if you +can catch it. If not, earliest morning, and answer me direct +either way." + +"Reply paid?" said the girl. Mr. Buckton had just departed and the +counter-clerk was at the sounder. There was no other +representative of the public, and she had never yet, as it seemed +to her, not even in the street or in the Park, been so alone with +him. + +"Oh yes, reply paid, and as sharp as possible, please." + +She affixed the stamps in a flash. "She'll catch the train!" she +then declared to him breathlessly, as if she could absolutely +guarantee it. + +"I don't know--I hope so. It's awfully important. So kind of you. +Awfully sharp, please." It was wonderfully innocent now, his +oblivion of all but his danger. Anything else that had ever passed +between them was utterly out of it. Well, she had wanted him to be +impersonal! + +There was less of the same need therefore, happily, for herself; +yet she only took time, before she flew to the sounder, to gasp at +him: "You're in trouble?" + +"Horrid, horrid--there's a row!" But they parted, on it, in the +next breath; and as she dashed at the sounder, almost pushing, in +her violence, the counter-clerk off the stool, she caught the bang +with which, at Cocker's door, in his further precipitation, he +closed the apron of the cab into which he had leaped. As he +rebounded to some other precaution suggested by his alarm, his +appeal to Miss Dolman flashed straight away. + +But she had not, on the morrow, been in the place five minutes +before he was with her again, still more discomposed and quite, +now, as she said to herself, like a frightened child coming to its +mother. Her companions were there, and she felt it to be +remarkable how, in the presence of his agitation, his mere scared +exposed nature, she suddenly ceased to mind. It came to her as it +had never come to her before that with absolute directness and +assurance they might carry almost anything off. He had nothing to +send--she was sure he had been wiring all over--and yet his +business was evidently huge. There was nothing but that in his +eyes--not a glimmer of reference or memory. He was almost haggard +with anxiety and had clearly not slept a wink. Her pity for him +would have given her any courage, and she seemed to know at last +why she had been such a fool. "She didn't come?" she panted. + +"Oh yes, she came; but there has been some mistake. We want a +telegram." + +"A telegram?" + +"One that was sent from here ever so long ago. There was something +in it that has to be recovered. Something very, very important, +please--we want it immediately." + +He really spoke to her as if she had been some strange young woman +at Knightsbridge or Paddington; but it had no other effect on her +than to give her the measure of his tremendous flurry. Then it was +that, above all, she felt how much she had missed in the gaps and +blanks and absent answers--how much she had had to dispense with: +it was now black darkness save for this little wild red flare. So +much as that she saw, so much her mind dealt with. One of the +lovers was quaking somewhere out of town, and the other was quaking +just where he stood. This was vivid enough, and after an instant +she knew it was all she wanted. She wanted no detail, no fact--she +wanted no nearer vision of discovery or shame. "When was your +telegram? Do you mean you sent it from here?" She tried to do the +young woman at Knightsbridge. + +"Oh yes, from here--several weeks ago. Five, six, seven"--he was +confused and impatient--"don't you remember?" + +"Remember?" she could scarcely keep out of her face, at the word, +the strangest of smiles. + +But the way he didn't catch what it meant was perhaps even stranger +still. "I mean, don't you keep the old ones?" + +"For a certain time." + +"But how long?" + +She thought; she must do the young woman, and she knew exactly what +the young woman would say and, still more, wouldn't. "Can you give +me the date?" + +"Oh God, no! It was some time or other in August--toward the end. +It was to the same address as the one I gave you last night." + +"Oh!" said the girl, knowing at this the deepest thrill she had +ever felt. It came to her there, with her eyes on his face, that +she held the whole thing in her hand, held it as she held her +pencil, which might have broken at that instant in her tightened +grip. This made her feel like the very fountain of fate, but the +emotion was such a flood that she had to press it back with all her +force. That was positively the reason, again, of her flute-like +Paddington tone. "You can't give us anything a little nearer?" +Her "little" and her "us" came straight from Paddington. These +things were no false note for him--his difficulty absorbed them +all. The eyes with which he pressed her, and in the depths of +which she read terror and rage and literal tears, were just the +same he would have shown any other prim person. + +"I don't know the date. I only know the thing went from here, and +just about the time I speak of. It wasn't delivered, you see. +We've got to recover it." + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + + +She was as struck with the beauty of his plural pronoun as she had +judged he might be with that of her own; but she knew now so well +what she was about that she could almost play with him and with her +new-born joy. "You say 'about the time you speak of.' But I don't +think you speak of an exact time--do you?" + +He looked splendidly helpless. "That's just what I want to find +out. Don't you keep the old ones?--can't you look it up?" + +Our young lady--still at Paddington--turned the question over. "It +wasn't delivered?" + +"Yes, it WAS; yet, at the same time, don't you know? it wasn't." +He just hung back, but he brought it out. "I mean it was +intercepted, don't you know? and there was something in it." He +paused again and, as if to further his quest and woo and supplicate +success and recovery, even smiled with an effort at the agreeable +that was almost ghastly and that turned the knife in her +tenderness. What must be the pain of it all, of the open gulf and +the throbbing fever, when this was the mere hot breath? "We want +to get what was in it--to know what it was." + +"I see--I see." She managed just the accent they had at Paddington +when they stared like dead fish. "And you have no clue?" + +"Not at all--I've the clue I've just given you." + +"Oh the last of August?" If she kept it up long enough she would +make him really angry. + +"Yes, and the address, as I've said." + +"Oh the same as last night?" + +He visibly quivered, as with a gleam of hope; but it only poured +oil on her quietude, and she was still deliberate. She ranged some +papers. "Won't you look?" he went on. + +"I remember your coming," she replied. + +He blinked with a new uneasiness; it might have begun to come to +him, through her difference, that he was somehow different himself. +"You were much quicker then, you know!" + +"So were you--you must do me that justice," she answered with a +smile. "But let me see. Wasn't it Dover?" + +"Yes, Miss Dolman--" + +"Parade Lodge, Parade Terrace?" + +"Exactly--thank you so awfully much!" He began to hope again. +"Then you HAVE it--the other one?" + +She hesitated afresh; she quite dangled him. "It was brought by a +lady?" + +"Yes; and she put in by mistake something wrong. That's what we've +got to get hold of!" Heavens, what was he going to say?--flooding +poor Paddington with wild betrayals! She couldn't too much, for +her joy, dangle him, yet she couldn't either, for his dignity, warn +or control or check him. What she found herself doing was just to +treat herself to the middle way. "It was intercepted?" + +"It fell into the wrong hands. But there's something in it," he +continued to blurt out, "that MAY be all right. That is, if it's +wrong, don't you know? It's all right if it's wrong," he +remarkably explained. + +What WAS he, on earth, going to say? Mr. Buckton and the counter- +clerk were already interested; no one would have the decency to +come in; and she was divided between her particular terror for him +and her general curiosity. Yet she already saw with what +brilliancy she could add, to carry the thing off, a little false +knowledge to all her real. "I quite understand," she said with +benevolent, with almost patronising quickness. "The lady has +forgotten what she did put." + +"Forgotten most wretchedly, and it's an immense inconvenience. It +has only just been found that it didn't get there; so that if we +could immediately have it--" + +"Immediately?" + +"Every minute counts. You have," he pleaded, "surely got them on +file?" + +"So that you can see it on the spot?" + +"Yes, please--this very minute." The counter rang with his +knuckles, with the knob of his stick, with his panic of alarm. +"Do, DO hunt it up!" he repeated. + +"I dare say we could get it for you," the girl weetly returned. + +"Get it?"--he looked aghast. "When?" + +"Probably by to-morrow." + +"Then it isn't here?"--his face was pitiful. + +She caught only the uncovered gleams that peeped out of the +blackness, and she wondered what complication, even among the most +supposable, the very worst, could be bad enough to account for the +degree of his terror. There were twists and turns, there were +places where the screw drew blood, that she couldn't guess. She +was more and more glad she didn't want to. "It has been sent on." + +"But how do you know if you don't look?" + +She gave him a smile that was meant to be, in the absolute irony of +its propriety, quite divine. "It was August 23rd, and we've +nothing later here than August 27th." + +Something leaped into his face. "27th--23rd? Then you're sure? +You know?" + +She felt she scarce knew what--as if she might soon be pounced upon +for some lurid connexion with a scandal. It was the queerest of +all sensations, for she had heard, she had read, of these things, +and the wealth of her intimacy with them at Cocker's might be +supposed to have schooled and seasoned her. This particular one +that she had really quite lived with was, after all, an old story; +yet what it had been before was dim and distant beside the touch +under which she now winced. Scandal?--it had never been but a +silly word. Now it was a great tense surface, and the surface was +somehow Captain Everard's wonderful face. Deep down in his eyes a +picture, a scene--a great place like a chamber of justice, where, +before a watching crowd, a poor girl, exposed but heroic, swore +with a quavering voice to a document, proved an ALIBI, supplied a +link. In this picture she bravely took her place. "It was the +23rd." + +"Then can't you get it this morning--or some time to-day?" + +She considered, still holding him with her look, which she then +turned on her two companions, who were by this time unreservedly +enlisted. She didn't care--not a scrap, and she glanced about for +a piece of paper. With this she had to recognise the rigour of +official thrift--a morsel of blackened blotter was the only loose +paper to be seen. "Have you got a card?" she said to her visitor. +He was quite away from Paddington now, and the next instant, +pocket-book in hand, he had whipped a card out. She gave no glance +at the name on it--only turned it to the other side. She continued +to hold him, she felt at present, as she had never held him; and +her command of her colleagues was for the moment not less marked. +She wrote something on the back of the card and pushed it across to +him. + +He fairly glared at it. "Seven, nine, four--" + +"Nine, six, one"--she obligingly completed the number. "Is it +right?" she smiled. + +He took the whole thing in with a flushed intensity; then there +broke out in him a visibility of relief that was simply a +tremendous exposure. He shone at them all like a tall lighthouse, +embracing even, for sympathy, the blinking young men. "By all the +powers--it's WRONG!" And without another look, without a word of +thanks, without time for anything or anybody, he turned on them the +broad back of his great stature, straightened his triumphant +shoulders, and strode out of the place. + +She was left confronted with her habitual critics. "'If it's wrong +it's all right!'" she extravagantly quoted to them. + +The counter-clerk was really awe-stricken. "But how did you know, +dear?" + +"I remembered, love!" + +Mr. Buckton, on the contrary, was rude. "And what game is that, +miss?" + +No happiness she had ever known came within miles of it, and some +minutes elapsed before she could recall herself sufficiently to +reply that it was none of his business. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + + +If life at Cocker's, with the dreadful drop of August, had lost +something of its savour, she had not been slow to infer that a +heavier blight had fallen on the graceful industry of Mrs. Jordan. + +With Lord Rye and Lady Ventnor and Mrs. Bubb all out of town, with +the blinds down on all the homes of luxury, this ingenious woman +might well have found her wonderful taste left quite on her hands. +She bore up, however, in a way that began by exciting much of her +young friend's esteem; they perhaps even more frequently met as the +wine of life flowed less free from other sources, and each, in the +lack of better diversion, carried on with more mystification for +the other an intercourse that consisted not a little in peeping out +and drawing back. Each waited for the other to commit herself, +each profusely curtained for the other the limits of low horizons. +Mrs. Jordan was indeed probably the more reckless skirmisher; +nothing could exceed her frequent incoherence unless it was indeed +her occasional bursts of confidence. Her account of her private +affairs rose and fell like a flame in the wind--sometimes the +bravest bonfire and sometimes a handful of ashes. This our young +woman took to be an effect of the position, at one moment and +another, of the famous door of the great world. She had been +struck in one of her ha'penny volumes with the translation of a +French proverb according to which such a door, any door, had to be +either open or shut; and it seemed part of the precariousness of +Mrs. Jordan's life that hers mostly managed to be neither. There +had been occasions when it appeared to gape wide--fairly to woo her +across its threshold; there had been others, of an order distinctly +disconcerting, when it was all but banged in her face. On the +whole, however, she had evidently not lost heart; these still +belonged to the class of things in spite of which she looked well. +She intimated that the profits of her trade had swollen so as to +float her through any state of the tide, and she had, besides this, +a hundred profundities and explanations. + +She rose superior, above all, on the happy fact that there were +always gentlemen in town and that gentlemen were her greatest +admirers; gentlemen from the City in especial--as to whom she was +full of information about the passion and pride excited in such +breasts by the elements of her charming commerce. The City men did +in short go in for flowers. There was a certain type of awfully +smart stockbroker--Lord Rye called them Jews and bounders, but she +didn't care--whose extravagance, she more than once threw out, had +really, if one had any conscience, to be forcibly restrained. It +was not perhaps a pure love of beauty: it was a matter of vanity +and a sign of business; they wished to crush their rivals, and that +was one of their weapons. Mrs. Jordan's shrewdness was extreme; +she knew in any case her customer--she dealt, as she said, with all +sorts; and it was at the worst a race for her--a race even in the +dull months--from one set of chambers to another. And then, after +all, there were also still the ladies; the ladies of stockbroking +circles were perpetually up and down. They were not quite perhaps +Mrs. Bubb or Lady Ventnor; but you couldn't tell the difference +unless you quarrelled with them, and then you knew it only by their +making-up sooner. These ladies formed the branch of her subject on +which she most swayed in the breeze; to that degree that her +confidant had ended with an inference or two tending to banish +regret for opportunities not embraced. There were indeed tea-gowns +that Mrs. Jordan described--but tea-gowns were not the whole of +respectability, and it was odd that a clergyman's widow should +sometimes speak as if she almost thought so. She came back, it was +true, unfailingly to Lord Rye, never, evidently, quite losing sight +of him even on the longest excursions. That he was kindness itself +had become in fact the very moral it all pointed--pointed in +strange flashes of the poor woman's nearsighted eyes. She launched +at her young friend portentous looks, solemn heralds of some +extraordinary communication. The communication itself, from week +to week, hung fire; but it was to the facts over which it hovered +that she owed her power of going on. "They are, in one way and +another," she often emphasised, "a tower of strength"; and as the +allusion was to the aristocracy the girl could quite wonder why, if +they were so in "one way," they should require to be so in two. +She thoroughly knew, however, how many ways Mrs. Jordan counted in. +It all meant simply that her fate was pressing her close. If that +fate was to be sealed at the matrimonial altar it was perhaps not +remarkable that she shouldn't come all at once to the scratch of +overwhelming a mere telegraphist. It would necessarily present to +such a person a prospect of regretful sacrifice. Lord Rye--if it +WAS Lord Rye--wouldn't be "kind" to a nonentity of that sort, even +though people quite as good had been. + +One Sunday afternoon in November they went, by arrangement, to +church together; after which--on the inspiration of the moment the +arrangement had not included it--they proceeded to Mrs. Jordan's +lodging in the region of Maida Vale. She had raved to her friend +about her service of predilection; she was excessively "high," and +had more than once wished to introduce the girl to the same comfort +and privilege. There was a thick brown fog and Maida Vale tasted +of acrid smoke; but they had been sitting among chants and incense +and wonderful music, during which, though the effect of such things +on her mind was great, our young lady had indulged in a series of +reflexions but indirectly related to them. One of these was the +result of Mrs. Jordan's having said to her on the way, and with a +certain fine significance, that Lord Rye had been for some time in +town. She had spoken as if it were a circumstance to which little +required to be added--as if the bearing of such an item on her life +might easily be grasped. Perhaps it was the wonder of whether Lord +Rye wished to marry her that made her guest, with thoughts straying +to that quarter, quite determine that some other nuptials also +should take place at Saint Julian's. Mr. Mudge was still an +attendant at his Wesleyan chapel, but this was the least of her +worries--it had never even vexed her enough for her to so much as +name it to Mrs. Jordan. Mr. Mudge's form of worship was one of +several things--they made up in superiority and beauty for what +they wanted in number--that she had long ago settled he should take +from her, and she had now moreover for the first time definitely +established her own. Its principal feature was that it was to be +the same as that of Mrs. Jordan and Lord Rye; which was indeed very +much what she said to her hostess as they sat together later on. +The brown fog was in this hostess's little parlour, where it acted +as a postponement of the question of there being, besides, anything +else than the teacups and a pewter pot and a very black little fire +and a paraffin lamp without a shade. There was at any rate no sign +of a flower; it was not for herself Mrs. Jordan gathered sweets. +The girl waited till they had had a cup of tea--waited for the +announcement that she fairly believed her friend had, this time, +possessed herself of her formally at last to make; but nothing +came, after the interval, save a little poke at the fire, which was +like the clearing of a throat for a speech. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + + +"I think you must have heard me speak of Mr. Drake?" Mrs. Jordan +had never looked so queer, nor her smile so suggestive of a large +benevolent bite. + +"Mr. Drake? Oh yes; isn't he a friend of Lord Rye?" + +"A great and trusted friend. Almost--I may say--a loved friend." + +Mrs. Jordan's "almost" had such an oddity that her companion was +moved, rather flippantly perhaps, to take it up. "Don't people as +good as love their friends when they I trust them?" + +It pulled up a little the eulogist of Mr. Drake. "Well, my dear, I +love YOU--" + +"But you don't trust me?" the girl unmercifully asked. + +Again Mrs. Jordan paused--still she looked queer. "Yes," she +replied with a certain austerity; "that's exactly what I'm about to +give you rather a remarkable proof of." The sense of its being +remarkable was already so strong that, while she bridled a little, +this held her auditor in a momentary muteness of submission. "Mr. +Drake has rendered his lordship for several years services that his +lordship has highly appreciated and that make it all the more--a-- +unexpected that they should, perhaps a little suddenly, separate." + +"Separate?" Our young lady was mystified, but she tried to be +interested; and she already saw that she had put the saddle on the +wrong horse. She had heard something of Mr. Drake, who was a +member of his lordship's circle--the member with whom, apparently, +Mrs. Jordan's avocations had most happened to throw her. She was +only a little puzzled at the "separation." "Well, at any rate," +she smiled, "if they separate as friends--!" + +"Oh his lordship takes the greatest interest in Mr. Drake's future. +He'll do anything for him; he has in fact just done a great deal. +There MUST, you know, be changes--!" + +"No one knows it better than I," the girl said. She wished to draw +her interlocutress out. "There will be changes enough for me." + +"You're leaving Cocker's?" + +The ornament of that establishment waited a moment to answer, and +then it was indirect. "Tell me what YOU'RE doing." + +"Well, what will you think of it?" + +"Why that you've found the opening you were always so sure of." + +Mrs. Jordan, on this, appeared to muse with embarrassed intensity. +"I was always sure, yes--and yet I often wasn't!" + +"Well, I hope you're sure now. Sure, I mean, of Mr. Drake." + +"Yes, my dear, I think I may say I AM. I kept him going till I +was." + +"Then he's yours?" + +"My very own." + +"How nice! And awfully rich?" our young woman went on. + +Mrs. Jordan showed promptly enough that she loved for higher +things. "Awfully handsome--six foot two. And he HAS put by." + +"Quite like Mr. Mudge, then!" that gentleman's friend rather +desperately exclaimed. + +"Oh not quite!" Mr. Drake's was ambiguous about it, but the name of +Mr. Mudge had evidently given her some sort of stimulus. "He'll +have more opportunity now, at any rate. He's going to Lady +Bradeen." + +"To Lady Bradeen?" This was bewilderment. "'Going--'?" + +The girl had seen, from the way Mrs. Jordan looked at her, that the +effect of the name had been to make her let something out. "Do you +know her?" + +She floundered, but she found her feet. "Well, you'll remember +I've often told you that if you've grand clients I have them too." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Jordan; "but the great difference is that you hate +yours, whereas I really love mine. DO you know Lady Bradeen?" she +pursued. + +"Down to the ground! She's always in and out." + +Mrs. Jordan's foolish eyes confessed, in fixing themselves on this +sketch, to a degree of wonder and even of envy. But she bore up +and, with a certain gaiety, "Do you hate HER?" she demanded. + +Her visitor's reply was prompt. "Dear no!--not nearly so much as +some of them. She's too outrageously beautiful." + +Mrs. Jordan continued to gaze. "Outrageously?" + +"Well, yes; deliciously." What was really delicious was Mrs. +Jordan's vagueness. "You don't know her--you've not seen her?" her +guest lightly continued. + +"No, but I've heard a great deal about her." + +"So have I!" our young lady exclaimed. + +Jordan looked an instant as if she suspected her good faith, or at +least her seriousness. "You know some friend--?" + +"Of Lady Bradeen's? Oh yes--I know one." + +"Only one?" + +The girl laughed out. "Only one--but he's so intimate." + +Mrs. Jordan just hesitated. "He's a gentleman?" + +"Yes, he's not a lady." + +Her interlocutress appeared to muse. "She's immensely surrounded." + +"She WILL be--with Mr. Drake!" + +Mrs. Jordan's gaze became strangely fixed. "Is she VERY good- +looking?" + +"The handsomest person I know." + +Mrs. Jordan continued to brood. "Well, I know some beauties." +Then with her odd jerkiness: "Do you think she looks GOOD?" + +"Because that's not always the case with the good-looking?"--the +other took it up. "No, indeed, it isn't: that's one thing +Cocker's has taught me. Still, there are some people who have +everything. Lady Bradeen, at any rate, has enough: eyes and a +nose and a mouth, a complexion, a figure--" + +"A figure?" Mrs. Jordan almost broke in. + +"A figure, a head of hair!" The girl made a little conscious +motion that seemed to let the hair all down, and her companion +watched the wonderful show. "But Mr. Drake IS another--?" + +"Another?"--Mrs. Jordan's thoughts had to come back from a +distance. + +"Of her ladyship's admirers. He's 'going,' you say, to her?" + +At this Mrs. Jordan really faltered. "She has engaged him." + +"Engaged him?"--our young woman was quite at sea. + +"In the same capacity as Lord Rye." + +"And was Lord Rye engaged?" + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + + +Mrs. Jordan looked away from her now--looked, she thought, rather +injured and, as if trifled with, even a little angry. The mention +of Lady Bradeen had frustrated for a while the convergence of our +heroine's thoughts; but with this impression of her old friend's +combined impatience and diffidence they began again to whirl round +her, and continued it till one of them appeared to dart at her, out +of the dance, as if with a sharp peck. It came to her with a +lively shock, with a positive sting, that Mr. Drake was--could it +be possible? With the idea she found herself afresh on the edge of +laughter, of a sudden and strange perversity of mirth. Mr. Drake +loomed, in a swift image, before her; such a figure as she had seen +in open doorways of houses in Cocker's quarter--majestic, middle- +aged, erect, flanked on either side by a footman and taking the +name of a visitor. Mr. Drake then verily WAS a person who opened +the door! Before she had time, however, to recover from the effect +of her evocation, she was offered a vision which quite engulfed it. +It was communicated to her somehow that the face with which she had +seen it rise prompted Mrs. Jordan to dash, a bit wildly, at +something, at anything, that might attenuate criticism. "Lady +Bradeen's re-arranging--she's going to be married." + +"Married?" The girl echoed it ever so softly, but there it was at +last. + +"Didn't you know it?" + +She summoned all her sturdiness. "No, she hasn't told me." + +"And her friends--haven't they?" + +"I haven't seen any of them lately. I'm not so fortunate as you." + +Mrs. Jordan gathered herself. "Then you haven't even heard of Lord +Bradeen's death?" + +Her comrade, unable for a moment to speak, gave a slow headshake. +"You know it from Mr. Drake?" It was better surely not to learn +things at all than to learn them by the butler. + +"She tells him everything." + +"And he tells YOU--I see." Our young lady got up; recovering her +muff and her gloves she smiled. "Well, I haven't unfortunately any +Mr. Drake. I congratulate you with all my heart. Even without +your sort of assistance, however, there's a trifle here and there +that I do pick up. I gather that if she's to marry any one it must +quite necessarily be my friend." + +Mrs. Jordan was now also on her feet. "Is Captain Everard your +friend?" + +The girl considered, drawing on a glove. "I saw, at one time, an +immense deal of him." + +Mrs. Jordan looked hard at the glove, but she hadn't after all +waited for that to be sorry it wasn't cleaner. "What time was +that?" + +"It must have been the time you were seeing so much of Mr. Drake." +She had now fairly taken it in: the distinguished person Mrs. +Jordan was to marry would answer bells and put on coals and +superintend, at least, the cleaning of boots for the other +distinguished person whom she might--well, whom she might have had, +if she had wished, so much more to say to. "Good-bye," she added; +"good-bye." + +Mrs. Jordan, however, again taking her muff from her, turned it +over, brushed it off and thoughtfully peeped into it. "Tell me +this before you go. You spoke just now of your own changes. Do +you mean that Mr. Mudge--?" + +"Mr. Mudge has had great patience with me--he has brought me at +last to the point. We're to be married next month and have a nice +little home. But he's only a grocer, you know"--the girl met her +friend's intent eyes--"so that I'm afraid that, with the set you've +got into, you won't see your way to keep up our friendship." + +Mrs. Jordan for a moment made no answer to this; she only held the +muff up to her face, after which she gave it back. "You don't like +it. I see, I see." + +To her guest's astonishment there were tears now in her eyes. "I +don't like what?" the girl asked. + +"Why my engagement. Only, with your great cleverness," the poor +lady quavered out, "you put it in your own way. I mean that you'll +cool off. You already have--!" And on this, the next instant, her +tears began to flow. She succumbed to them and collapsed; she sank +down again, burying her face and trying to smother her sobs. + +Her young friend stood there, still in some rigour, but taken much +by surprise even if not yet fully moved to pity. "I don't put +anything in any 'way,' and I'm very glad you're suited. Only, you +know, you did put to me so splendidly what, even for me, if I had +listened to you, it might lead to." + +Mrs. Jordan kept up a mild thin weak wail; then, drying her eyes, +as feebly considered this reminder. "It has led to my not +starving!" she faintly gasped. + +Our young lady, at this, dropped into the place beside her, and +now, in a rush, the small silly misery was clear. She took her +hand as a sign of pitying it, then, after another instant, +confirmed this expression with a consoling kiss. They sat there +together; they looked out, hand in hand, into the damp dusky shabby +little room and into the future, of no such very different +suggestion, at last accepted by each. There was no definite +utterance, on either side, of Mr. Drake's position in the great +world, but the temporary collapse of his prospective bride threw +all further necessary light; and what our heroine saw and felt for +in the whole business was the vivid reflexion of her own dreams and +delusions and her own return to reality. Reality, for the poor +things they both were, could only be ugliness and obscurity, could +never be the escape, the rise. She pressed her friend--she had +tact enough for that--with no other personal question, brought on +no need of further revelations, only just continued to hold and +comfort her and to acknowledge by stiff little forbearances the +common element in their fate. She felt indeed magnanimous in such +matters; since if it was very well, for condolence or reassurance, +to suppress just then invidious shrinkings, she yet by no means saw +herself sitting down, as she might say, to the same table with Mr. +Drake. There would luckily, to all appearance, be little question +of tables; and the circumstance that, on their peculiar lines, her +friend's interests would still attach themselves to Mayfair flung +over Chalk Farm the first radiance it had shown. Where was one's +pride and one's passion when the real way to judge of one's luck +was by making not the wrong but the right comparison? Before she +had again gathered herself to go she felt very small and cautious +and thankful. "We shall have our own house," she said, "and you +must come very soon and let me show it you." + +"WE shall have our own too," Mrs. Jordan replied; "for, don't you +know? he makes it a condition that he sleeps out?" + +"A condition?"--the girl felt out of it. + +"For any new position. It was on that he parted with Lord Rye. +His lordship can't meet it. So Mr. Drake has given him up." + +"And all for you?"--our young woman put it as cheerfully as +possible. + +"For me and Lady Bradeen. Her ladyship's too glad to get him at +any price. Lord Rye, out of interest in us, has in fact quite MADE +her take him. So, as I tell you, he will have his own +establishment." + +Mrs. Jordan, in the elation of it, had begun to revive; but there +was nevertheless between them rather a conscious pause--a pause in +which neither visitor nor hostess brought out a hope or an +invitation. It expressed in the last resort that, in spite of +submission and sympathy, they could now after all only look at each +other across the social gulf. They remained together as if it +would be indeed their last chance, still sitting, though awkwardly, +quite close, and feeling also--and this most unmistakeably--that +there was one thing more to go into. By the time it came to the +surface, moreover, our young friend had recognised the whole of the +main truth, from which she even drew again a slight irritation. It +was not the main truth perhaps that most signified; but after her +momentary effort, her embarrassment and her tears Mrs. Jordan had +begun to sound afresh--and even without speaking--the note of a +social connexion. She hadn't really let go of it that she was +marrying into society. Well, it was a harmless compensation, and +it was all the prospective bride of Mr. Mudge had to leave with +her. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + + +This young lady at last rose again, but she lingered before going. +"And has Captain Everard nothing to say to it?" + +"To what, dear?" + +"Why, to such questions--the domestic arrangements, things in the +house." + +"How can he, with any authority, when nothing in the house is his?" + +"Not his?" The girl wondered, perfectly conscious of the +appearance she thus conferred on Mrs. Jordan of knowing, in +comparison with herself, so tremendously much about it. Well, +there were things she wanted so to get at that she was willing at +last, though it hurt her, to pay for them with humiliation. "Why +are they not his?" + +"Don't you know, dear, that he has nothing?" + +"Nothing?" It was hard to see him in such a light, but Mrs. +Jordan's power to answer for it had a superiority that began, on +the spot, to grow. "Isn't he rich?" + +Mrs. Jordan looked immensely, looked both generally and +particularly, informed. "It depends upon what you call--! Not at +any rate in the least as she is. What does he bring? Think what +she has. And then, love, his debts." + +"His debts?" His young friend was fairly betrayed into helpless +innocence. She could struggle a little, but she had to let herself +go; and if she had spoken frankly she would have said: "Do tell +me, for I don't know so much about him as THAT!" As she didn't +speak frankly she only said: "His debts are nothing--when she so +adores him." + +Mrs. Jordan began to fix her again, and now she saw that she must +only take it all. That was what it had come to: his having sat +with her there on the bench and under the trees in the summer +darkness and put his hand on her, making her know what he would +have said if permitted; his having returned to her afterwards, +repeatedly, with supplicating eyes and a fever in his blood; and +her having, on her side, hard and pedantic, helped by some miracle +and with her impossible condition, only answered him, yet +supplicating back, through the bars of the cage,--all simply that +she might hear of him, now for ever lost, only through Mrs. Jordan, +who touched him through Mr. Drake, who reached him through Lady +Bradeen. "She adores him--but of course that wasn't all there was +about it." + +The girl met her eyes a minute, then quite surrendered. "What was +there else about it?" + +"Why, don't you know?"--Mrs. Jordan was almost compassionate. + +Her interlocutress had, in the cage, sounded depths, but there was +a suggestion here somehow of an abyss quite measureless. "Of +course I know she would never let him alone." + +"How COULD she--fancy!--when he had so compromised her?" + +The most artless cry they had ever uttered broke, at this, from the +younger pair of lips. "HAD he so--?" + +"Why, don't you know the scandal?" + +Our heroine thought, recollected there was something, whatever it +was, that she knew after all much more of than Mrs. Jordan. She +saw him again as she had seen him come that morning to recover the +telegram--she saw him as she had seen him leave the shop. She +perched herself a moment on this. "Oh there was nothing public." + +"Not exactly public--no. But there was an awful scare and an awful +row. It was all on the very point of coming out. Something was +lost--something was found." + +"Ah yes," the girl replied, smiling as if with the revival of a +blurred memory; "something was found." + +"It all got about--and there was a point at which Lord Bradeen had +to act." + +"Had to--yes. But he didn't." + +Mrs. Jordan was obliged to admit it. "No, he didn't. And then, +luckily for them, he died." + +"I didn't know about his death," her companion said. + +"It was nine weeks ago, and most sudden. It has given them a +prompt chance." + +"To get married?"--this was a wonder--"within nine weeks?" + +"Oh not immediately, but--in all the circumstances--very quietly +and, I assure you, very soon. Every preparation's made. Above all +she holds him." + +"Oh yes, she holds him!" our young friend threw off. She had this +before her again a minute; then she continued: "You mean through +his having made her talked about?" + +"Yes, but not only that. She has still another pull." + +"Another?" + +Mrs. Jordan hesitated. "Why, he was IN something." + +Her comrade wondered. "In what?" + +"I don't know. Something bad. As I tell you, something was +found." + +The girl stared. "Well?" + +"It would have been very bad for him. But, she helped him some +way--she recovered it, got hold of it. It's even said she stole +it!" + +Our young woman considered afresh. "Why it was what was found that +precisely saved him." + +Mrs. Jordan, however, was positive. "I beg your pardon. I happen +to know." + +Her disciple faltered but an instant. "Do you mean through Mr. +Drake? Do they tell him these things?" + +"A good servant," said Mrs. Jordan, now thoroughly superior and +proportionately sententious, "doesn't need to be told! Her +ladyship saved--as a woman so often saves!--the man she loves." + +This time our heroine took longer to recover herself, but she found +a voice at last. "Ah well--of course I don't know! The great +thing was that he got off. They seem then, in a manner," she +added, "to have done a great deal for each other." + +"Well, it's she that has done most. She has him tight." + +"I see, I see. Good-bye." The women had already embraced, and +this was not repeated; but Mrs. Jordan went down with her guest to +the door of the house. Here again the younger lingered, reverting, +though three or four other remarks had on the way passed between +them, to Captain Everard and Lady Bradeen. "Did you mean just now +that if she hadn't saved him, as you call it, she wouldn't hold him +so tight?" + +"Well, I dare say." Mrs. Jordan, on the doorstep, smiled with a +reflexion that had come to her; she took one of her big bites of +the brown gloom. "Men always dislike one when they've done one an +injury." + +"But what injury had he done her?" + +"The one I've mentioned. He MUST marry her, you know." + +"And didn't he want to?" + +"Not before." + +"Not before she recovered the telegram?" + +Mrs. Jordan was pulled up a little. "Was it a telegram?" + +The girl hesitated. "I thought you said so. I mean whatever it +was." + +"Yes, whatever it was, I don't think she saw THAT." + +"So she just nailed him?" + +"She just nailed him." The departing friend was now at the bottom +of the little flight of steps; the other was at the top, with a +certain thickness of fog. "And when am I to think of you in your +little home?--next month?" asked the voice from the top. + +"At the very latest. And when am I to think of you in yours?" + +"Oh even sooner. I feel, after so much talk with you about it, as +if I were already there!" Then "GOOD-bye!" came out of the fog. + +"Good-BYE!" went into it. Our young lady went into it also, in the +opposed quarter, and presently, after a few sightless turns, came +out on the Paddington canal. Distinguishing vaguely what the low +parapet enclosed she stopped close to it and stood a while very +intently, but perhaps still sightlessly, looking down on it. A +policeman; while she remained, strolled past her; then, going his +way a little further and half lost in the atmosphere, paused and +watched her. But she was quite unaware--she was full of her +thoughts. They were too numerous to find a place just here, but +two of the number may at least be mentioned. One of these was +that, decidedly, her little home must be not for next month, but +for next week; the other, which came indeed as she resumed her walk +and went her way, was that it was strange such a matter should be +at last settled for her by Mr. Drake + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of In the Cage, by Henry James + diff --git a/old/old/incag10.zip b/old/old/incag10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef37d94 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/incag10.zip |
