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diff --git a/40343.txt b/40343.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 094ed14..0000000 --- a/40343.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6066 +0,0 @@ - LILIAN - - - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 http://www.gutenberg.org/license. - - -Title: Lilian - -Author: Arnold Bennett - -Release Date: July 26, 2012 [EBook #40343] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: US-ASCII - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LILIAN *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines. - - - - -[Illustration: Cover] - - - - - LILIAN - - - BY - - Arnold Bennett - - - - - CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD - London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne - - - - - _First published, 1922_ - - - - _Printed in Great Britain_ - - - - - TO - BERTIE SULLIVAN - AND - AMARYLLIS - WITH AFFECTION AND GRATITUDE - - - - - CONTENTS. - - - _PART I_ - - I. The Girl Alone - II. Early Years - III. Advice to the Young Beauty - IV. The Clubman - V. The Devotee - VI. The Telephone - - - _PART II_ - - I. The Suicide - II. The Malady - III. Shut - IV. The Vizier - V. The Martyr - VI. The Invitation - VII. The Avowal - VIII. Philosophy of the Grey-Haired - - - _PART III_ - - I. In the Hotel - II. The Big Yacht - III. The Casino - IV. Chemin de fer - V. In the Hills - VI. The Benefactress - VII. The Doctor - VIII. Marriage - IX. The Widow - X. The Wreath - - - _PART IV_ - - I. The Return - II. Miss Grig - III. The Lieutenant - IV. The New Employer - V. Layette - - - - - PART I - - - LILIAN - - - I - - The Girl Alone - - -Lilian, in dark blue office frock with an embroidered red line round the -neck and detachable black wristlets that preserved the ends of the -sleeves from dust and friction, sat idle at her flat desk in what was -called "the small room" at Felix Grig's establishment in Clifford -Street, off Bond Street. There were three desks, three typewriting -machines and three green-shaded lamps. Only Lilian's lamp was lighted, -and she sat alone, with darkness above her chestnut hair and about her, -and a circle of radiance below. She was twenty-three. Through the -drawn blind of the window could just be discerned the backs of the -letters of words painted on the glass: "Felix Grig. Typewriting Office. -Open day and night." Seen from the street the legend stood out black -and clear against the faintly glowing blind. It was 11 P.M. - -That a beautiful young girl, created for pleasure and affection and -expensive flattery, should be sitting by herself at 11 P.M. in a gloomy -office in Clifford Street, in the centre of the luxurious, pleasure-mad, -love-mad West End of London seemed shocking and contrary to nature, and -Lilian certainly so regarded it. She pictured the shut shops, and shops -and yet again shops, filled with elegance and costliness--robes, hats, -stockings, shoes, gloves, incredibly fine lingerie, furs, jewels, -perfumes--designed and confected for the setting-off of just such young -attractiveness as hers. She pictured herself rifling those deserted and -silent shops by some magic means and emerging safe, undetected, in -batiste so rare that her skin blushed through it, in a frock that was -priceless and yet nothing at all, and in warm marvellous sables that no -blast of wind or misfortune could ever penetrate--and diamonds in her -hair. She pictured thousands of smart women, with imperious command -over rich, attendant males, who at that very moment were moving quickly -in automobiles from theatres towards the dancing-clubs that clustered -round Felix Grig's typewriting office. At that very moment she herself -ought to have been dancing. Not in a smart club; no! Only in the -basement of a house where an acquaintance of hers lodged; and only with -clerks and things like that; and only to a gramophone. But still a -dance, a respite from the immense ennui and solitude called existence! - -She had been kept late at the office because of Miss Grig's failure to -arrive. Miss Grig, sister of Felix, was the mainspring of the -establishment, which, except financially, belonged much more to her than -to Felix. Miss Grig energized it, organized it, and disciplined it, in -addition to loving it. Hers had been the idea--not quite original, but -none the less very valuable as an advertisement--of remaining open all -night. Clever men would tell simpletons in men's clubs about the -typewriting office that was never closed--example of the inexhaustible -wonderfulness of a great capital!--and would sometimes with a wink and a -single phrase endow the office with a dubious and exciting reputation. -Miss Grig herself was the chief night-watcher. She exulted in vigils. -After attendance in the afternoon, if her health was reasonably good, -she would come on duty again at 8 P.M. and go home by an early Tube -train on the following morning. One of the day staff would remain until -8 P.M. in order to hand over to her; as a recompense this girl would be -let off at 4 P.M. instead of 6 P.M. the next day. Justice reigned; and -all the organization for dealing with rushes of work was inspired by -Miss Grig's own admirable ideas of justice. - -On this night Lilian had been appointed to stay till 8 o'clock. Eight -o'clock--no Miss Grig. Eight-thirty o'clock--no Miss Grig. Nine, -nine-thirty, ten o'clock--no Miss Grig. And now eleven o'clock and no -Miss Grig. It was unprecedented and dreadfully disturbing. Lilian even -foresaw a lonely, horrible night in the office, with nothing but tea, -bread-and-butter, and the living gas-stove to comfort her. Agonizing -prospect! She had spent nights in the office before, but never alone. -She felt that she simply could not support the ordeal; yet--such was the -moral, invisible empire of absent Miss Grig--she dared not shut up the -office and depart. The office naturally had a telephone, but most -absurdly there was no telephone at the Grigs' house--Felix's fault!--and -so Lilian could only speculate upon the explanation of Miss Grig's -absence. She speculated melodramatically. - -Then her lovely little ear, quickened by apprehension, heard footsteps -on the lower stairs. Heavy footsteps, but rapid enough! She flew -through the ante-room to the outer door and fearfully opened it, and -gazed downwards to the electric light that, somehow equivocally, invited -wayfarers to pass through the ever-open street door and climb the -shadowy steps to the second storey and behold there strange matters. - -A villainous old fellow was hurrying up the echoing stairs. He wore a -pea-jacket and a red cotton muffler. A moment ago she had had no -thought of personal danger. Now, in an instant, she was petrified with -fright. Her face turned from rose to grey.... Of course it was a -hold-up! Post offices, and box offices of theatres, and even banks had -been held up of late. Banks, Felix Grig had heard, were taking -precautions. Felix had suggested that he too ought to take -precautions--revolvers, alarm-bells, etc.--but Miss Grig, not approving, -had smiled her wise, condescending smile, and nothing had been done. -Miss Grig (thought Lilian) had no imagination--that was what was wrong -with her! - -"Miss!" growled hoarsely the oncoming bandit, "give us a match, will -ye?" - -Yes, they always began thus innocently, did robbers. Lilian tried to -speak and could not. She could not even dash within and bang and bolt -the door. With certain crises she might possibly be able to deal, but -not with this sort of crisis. She was as defenceless as a blossom. She -thought passionately that destiny had no right to put her in such a -terrible extremity, and that the whole world was to blame. She felt as -once women used to feel in the sack of cities, faint with fear--and -streaks of thrilled, eager, voluptuous anticipation running through the -fear! She reflected that the matches were on the mantelpiece over the -gas-stove. - -The man stood on the landing. He had an odour. He was tall; he would -have made four of Lilian. She knew that it was ridiculous to retreat -into the office and find the matches demanded; she knew that the matches -were only a pretext; she knew that she ought to hit on some brilliant -expedient for outwitting the bandit and winning eternal glory in the -evening papers; but she retreated into the office to find the matches. -He followed heavily behind her. He was within her room.... She could -not have turned to face him for ropes of great pearls. - -"Give us a box, miss. It's a windy night. Two of me lamps is blown -out, and I dropped me matches into me tea-can--ha, ha!--and I ain't got -no paper to carry a light from me fire, and I ain't seen a bobby for an -hour. No, I hain't, though you wouldn't believe me." - -Lilian was suddenly blinded by the truth. The roadway of Clifford -Street and part of Bond Street was in the midst of a process of deep -excavation; it was acutely "up," to the detriment of traffic and trade; -and this fellow was the night-watchman who sat in a sentry-box by a -burning brazier. She recognized him.... - -"Thank ye kindly, miss, and may God bless yer! I knowed ye was open all -night. Good night. Hope I didn't frighten ye, miss." He laughed -grimly, roguishly and honestly. - -When he was gone Lilian laughed also, but hysterically. She did not at -all want to laugh, but she laughed. Then she dropped into her chair and -wept with painful sobbing violence. And as, regaining calm, she -realized the horrors which might have happened to her, the resentment in -her heart against destiny and against the whole world grew intense and -filled her heart to the exclusion of every other feeling. - - - - - II - - Early Years - - -Miss Share, as she was addressed in the office, was the only child of an -art-master, and until she found the West End she had lived all her life -in a long Putney "road," no house of which could truthfully say that it -was in any way better than or different from its neighbours. This -street realized the ideal of equality before God. It had been Lilian's -prison, from which she was let out for regular daily exercise, and she -hated it as ardently as any captive ever hated a prison. Lionel Share -had had charge over the art side of an enormous polytechnic in another -suburb. In youth he had won a national scholarship at South Kensington, -and the glory of the scholarship never faded--not even when he was -elected President of the Association of Art Masters. He was destined by -fate to be a teacher of art, and appointed by heaven to be a headmaster -and to reach the highest height of artistic pedagogy. He understood -organization; the handling of committees, of under-masters and of -pupils; the filling-up of forms; the engaging of models; and he -understood profoundly the craft of pushing pupils successfully through -examinations. His name was a sweet odour in the nostrils of the London -County Council. He rehabilitated art and artists in Putney, which -admitted that it had had quite a wrong notion of art and artists, having -hitherto regarded art as unmanly, and artists as queer, loose, -bankruptcy-bound fellows; whereas Mr. Share paid his rent promptly, went -to Margate for his long holiday, wore a frock-coat, attended church, and -had been mentioned as a suitable candidate for the Putney Borough -Council. Until Mr. Share Putney had never been able to explain to -itself the respectability of the National Gallery, which after all was -full of art done by artists. The phenomenon of Mr. Share solved the -enigma--the Old Masters must have been like Lionel Share. - -At home Mr. Share was a fat man with a black beard and moustache, who -adored his daughter and loved his wife. A strict monogamist, whose life -would bear the fullest investigation, he was, nevertheless, what is -euphemistically called "uxorious." He returned home of a night--often -late, on account of evening classes--with ravishment. He knew that his -wife and daughter would be ready to receive him, and they were. He -kissed and fondled them. He praised them to their faces, asserting that -their like could not be discovered among womankind, and he repeated -again and again that his little Lilian was very beautiful. He ate and -drank a good supper. If he loved his wife he loved also eating and -drinking. Now and then he would arrive with half a bottle of champagne -sticking out of his overcoat pocket. Not that he came within a thousand -miles of "drinking"! He did not. He would not even keep champagne or -any wine (except Australian burgundy) in the house; but he would pop in -at the wine merchant's when the fancy took him. - -He seldom worried his dears with his professional troubles. Only if -organization and committees were specially exasperating would he refer, -and then but casually, to the darker side of existence. As for art, he -never mentioned it, save to deride some example of "Continental" or -"advanced" or "depraved" or "perverse" art (comprehensively described as -"futurist") which had regrettably got into the pages of _The Studio_, -the only magazine to which he subscribed. Nor did he ever in his prime -paint or sketch for pleasure. But at the beginning of every year he -would set to work to do a small thing or two for the Royal Academy, -which small thing or two were often accepted by the Royal Academy, -though never, one is sorry to say, sold. The Royal Academy soiree was -Lilian's sole outlet into the great world. She could not, however, be -as enthusiastic about it as were her father and mother; for in the -privacy of her mind she held the women thereat to be a most dowdy and -frumpy lot. - -The girl loved her father and mother; she also pitied her mother and -hated her father. She pitied her mother for being an utterly -acquiescent slave with no will of her own, and hated her father because -he had not her ambition to rise above the state of the frumpy middle -middle-class--and for other reasons. The man had realized his own -ambitions, and was a merry soul sunk in contentment. The world held -nothing that he wanted and did not possess. He looked up to the upper -classes without envy or jealousy, and read about them with ingenuous -joy. He had no instinct for any sort of elegance. - -Lilian was intensely ambitious, yearning after elegance. She saw -illustrated advertisements of furniture in _The Studio_ and of attire in -the daily papers, and compared them with the smug ugliness of the -domestic interior and her plain frocks, and was passionately sad. She -read about the emancipation of girls and about the "new girl," and -compared this winged creature with herself. Writers in newspapers -seemed to assume that all girls were new girls, and Lilian knew the -awful falsity of the assumption. She rarely left Putney, unless it was -to go by motor-bus to Kew Gardens on a Saturday afternoon with papa and -mamma. She did not reach the West End once in a thousand years, and -when she did she came back tragic. She would have contrived to reach -the West End oftener, but, though full of leisure, she had no money for -bus fares. Mr. Share never gave her money except for a specific -purpose; and she could not complain, for her mother, an ageing woman, -never had a penny that she must not account for--not a penny. Never! - -Mr. Share could not conceive what either of them could want with loose -money. He was not averse, he admitted, from change and progress. With -great breadth of mind he admitted that change and progress were -inevitable. But his attitude towards these phenomena resembled that of -the young St. Augustine towards another matter, who cried: "Give me -chastity, O Lord, but not yet!" In Mr. Share's view his wife and -daughter had no business in the world; and indeed his finest pride was -to maintain them in complete ignorance of the world. Even during the -war he dissuaded Lilian from any war-work, holding that she could most -meetly help the Empire to triumph by helping to solace her father in the -terrific troubles of keeping a large art school alive under D.O.R.A. and -the Conscription Act. - -Later, Mrs. Share was struck down by cancer on the liver and died after -six months' illness, which cost Mr. Share a considerable amount of -money--lavishly squandered, cheerfully paid. Mr. Share was -heart-broken; he really grew quite old in a fortnight; and his mute -appeal to Lilian for moral succour and the balm of filial tenderness was -irresistible. Lilian had lost a mother, but the main fact in the -situation was that Mr. Share had lost a peerless wife. Lilian became -housekeeper and the two settled down together. Mr. Share adored his -daughter more than ever, and more visibly. Her freedom, always -excessively limited, was now retrenched. She was transfixed eternally -as the old man's prop. Her twenty-first birthday passed, and not a word -as to her future, as to a marriage for her, or as to her individuality, -desires, hopes! She was papa's cherished darling. - -Then Mr. Share caught pneumonia, through devotion to duty, and died in a -few days; and at last Lilian felt on her lovely cheek the winds of the -world; at last she was free. Of high paternal finance she had never in -her life heard one word. In the week following the funeral she learnt -that she would be mistress of the furniture and a little over one -hundred pounds net. Mr. Share had illustrated the ancient maxim that it -is easier to make money than to keep it. He had held shipping shares -too long and had sold a fully paid endowment insurance policy in the -vain endeavour to replace by adventurous investment that which the sea -had swallowed up. And Lilian was helpless. She could do absolutely -nothing that was worth money. She could not begin to earn a livelihood. -As for relatives, there was only her father's brother, a Board School -teacher with a large vulgar family and an income far too small to permit -of generosities. Lilian was first incredulous, then horror-struck. - -Leaving the youth of the world to pick up art as best it could without -him, and fleeing to join his wife in paradise, the loving, adoring -father had in effect abandoned a beautiful idolized daughter to the -alternatives of starvation or prostitution. He had shackled her wrists -behind her back and hobbled her feet and bequeathed her to wolves. That -was what he had done, and what many and many such fathers had done, and -still do, to their idolized daughters. - -Herein was the root of Lilian's awful burning resentment against the -whole world, and of her fierce and terrible determination by fair means -or foul to make the world pay. Her soul was a horrid furnace, and if by -chance Lionel Share leaned out from the gold bar of heaven and noticed -it, the sight must have turned his thoughts towards hell for a pleasant -change. She was saved from disaster, from martyrdom, from ignominy, -from the unnamable, by the merest fluke. The nurse who tended Lionel -Share's last hours was named Grig. This nurse had cousins in the -typewriting business. She had also a very kind heart, a practical mind, -and a persuasive manner with cousins. - - - - - III - - Advice to the Young Beauty - - -"Come, come now, now poor girl! You surely aren't crying like this -because you've been kept away from your dance to-night?" - -Lilian gave a great start, and an "Oh!" and, searching hurriedly for a -handkerchief inadequate to the damming of torrents, dried up her tears -at the source, but could not immediately control the sobs that continued -to convulse her whole frame. - -"N-no! Mr. Grig," she whimpered feebly. - -Then she snatched at a sheet of paper and began to insert it in the -machine before her, as though about to start some copying. - -"Miss Grig is rather unwell," said Felix Grig. "She insisted that I -should come up, and so I came." With that he tactfully left the room, -obeying the wise rule of conduct under which a man conquers a woman's -weeping by running away from it. - -Lilian's face was red; it went still redder. She was tremendously -ashamed of being caught blubbering, and by Mr. Grig! It would not have -mattered if one of the girls had surprised her, or even Miss Grig. But -Mr. Grig! Nor would it have mattered so much if circumstances had made -possible any pretence, however absurd and false, that she was not in -fact crying. But she had been trapped beyond any chance of a -face-saving lie. She felt as though she had committed a sexual -impropriety and could never look Mr. Grig in the eyes again. At the -same time she was profoundly relieved that somebody belonging to the -office, and especially a man, had arrived to break her awful -solitude.... - -So Mr. Grig knew that she had a dance that night! There was something -piquant and discomposing in that. Gertie Jackson must have chattered to -Miss Grig--they were as thick as thieves, those two, or, at any rate, -the good-natured Gertie flattered herself that they were--and Miss Grig -must have told Felix. (Very discreetly the girls would refer among -themselves to Mr. Grig as "Felix.") Brother and sister must have been -talking about her and her miserable little dance. Still, a dance was a -dance, and the mere word had a glorious sound. Nobody except herself -knew that her dance was in a basement.... So he had not come to the -office to relieve and reassure her in her unforeseen night-watch, but -merely to placate his sister! And how casually, lightly, almost -quizzically, he had spoken! She was naught to him--a girl typist, one -among a floating population of girl typists. - -Miss Grig had no distinction--her ankles proved that--but Felix was -distinguished, in manner, in voice, in everything he did. Felix was a -swell, like the easy _flaneurs_ in Bond Street that she saw when she -happened to go out of the office during work-hours. It was said that he -had been married and that his wife had divorced him. Lilian surmised -that if the truth were known the wife more than Felix had been to blame. - -All these thoughts were mere foam on the great, darkly heaving thought -that Felix had horribly misjudged her. Not his fault, of course; but he -had misjudged her. Crying for a lost dance, indeed! She terribly wanted -him to be made aware that she was only crying because she had -experienced an ordeal to which she ought not to have been exposed and to -which no girl ought to have been exposed. Miss Grig again! It was Miss -Grig, not Felix, who had sneered at hold-ups. There had been no -hold-up, but there might have been a hold-up, and, in any case, she had -passed through the worst sensations of a hold-up. Scandalous! - -Anxious to be effective, she took up the typing of a novel which had -been sent in by one of their principal customers, a literary agency, and -tried to tap as prosaically as if the hour were 11.30 A.M. instead of -11.30 P.M. Bravado! She knew that she would have to do the faulty -sheet again; but she must impress Felix. Then she heard Felix calling -from the principals' room: - -"Miss Share. Miss _Share_!" A little impatient as usual. - -"Yes, Mr. Grig." She rushed to the mirror and patted herself with the -tiny sponge that under Miss Grig's orders was supposed to be employed -for wetting postage stamps--but never was so employed save in Miss -Grig's presence. - -"I shall tell him why I was crying," she said to herself as she crossed -the ante-room. "And I shall tell him straight." - -He was seated on the corner of the table in the principals' room, and -rolling a cigarette. He had lighted the gas-stove. A very slim man of -medium height and of no age, he might have been thirty-five with -prematurely grizzled hair, or fifty with hair younger than the wrinkles -round his grey eyes! Miss Grig had said or implied that she was younger -than her brother, but the girls did not accept without reserve all that -Miss Grig might say or imply. He had taken off his overcoat and now -displayed a dinner-jacket and an adorably soft shirt. Lilian had never -before seen him in evening-dress, for he did not come to the office at -night, and nobody expected him to come to the office at night. He was -wonderfully attractive in evening-dress, which he carried with the -nonchalance of regular custom. So different from her father, who put on -ceremonial attire about three times a year, and wore it with deplorable -self-consciousness, as though it were a suit of armour! Mr. Grig was -indeed a queer person to run a typewriting office. Lilian was aware that -he had been to Winchester and Cambridge, and done all manner of unusual -things before he lit on typewriting. - -"Any work come in to-night, Miss Share?" he demanded in the bland, -kindly, careless, official tone which he always employed to the girls--a -tone rendering the slightest familiarity impossible. "Anybody called?" - -Lilian knew that he was merely affecting an interest in the business, -acting the role of managing proprietor. He had tired of the business -long ago, and graciously left all the real power to his sister, who had -no mind above typewriting. - -"Someone did come in just before you, Mr. Grig," Lilian replied, seizing -her chance, and in a half-challenging tone she related the adventure -with the night-watchman. "It was that that upset me, Mr. Grig. It -might have been a burglar--I made sure it _was_. And me all alone----" - -"Quite! Quite!" he stopped her. "I can perfectly imagine how you must -have felt. You haven't got over it yet, even. Sit down. Sit down." -He said no word of apology for his misjudgment of her, but his tone -apologized. - -"Oh! I'm perfectly all right now, thank you." - -"Please!" He slipped off the table and pulled round Miss Grig's chair -for her. - -She obediently sat down, liking to be agreeable to him. He unlocked his -own cupboard and brought out a decanter and a liqueur glass. "Drink -this." - -"Please, what is it?" - -"Brandy. Poison." He smiled. - -She smiled, sipped, and coughed as the spirit burned her throat. - -"I can't drink any more," she appealed. - -"That's all right. That's all right." - -It was his humorous use of the word "poison" that touched her. This -sole word changed their relations. Hitherto they had never for a moment -been other than employer and employed. Now they were something else. -She was deeply flattered, assuaged, and also excited. Brought up to -scorn employment, the hardest task for her in her situation in the Grig -office had been to admit by her deportment that there was a bar of class -between her employer and herself. The other girls addressed Mr. Grig as -"Sir"; but she--never! She always called him "Mr. Grig," and nothing -could have induced her to say "Sir." Now, he was protecting her; he had -become the attendant male; his protection enveloped her like a soft -swansdown quilt, exquisite, delicious. And it was night. The night -created romance. Romance suddenly filled the room like a magic vapour, -transforming him, herself, and the commonest objects of the room into -something ideal. - -"Several times I've wanted to speak to you about a certain matter," said -Mr. Grig quietly; and paused, gazing at the smoke from his cigarette. - -"Oh, yes?" Lilian murmured nervously, and strove to accomplish the -demeanour of a young woman of the world. (She much regretted that she -had her wristlets on.) As he was not looking at her she could look at -his face. And she looked at it as though she had never seen it before, -or with fresh-perceiving eyes. A very clever, rather tired face; -superior, even haughty, self-sure; fastidious, dissatisfied, the face of -one accustomed to choose sardonically between two evils; impatient, -bitter; humorous, with hints of benevolence. She thought: "Of course -he's never spoken to me because of his sister. Even _he_ has to mind -his p's and q's with her. And he's one that hates a fuss. Now she isn't -here----" - -She could not conceive what might be the "certain matter." She thrilled -to learn it; but he would not be hurried. No, he would take his own -time, Mr. Grig would. This was the most brilliant moment of her life. - -He said, looking straight at her and forcing her to look straight at -him: - -"You know you've no business in a place like this, a girl like you. -You're much too highly strung, for one thing. You aren't like Miss -Jackson, for instance. You're simply wasting yourself here. Of course -you're terribly independent, but you do try to please. I don't mean try -to please merely in your work. You try to _please_. It's an instinct -with you. Now in typing you'd never beat Miss Jackson. Miss Jackson's -only alive, really, when she's typing. She types with her whole soul. -You type well--I hear--but that's only because you're clever all round. -You'd do anything well. You'd milk cows just as well as you'd type. -But your business is marriage, and a good marriage! You're beautiful, -and, as I say, you have an instinct to please. That's the important -thing. You'd make a success of marriage because of that and because -you're adaptable and quick at picking up. Most women when they're -married forget that their job is to adapt themselves and to please. -That's their _job_. They expect to be kowtowed to and spoilt and -humoured and to be free to spend money without having to earn it, and to -do nothing in return except just exist--and perhaps manage a household, -pretty badly. They seem to forget that there are two sides to a -bargain. It's dashed hard work, pleasing is, sometimes. I know that. -But it isn't so hard as earning money, believe me! Now you wouldn't be -like the majority of women. You'd keep your share of the bargain, and -handsomely. If you don't marry, and marry fifty miles above you, you'll -be very silly. For you to stop here is an outrage against common-sense. -It's merely monstrous. If I wasn't an old man I wouldn't tell you this, -naturally. Now you needn't blush. I expect I'm not far off thirty -years older than you--and you're young enough to be wise in time." - -She was blushing tremendously, and in spite of an effort of courage her -gaze dropped from his. At length his gaze shifted, on the pretext of -dropping cigarette-ash very carefully into an ash-tray. - -He had, then, been thinking about her all those months, differentiating -her from the others, summing her up! And how well he had summed her up, -and how well he had expressed himself--so romantically (somehow) and yet -with such obvious truth! (Of course he had been having a dig at his own -wife, who had divorced him! You could see how embittered he was on the -subject of wives!) She wondered if he had thought her beautiful for -long. Fancy him moving about the office and forming ideas about all of -them, and never a sign, never the slightest sign that he could tell one -of them from another! And he had chosen that night to reveal his mind -to her. She was inexpressibly flattered. Because Mr. Grig was clearly -a connoisseur--she had always felt that. If Mr. Grig considered her -beautiful...! - -And in fact she had an established assurance of beauty. She knew a good -deal about herself. Proudly she reflected, amid her blushes, upon the -image of her face and hair--the eyes that matched her hair, the -perfectly formed ears, the softness of the chin and the firmness of the -nose, the unchallengeable complexion, the dazzling teeth. She was -simple enough to be somewhat apologetic about the largeness of her -mouth, unaware that a man of experience flees from a small rosebud mouth -as from the devil, and that a large mouth is the certain sign of -goodwill and understanding in a woman. She was apologetic, too, about -the scragginess of her neck, and with better reason. But the wrists and -the ankles, the legs, the shoulders, the swelling of the hips, the truly -astounding high, firm and abundant bosom! Beyond criticism! And she -walked beautifully, throwing back her shoulders and so emphasizing the -line of the waist at the back. She walked with her legs and hips, and -the body swam forward above them. She had observed the effect thousands -of times in street mirrors. The girls all admitted that she walked -uniquely. Then, further, she had a smile (rarely used) which would -intensify in the most extraordinary way the beauty of her face, lighting -it, electrifying the eyes, radiating a charm that enraptured. She knew -that also. A superlative physical pride rose up out of the subconscious -into the conscious, and put her cheap pretty clothes to shame. It -occurred to her that Mr. Grig had been talking very strangely, very -unusually. - -"I don't suppose I shall ever marry," she said plaintively. "How can -I?" She meant, and without doubt he understood: "How can I possibly -meet a man who is worth marrying?" She thought with destructive disdain -of every youth who had ever reacted to her charm. The company at the -dance she had missed seemed contemptible. They were still dancing. -What a collection of tenth-rate fellows! - -She became gloomy, pessimistic, as she saw the totality of her existence -and its prospects. The home at Putney had been a prison. She had -escaped from it, but only to enter another prison. She saw no outlet. -She was trapped on every side. She could not break out of the infernal -circle of poverty and of the conventions. Not in ten years could she -save enough to keep her for a year. She had to watch every penny. If -she was mad enough to go to a West End theatre she had to consider the -difference between a half-crown and a three-shilling pit. Thousands of -men and women negligently fling themselves into expensive taxis, but a -rise in bus fares or Tube fares would seriously unbalance Lilian's -budget. She passed most of her spare time in using a needle to set off -her beauty, but what a farce was the interminable study and labour! She -could not possibly aspire to even the best gloves; and as for the best -stockings, or the second best!--the price of such a pair came to more -than she could earn in a week. It was all absurd, tragic, pitiful. She -had common-sense ample enough to see that her beauty was futile, her -ambitions baseless, and her prospects nil. If she had been a vicious -girl, she might have broken through the dreadful ring into splendours -which she glimpsed and needed. But she was not vicious. - -"Pooh!" exclaimed Mr. Grig impatiently. "You could marry anybody you -liked if you put your mind to it." - -And he spoke so scornfully of her lack of faith, so persuasively, so -inspiringly, that she had an amazing and beautiful vision of herself -worshipped, respected, alluring, seductive, arousing passion, -reciprocating passion, kind, benevolent, eternally young, eternally -lovely, eternally exercising for the balm and solace of mankind and a -man the functions for which she was created and endowed--in a word, -fulfilling herself. And for the moment, in the ecstasy of resolution to -achieve the impossible, she was superb and magnificent and the finest -thing that a man could ever hope to witness. - -And she thought desperately: - -"I'm twenty-three already. Time is rushing past me. To-morrow I shall -be old." - -After a silence Mr. Grig said: - -"You're very tired. There's no reason why you shouldn't go home to -bed." - -"Indeed I shan't go home, Mr. Grig," she answered sharply, with -grateful, eager devotion. "I shall stay. Supposing some work came in! -It's not twelve o'clock yet." - -She surprised quite a youthful look on Mr. Grig's face. Nearly thirty -years older than herself? Ridiculous! There was nothing at all in a -difference of years. Some men were never old. Back in the clerks' room -she got out her vanity bag and carefully arranged her face. And as she -looked in the glass she thought: - -"After to-night I shall never be quite the same girl again.... Did he -really call me in to ask me about the work, or did he only do it because -he wanted to talk to me?" - - - - - IV - - The Clubman - - -Lilian was confused by a momentary magnificent, vague vision of a man -framed in the doorway of the small room. The door, drawn backwards from -without, hid the vision. Then there was a cough. She realized with -alarm that she had been asleep, or at least dozing, over her machine. -In the fifth of a second she was wide awake and alert. - -"Who's there?" she called, steadying her voice to a matter-of-fact and -casual tone. - -The door was pushed open, and the man who had been a vision entered. - -"I beg your pardon," said he. "I wasn't sure whether it was the proper -thing to come in here. I looked into another room, and had a glimpse of -a gentleman who seemed to be rather dormant." - -"This is the room to come to," said Lilian, with a prim counterfeit of a -smile. - -"The office is open?" - -"Certainly." - -As he advanced into the room the man took off the glossy silk hat which -he was wearing at the far back of his head. He had an overcoat, but -carried it on his left arm. He was tall and broad--something, indeed, -in the nature of a giant--with a florid, smooth face; aged perhaps -thirty-three. He had a way of pinching his lips together and pressing -his lower jaw against his high collar, thus making a false double chin -or so; the result was to produce an effect of wise and tolerant -good-humour, as of one who knew humanity and who while prepared for -surprises was not going to judge us too harshly. He was in full -evening-dress, and his clothes were superb. They glistened; they fitted -without a crease. The vast curve of the gleaming stiff shirt-front -sloped perfect in its contour; the white waistcoat was held round the -stupendous form by three topaz buttons; from somewhere beneath the -waistcoat a gold chain emerged and vanished somewhere into the -hinterland of his person. The stout white kid gloves were thickly -ridged on the backs and fitted the broad hands as well as the coat -fitted the body--it was inconceivable that they had not been made to -measure as everything else must have been made to measure. The man would -have been overdressed had he not worn his marvellous and costly garments -with absolute naturalness and simplicity. - -Lilian thought: - -"He must be a man-about-town, a clubman, the genuine article." - -She was impressed, secretly flustered, and very anxious to meet him as -an equal on his own ground of fine manners. She divined that, having -entered the room once and fairly caught her asleep, he had had the good -taste to withdraw and cough and make a new entry in order to spare her -modesty; and she was softly appreciative, while quite determined to -demonstrate by her demeanour that she had not been asleep. - -She thought: - -"Gertie Jackson wouldn't have known where to look, in my place." - -Still, despite her disdain of Gertie Jackson's deportment, she felt -herself to be terribly unproficient in the social art. - -"Is it anything urgent?" she asked. - -"Well, it is a bit urgent." - -He had a strong, full, pleasant voice. - -"Won't you sit down?" - -"Thanks." - -He sat down, disposing his hat by the side of her machine, and his -overcoat on another chair, and drawing off his gloves. - -Lilian waited like a cat to pounce upon the slightest sign of -familiarity and kill it; for she had understood that men-about-town -regarded girl typists as their quarry and as nothing else. But there -was no least lapse from deferential propriety; the clubman might have -been in colloquy with his sister's friend--and his sister listening in -the next room. He pulled a manuscript from his breast-pocket, and, -after a loving glance at it, offered it to her. - -"I've only just written it," said he. "And I want to take it round to -the _Evening Standard_ office myself in the morning before 8.30. The -editor's an acquaintance of mine and I might get it into to-morrow -afternoon's paper. In fact, it must be to-morrow or never--because of -the financial debate in the House, you see. Topical. I wonder whether -you'd be good enough to do it for me." - -"Let me see," said Lilian professionally. "About fifteen hundred words, -or hardly. Oh, yes! I will do it myself." - -"That's very kind of you. Will you mind looking at the writing? Do you -think you'll be able to make it out? I was at a bit of a jolly -to-night, and my hand's never too legible." - -Without glancing further at the manuscript, Lilian answered: - -"It's our business to make out writing." - -Suddenly she gave him her full smile. - -"I suppose it is," he said, also smiling. "Now shall I call for the -copy about 8 o'clock?" - -"I'm afraid the office won't be open at 8 o'clock," said Lilian. "We -close at 6.30 for an hour or two. But what's the address? Is it -anywhere near here?" - -"6a Jermyn Street. You'll see it all on the back of the last page." - -"It could be delivered--dropped into your letter-box--by 6.30 this -morning, and you could take it out of the box any time after that." The -idea seemed to have spontaneously presented itself to her. She forbore -to say that her intention was to deliver the copy herself on her way -home. - -"But this is most awfully obliging of you!" he exclaimed. - -"Not at all. You see, we specialize in urgent things.... We charge -double for night-work, I ought to tell you--in fact, three shillings a -thousand, with a minimum." - -"Of course! Of course! I quite understand that. Perhaps you'll put -the bill in the envelope." He drew forth a watch that looked like a -gold half-crown. "Two o'clock. And I can count on it being in the -letter-box at six-thirty." - -"Absolutely." - -"Well, all I say is, it's very wonderful." - -She smiled again: "It's just our business." - -He bowed gracefully in departing. - -As soon as he was gone she looked at the back of the last page. "Lord -Mackworth." Never having heard of such a lord, she consulted the office -_Who's Who_. Yes, he was there. "Mackworth, Lord. See Fermanagh, Earl -of." She turned to the F pages. He was the _e.s._ of the Earl of -Fermanagh. _E.s._ meant eldest son, she assumed. One day he would be an -earl. She was thrilled. - -Eagerly she read the manuscript before starting to copy it. The subject -was the fall in the exchange value of the French franc. "Abstruse," she -called it to herself. Frightfully learned! Yet the article was quite -amusing to read. In one or two places it was almost funny enough to -make her laugh. And Lord Mackworth illustrated his points by the prices -of commodities and pleasure at Monte Carlo. Evidently he had just -returned from Monte Carlo. What a figure! He had everything--title, -blood, wealth, style, a splendid presence, perfect manners; he was -intellectual, he was clever, he was political, he wrote for the Press. -And withal he was a man of pleasure, for he had been to Monte Carlo, and -that very night he had taken part in a "jolly"--whatever a jolly was! - -No! He was not married; it was impossible that he should be married. -But naturally he must keep mistresses. They always kept mistresses. -Though what a man like him could see in that sort of girl passed Lilian. -"You could marry _anybody_ you liked if you put your mind to it," Mr. -Grig had said. Absurdly, horribly untrue! How, for instance, could she -set about to marry Lord Mackworth? She was for ever imprisoned; she -could not possibly, by any device, break through the transparent, -invisible, adamantine walls that surrounded her. Beautiful, was she? -Gifts, had she? Well, she had sat opposite this lord, close to him, in -a room secure from interruption, in the middle of the night. She had -been obliging. And he had not been sufficiently interested to swerve by -a hair's breadth from his finished and nonchalant formal politeness. -Her role in relation to Lord Mackworth was to tap out his clever article -on the old Underwood and to deliver it herself in the chilly darkness of -the morning before going exhausted to her miserable lodging! She, -lovely! She, burning with ambition! ... The visit of the man of title -and of parts was like an act of God to teach her the realities of her -situation and the dangerous folly of dreams. - -She tiptoed out of the room to see if Mr. Grig really was asleep as Lord -Mackworth had suggested. She hoped that he was unconscious and that the -visit was her secret. Either he was very soundly asleep or the stir of -the arrival and departure must have awakened him. If he was awake she -would pretend that she wanted to inform him of the job just come in, -since he had previously enquired about the course of business. If not, -she would say nothing of the affair--merely enter up the job in the -night-book, and wait for any inquiries that might be made before opening -her mouth. - -Through the door ajar Mr. Grig could be seen fast asleep in his padded -chair. His lower jaw had fallen, revealing a mouth studded with -precious metal. He was generally spry, in his easy-going manner, and -often had quite a youthful air, but now there could be no mistake about -his age, which according to Lilian's standard of age was advanced. To -Lilian forty was oldish, fifty quite old, and sixty venerable. What a -contrast between the fresh, brilliant, authentic youth of Lord Mackworth -and the imitation juvenility of Mr. Grig even at his spryest! The -souvenir of Lord Mackworth's physical individuality made the sight of -Mr. Grig almost repellent. She was divided from Mr. Grig by the -greatest difference in the world, the difference between one generation -and another. - -She crept back, resolving to accomplish the finest piece of typescript -that had ever been done in the office. Had she not brains to surpass -Gertie Jackson at anything if she chose to try? Just as she was -entering her own room the outer door of the office opened. More urgent -work! It was Lord Mackworth again. She stood stock-still in the -doorway, her head thrown back and turned towards him, her body nearly -within the room. Agitated by a sudden secret anticipation, by a -pleasure utterly unhoped for, she gave him a nervous, welcoming, -enquiring smile, a smile without reserve, and full of the confidence due -to one who had proved at once his reliability and his attractiveness. -She had a feeling towards him as towards an old friend. She knew that -her face was betraying her joy, but she did not care, because she -trusted him; and, moreover, it would in any case have been impossible -for her to hide her joy. - -"There's just one thing," began Lord Mackworth in a cautious whisper, -though previously he had put no restraint on his powerful voice, and -paused. - -"Will you come in?" she invited him, also in a whisper, and moved -quickly from his line of sight. He followed her, and having entered her -room softly shut the door, which at the previous interview had remained -half open. - -"Will you sit down?" - -They both sat down in their original positions. Yes, they were like -friends. More, they were like conspirators. Why? What would the next -moment disclose? It seemed to her that the next moment must unfold into -an unpredictable, beautiful blossom such as nobody had ever seen. She -was intensely excited. She desired ardently that he should ask her to -help him in some matter in which she alone could help him. She was a -touching, wistful spectacle. All her defences had sunk away. He could -not but see that he had made a conquest, that the city of loveliness had -fallen into his hands. - -"It just occurred to me--please tell me if I'm being indiscreet--that -perhaps you wouldn't mind doing me a little service. I may oversleep -myself in the morning, and I can't get at my man now. Would you mind -giving me a ring up on the 'phone about six o'clock? You see, I have -the telephone by my bed, and it would be sure to wake me--especially if -you told the operator to keep on ringing. It's very necessary I should -run along to the newspaper office and see the editor personally as soon -as he gets there. Otherwise I might be done in. Of course, I could sit -up for the rest of the night----" He laughed shortly. - -Nearly opposite the end of Clifford Street, in Bond Street, was a -hosier's shop with the royal arms over the entrance and half a dozen -pairs of rich blue-and-crimson pyjamas--and nothing else--displayed in -the window against a chaste background of panelled acacia wood. Lilian -saw a phantasm of her client's lordly chamber, with the bed and the -telephone by the bed, and the great form of the man himself recumbent -and moveless, gloriously and imperfectly covered in a suit of the -blue-and-crimson pyjamas. She heard the telephone bell -ring--ring--ring--ring--ring--ring, pertinaciously. The figure did not -stir. Ring--ring--ring--ring! At last the figure stirred, turned over, -half sat up, seized the telephone, which, pacified, ceased to ring, and -the figure listened--to her voice! It was her voice that was heard in -the chamber.... The most sharply masculine hallucination that she had -ever had, perhaps the only one. It moved her to the point of fright. -The whole house might have rocked under her--rocked once, and then -resumed its firmness. She felt faint, terror-struck, and -excruciatingly, inexplicably happy. And she was ashamed; she was -shocked by the mystery of herself. Flushing, she bent her face over the -desk. - -"Perhaps I'd better sit up all night," Lord Mackworth added -apologetically. - -"What's your number?" she asked in a low voice, not looking up. - -"Regent 1067." - -"Regent 1067," she repeated the number, even writing it on her note pad. - -"You're really awfully kind. I hesitated to suggest it. I do hope -you'll forgive me." - -She looked up quickly, and into his eyes. - -"I shall be delighted to give you a ring," she said, with sweet, smiling -eagerness. "It's no trouble at all. None at all, I assure you." - -She was the divine embodiment of the human and specially feminine desire -to please, to please charmingly, to please completely, to please with -the whole force and beauty of her individuality. The poor boy must get -a few hours' sleep. A man needed sleep; sleep was important to him. As -for her, the woman's task was to watch and work, and when the moment -came she would wake the man--the child--who was incapable of waking -himself. - -"Well, thanks ever so much." He rose. - -"I suppose you don't want a carbon of your article as well?" she -suggested. - -"It's an idea," he agreed. "You never know. I think I will have a -carbon." - -As he was leaving he said abruptly: "Do you know, I imagine I've seen -you before--somewhere." - -"I don't think so." She did not quite like this remark of his. It -seemed to her to be a commonplace device for prolonging the interview; -it shook her faith in his probity. - -But he insisted, nodding his head. - -"Yes. In Bond Street. I remember you were wearing an exceedingly -pretty hat, with some yellow flowers in it." - -She was dumbfounded, for she did possess a pretty hat with yellow -flowers in it. She had done him an injustice. Fancy him noticing her, -admiring, remembering! It was incredible. She must have made a -considerable impression on him. She smiled her repentance for having -doubted his probity even for a moment. - -"You must have a very good memory," she said, in her gaze an exquisite -admission of his rightness. - -"Oh! I have!" - -They shook hands. In holding out her hand she drew back her body. She -had absurdly hoped that he would offer to shake hands, not really -expecting him to do so. He departed with unimpeachable correctness and -composure. What nice discretion he had shown in not referring earlier -to the fact that her face was not unknown to him! Most men would have -contrived to work it in at the very beginning of the conversation. But -he had actually gone away, the first time, without mentioning it. - -Lilian was left in such a state of exaltation that she could not -immediately start to work. She was ecstatically inspired with a -resolution, far transcending all previous yearnings of a similar nature, -to fulfil herself, to be herself utterly, to bring her gifts to fruition -despite all obstacles and all impossibilities. It was not that she -desired to please Lord Mackworth (though she passionately desired to -please him), nor to achieve luxury and costliness and elegance and a -highly refined way of life. These things, however important and -delectable, were merely the necessary incidentals to the supreme end of -exploiting her beauty, charm and benevolence so that in old age she -would not have to say, "I might have been." - - - - - V - - The Devotee - - -It was after she had made some tea and was taking it, at her desk, -without milk, but with a bun and a half left over from the previous -afternoon's orgy of the small room clerks, that Lilian had the idea of a -mighty and scarcely conceivable transgression, crime, depredation. None -of the machines in the small room was in quite first-rate order. The -machines were good, but they needed adjustment. Miss G.--the clerks -referred to her as Miss G., instead of Miss Grig, when they were -critical of her, which was often--was almost certainly a just woman, but -she was mean, especially in the matter of wages; and she would always -postpone rather too long the summoning of a mechanic to overhaul the -typewriters. Such delay was, of course, disadvantageous to the office, -but Miss G. was like that. Lilian, munching, inserted two sheets and a -new carbon into her machine, and then pulled them out again with a swift -swish. Why should she not abstract Miss G.'s own machine for the high -purpose of typing Lord Mackworth's brilliant article? It was nearly a -new one. - -Miss G. was a first-rate typist. She typed all her own letters, and -regularly at night even did copying; and she always had the star machine -of the office. The one objection to Lilian's nefarious scheme was the -fact that Miss G.'s machine ranked as the Ark of the Covenant, and the -rule forbidding the profane to lay hands on it was absolute and awful. -This rule was a necessity in the office, where every machine amounted to -an individuality, and was loved or hated and shamelessly intrigued for -or against. Lilian knew a little of Miss G.'s machine, for on Its -purchase she had had the honour of trying it and reinforcing Miss G.'s -favourable judgment upon it, her touch being lighter than Gertie -Jackson's, that amiable, tedious hack, and similar to Miss G.'s touch. - -Lilian feared lest her own machine might give a slip towards the end of -a page, throw a line out of the straight and spoil the whole page. Miss -G.'s machine was on the small desk beneath the window in the principals' -room. Having reflected, she decided to sin. If Mr. Grig was awake she -would tell him squarely that her own machine was out of gear, that all -the clerks' machines were out of gear, and if he still objected--and he -might, for he ever feared Miss G.--she would bewitch him. She would put -his own theory of her powers into practice upon himself. - -She would be quite unscrupulous; she would stop at nothing. She went -forth excited on her raid. He was still asleep. He might waken; if he -did, so much the worse; she must risk it. She regarded him with -friendly condescension. She had work to do; she had a sense of -responsibility; and she was doing the work. He, theoretically in charge -of the office, slept, probably after a day chiefly idle--the -grey-haired, charming, useless irresponsible. And were not all men -asleep rather absurd? She picked up the heavy machine; one of its -indiarubber shoes dropped off, but she left that where it lay--there -were plenty to replace it in her room. Soundlessly she left the -sleeper. Triumphant, unscrupulous, reckless, she did not care what -might happen. - -At work on the article, exulting in the smooth excellence of Miss G.'s -machine, she felt strangely happy. She liked Felix to be asleep; she -liked the obscure sensation of fatigue at the back of her brain; she -liked to be alone in the night, amid a resting or roystering world; she -liked the tension of concentrating on the work, the effort after -perfection. The very machine itself, and the sounds of the machine, the -feel of the paper, the faint hiss of the gas-stove, were all friendly -and helpful. How different were her sensations then from her sensations -in the pother and racket and friction of the daytime! She forgot that -she was beautiful and born to enchant. She was oblivious of both the -past and the future. A moral exaltation, sweet and gentle, inspired, -upheld and exhilarated her. - -She heard the outer door open. The threatened interruption annoyed her -almost to exasperation. It was essential that she should not be -interrupted, for she was like a poet in full flow of creation. -Footsteps, someone moving hesitatingly to and fro in the anteroom! -There was the word "Enquiries" painted in black on the glass panel of -the small room, thrown into relief by the light within the room, and -people had not the sense to see it. The public was really -extraordinary. Even Lord Mackworth had not at first noticed it. Well, -let whoever it might be find his way about unaided by her! She would -not budge. If urgent work had arrived she did not want it, could not do -it, and would not have it. - -Then she caught voices. The visitor had got into the principals' room -and wakened Mr. Grig. The voices were less audible now, but a -conversation seemingly interminable was proceeding in the principals' -room. The suspense vexed her and interfered with the fine execution of -her task. She sighed, tapped her foot, and made sounds of protest with -her tongue against her upper teeth. At length both Mr. Grig and the -visitor emerged into the ante-room, still tirelessly gabbling. The -visitor went, banging the outer door. Mr. Grig came into her room with -a manuscript in his hand. Feigning absorption, she did not look up. - -"Here's something wanted for eleven in the morning. It's going to be -called for. Proof of a witness's evidence in a law case. Very urgent. -It's pretty long. You'd better get on to it at once. Then one or two -of them'll be able to finish it between nine and eleven." - -Lilian accused him in her mind of merely imitating his sister's methods -of organization and partition. - -"I'm afraid I can't put this aside, Mr. Grig," she said gravely, -uncompromisingly. - -"What is it?" - -"It's just come in." - -"I never heard anybody," Felix snapped. - -Lilian thought how queer and how unjust it was that she should be -prevented by her inferior station from turning on him and bluntly -informing him that he had been asleep instead of managing the office. - -"It's an article by Lord Mackworth for to-morrow's _Evening Standard_, -and it has to be at the _Standard_ office by half-past eight, and I've -promised to have it delivered at Jermyn Street by six-thirty." - -"But who's going to deliver it?" - -"I am, as I go home." - -"But this is urgent too. And, what's more, I've definitely promised -it," Mr. Grig protested, waving his manuscript somewhat forlornly. -"What length's yours?" - -"It's not the length. It has to be done with the greatest care." - -"Yes, that's all very well, but----" - -His attitude of helplessness touched her. She smiled in her serious -manner. - -"If you'll leave it to me to see to, Mr. Grig," she said soothingly, and -yet a little superiorly, "I'll do the best I can. I'll start it, -anyhow. And I'll leave an urgent note for Miss Jackson about it. After -all, in two hours they ought to be able to do almost anything, and you -know how reliable Miss Jackson is. Miss Grig always relies on her." - -She held out her hand for the wretched manuscript. Mr. Grig yielded it -up, pretending unwillingness and uneasiness, but in reality much -relieved. A quarter of an hour later he returned to her room in -overcoat and hat. - -"I think I may as well go home now," said he, yawning enormously. "I'm -a bit anxious about my sister. Nothing else likely to come in, is -there? You'll be all right, I suppose." - -"_Me!_" she exclaimed kindly. "Of _course_, Mr. Grig. I shall be -perfectly all right." - -She wondered whether he really was anxious about his sister. At any -rate, he had not the stamina to sit up through all the night in the -office. But she, Lilian, had. She was delighted to be alone again. She -finished Lord Mackworth's article, read it and re-read it. Not a -mistake. She bound it and stitched it. She entered the item in the -night-book. She made out the bill. She typed the address on the -envelope. Then, before fastening the envelope, she read through -everything again. All these things she did with the greatest -deliberation and nicety. - -At the end she had ample time to make a start on the other work, but she -could not or would not bring herself to the new task. She was content -to write a note for Gertie Jackson, shifting all the responsibility on -to Gertie. Gertie would have to fly round and make the others fly -round. And if the work was late--what then? Lilian did not care. Her -conscience seemed to have exhausted itself. She sat in a blissful -trance. She recalled with satisfaction that she had said nothing to -Felix about Lord Mackworth having called in person. She rose and -wandered about the rooms, savouring the silent solitude. The telephone -was in the principals' room. How awkward that might have been if Felix -had stayed! But he had not stayed. - - - - - VI - - The Telephone - - -"Hello, hello! Who is it?" - -"Is that Regent 1067?" - -"Yes." - -"Is that Lord Mackworth?" - -"Speaking. Who is it?" - -"Grig's Typewriting Office. I'm so sorry to wake you up, but you asked -us to. It's just past six o'clock." - -"Thanks very much. Who is it speaking?" - -"Grig's Typewriting Office." - -"Yes. But _your_ name? Miss--Miss----?" - -"Oh! I see. Share. Share. Lilian Share.... Not Spare, S-_h_-a-r-e." - -"I've got it. Share. I recognized your voice, Miss Share. Well, it's -most extraordinarily good-natured of you. Most. I can't thank you -enough. Excuse me asking your name. I only wanted it so that I could -thank you personally. Article finished?" - -"It's all finished and ready to be delivered. It'll be dropped into -your letter-box in about a quarter of an hour from now. You can rely on -that." - -"Then do you keep messengers hanging about all night for these jobs?" - -"I'm going to deliver it myself; then I shall know it is delivered." - -"D'you know, I half suspected all along you meant to do that. You -oughtn't really to put yourself to so much trouble. I don't know how to -thank you. I don't, really!" - -"It's no trouble at all. It's on my way home." - -"You're just going home, then? You must be very tired." - -"Oh, no! I sleep in the daytime." - -"Well, I hope you'll have a good _day's_ rest." A laugh. - -"And _I_ hope now I've wakened you you won't turn over and go to sleep -again." Another laugh, from the same end. - -"No fear! I'm up now." - -"I beg your pardon?" - -"I'm up. Out of bed." A laugh from the Clifford Street end. - -"Good-bye, then." - -"Good-bye. And thanks again. By the way, you're putting the bill with -it?" - -"Oh, yes." - -"And the carbon?" - -"Yes. Good-bye." - -"Good-bye, Miss Share." - -Lilian hung up the receiver, smiling. And she continued to smile as she -left the room and went to her own room and took her street things out of -the cupboard and put them on. Nothing could have been more banal, more -ordinary, and nothing more exquisite and romantic than the telephone -conversation. The secret charm of it was inexplicable to her.... She saw -him standing in the blue-and-crimson pyjamas by the bedside, a form -distinguished and powerful.... She revelled in his gratitude. How nice -of him to ask her name so that he might thank her personally! He did -not care to thank a nameless employee. He wanted to thank _somebody_. -And now she was somebody to him. - -Perhaps she had not been well-advised to give him her Christian name. -The word, however, had come out of itself. Moreover, she liked her -Christian name, and she liked nice people to know it. She certainly -ought not to have said "that" about his not turning over and going to -sleep again. No. There was something "common" in it. But he had -accepted the freedom in the right spirit, had not taken advantage of it. - -She extinguished the gas-stove, restored the stolen typewriter, loosed -the catch of the outer door, banged the door after her, and descended, -holding the foolscap envelope in her shabbily-gloved hand. The forsaken -solitude of the office was behind her. - -Outside, an icy mist floated over wet pavements in the first dim, -sinister unveiling of the London day! Lilian wore a thick, broad, -woollen scarf which comforted her neck and bosom, and gave to beholders -the absurd illusion that she was snugly enveloped; but the assaulting -cold took her in the waist, and she shivered. Her feet began to feel -damp immediately. There was the old watchman peeping out of his -sentry-box by his glowing brazier! He recognized her quickly enough, -and without a movement of the gnarled face held up her matchbox as a -sign of the bond between them. How ridiculous to have classed him with -burglars! She threw her head back and gave him a proud, bright and -rather condescendingly gracious smile. - -Along Clifford Street and all down Bond Street the heaped dustbins stood -on the kerb waiting for the scavengers. In Piccadilly several Lyons' -horse-vans, painted in Oxford and Cambridge blues, trotted sturdily -eastwards; one of them was driven by a woman, wrapped in a great -macintosh and perched high aloft with a boy beside her. Nothing else -moving in the thoroughfare! The Ritz Hotel, formidable fortress of -luxury, stood up arrogant like a Florentine palace, hiding all its -costly secrets from the scorned mob. No. 6a Jermyn Street was just -round the corner from St. James's Street: a narrow seven-storey building -of flats, with a front-door as impassive and meaningless as the face of -a footman. Lilian hesitated a moment and relinquished her packet into -the brass-bordered letter-slit. She heard it fall. She turned away with -a jerky gesture. She had not walked ten yards when a frightful -lassitude and dejection attacked her with the suddenness of cholera. -Scarcely could she command her limbs to move. The ineffable sadness, -hopelessness, wretchedness, vanity of existence washed over her and beat -her down. Only a very few could be glorious, and she was not and never -could be of the few. She was shut out from brightness,--no better than -a ragamuffin looking into a candy window. - -She descended into the everlasting lamplit night of the Tube at Dover -Street, where there was no dawn and no sunset. And all the employees, -and all the meek, preoccupied travellers seemed to be her brothers and -sisters in martyrdom. Her train was nearly empty; but the eastbound -trains--train after train--were full of pathetic midgets urgently -engaged upon the problem of making both ends meet. After Earl's Court -the train ran up an incline into the whitening day. She got out at the -next station, conveniently near to which she lodged. - -The house was one of the heavily porched erections of the 'fifties and -'sixties, much fallen in prestige. The dirty kitchenmaid was giving the -stone floor of the porch a lick and a promise, so that fortunately the -front door stood open. Lilian had the tiny mean bedroom on the second -floor over the hall; in New York it would have been termed a -hall-bedroom. Nobody except the gawky, frowsy, stupid, good-natured -maid had seen her. She shut her door and locked it. The room was -colder even than the street. She looked into the mirror, which was so -small that she had had to arrange a descending series of nails for it in -order that piece by piece she might inspect the whole of herself. Her -face was as pale as a corpse. Undressing and piling half her wardrobe -on to the counterpane she slipped into the narrow bed, ravenous for -sleep and oblivion, and drew the clothes right over her head. In an -instant she was in a paradise of divine dreams. - - - - - PART II - - - I - - The Suicide - - -The next morning Lilian left her lodging at the customary hour of 8.15, -to join one of the hundreds of hastening, struggling, preoccupied -processions of workers that converged upon central London. She had -slept for ten hours without a break on the previous day, risen hungry to -a confused and far too farinaceous tea, done some dressmaking by the -warmth of an oil-stove, and gone to bed again for another enormous -period of heavy slumber. She was well refreshed; her complexion was -restored to its marvellous perfectness; and life seemed simpler, more -promising, and more agreeably exciting than usual. - -She had convinced herself that the Irish lord would call at the office -in person to pay his bill; the mysterious and yet thoroughly understood -code that governs certain human relations would forbid him either to -post a cheque or to send his man with the money. Her only fear was that -he might already have called. But even if he had already called, he -would call and call again, on one good pretext or another, until ... -Anyhow they would meet.... And so on, according to the inconsequent -logic of day-dreams in the everlasting night of the Tube. - -The dreamer had a seat in the train--one of the advantages of living -near the terminus--but strap-hangers of both sexes swayed in clusters -over her, and along the whole length of the car, and both the platforms -were too densely populated. She could not read; nobody could read. As -the train roared and shook through Down Street station, she jumped up to -fight her way through straphangers towards the platform, in readiness to -descend at Dover Street. On these early trains carrying serious people, -if you sat quiet until the train came to your station you would -assuredly be swept on to the next station. These trains taught you to -meet the future half-way. - -As it happened the train stopped about a hundred yards short of Dover -Street, and would not move on. Seconds and minutes passed, and the -stoppage became undeniably a breakdown. The tunnels under the earth -from Dover Street back to Hammersmith were full of stopped trains a few -hundred yards apart, and every train was full of serious people who -positively had to be at a certain place at a certain time. Lilian's -mood changed; the mood of the car changed, and of the train and of all -the trains. No one knew anything; no one could do anything; the trains -were each a prison. The railway company by its officials maintained a -masterly silence as to the origin of the vast inconvenience and -calamity. Rumours were born by spontaneous generation. A man within -Lilian's hearing, hitherto one of God's quite minor achievements, was -suddenly gifted with divination and announced that the electricians at -the power station in Lots Road had gone on strike without notice and -every electric train in London had been paralysed. Half an hour -elapsed. The prisoners, made desperate by the prospect of the fate -which attended them, spoke of revolution and homicide, well aware that -they were just as capable of these things as a flock of sheep. Then, as -inexplicably as it had stopped, the train started. - -Two minutes later Lilian, with some scores of other girls, was running -madly through Dover Street in vain pursuit of time lost and vanished. -Not a soul had guessed the cause of the disaster, which, according to -the evening papers, was due to an old, unhappy man who had wandered -unobserved into the tunnel from Dover Street station with the ambition -to discover for himself what the next world was like. This ambition had -been gratified. - -As Lilian, in a state of nervous exhaustion, flew on tired wings up the -office stairs she of course had to compose herself into a semblance of -bright, virginal freshness for the day's work, conformably with the -employer's theory that until he reaches the office the employee has done -and suffered nothing whatever. And Miss Grig was crossing the ante-room -at the moment of Lilian's entry. - -"You're twenty-five minutes late, Miss Share," said Miss Grig coldly. -She looked very ill. - -"So sorry, Miss Grig," Lilian answered with unprotesting humility, and -offered no explanation. - -Useless to explain! Useless to assert innocence and victimization! -Excuses founded on the vagaries of trains were unacceptable in that -office, as in thousands of offices. Employers refused to take the least -interest in trains or other means of conveyance. One of the girls in -the room called "the large room" had once told Lilian that, living at -Ilford, she would leave home on foggy mornings at six o'clock in order -to be sure of a prompt arrival in Clifford Street at nine o'clock, thus -allowing three hours for little more than a dozen miles. But only in -the book of doomsday was this detail entered to her credit. Miss Grig, -even if she had heard of it--which she had not--would have dismissed it -as of no importance. Yet Miss Grig was a just woman. - -"Come into my room, Miss Share, will you, please?" said Miss Grig. - -Lilian, apprehending she knew not what, thought to herself bitterly that -lateness for a delicious shopping appointment or a heavenly appointment -to lunch at the Savoy or to motor up the river--affairs of true -importance--would have been laughed off as negligible, whereas lateness -at this filthy office was equivalent to embezzlement. And she resolved -anew, and with the most terrible determination, to escape at no matter -what risks from the servitude and the famine of sentiment in which she -existed. - - - - - II - - The Malady - - -Miss Grig's Christian name was Isabel; it was somehow secret, and never -heard in the office; and Felix, if he ever employed it, could only have -done so in the sacred privacy of the principals' room. Like her -brother, Miss Grig might have been almost any age, but only the malice -of a prisonful of women could have seriously asserted her to be older -than Felix. Although by general consent an authentic virgin, she had not -the air of one. Rather full in figure, she was neither desiccated nor -stiff, and when she moved her soft body took on flowing curves, so that -clever and experienced observers could not resist the inference, almost -certainly wrong, that in the historic past of Isabel lay hidden some -Sabine episode or sublime folly of self-surrender. She had black hair, -streaked with grey, and marvellous troubled, smouldering black eyes that -seemed to yearn and appeal. And yet in an occasional gesture and tone -she would become masculine. - -She went wrong in the matter of clothes, aspiring after elegance and -missing it through a fundamental lack of distinction, and also through -inability to concentrate her effects. Her dresses consisted of ten -thousand details held together by no unity of conception. Thin gold -chains wandered, apparently purposeless, over her rich form; they would -disappear like a railway in a cutting and then pop out unexpectedly in -another part of the lush rolling countryside. The contours of her -visible garments gave the impression that the concealed system of -underskirts, cache-corsets, corsets, lingerie, hose and suspenders was -of the most complicated, innumerable and unprecedented variety. And -indeed she was one of those women who, for the performance of the -morning and the evening rites, trebly secure themselves by locks and -bolts and blinds from the slightest chance of a chance of the peril of -the world's gaze. - -The purchase of the typewriting business by Felix had changed Miss -Grig's life from top to bottom. It had transformed her from a relic -festering in sloth and frustration into the eager devotee of a sane and -unassailable cult. The business was her perversity, her passion. It -was her mystic husband, fecundating her with vital juices, the spouse to -whom she joyously gave long nights of love. Apart from the business, -and possibly her brother, she had no real thoughts. The concern as it -existed in Lilian's time was her creation. She would sacrifice anything -to it, her own health and life, even the lives and health of tender -girls. Yes, and she would sacrifice her conscience to it. She would -cheat for it. The charges for typewriting were high--for she had -established a tradition of the highest-class work and rates to -match--but this did not prevent her from seizing any excuse to inflate -the bills. The staff said that her malpractices sufficed every year to -pay the rent. And she was never more priestess-like, more lofty and -grandiose, than when falsifying an account. - -Lilian found her seated alone in fluent dignity at the great desk. - -"Yes, Miss Grig?" - -"May I enquire," asked Miss Grig in grave accents not of reproach but of -pain, "why you did not put in an appearance yesterday, Miss Share?" - -"Well, madam," Lilian answered with surprise and gentle rebuttal, "I -stayed here all the night before and I was so tired I slept all day. I -didn't wake up until it would have been too late to come." - -"But you knew I was unwell, and that I should count on you upper girls -to fill my place. Or you should have known. What if you _were_ tired? -You are young and strong; you could have stood it easily enough, and -there was much work to be done. In a crisis we don't think about being -tired. We just keep on. And even if you did sleep all day, I suppose -it never occurred to you in the evening that someone would be needed to -take charge during last night. The least you could have done would have -been to run up and see how things were. But no! You didn't even do -that! Shall I tell you who did take charge last night? Miss Jackson. -She'd been on duty the whole day yesterday. She stayed all night till -six o'clock. And she was back again at nine o'clock this -morning--twenty-five minutes before you. And when I told her to go back -home, she positively refused. She defied me. That's what I call the -true spirit, my dear Lilian." - -Miss Grig ceased; only her lustrous reproachful eyes continued the -harangue. She had shown no anger. She had appealed to Miss Share's -best instincts. - -The address "my dear Lilian" caused misgivings in the employee's bosom. -Lilian knew that it was Felix and not Miss Grig who had admitted her to -employment, and that Miss Grig had been somewhat opposed to the -engagement. She also guessed that Miss Grig objected to her good looks, -and was always watchful for an occasion to illustrate her theory that a -girl might be too good-looking. And the tone of the words "my dear -Lilian" had menace in its appealing, sad sweetness. Miss Grig had been -known to deviate without warning into frightful inclemency, and she -always implacably got the last ounce out of her girls. - -The culprit offered no defence. There was no defence. Assuredly she -ought to have run up on the previous evening. Miss Grig had spoken -truth--the notion of running up had simply not occurred to the -preoccupied Lilian. Nevertheless, while saying naught, she kept -thinking resentfully: "Here I worked over twenty hours on end and this -is my reward--a slating! This is my reward--a nice old slating!" With -fallen face and drooping lower lip she moved to leave. She was ready to -cry. - -"And there's something else, Miss Share. Now please don't cry. When -Mr. Grig came up the night before last to tell you that I was unwell, -you ought not to have allowed him to stay. You know that he can't stand -night-work. Men are not like us women----" - -"But how could I possibly----" Lilian interrupted, quite forgetting the -impulse to cry. - -"You should have seen that he left again at once. It would have been -quite easy--especially for a girl like you. The result is that he's -been a wreck ever since. It seems he stayed till four o'clock and -after. I tried my best to stop him from coming at all; but he would -come.... Please, please, think over what I've said. Thank you." - -Lilian felt all the soft, cruel, unopposable force of Miss Grig's -individuality. She vaguely and with inimical deference comprehended the -secret of Miss Grig's success in business. Youth and beauty and charm, -qualities so well appreciated by Felix, so rich in promise for Lilian, -were absolutely powerless against the armour of Miss Grig. To Miss Grig -Lilian was no better than a cross-eyed, flat-bosomed spinster of -thirty-nine. Not a bit better! Perhaps worse! Miss Grig actually had -the assurance to preach to Lilian the nauseous and unnatural doctrine -that men are by right entitled to the protection and self-sacrifice of -women. - -Moreover, Miss Grig, without knowing it, had convinced Lilian that her -ideas concerning Lord Mackworth were the hallucinations of an -excessively silly and despicable kind of brain. And even if Lord -Mackworth did playfully attempt to continue the divertissement begun in -the romantic night, Miss Grig by the sureness of her perceptions and the -bland pitilessness of her tactics would undoubtedly counter him once and -for all. The two women, so acutely contrasted in age, form and -temperament, had this in common--that they secretly and unwillingly -respected each other. But the younger was at present no match at all -for the elder. - -And yet Lilian was not cast down--neither by the realization of her -awful silliness and of her lack of the sense of responsibility, nor by -her powerlessness, nor by the awaking from the dream of Lord Mackworth. -On the contrary, she was quite uplifted and agreeably excited, and her -brain was working on lines of which Miss Grig had absolutely no notion -whatever. Miss Grig, obviously truthful, had said that she had tried to -prevent her brother from coming to the office on the last night but one. -Miss Grig had been ready enough to let Lilian stay till morning without -a word. But Felix had told Lilian that he had come to the office to -warn her at his sister's urgent request. Why had Felix lied? - -The answer clearly was that he had had a fancy to chat with Lilian -alone, without Lilian suspecting his fancy. And in fact he had chatted -with Lilian alone, and to some purpose.... The answer was that Felix -was genuinely interested in Lilian. Further, Miss Grig suspected this -interest. If Gertie Jackson had happened to be on duty that evening, -would Miss Grig have opposed her brother's coming? She would not. -Finally, Miss Grig herself had confessed, perhaps unthinkingly, that -Lilian was not without influential attributes. The phrase "especially -for a girl like you" shone in the girl's mind. - -She went into the small room, which was at the moment empty. The cover -had not been removed from her own machine, but the other two machines -were open, and Millicent's was ammunitioned with paper. Lilian could -hear Milly, who shared the small room with herself and Gertie Jackson, -dividing work and giving instructions in an important, curt voice to the -mere rabble of girls in the large room. To Lilian's practised sense -there was throughout the office an atmosphere of nervous disturbance and -unease. Mr. Grig being absent, she felt sure that before the end of the -day--probably just about tea-time--the electrical fluid would -concentrate itself in one spot and then explode in a tense, violent, -bitter and yet only murmured scene between two of the girls in the large -room--unless, of course, she herself and Millicent happened to get -across one another. - -She took off her things and put them in the clothes cupboard. Gertie's -hat and jacket were absent, which meant that Gertie was already out -somewhere on the firm's business. Millicent's precious boa was present -instead of her thick scarf, which meant that Millicent was to meet at -night the insufferably pert young man from the new branch of Lloyds Bank -in Bond Street. The pert young man would dine Millicent at the Popular -Cafe in Piccadilly, where for as little as five shillings two persons -might have a small table to themselves, the aphrodisiac of music, and -the ingenuous illusion of seeing Life with a capital. Now Lilian never -connected Life with anything less than the Savoy, the Carlton, and the -Ritz. Lilian had been born with a sure instinct in these high matters. -She looked at the contents of the clothes-cupboard and despised them, -furiously--and in particular Millicent's boa; anybody could see what -that was; it would not deceive even a bank clerk. Not that Lilian -possessed any article of attire to surpass the boa in intrinsic worth! -She did not. But she felt no envy in regard to the boa, and indeed never -envied any girl the tenth-rate--no, nor the second-rate! Her desire was -for the best or nothing; she could not compromise. The neighbouring -shop-windows had effectively educated her because she was capable of -self-education. Millicent and Gertie actually preferred the inferior -displays of Oxford Street. She gazed in froward insolence at the -workroom full of stitching girls on the opposite side of the street. -They were toiling as though they had been toiling for hours. Customers -had not yet begun to be shown into the elegant apartment on the floor -below the workrooms. Customers were probably still sipping tea in bed -with a maid to help them, and some of them had certainly never been in a -Tube in their lives. Yet the workgirls, seen broadly across the street, -were on the average younger, prettier, daintier and more graceful than -the customers. Why then...? Etc. - -The upper floors of all the surrounding streets were studded with such -nests of heads bent over needles. There were scores and scores of those -crowded rooms, excruciatingly feminine. "Modes et Robes"--a charming -vocation! You were always seeing and touching lovely stuff, laces, -feathers and confections of stuffs. A far more attractive occupation -than typewriting, Lilian thought. Sometimes she had dreamt of a change, -but not seriously. To work on other women's attire, knowing that she -could never rise to it herself, would have broken her heart. - -Quickly she turned away from the window, still uplifted--passionately -determined that one day she would enter the most renowned and exclusive -arcana in Hanover Square, and not as an employee either! Then, on that -day, would she please with the virtuosity of a great pianist playing the -piano, then would she exert charm, then would she be angelic and divine; -and when she departed there should be a murmur of conversation. She -smiled her best in anticipation; her fingers ran smoothingly over her -blouse. - -Gertie Jackson came in and transformed the rehearsed smile into an -expression of dissatisfaction and hostility far from divine; the fingers -dropped as it were guiltily; and Lilian remembered all her grievances -and her tragedy. Gertie Jackson's bright, pleasant, clear, drawn face -showed some traces of fatigue, but no sign at all of being a martyr to -the industrial system or to the despotism of individual employers. She -was a tall, well-made girl of twenty-eight, and she held herself rather -nicely. She was kindly, cheerful and of an agreeable temper--as placid -as a bowl of milk. She loved her work, regarding it as of real -importance, and she seemed to be entirely without ambition. Apparently -she would be quite happy to go on altruistically typing for ever and -ever, and to be cast into a typist's grave. - -Lilian's attitude towards her senior colleague was in various respects -critical. In the first place, the poor thing did not realize that she -was growing old--already approaching the precipice of thirty! In the -second place, though possessed of a good figure and face, she did -nothing with these great gifts. She had no desire to be agreeable; she -was agreeable unconsciously, as a bird sings; there was no merit in it. -She had no coquetry, and not the slightest inclination for _chic_. Her -clothes were "good," and bought in Upper Street, Islington; her -excellent boots gave her away. She was not uninterested in men; but she -did not talk about them, she twittered about them. To Lilian she had -the soul of an infant. And she was too pure, too ingenuous, too kind, -too conscientious; her nature lacked something fundamental, and Lilian -felt but could not describe what it was--save by saying that she had no -kick in either her body or her soul. In the third place, there was that -terrible absence of ambition. Lilian could not understand contentment, -and Gertie's contentment exasperated her. She admitted that Gertie was -faultless, and yet she tremendously despised the paragon, occasionally -going so far as to think of her as a cat. - -And now Gertie straightened herself, stuck her chest out bravely, -according to habit, and smiled a most friendly greeting. Behind the -smile lay concealed no resentment against Lilian for having failed to -appear on the previous evening, and no moral superiority as a -first-class devotee of duty. What lay behind it, and not wholly -concealed, was a grave sense of responsibility for the welfare of the -business in circumstances difficult and complex. - -"Have you seen Miss Grig?" she asked solemnly. - -"Yes," said Lilian, with a touch of careless defiance; she supposed -Gertie to be delicately announcing that Miss G. had been lying in wait -for her, Lilian. - -"Doesn't she look simply frightfully ill?" - -"She does," admitted Lilian, who in her egotism had quite forgotten her -first impression that morning of Miss G.'s face. "What is it?" - -Gertie mentioned the dreadful name of one of those hidden though not -shameful maladies which afflict only women--but the majority of women. -The crude words sounded oddly on Gertie's prim lips. Lilian was duly -impressed; she was as if intimidated. At intervals the rumour of a -victim of that class of diseases runs whisperingly through assemblages -of women, who on the entrance of a male hastily change the subject of -talk and become falsely bright. Yet every male in the circle of -acquaintances will catch the rumour almost instantly, because some wife -runs to inform her husband, and the husband informs all his friends. - -"Who told you?" Lilian demanded. - -"Oh! I've known about it for a long time," said Gertie without pride. -"I told Milly just now, before I went out. Everybody will know soon." -Lilian felt a pang of jealousy. "It means a terrible operation," Gertie -added. - -"But she oughtn't to be here!" Lilian exclaimed. - -"No!" Gertie agreed with a surprising sternness that somewhat altered -Lilian's estimate of her. "No! And she isn't _going_ to be here, -either! Not if I know it! I shall see that she gets back home at -lunch-time. She's quarrelled already with Mr. Grig this morning about -her coming up." - -"Do you mean at home they quarrelled?" - -"Yes. He got so angry that he said if she came he wouldn't. He was -quite right to be angry, of course. But she came all the same." - -"Miss G. must have told Gertie all that herself," Lilian reflected. -"She'd never be as confidential with me. She'd never tell me anything!" -And she had a queer feeling of inferiority. - -"We must do all we can to help things," said Gertie. - -"Of course!" agreed Lilian, suddenly softened, overcome by a rush of -sympathy and a strong impulse to behave nobly, beautifully, forgivingly -towards Miss G. - -Nevertheless, though it was Gertie's attitude that had helped to inspire -her, she still rather disdained the virtuous senior. Lilian appreciated -profoundly--perhaps without being able to put her feeling into -words--the heroic madness of Miss G. in defying common sense and her -brother for the sake of the beloved business. But Gertie saw in Miss -G.'s act nothing but a piece of naughty and sick foolishness. To Lilian -Miss G. in her superficial yearning softness became almost a terrible -figure, a figure to be regarded with awe, and to serve as an exemplar. -But in contemplating Miss G. Lilian uneasily realized her own -precariousness. Miss G. was old and plain (save that her eyes had -beauty), and yet was fulfilling her great passion and was imposing -herself on her environment. Miss G. was _doing_. Lilian could only -_be_; she would always remain at the mercy of someone, and the success -which she desired could last probably no longer than her youth and -beauty. The transience of the gifts upon which she must depend -frightened her--but at the same time intensified anew her resolves. She -had not a moment to lose. And Gertie, standing there close to her, -sweet and reliable and good, in the dull cage, amid the daily -circumstances of their common slavery, would have understood nothing of -Lilian's obscure emotion. - - - - - III - - Shut - - -The two girls had not settled to work when the door of the small room -was pushed cautiously open and Mr. Grig came in--as it were by stealth. -Milly, prolonging her sweet hour of authority in the large room, had not -yet returned to her mates. By a glance and a gesture Mr. Grig prevented -the girls from any exclamation of surprise. Evidently he was secreting -himself from his sister, and he must have entered the office without a -sound. He looked older, worn, worried, captious--as though he needed -balm and solace and treatment at once firm and infinitely soft. Lilian, -who a few minutes earlier had been recalcitrant to Miss Grig's theory -that women must protect men, now felt a desire to protect Mr. Grig, to -save him exquisitely from anxieties unsuited to his temperament. - -He shut the door, and in the intimacy of the room faced the two girls, -one so devoted, the other perhaps equally devoted but whose devotion was -outshone by her brilliant beauty. For him both typists were very young, -but they were both women, familiar beings whom the crisis had -transformed from typists into angels of succour; and he had ceased to be -an employer and become a man who demanded the aid of women and knew how -to rend their hearts. - -"Is she in there?" he snapped, with a movement of the head towards the -principals' room. - -"Yes," breathed Lilian. - -"Yes," said Gertie. "Oh! Mr. Grig, she ought never to have come out in -her state!" - -"Well, God damn it, of course she oughtn't!" retorted Mr. Grig. His -language, unprecedented in that room, ought to have shocked the -respectable girls, but did not in the slightest degree. To judge from -their demeanour they might have been living all their lives in an -environment of blasphemous profanity. "Didn't I do everything I could -to keep her at home?" - -"Oh! I know you did!" Gertie agreed sympathetically. "She told me." - -"I made a hades of a row with her about it in the hope of keeping her in -the house. But it was no use. I swore I wouldn't move until she -returned. But of course I've got to do something. Look here, one of you -must go to her and tell her I'm waiting in a taxi downstairs to take her -home, and that I shall stick in it till she gives way, even if I'm there -all day. That ought to shift her. Tell her I've arranged for the -doctor to be at the house at a quarter to eleven. You'd better go and -do it, Miss Jackson. She's more likely to listen to you." - -"Yes, do, Gertie! You go," Lilian seconded the instruction. Then: -"What's the matter, Gertie? What on earth's the matter?" - -The paragon had suddenly blanched and she seemed to shiver: first sign -of acute emotion that Lilian had ever observed in the placid creature. - -"It's nothing. I'm only---- It's really nothing." - -And Gertie, who had not taken off her street-things, rose resolutely -from her chair. She, who a little earlier had seemed quite energetic -and fairly fresh after her night's work, now looked genuinely ill. - -"You go along," Mr. Grig urged her, ruthlessly ignoring the symptoms -which had startled Lilian. "And mind how you do it, there's a good -creature. I'll get downstairs first." And he stepped out of the room. - -The door opening showed tall, thin Millicent returning to her own work. -Mr. Grig pushed past her on tiptoe. As soon as Gertie had disappeared -on her mission into the principals' room, Lilian told Millicent, not -without an air of superiority, as of an Under-secretary of State to a -common member of Parliament, what was occurring. Millicent, who loved -"incidents," bit her lips in a kind of cruel pleasure. (She had a long, -straight, absolutely regular nose, and was born to accomplish the -domestic infelicity of some male clerk.) She made an excuse to revisit -the large room in order to spread the thrilling news. - -Lilian stood just behind the still open door of the small room. A long -time elapsed. Then the door of the principals' room opened, and Lilian, -discreetly peeping, saw the backs of Miss Grig and Gertie Jackson. They -seemed to be supporting each other in their progress towards the outer -door. She wondered what the expressions on their faces might be; she -had no clue to the tenor of the scene which had ended in Gertie's -success, for neither of the pair spoke a word. How had Gertie managed -to beat the old fanatic? - -After a little pause she went to the window and opened it and looked out -at the pavement below. The taxi was there. Two foreshortened figures -emerged from the building. Mr. Grig emerged from the taxi. Miss Grig -was induced into the vehicle, and to Lilian's astonishment Gertie -followed her. Mr. Grig entered last. As the taxi swerved away, a -little outcry of voices drew Lilian's attention to the fact that both -windows of the large room were open and full of clusters of heads. The -entire office, thanks to that lath, Millicent, was disorganized. Lilian -whipped in her own head like lightning. - -At three o'clock she was summoned to the telephone. Mr. Grig was -speaking from a call-office. - -"Miss Jackson's got influenza, the doctor says," he announced grimly. -"So she has to stay here. A nice handful for me. You'd better carry -on. I'll try to come up later. Miss Grig said something about some -accounts--I don't know." - -Lilian, quite unable to check a feeling of intense, excited happiness, -replied with soothing, eager sympathy and allegiance, and went with -dignity into the principals' room, now for the moment lawfully at her -mercy. The accounts of the establishment were always done by Miss Grig, -and there was evidence on the desk that she had been obdurately at work -on bills when Gertie Jackson enticed her away. In the evening Lilian, -after a day's urgent toil at her machine, was sitting in Miss Grig's -chair in the principals' room, at grips with the day-book, the -night-book, the ledger and some bill-forms. Although experiencing some -of the sensations of a traveller lost in a forest (of which the trees -were numerals), she was saturated with bliss. She had dismissed the -rest of the staff at the usual hour, firmly refusing to let anybody -remain with her. Almost as a favour Millicent had been permitted to -purchase a night's food for her. - -Just as the clock of St. George's struck eight, it occurred to her that -to allow herself to be found by Mr. Grig in the occupation of Miss -Grig's place might amount to a grave failure in tact; and hastily--for -he might arrive at any moment---she removed all the essential -paraphernalia to the small room. She had heard nothing further from Mr. -Grig, who, moreover, had not definitely promised to come, but she was -positive that he would come. However late the hour might be, he would -come. She would hear the outer door open; she would hear his steps; she -would see him; and he would see her, faithfully labouring all alone for -him, and eager to take a whole night-watch for the second time in a -week. For this hour she had made a special toilette, with much -attention to her magnificent hair. She looked spick-and-span and -enchanting. - -Nor was she mistaken. Hardly had she arranged matters in her own room -when the outer door did open, and she did hear his steps. The divine -moment had arrived. He appeared in the doorway of the room. Rather to -her regret he was not in evening dress. (But how could he be?) Still, -he had a marvellous charm and his expression was less worried. He was -almost too good to be true. She greeted him with a smile that combined -sorrow and sympathy and welcome, fidelity and womanly comprehension, the -expert assistant and the beautiful young Eve. She was so discomposed by -the happiness of realization that at first she scarcely knew what either -of them was saying, and then she seemed to come to herself and she -caught Mr. Grig's voice clearly in the middle of a sentence:' - -"... with a temperature of 104. The doctor said it would be madness to -send her to Islington. This sort of influenza takes you like this, it -appears. I shall have it myself next.... What are you supposed to be -doing? Bills, eh?" - -He looked hard at her, and her eyes dropped before his experienced -masculine gaze. She liked him to be wrinkled and grey, to be thirty -years older than herself, to be perhaps even depraved. She liked to -contrast her innocent freshness with his worn maturity. She liked it -that he had not shown the slightest appreciation of her loyalty. He -spoke only vaguely of Miss Grig's condition; it was not a topic meet for -discussion between them, and with a few murmured monosyllables she let -it drop. - -"I do hope you aren't thinking of staying, Mr. Grig," she said next. "I -shall be perfectly all right by myself, and the bills will occupy me -till something comes in." - -"I'm not going to stay. Neither are you," replied Mr. Grig curtly. -"We'll shut the place up." - -Her face fell. - -"But----" - -"We'll shut up for to-night." - -"But we're supposed to be always open! Supposing some work does come in! -It always does----" - -"No doubt. But we're going to shut up the place--at once." There was -fatigue in his voice. - -Tears came into Lilian's eyes. She had expected him, in answer to her -appeal to him to depart, to insist on staying with her. She had been -waiting for heaven to unfold. And now he had decided to break the -sacred tradition and close the office. She could not master her tears. - -"Don't worry," he said in tones suddenly charged with tenderness and -sympathetic understanding. "It can't be helped. I know just how you -feel, and don't you imagine I don't. You've been splendid. But I had -to promise Isabel I'd shut the office to-night. She's in a very bad -state, and I did it to soothe her. You know she hates me to be here at -nights--thinks I'm not strong enough for it." - -"That's not her reason to-night," said Lilian to herself. "I know her -reason to-night well enough!" - -But she gave Mr. Grig a look grateful for his exquisite compassion, -which had raised him in her sight to primacy among men. - -Obediently she let herself be dismissed first, leaving him behind, but -in the street she looked up at her window. The words "Open day and -night" on the blind were no longer silhouetted against a light within. -The tradition was broken. On the way to the Dover Street Tube she did -not once glance behind her to see if he was following. - - - - - IV - - The Vizier - - -Late in the afternoon of the following day Mr. Grig put his head inside -the small room. - -"Just come here, Miss Share," he began, and then, seeing that Millicent -was not at her desk, he appeared to decide that he might as well speak -with Lilian where she was. - -He had been away from the office most of the day, and even during his -presences had seemingly taken no part in its conduct. Much work had -been received, some of it urgent, and Lilian, typing at her best speed, -had the air of stopping with reluctance to listen to whatever the -useless and wandering man might have to say. He merely said: - -"We shall close to-night, like last night." - -"Oh, but, Mr. Grig," Lilian protested--and there was no sign of a tear -this time--"we can't possibly keep on closing. We had one complaint -this morning about being closed last night. I didn't tell you because I -didn't want to worry you." - -"Now listen to me," Mr. Grig protested in his turn, petulantly. -"Nothing worries me more than the idea that people are keeping things -from me in order that I shan't be worried. My sister was always doing -that; she was incurable, but I'm not going to have it from anyone else. -If you hide things, why are you silly enough to let out afterwards that -you were hiding them and why you were hiding them? That's what I can't -understand." - -"Sorry, Mr. Grig," Lilian apologized briefly and with sham humility, -humouring the male in such a manner that he must know he was being -humoured. - -His petulancy charmed her. It gave him youth, and gave her age and -wisdom. He had good excuse for it--Miss Grig had been moved into a -nursing home preparatory to an operation, and Gertie was stated to be -very ill in his house--and she enjoyed excusing him. It was implicit in -every tone of his voice that they were now definitely not on terms of -employer and employee. - -"That's all right! That's all right!" he said, mollified by her -discreet smile. "But close at six. I'm off." - -"I really don't think we ought to close," she insisted, with firmness in -her voice followed by persuasion in her features, and she brushed back -her hair with a gesture of girlishness that could not be ineffective. -He hesitated, frowning. She went on: "If it gets about that we're -closing night after night, we're bound to lose a lot of customers. I -can perfectly well stay here." - -"Yes! And be no use at all to-morrow!" - -"I should be here to-morrow just the same. If other girls can do it, -why can't I?" (A touch of harshness in the question.) "Oh, Milly!" she -exclaimed, neglecting to call Milly Miss Merrislate, according to the -custom by which in talking to the principals everybody referred to -everybody else as "Miss." "Oh, Milly!"--Millicent appeared behind Mr. -Grig at the door and he nervously made way for her--"here's Mr. Grig -wants to close again to-night! I'm sure we really oughtn't to. I've -told Mr. Grig I'll stay--and be here to-morrow too. Don't you agree we -mustn't close?" - -Millicent was flattered by the frank appeal as an equal from one whom -she was already with annoyance beginning to regard as a superior. From -timidity in Mr. Grig's presence she looked down her too straight nose, -but she nodded affirmatively her narrow head, and as soon as she had -recovered from the disturbing novelty of deliberately opposing the -policy of an employer she said to Lilian: - -"I'll stay with you if you like. There's plenty to do, goodness knows!" - -"You are a dear!" Lilian exclaimed, just as if they had been alone -together in the room. - -"Oh, well, have it as you like!" Mr. Grig rasped, and left, defeated. - -"Is he vexed?" Milly demanded after he had gone. - -"Of course not! He's very pleased, really. But he has to save his -face." - -Milly gave Lilian a scarcely conscious glance of admiration, as a woman -better versed than herself in the mysteries of men, and also as a woman -of unsuspected courage. And she behaved like an angel through the whole -industrious night--so much so that Lilian was nearly ready to admit to -an uncharitable premature misjudgment of the girl. - -"And now what are you going to do about keeping open?" inquired Mr. -Grig, with bland, grim triumph the next afternoon to the exhausted -Lilian and the exhausted Millicent. "I thought I'd let you have your -own way last night. But you can't see any further than your noses, -either of you. You're both dead." - -"I can easily stay up another night," said Lilian desperately, but -Millicent said nothing. - -"No doubt!" Mr. Grig sneered. "You look as if you could! And supposing -you do, what about to-morrow night? The whole office is upset, and, of -course, people must go and choose just this time to choke us with work!" - -"Well, anyhow, we can't close," Lilian stoutly insisted. - -"No!" Mr. Grig unexpectedly agreed. "Miss Merrislate, you know most -about the large room. You'd better pick two of 'em out of there, and -tell 'em they must stay and do the best they can by themselves. But -that won't carry us through. _I_ certainly shan't sit up, and I won't -have you two sitting up every second night in turn. There's only one -thing to do. I must engage two new typists at once--that's clear. We -may as well face the situation. Where do we get 'em from?" - -But neither Lilian nor Milly knew just how Miss Grig was in the habit of -finding recruits to the staff. Each of them had been taken on through -private connexions. Gertie Jackson would probably have known how to -proceed, but Gertie was down with influenza. - -"I'll tell you what I shall do," said Mr. Grig at last. "I'll get an -advertisement into to-morrow's _Daily Chronicle_. That ought to do the -trick. This affair's got to be handled quickly. When the applicants -come you'd better deal with 'em, Miss Share--in my room. I shan't be -here to-morrow." - -He spoke scornfully, and would not listen to offers of help in the -matter of the advertisement. He would see to it himself, and wanted no -assistance, indeed objected to assistance as being merely troublesome. -The next day was the day of Miss Grig's operation, and the apprehension -of it maddened this affectionate and cantankerous brother. Millicent -left the small room to bestow upon two chosen members of the rabble in -the large room the inexpressible glory of missing a night's sleep. - -On the following morning, when Lilian, refreshed, arrived zealously at -the office half an hour earlier than usual, she found three aspirants -waiting to apply for the vacant posts. The advertisement had been drawn -up and printed; the newspaper had been distributed and read, and the -applicants, pitifully eager, had already begun to arrive from the ends -of London. Sitting in Miss Grig's chair, Lilian nervously interviewed -and examined them. One of the three gave her age as thirty-nine, and -produced yellowed testimonials. By ten o'clock twenty-three suitors had -come, and Lilian, frightened by her responsibilities, had impulsively -engaged a couple, who took off hats and jackets and began to work at -once. She had asked Millicent to approve of the final choice, but -Millicent, intensely jealous and no longer comparable to even the lowest -rank of angel, curtly declined. - -"You're in charge," Millicent said acidly. "Don't you try to push it on -to me, Miss Lilian Share." - -Aspirants continued to arrive. Lilian had the clever idea of sticking a -notice on the outer door: "All situations filled. No typists required." -But aspirants continued to enter, and all of them averred positively -that they had not seen the notice on the door. Lilian told a junior to -paste four sheets of typing paper together, and she inscribed the notice -on the big sheet in enormous characters. But aspirants continued to -enter, and all of them averred positively that they had not seen the -notice on the door. It was dreadful, it was appalling, because Lilian -was saying to herself: "I may be like them one day." Millicent, on the -other hand, disdained the entire procession, and seized the agreeable -role of dismissing applicants as fast as they came. - -In the evening Mr. Grig appeared. The operation had been a success. -Gertie Jackson was, if anything, a little worse; but the doctor -anticipated an improvement. Mr. Grig showed not the least interest in -his business. Lilian took the night duty alone. - -Thenceforward the office settled gradually into its new grooves, and, -though there was much less efficiency than under Miss Grig, there was -little friction. Everybody except Millicent regarded Lilian as the grand -vizier, and Millicent's demeanour towards Lilian was by turns -fantastically polite and fantastically indifferent. - -A fortnight passed. The two patients were going on well, and it was -stated that there was a possibility of them being sent together to -Felixstowe for convalescence. Mr. Grig's attendance grew more regular, -but he did little except keep the books and make out the bills; in which -matter he displayed a facility that amazed Lilian, who really was not a -bit arithmetical. - -One day, entering the large room after hours, Lilian saw Millicent -typing on a machine not her own. As she passed she read the words: "My -darling Gertie. I simply can't tell you how glad I was to get your -lovely letter." And it flashed across her that Millicent would relate -all the office doings to Gertie, who would relate them to Miss Grig. -She had a spasm of fear, divining that Millicent would misrepresent her. -In what phrases had Millicent told that Lilian had sat in Miss Grig's -chair and interviewed applicants for situations! Was it not strange -that Gertie had not written to her, Lilian, nor she even thought of -writing to Gertie? Too late now for her to write to Gertie! A few days -later Mr. Grig said to Lilian in the small room:' - -"You're very crowded here, aren't you?" - -The two new-comers had been put into the small room, being of a superior -sort and not fitted to join the rabble. - -"Oh, no!" said Lilian. "We're quite comfortable, thank you." - -"You don't seem to be very comfortable. It occurs to me it would be -better in every way if you brought your machine into my room." - -An impulse, and an error of judgment, on Felix's part! But he was -always capricious. - -"I should prefer to stay where I am," Lilian answered, not smiling. -What a letter Millicent would have written in order to describe Lilian's -promotion to the principals' room! - -Often, having made a mistake, Felix would persist in it from obstinacy. - -"Oh! As you like!" he muttered huffily, instead of recognizing by his -tone that Lilian was right. But the next moment he repeated, very -softly and kindly: "As you like! It's for you to decide." He had not -once shown the least appreciation of, or gratitude for, Lilian's zeal. -On the contrary, he had been in the main querulous and censorious. But -she did not mind. She was richly rewarded by a single benevolent -inflection of that stirring voice. She seemed to have forgotten that -she was born for pleasure, luxury, empire. Work fully satisfied her, -but it was work for him. The mere suggestion that she should sit in his -room filled her with deep joy. - - - - - V - - The Martyr - - -Miss Grig came back to the office on a Thursday, and somewhat -mysteriously. Millicent, no doubt from information received through -Gertie Jackson, had been hinting for several days that the return would -not be long delayed; but Mr. Grig had said not one word about the matter -until the Wednesday evening, when he told Lilian, with apparent -casualness, as she was leaving for the night, that his sister might be -expected the next morning. As for Miss Jackson, she would resume her -duties only on the Monday, having family affairs to transact at -Islington. Miss Jackson, it seemed, had developed into the trusted -companion and intimate--almost ally, if the term were not -presumptuous--of the soul and dynamo of the business. Miss Grig and she -had suffered together, they had solaced and strengthened each other; and -Gertie, for all her natural humility, was henceforth to play in the -office a role superior to that of a senior employee. She had already -been endowed with special privileges, and among these was the privilege -of putting the interests of Islington before the interests of Clifford -Street. - -The advent of Miss Grig, of course, considerably agitated the office and -in particular the small room, two of whose occupants had never seen the -principal of whose capacity for sustained effort they had heard such -wonderful and frightening tales. - -At nine-thirty that Thursday morning it was reported in both rooms that -Miss Grig had re-entered her fortress. Nobody had seen her, but ears -had heard her, and, moreover, it was mystically known by certain signs, -as, for example, the reversal of a doormat which had been out of -position for a week, that a higher presence was immanent in the place -and that the presence could be none other than Miss Grig. Everybody -became an exemplar of assiduity, amiability, and entire -conscientiousness. Everybody prepared a smile; and there was a -universal wish for the day to be over. - -Shortly after ten o'clock Miss Grig visited the small room, shook hands -with Lilian and Millicent, and permitted the two new typists to be -presented to her. Millicent spoke first and was so effusive in the -expression of the delight induced in her by the spectacle of Miss Grig -and of her sympathy for the past and hope for the future of Miss Grig's -health, that Lilian, who nevertheless did her best to be winning, could -not possibly compete with her. Miss Grig had a purified and chastened -air, as of one detached by suffering from the grossness and folly of the -world, and existing henceforth in the world solely from a cold, -passionate sense of duty. Her hair was greyer, her mild equable voice -more soft, and her burning eyes had a brighter and more unearthly -lustre. She said that she was perfectly restored, let fall that Mr. -Grig had gone away at her request for a short, much-needed holiday, and -then passed smoothly on to the large room. - -After a while a little flapper of a beginner came to tell Millicent that -Miss Grig wanted her. Millicent, who had had charge of the petty cash -during the interregnum, was absent for forty minutes. When she -returned, flushed but smiling, to her expectant colleagues, she informed -Lilian that Miss Grig desired to see her at twelve o'clock. - -"I notice there's an account here under the name of Lord Mackworth," -Miss Grig began, having allowed Lilian to stand for a few seconds before -looking up from the ledger and other books in which she was apparently -absorbed. She spoke with the utmost gentleness, and fixed her -oppressive deep eyes on Lilian's. - -"Yes, Miss Grig?" - -"It hasn't been paid." - -"Oh!" Lilian against an intense volition began to blush. - -"Didn't you know?" - -"I didn't," said Lilian. - -"But you've been having something to do with the books during my -absence." - -"I did a little at first," Lilian admitted. "Then Mr. Grig saw to -them." - -"Miss Merrislate tells me that you had quite a lot to do with them, and -I see your handwriting in a number of places here." - -"I've had nothing to do with them for about three weeks--I should think -at least three weeks, and--and of course I expected the bill would be -paid by this time." - -"But you never asked?" - -"No. It never occurred to me." - -This statement was inaccurate. Lilian had often wondered whether Lord -Mackworth had paid his bill, but, from some obscurely caused -self-consciousness, she had not dared to make any inquiry. She felt -herself to be somehow "mixed up" with Lord Mackworth, and had absurdly -feared that if she mentioned the name there might appear on the face or -in the voice of the detestable Milly some sinister innuendo. - -"Miss Merrislate tells me that she didn't trouble about the account as -she supposed it was your affair." - -"My affair!" exclaimed Lilian impulsively. "It's no more my affair than -anybody else's." She surmised in the situation some ingenious -malevolence of the flat-breasted mischief-maker. - -"But you did the work?" - -"Yes. It came in while I was on duty that night, and I did it at once. -There was no one else to do it." - -"Who brought it in?" - -"Lord Mackworth." - -"Did you know him?" - -"Certainly not. I didn't know him from Adam." - -"Never mind Adam, Miss Share," observed Miss Grig genially. "Has Lord -Mackworth been in since?" - -"If he has I've not seen him," Lilian answered defiantly. - -Miss Grig's geniality exasperated her because it did not deceive her. - -"I'm only asking for information," Miss Grig said with a placatory -smile. "I see the copies were delivered at six-thirty in the morning. -Who delivered the job?" - -"I did." - -"Where?" - -"At his address. I dropped it into the letter-box on my way home after -my night's work. I stayed here because somebody had to stay, and I did -the best I could." - -"I'm quite sure of that," Miss Grig agreed. "And, of course, you've been -paid for all overtime--and there's been quite a good deal. We all do -the best we can. At least, I hope so.... And you've never seen Lord -Mackworth since?" - -"No." - -"And you simply dropped the envelope into the letter-box?" - -"Yes." - -"Didn't see Lord Mackworth that morning?" - -"Certainly not." - -By this time Lilian was convinced that Miss Grig's intention was to -provoke her to open resentment. She guessed also that Milly must have -deliberately kept silence to her, Lilian, about the Mackworth account in -the hope of trouble on Miss Grig's return, and that Milly had done -everything she could that morning to ensure trouble. The pot had been -simmering in secret for weeks; now it was boiling over. She felt -helpless and furious. - -"You know," Miss Grig proceeded, "there's a rule in this office that -night-work must only be delivered by hand by the day-staff the next day. -If it's wanted urgently before the day-staff arrives the customer must -fetch it." - -"Excuse me, Miss Grig, I never heard of that rule." - -Miss Grig smiled again: "Well, at any rate, it was your business to have -heard of it, my dear. Everybody else knows about it." - -"I told Mr. Grig I was going to deliver it myself, and he didn't say -anything." - -"Please don't attempt to lay the blame on my brother. He is far too -good-natured." Miss Grig's gaze burned into Lilian's face as, with an -enigmatic intonation, she uttered these words. "You did wrong. And I -suppose you've never heard either of the rule that new customers must -always pay on or before delivery?" - -"Yes, I have. But I couldn't ask for the money at half-past six in the -morning, could I? And I couldn't tell him how much it would be before -I'd typed it." - -"Yes, you could, my dear, and you ought to have done. You could have -estimated it and left a margin for errors. That was the proper course. -And if you know anything about Lord Mackworth you must know that his -debts are notorious. I believe he's one of the fastest young men about -town, and it's more than possible that that account's a bad debt." - -"But can't we send in the account again?" Lilian weakly suggested; she -was overthrown by the charge of fast-living against Lord Mackworth, yet -she had always in her heart assumed that he was a fast liver. - -"I've just telephoned to 6a St. James's Street, and I needn't say that -Lord Mackworth is no longer there, and they don't know where he is. You -see what comes of disobeying rules." - -Lilian lifted her head: "Well, Miss Grig, the bill isn't so very big, -and if you'll please deduct it from my wages on Saturday I hope that -will be the end of that." - -It was plain that the bewildered creature had but an excessively -imperfect notion of how to be an employee. She had taken to the -vocation too late in life. - -Miss Grig put her hand to the support of her forehead, and paused. - -"I can tolerate many things," said she, with great benignity, "but not -insolence." - -"I didn't mean to be insolent." - -"You did. And I think you had better accept a week's notice from -Saturday. No. On second thoughts, I'll pay your wages up to Saturday -week now and you can go at once." She smiled kindly. "That will give -you time to turn round." - -"Oh! Very well, if it's like that!" - -Miss Grig unlocked a drawer; and while she was counting the money Lilian -thought despairingly that if Mr. Grig, or even if the nice Gertie, had -been in the office, the disaster could not have occurred. - -Miss Grig shook hands with her and wished her well. - -"Where are you going to? It's not one o'clock yet," asked Millicent in -the small room as Lilian silently unhooked her hat and jacket from the -clothes-cupboard. - -"Out." - -"What for?" - -"For Miss G., if you want to know." - -And she left. Except her clothes, not a thing in the office belonged to -her. She had no lien, no attachment. The departure was as simple and -complete as leaving a Tube train. No word! No good-bye! Merely a -disappearance. - - - - - VI - - The Invitation - - -She walked a mile eastwards along Oxford Street before entering a -teashop, in order to avoid meeting any of the girls, all of whom, except -the very youngest and the very stingiest, distributed themselves among -the neighbouring establishments for the absurdly insufficient snack -called lunch. Every place was full just after one o'clock, and crammed -at one-fifteen. She asked for a whole meat pie instead of a half, for -she felt quite unusually hungry. A plot! That was what it was! A plot -against her, matured by Miss G. in a few minutes out of Milly's -innuendoes written to Gertie and spoken to Miss G. herself. And the -reason of the plot was Miss G.'s spinsterish, passionate fear of a -friendship between Felix Grig and Lilian! Lilian was ready to believe -that Miss G. had engineered the absence of both her brother and Gertie -so as to be free to work her will without the possibility of -complications. If Miss G. hated her, she hated Miss G. with at least an -equal fierceness--the fierceness of an unarmed victim. The injustice of -the world staggered her. She thought that something ought to be done -about it. Even Lord Mackworth was gravely to blame, for not having paid -his bill. Still, that detail had not much importance, because Miss G., -deprived of one pretext, would soon have found another. After all that -she, Lilian, had done for the office, to be turned off at a moment's -notice, and without a character--for Miss G. would never give a -reference, and Lilian would never ask for a reference! Never! Nor -would she nor could she approach Felix Grig; nor Gertie either. Perhaps -Felix Grig might communicate with her. He certainly ought to do so. -But then, he was very casual, forgetful and unconsciously cruel. - -All the men and girls in the packed tea-shop had work behind them and -work in front of them. They knew where they were; they had a function -on the earth. She, Lilian, had nothing, save a couple of weeks' wages -and perhaps a hundred pounds in the Post Office Savings Bank. -Resentment against her father flickered up anew from its ashes in her -heart. - -How could she occupy herself after lunch? Unthinkable for her to go to -her lodging until the customary hour, unless she could pretend to be -ill; and if she feigned illness the well-disposed slavey would be after -her and would see through the trick at once, and it would be all over -the house that something had happened to Miss Share. The afternoon was -an enormous trackless expanse which had to be somehow traversed by a -weary and terribly discouraged wayfarer. Her father had been in the -habit of conducting his family on ceremonial visits to the public art -galleries. She went to the Wallace Collection, and saw how millionaires -lived in the 'seventies, and how the unchaste and lovely ladies were -dressed for whom entire populations were sacrificed in the seventeenth -and eighteenth centuries. Thence to a cinema near the Marble Arch, and -saw how virtue infallibly wins after all. - -When, after travelling countless leagues of time and ennui, she reached -home she received a note from Mr. Pladda inviting her to the Hammersmith -Palais de Danse for the following night. Mr. Pladda was the star lodger -in the house--a man of forty-five, legally separated from his wife but -of impeccable respectability and decorum. His illusion was that he -could dance rather well. Mr. Pladda was evidently coming on. - -The next morning, which was very fine, Lilian spent in Hyde Park, -marshalling her resources. Beyond her trifling capital she had none. -Especially she had no real friends. She had unwisely cut loose from her -parents' acquaintances, and she could not run after them now that she -was in misfortune. Her former colleagues? Out of the question! Gertie -might prove a friend, but Gertie must begin; Lilian could not begin. -Lord Mackworth? Silly idea! She still thought of Lord Mackworth -romantically. He was an unattainable hero at about the same level as -before in her mind, for while his debts had lowered him his advertised -dissoluteness had mysteriously raised him. (Yet in these hours and days -Mr. Pladda himself was not more absolutely respectable and decorous, in -mind and demeanour, than Lilian.) She went to two cinemas in the -afternoon, and, safe in the darkness of the second one, cried silently. - -But with Mr. Pladda at the Palais de Danse she was admirably cheerful, -and Mr. Pladda was exceedingly proud of his companion, who added refined -manners to startling beauty. She delicately praised his dancing, -whereupon he ordered lemon squashes and tomato sandwiches. At the -little table she told him calmly that she was leaving her present -situation and taking another. - -Back in her room she laughed with horrid derision. And as soon as she -was in bed the clockwork mice started to run round and round in her -head. A plot! A plot! What a burning shame! What a burning shame! ... -A few weeks earlier she had actually been bestowing situations on -pitiful applicants. Now she herself had no situation and no prospect of -any. She had never had to apply for a situation. She had not been -educated to applying for situations. She could not imagine herself ever -applying for a situation. She had not the least idea how to begin to -try to get a situation. She passed the greater part of Sunday in bed, -and in the evening went to church and felt serious and good. - -On Monday morning she visited the Post Office and filled up a withdrawal -form for forty pounds. She had had a notion of becoming a companion to a -rich lady, or private secretary to a member of Parliament. She would -advertise. Good clothes, worn as she could wear them, would help her. -(She could not face another situation in an office. No, she couldn't.) -The notion of a simpleton, of course! But she was still a simpleton. -The notion, however, was in reality only a pretext for obtaining some -good clothes. All her life she had desired more than anything a smart -dress. There was never a moment in her life when she was less entitled -to indulge herself; but she felt desperate. She was taking to clothes -as some take to brandy. On the Wednesday she received the money: a -colossal, a marvellous sum. She ran off with it and nervously entered a -big shop in Wigmore Street; the shop was a wise choice on her part, for -it combined smartness with a discreet and characteristic Englishness. -Impossible to have the dangerous air of an adventuress in a frock bought -at that shop! - -The next few days were spent in exactly fitting and adapting the -purchases to her body. She had expended the forty pounds and drawn out -eight more. Through the medium of the slavey she borrowed a mirror, and -fixed it at an angle with her own so that she could see her back. She -was so interested and absorbed that she now and then neglected to feel -unhappy and persecuted. She neglected also to draw up an advertisement, -postponing that difficult matter until the clothes should be finished. -But the house gathered that Miss Share had got her new situation. One -afternoon, early, returning home after a search for white elastic in -Hammersmith, she saw Mr. Grig coming away from the house. She stood -still, transfixed; she flushed hotly, and descried a beneficent and just -God reigning in heaven. She knew she was saved; and the revulsion in -her was nearly overwhelming. A miracle! And yet--not a miracle at all; -for Mr. Grig was bound by every consideration of honour and decency to -get into communication with her sooner or later. Her doubts of his -integrity had been inexcusable. - -"I've just left a note for you," he said, affecting carelessness. "I -brought it down myself because I couldn't remember whether your number -was 56 or 65, and I had to inquire. Moreover, it's urgent. I want to -talk to you. Will you dine with me to-night at the Devonshire -Restaurant, Jermyn Street? Eight o'clock. I shan't be able to dress, -so you could wear a hat. Yes or no?..." He was gone again in a moment. - -Lilian literally ran upstairs to her room in order to be alone with her -ecstatic happiness. She hugged it, kissed it, smothered it; then read -the wonderful note three times, and reviewed all her new clothes. - - - - - VII - - The Avowal - - -As Lilian armed herself for the field she discovered that, after all her -care, she had omitted to provide several small details, the absence of -each of which seemed for a few moments in turn to be a disaster. But on -the whole she was well satisfied with the total effectiveness. The -slattern, who had been furtively summoned, and who was made to wash her -hands before touching a hook-and-eye, expressed, in whispers, an -admiring amazement which enheartened Lilian in spite of its uninformed -quality. The girl, as if bewitched, followed the vision down to the -front door. - -"If it rains you're ruined, miss," said the girl anxiously, glancing up -into the heavy darkness where not a star was to be seen. "You ought for -to have an umbrella." - -Lilian shook her head. - -"It won't rain," she answered cheerfully. - -But as soon as she was fairly away from the house she felt, or thought -she felt, a drop of rain, and, seeing a taxi, she impulsively hailed it, -wishing to heaven the next instant that she had not been so audacious. -For although twice with her father and mother she had ridden in taxis on -very great occasions, she had never in her life actually taken one by -herself. Her voice failed and broke as she said to the driver: -"Devonshire Restaurant, Jermyn Street"; but the driver was proficient in -comprehension, and the Devonshire Restaurant in Jermyn Street seemed to -be as familiar to him as Charing Cross Station. - -In the taxi she collected herself. She thought she was all right except -for her lips. She knew that her lips ought to have been slightly -coloured, but she thought she also knew what was the best lip-stick and -she had not been able to get it in Hammersmith. As for her nails, she -was glad that it had been impossible for her to tint them. She must -remember that she was a typist, and though typists, and even discharged -typists, generally help their lips to be crimson on state-nights, they -do not usually tint their nails--unless they have abandoned discretion. - -Lilian was glad when justifying rain began to fall. While she paid the -driver at her destination, a commissionaire held a vast umbrella over -her fragile splendour. - -Her legs literally shook as she entered the restaurant, exactly as once -they had shaken in an air-raid. Within was a rich, tiny little -waiting-room with a view of the dining-room beyond. She hesitated -awkwardly, for owing to the taxi she was nearly a quarter of an hour too -early. A respectful attendant said: - -"Are you expecting anyone, madam?" - -"Yes." - -"What name, madam?" - -"Mr. Grig." - -"Oh yes, madam. His table is booked." - -She had sat down. She could now inspect herself in half a dozen large -mirrors, and she almost ceased to fear for her appearance. It was her -deportment and demeanour that now troubled her. In this matter she was -disturbingly aware that she had both to unlearn and to learn. She -looked through the glass partition into the restaurant. It was small -but sumptuous; and empty of diners save for a couple of women who were -smoking and eating simultaneously. People, chiefly in couples, kept -arriving and passing through the antechamber. She picked up a copy of -_What's On_, pretending to study it but studying the arrivals. Then she -felt a man come in and glimpsed the attendant pointing to herself. Mr. -Grig could not entirely conceal his astonishment at the smartness of her -appearance. He had in fact not immediately recognized her. His -surprised pleasure and appreciation gave her both pleasure and -confidence. - -"I'm not late," he said, resuming rapidly his rather quizzical -matter-of-factness. - -"No. I was too early." - -The attendant took Mr. Grig's overcoat like a sacred treasure; he was -shown to be in a dark blue suit; and they passed to the restaurant. - -Lilian thought: - -"Anyway, he can't think I've bought these clothes specially for this -affair, because he only asked me this afternoon." - -The table reserved was in a corner. Lilian had a full view of the whole -restaurant, while Mr. Grig had a full view of nothing but Lilian. For a -girl in Lilian's situation he was an ideal host, for the reason that he -talked just as naturally--and in particular curtly--as if they had been -at the office together. When a waiter shackled in silver approached with -the wine list, he asked: - -"What wine do you prefer?" - -"Whatever you prefer," she replied, with a prompt and delicious smile. - -"Oh, no!" he protested. "That won't do at all. If a woman's given the -choice she ought to choose. She must submit ideas, at any rate. -Otherwise we shall go wandering all through the wine list and finally -settle on something neither of us wants." - -Lilian had learnt a little about wines (she had sipped often from the -paternal glass), and also about good plain cooking. - -"Burgundy," she said. - -Without another word Mr. Grig turned to the Burgundy page, and while he -was selecting Lilian took off her gloves and gazed timidly around. It -was the silver table-lamps, each glowing under a canopy of orange, that -impressed her more than anything else. She saw shoulders, bosoms, -pearls, white shirt-fronts, black backs--the room was still filling--all -repeated in gilt mirrors. The manner of the numerous waiters -corresponded to her notion of court chamberlains. This was the first -high-class restaurant she had ever seen, and despite her nervousness she -felt more at home in it, more exultingly happy in it, than anywhere -before in all her existence. She passionately loved it, and her beauty -seemed to increase in radiance. She liked to think that it was -extremely costly. Compare it to the Palais de Danse, Mr. Pladda, and -the tomato sandwiches! Ah! It was the genuine article at last! She -took surreptitious glances also at Mr. Grig's bent face; and the face -was so strange to her, though just the same as of old, that she might -have been seeing it for the first time. The greatness, the enormity of -the occasion, frightened her. What were they doing there together? And -what in the future would they do together? Was he really and seriously -attracted by her? Was she in love with him? Or was it all a curious -and dangerous deception? She had always understood that when one was in -love one knew definitely that one was in love. Whereas she was sure of -nothing whatever. Nevertheless she was uplifted into a beatific, -irrational and reckless joy. Never had she felt as she felt while Mr. -Grig was selecting the Burgundy. - -"Now we'd better be getting to business," said he, when the hors -_d'oeuvre_ had been removed and the soup served. "I had a letter from -my sister this morning. She wrote--wait a minute!" He pulled a letter -from his pocket and read out: "'I'm sorry to say I've been compelled to -get rid of poor Lilian Share. She's a nice enough girl in her way, but -when you're not here I'm in charge of this office, and as she couldn't -treat me with the respect due to me, I had to decide at once what to do, -and I did decide. I treated her generously, and I hope she'll soon get -another place. She will, of course, because she can be so very -attractive _when she likes_'--underlined--'but I fear she isn't likely -to keep it unless she changes her style of behaviour.'" He smacked the -letter together and returned it to his pocket. "There, you see! I'm -being remarkably frank with you. I came up from Brighton on purpose to -tell you, and I'm going, back by the last train to-night. My sister is -quite unaware of this escapade. In fact, at the moment I'm leading a -double life. Now! I've given you one version of this mighty incident. -Give me your version." - -Lilian, troubled, looked at her mother's engagement ring on her -finger--the sole jewel she carried--and smiled with acute restraint at -her plate. - -"_Have_ you got another situation? I suppose not," Mr. Grig went on. - -"No--not yet." - -"Have you tried for one?" - -"No." - -"Then what are you about?" - -"Oh! My father left me a little money--very little, but I'm not -starving." - -"So I should judge.... Well, tell me all about it." - -"I didn't mean to be rude to her--really I didn't. It was about a small -bill of Lord Mackworth's." - -She related the episode in detail, repeating the conversation with -marvellous exactitude, but with too many "she saids, she saids" and "I -saids, I saids." Mr. Grig laughed when she came to the offer to pay the -bill herself, and after a moment she gave a slight responsive smile. -She was very careful not to make or even to imply the least charge -against Miss Grig, and she accomplished the duplicity with much skill. - -"I can promise you one thing," said Mr. Grig. "The moment I get back -I'll see that Milly is sacked. I cannot stick that bag of bones." - -"_Please_ don't!" - -"You don't want me to?" - -Lilian shook her head slowly. - -"All right, then. I won't. Now I'll tell you the whole business in a -nutshell. My sister's a great woman. She's perfectly mad, but she's a -great woman. Only where I'm concerned she's always most monstrously -unscrupulous. I'm her religion--always was, but more than ever since I -bought that amusing business. She was dying of boredom. It saved her. -When I got myself divorced she was absolutely delighted. She had me to -herself again. Her jealousy where I'm concerned is ferocious. She can't -help it, but it's ferocious. Tigresses aren't in it with her. She was -jealous of you, and she'd determined to clear you out. I've perceived -that for a long time." - -"But why should she be jealous of me? I'm sure I've never----" - -"Well, she's damned clever, Isabel is, and she's seen that I'm in love -with you. Gone--far gone!" - -He spoke with strange detachment, as of another person. - -The thud-thud of Lilian's heart appalled her. She blushed down to her -neck. Her hand shook. The restaurant and all its inhabitants vanished -in a cloud and then slowly reappeared. Her confusion of mind was -terrible. She was shocked, outraged, by the negligently brutal candour -of the avowal; and at the same time she was thinking: "I'd no idea that -any man was as marvellous as this man is, and I don't think there can -possibly be another man quite as marvellous anywhere. And his being in -love with me is the most ravishing, lovely, tender--tender--tender thing -that ever happened to any girl. And, of course, he is in love with me. -He's not pretending. _He_ would never pretend...." - -She wanted to be unconscious for a little while. She did not know it, -but her beautiful face was transfigured by the interplay of shyness, -modesty, soft resentment, gratitude, ecstasy and determination. Her head -was bowed and she could not raise it. Neither could she utter a single -word. She looked divine, and thought she looked either silly or sulky. -Mr. Grig glanced aside. A glimpse of paradise had dazzled the eternal -youth in him. The waiter bore away the soup-plates. - -"Perhaps that's enough about business for the present," said Mr. Grig at -length. "Let's talk about something else. But before we start I must -just tell you you're the most stylish creature in this restaurant. I was -staggered when I came in and saw you. Staggered!" - -She did raise her head. - -"Why?" she asked with exquisite gentleness. - -Mr. Grig, overwhelmed, offered no response. - -As for her determination, it amounted to this: "I will be as marvellous -as he is. I will be more marvellous. I will be queen, slave, -everything. He doesn't guess what is in store for him." She did not -think about the difference in their ages, nor about marriage; nor did -she even consider whether or not she was in love with him. Chiefly, she -was grateful. And what she saw in front of her was a sublime vocation. -Her mood was ever so faintly tinged with regret because they were not -both in evening dress. - - - - - VIII - - Philosophy of the Grey-haired - - -The evening and all Lilian's emotions seemed to start afresh. The look -of the restaurant was changed. The tables had been cleared of the -grosser apparatus of eating, and showed white cloths with only white -plates, fruit, small glasses, small cups, ash-trays. Most of the waiters -had vanished; the remainder stood aside, moveless, inobtrusive, -watchful. The diners had abandoned themselves to intimacy or the sweet -coma of digestion. Some talked rather loudly, others in a murmur. -Women leaned back, or put their elbows on the table, letting cigarette -smoke float upwards across their eyes. A few tables were already -deserted, and the purity of their emptiness seemed bafflingly to -demonstrate that events may happen and leave behind absolutely no trace. -Without consulting Lilian Mr. Grig gave an order and two small glasses -were slowly filled to the brim with a green liquid. Lilian recognized -it for the very symbol of delicate licence. She was afraid to sip, lest -she might be disillusioned concerning it, and also lest the drinking of -it might malignly hasten the moment of departure of the last train for -Brighton. - -Mr. Grig was of those who murmured. His wrists lay one over the other -on the table and his face was over the table; and it seemed strange, so -low and even was his speech, that Lilian could catch every word, as she -did. The people at the next table could have heard nothing. All the -animation and variety were in his features, none in his tone. He had -been telling her about Brighton. He saw the town of Brighton as a -living, developing whole, discussing it as a single organism, showing -how its evolution was still in active process, and making the small -group of men who were exploiting it and directing it appear like -creative giants and the mass of inhabitants like midgets utterly -unconscious of their own manipulation. And in his account of the vast -affair there was no right and no wrong; there were merely the dark aims -and the resolution of the giants determined to wax in power and to -imprint themselves on the municipality. Lilian had never heard such -revealing talk; she could not follow all of it, but she was fascinated, -wonderstruck; profoundly impressed by the quality of the brain opposite -to her and the contemptibleness of her own ignorance of life; amazed and -enraptured that this brain could be interested in herself. Mr. Grig -related the story of the middle-aged proprietor of one of the chief -hotels who had married a young wife. - -"He had broken up his family, and the family is the real unit of -society--and there was no need for it! No need at all! But then, you -see, he'd never had time in his existence to understand that a -middle-aged man who has already had experience of marriage and marries a -girl young enough to be his daughter is either a coward or a fool or -without taste. He would only do it because he's mad for her, and that's -the very reason for not doing it. When romance comes in that way it -wants the sauce of secrecy and plotting--the double life, and so on. -The feeling of naughtiness--naughtiness is simply a marvellous feeling; -you must sometimes have guessed that, haven't you?--perversity, doing -society in the eye. It's a continual excitement. Of course, it needs -cleverness on both sides. You haven't got to be clumsy over it. The -woman runs risks, but nothing to the risks she'd run in marriage. And -if the thing dies out in her, and they haven't been clumsy, she's free -as air to start again. She's got her experience gratis, and there's a -mysterious flavour about her that's nearly the most enticing flavour on -earth. Naturally people will talk. Let 'em. No harm in rumour. In -fact, the more rumour the better." He went on with no pause. "You've -not looked at me for about five hours. Look at me now and tell me -you're disgusted. Tell me you're frightened." - -She lifted her eyes and gazed at him for a few seconds, not smiling. -Her skin tingled and crept. Then she sipped the creme de menthe and at -first it tasted just like water. - -"A woman wants making. Only a man can make a woman. She has to be -formed. She can't do it herself. A young man may be able to do it, but -he's like a teacher who swots up the night before what he has to teach -the next day. And he's a fearful bungler, besides being -cruel--unconsciously. Whereas an older man, a much older man--he knows! -It's a unique chance for both of them. She has so much to give, and she -has so much to learn. It's a fair bargain. Perhaps the woman has a -little the best of it. Because after all she loses nothing that it -isn't her business to lose--and the man may--well, he may kill himself. -And the chance for a clever girl to be 'made' without any clumsiness! -What a chance! ... Well, I won't say _which_ of 'em has the best of -it.... I'm speaking impartially. If you live to be as old as Ninon de -l'Enclos you'll never meet a more honest man than I am." - -Lilian felt intoxicated, but not with the Burgundy nor with the creme de -menthe. Rather with sudden fresh air. She thought: "Be careful! Be -careful! You aren't yourself. Something queer's come over you." She -was not happy. She was alarmed. Once before she had been alarmed by -herself, but this time she was really alarmed. She was glad that she -had always despised boys of her own age. What did Mr. Grig mean by -saying that a man might kill himself? She didn't know.... Yes, she -knew.... She saw clearly that a woman must be formed by a man, and that -until she was formed she would not be worthy of herself. She longed -ardently to be formed. As she stood she was futile. She could exercise -no initiative, make use of no opportunities; and her best wisdom was to -remain negative--in order to avoid mistakes. Something that looked like -a woman but wasn't one. She had the intelligence to realize how insipid -she was. Ambition surged through her anew and with fresh power. - -Mr. Grig drove her home, and the taxi was a little dark vibrating room -in which they were alone together, and safe from all scrutiny. She was -painfully constrained. - -"Yes," said Mr. Grig, after an interminable silence. "My sister was -quite right." - -"What about?" Lilian asked in a child's voice. - -"I'm in love. What are you going to do about it?" He turned his head -impulsively towards her, gazed at her in the dim twilight of the taxi, -and then kissed her. In spite of herself she yearned to give, and the -yearning thrilled her. - -"Please! Please!" she murmured in modest, gentle, passive protest. - -Another pause. - -"I shall write to you to-morrow," he said. "In the meantime, believe -me, you're entirely marvellous." He was looking straight in front of -him at the driver's shaggy shoulders. That was all that occurred, -except the handshake. - -When she let herself into the house the servant was just going upstairs -to bed, after her usual sixteen-hour day. - -"So you're back, miss." - -"No!" thought Lilian. "It's somebody else that's come back. The girl -you mean will never come back." - - - - - PART III - - - I - - In the Hotel - - -Felix came quietly through the communicating door into Lilian's -shuttered and close room. Between the two bedrooms was a bathroom. All -the bedrooms in the hotel seemed to be designed on the same plan--too -high, too long, too narrow, with the head of the bed behind the door and -directly facing the window; a wardrobe, a dressing-table, a washstand, a -writing-table, an easy chair (under the window), two cane chairs, a -night-table, and two electric lights so devilishly arranged that they -could not be persuaded to burn simultaneously; a carpet overgrown with -huge, gorgeous flowers, and the walls overgrown with huge, gorgeous -flowers of another but equally mirific plant. Outside the bedroom a -bell rang at short intervals--all the guests in the neighbourhood -performed, according to their idiosyncrasies, on the same bell--and -slippered feet of servants rushing to and fro in the corridor shook the -planks of Lilian's floor as they passed. - -Amid the obscurity of the room Lilian's curved form, lying heaped on its -side, and rather like a miniature mountain that sloped softly down -towards the head and towards the feet, could be vaguely deciphered in -the bed; and hillocks of attire, some pale, others coloured, some -fragile and diaphanous, others resistant to the world's peering, lay -dimly about on chairs and even on the writing-table. The air, exhausted -by the night, had a faint and delicate odour that excited, but did not -offend, Felix's nostrils. - -"Is it time to get up?" Lilian murmured in the voice of a sleepy child. - -"No." - -Her brain slowly came to life. Flitting in and out of her happiness -there were transient apprehensions--not about the morality, but about -the security, of her situation. They disappeared, all except one, as -soon as she looked firmly at them, because she had the most perfect -confidence in Felix's good faith. The unity of the pair had begun in -London, under conditions provided by Felix, who, however, did not care -for them, and who had decided that he would take her away for a holiday -in order that they might both reflect upon and discuss at length the -best method of organizing a definite secret existence. - -It was during the preliminaries to the departure that she had been -specially struck by his straightforwardness. He would have no wangling -with passports. She must travel as herself. She could think of no -acquaintance qualified to sign the application for her passport. It was -Felix's suggestion that she should go to the Putney doctor who had -attended her father and mother. The pair had travelled separately on -the same _train de luxe_, for which, with Felix's money, she bought her -own ticket. The cost of the ticket and the general expensiveness of the -purchases which Felix insisted on her making had somewhat frightened -her. He reassured her by preaching the relativity of all things. "You -must alter your scale--it needs only an effort of the imagination," he -had said; and explained to her his financial status. She learned that -he had an independent income, and his sister another though much smaller -independent income, and that the typewriting business was a diversion, -though a remunerative one; also that an important cash bonus just -received from an insurance policy enabled him to be profuse without -straining his ordinary resources. - -She had trembled at the reception office of the great hotel, but Felix, -laughing at her fears, accomplished all formalities for her quite -openly, and indeed the discreet incuriosity of the hotel officials fully -confirmed the soundness of his attitude. Ignoring the description on -the passport, he had told her to sign as "Madame," and he threw out -negligently that she was his cousin. This was his sole guile. Before -going upstairs he had written out a telegram and shown it to her. It -was to his sister, to say that he had arrived safely and sent his love. -"She has to be deceived," he murmured, "but she's got to be treated -decently. It was all I could do to keep her from coming to see me off -at Victoria!" He smiled. Lilian was impressed. When Lilian found that -Felix's bedroom stood next to her bathroom her anxieties were renewed. -Felix laughed again, and rang, for the door between the bathroom and his -bedroom was locked. In a few minutes a dark and stoutish chambermaid -entered with a pleasant, indulgent, comprehending gravity, and unlocked -the door. "What is your name?" he asked. "Jacqueline, monsieur," she -replied, and cordially accepted a twenty-franc note from him. It was -all so simple, so natural, so un-English, so enheartening. In two hours -they had settled down. All the embarrassing preludes to the closest -intimacy had been amply achieved in London. - -Lilian stretched herself voluptuously, murmured with a magnificent yawn, -"Ah! How I have slept!" and, slipping out of bed, padded unshod up the -room to Felix, who sat passive in the easy chair. She took the bearings -of his shape in the gloom, and dropped lightly on to his knees. - -"What am I sitting on?" she exclaimed, startled. - -"My newspapers." - -Touched by the fact that he had been waiting to read his beloved papers -until she should be ready to rise, she threw her arms passionately round -his neck and crushed her face into his. Daily it became clearer to her -that he adored her; and yet she could scarcely believe it, because she -felt so young--even childish--and so crude and insipid. She determined -with a whole-souled resolve that renewed itself every hour to stop at -nothing to please him. - -"Do I make you happy?" she whispered almost inarticulately, her lips -being buried in his cheek. - -"You do." - -After a moment she sprang up, seized her thin, loose, buttonless -dressing-gown, and having somehow got into it, opened the window and -violently pushed back the shutters. Strong sunlight rushed blazing into -the room like an army into a city long besieged and at last fallen. -Millions of buoyant motes were revealed, and all the minutest details of -the chamber. Lilian looked out. There were the shady gardens of the -hotel, the white promenade with strolling visitors in pale costumes, the -calm ultramarine Mediterranean, the bandstand far to the right emitting -inaudible music, the yellow casino, beyond the casino the jetty with its -group of white yachts, and, distant on either side, noble and jagged -mountains, some of them snow-capped. Incredible! She heard Felix -moving within the room, and turned her head. - -"Darling, what are you doing?" - -"Ringing for your coffee." - -"What time is it?" - -"Haven't the least." - -"But your watch?" - -"Haven't got it on." - -"But you're all dressed." - -"Haven't put my things in my pockets." - -She clasped his arm and led him silently through the bathroom into his -own bedroom, and up to the night-table, the drawer of which she pulled -open. All his "things" were arranged carefully therein. - -"Oh! Men are funny!" she laughed. - -The number and the variety of the articles they carried in their -innumerable pockets! - -"_I_ will put your things in your pockets," she said, and began to do -so. - -"Wrong!" he would protest from time to time; but he would give no -positive direction, and she had to discover the proper pocket by -experiment. It was a most wonderful operation, and it deliciously -illustrated the exotic, incomprehensible, exquisite curiousness of men. -She was proud of having thought of it, and proud of the pleasure in his -face. As she glanced at the watch her brow puckered. - -"I shall be frightfully late!" - -"It is impossible to be late where time does not exist." - -"Is that Jacqueline with my coffee?" she said, listening, and ran back -to her room, pulling him after her. - -Yes, she admitted she was a perfect child, but she could not help it. -While she drank the coffee he put on his eyeglasses and opened the -newspapers, one English, one French. She went into the bathroom. - -"Felix! Felix!" she called presently from the bathroom. "Bring me in -that soft towel I've left on the chair by the writing-table." - -Then she returned to the bedroom and did her abundant glossy chestnut -hair, and by innumerable small stages dressed. He was reading his -papers, but she knew that he was also watching her, and she loved him to -watch her dress, from the first stage to the last. She was too young to -have anything to conceal, and his pleasure, which he tried to mask, was -so obvious. He dropped _The Times_ and turned to the French paper. - -"Felix, do you know what?" - -"What?" - -"I'm frightfully ashamed of not being able to speak French. If I could -only speak it a quarter as well as you do." - -"That's nothing. I couldn't say two words without a Frenchman knowing -instantly that I wasn't French." - -"But you can talk it so quickly. Couldn't I have someone in here every -morning to teach me for an hour? People do. I could get up earlier." - -"Certainly not," Felix replied. "If you did you'd have something to be -late for. You'd bring time into existence and spoil everything. -Besides, learning French is hard work. You wouldn't learn it by -instinct, as you learn clothes. And you aren't here for hard work. -Learn French by all means, but not in this place. London's the place -for hard work. Exercise your sense of the fitness of things, my clever -girl." - -She did not fully understand this philosophy, but she accepted it -admiringly. - -"What dress would you like me to wear, darling?" She was at the -wardrobe. - -"That white one." - -"Then I shall have to change my stockings." - -"Well, the yellow one, then. It doesn't matter." - -"Of course it matters," she said with earnestness, sitting down -religiously, fanatically, to change her stockings. "Don't you know that -I don't want anything in the world except to please you? I only wanted -to learn French so you shouldn't have to be ashamed of me." - - - - - II - - The Big Yacht - - -After lunching to music beneath a vast parasol in the hotel garden, -which looked like a tented field, they were bowed away by servitors in -black and white, and bowed into the hotel by servitors in blue and gold, -and bowed along the central artery of the hotel by apprentice-servitors -in scarlet, and bowed out of the hotel again on to the promenade by -servitors in blue and gold. It was half-past two; the glorious sun was -already slipping down; they had done absolutely nothing, and yet they -had not wasted a moment; and on the faces of all the many-coloured -servitors there was the smiling assurance that they had been admirably -exerting themselves in full correctness, and had not a moment to waste -if they honestly desired to pursue idleness as idleness ought to be -pursued. Indeed, the winter day was too short for the truly -conscientious. - -"Your little fur?" exclaimed Felix, who was wearing his overcoat; he -stopped. - -"But, darling, I'm far too hot as it is!" - -"In an hour the day will be gone," said he, and insisted on the -treachery of the climate. - -He frequently insisted on the treachery of the climate. If he happened -to cough ever so slightly, he would say that the entire Riviera was bad -for the throat and that a sore throat was the most dangerous complaint -known to man. Lilian indulgently thought him fussy about her health and -his own and the awful menaces of the exquisite climate; but she did not -attribute his fussiness to his age; she regarded him as merely happening -to be a bit fussy on certain matters. Nor did she regret the fussiness, -for it gave her new occasions to please him and (in her heart) to -condescend femininely towards him. - -"I shan't need it----" - -"Please! I'll fetch it, and I'll carry it. No! You stay there." - -"But do you know where it is, Felix?" - -"I know where it is." His voice had become very firm and somewhat -tyrannic. - -She stood on the pavement, put up her orange sunshade, and mused -contentedly upon his prodigious care for her--proof of his passionate -attachment. People were passing in both directions all the time on the -broad _digue_ beyond the roadway. Some strolled in complete possession -of idleness; others hurried after it, with tools such as tennis rackets -to help them. Nearly all, men and women, stared at her as they passed, -until at length she turned round and faced the revolving door of the -hotel. - -"Oh! _Thank_ you, dearest; you're spoiling me horribly. Do let me take -it." - -"I will not. Of course I am spoiling you. That is what you're here -for. Your highest duty in life is to be spoiled. Let's go on the -Mole." - -They set off. A dark man, overdressed in striped flannels, nearly stood -still at the sight of Lilian, gazing at her as though he had paid five -francs for the right to do so. - -"My goodness!" she muttered. "How they do stare here!" - -"Why grudge them harmless enjoyment," Felix observed. "You're giving -pleasure to every man that looks at you, and envy to most of the women. -You're fulfilling a very valuable function in the world, If anyone is -justified in objecting, I am, and I don't object. On the contrary, I'm -as proud of the staring as if I'd created you. There's nothing to beat -you on this coast, with your ingenuous English style of beauty, and half -the pretty women here would sell their souls to look as innocent as you -_look_, believe me!" - -Lilian said nothing in reply. The fact was that the man simply could -not open his mouth without giving her more to think about than she could -manage. - -At the quay they examined all the yachts, big and little, that were -moored, stern on, side by side. There were three large steam yachts, -and the largest of the three, with two decks and a navigating deck, all -white and gold and mahogany and bunting and flowers and fluttering -awnings, overpoweringly dominated the port. Felix stopped and stared at -the glinting enormity. - -"Is that only a yacht?" Lilian cried. "Why! It's bigger than the -Channel steamer!" - -"No!" said Felix, "but she's the fourth largest yacht in the world. -That's the celebrated _Qita_. Crew of eighty odd. She came in last -night for stores, and she's leaving again to-night, going to Naples. -And here are the stores, you may depend." A lorry loaded with cases of -wine drove up. - -"But it's all like a fairy tale," said Lilian. - -"Yes, it is. And so are you. You see, the point is that she's just -about the finest of her kind. And so are you. She costs more than you -to run, of course. A machine like that can't be run on less than a -thousand pounds a week. Come along. Who's staring now?" - -"A thousand pounds a _week_!" Lilian murmured, aghast. Her imagination -resembled that of a person who, on reaching a summit which he has taken -for the top of the range, sees far higher peaks beyond. And the -conviction that those distant peaks were unattainable saddened her for a -moment. "It's absolutely awful." - -"Why awful? If you have the finest you must pay for it. A thousand a -week's nothing to that fellow. Moreover, he's a British citizen, and he -did splendid service for his country in the war. Among other things, he -owns two of the best brands of champagne. The War Office gave him a -commission and a car; and he travelled all over Europe selling his own -champagne at his own price to officers' messes. After all, officers -couldn't be expected to fight without the drinks they're accustomed to, -could they?" - -Lilian obscurely divined irony. She often wished that she could be -ironical and amusing, as Felix was; but she never could. She couldn't -conceive how it was done. - -They reached the Mole, which was quite deserted, being off the map of -correctness, and surveyed the entire scene--ships, blue water, white -hotels, casino, villas, green wooded slopes all faint in the haze, and -rising sharply out of the haze the lofty line of snow. In the immediate -foreground, almost under their feet, was a steel collier from the north. -Along the whole length of the ship carts were drawn up and cranes were -creaking, and grimy ragged men hurried sweating to drop basketfuls of -coal into the carts, and full carts were always departing and empty -carts always coming. The activity seemed breathless, feverish and -without the possibility of end--so huge was the steamer and so small -were the pair-horse carts. - -Two yacht's officers passed in shiny blue with gilt buttons and facings. -Growled one: - -"Yes, and how the hell do they expect me to keep my ship clean with this -thing between me and the weather?" - -"Yes," agreed the other. "How in hell do they? Why they don't make 'em -unload somewhere else beats me." - -Then Felix and Lilian turned seawards and watched the everlasting -patience of the fishers on the rocks below. - -"Better put your fur on," said Felix suddenly. - -She put it on. - -Returning to the quay Lilian could not keep her eyes off the superb -yacht. But in a moment she bent them suddenly and quickened her pace. - -"You're feeling chilly," said Felix triumphantly. "The sun's got behind -the fort." - -On the lower deck of the yacht, under an awning and amid easy chairs and -cushions, she had seen a tall man earnestly engaged in conversation with -a young and pretty girl. She thought the man was Lord Mackworth. She -felt sure it was Lord Mackworth. She wanted to turn her head and make -certain, but she dared not lest he should see her. She was blushing. -There was nothing whatever in the brief relations between Lord Mackworth -and herself to which the slightest exception could be taken by the -strictest moralist. Yet she was blushing. She blushed because of the -dreams she had once had concerning him. Her old, forgotten thoughts, -which nobody on earth could ever have guessed, made her into a kind of -criminal. It was very strange. Perhaps also she feared a little what -Lord Mackworth might think of her if he saw her in that place, in those -clothes, with a man much older than herself. How inexpressibly -fortunate that the yacht was leaving that night! Instead of looking over -her shoulder at Lord Mackworth, she looked over her shoulder at Felix, -to reassure herself about her deep fondness for him and about his -reliability in even the greatest crises. - -"I love him," she reflected, "because he is so marvellously clever and -kind and dependable and just, and because he worships me--I don't know -why." - -But she was devoted to him because he had picked her out of a batch and -opened her eyes to the apple on the tree and made her eat it, and -because she had worked and watched and suffered for him in the office, -and been cast out of the office for him, and because of a funny -enigmatic look in his wrinkled eyes. She would have liked him just the -same if he had been cruel and undependable and had not worshipped her. -And she desired ardently to be still more and more beautiful and -luxurious for him, and more and more to be stared at for him, and to -render him still happier and happier. She was magnificently ready to -kill him with bliss. - -After several hundred yards she turned round and looked at the yacht. -No figures were distinguishable now on the deck. She thought -captiously: - -"I wonder who that doll was and what they were talking about with their -heads so close together." - - - - - III - - The Casino - - -Lilian, in a _neglige_, was somnolently stretched out in the easy chair -in her room when Felix peeped in. He looked at her enquiringly in -silence for a moment, and she gave him a hazy smile. - -"Oh!" he said. "Then you won't feel like going into the Casino to-night -after all?" - -"Nothing to stop me," she replied, with a peculiar intonation, light and -yet anxious. - -"Hurrah!" exclaimed Felix very gaily, almost boyishly. "Then we'll go." - -The apprehension which now for two days had been eating like a furtive -cancer into her mind suddenly grew and contaminated the whole of her -consciousness; she could not understand his levity, for she had not -concealed from him the sinister misgiving. - -"Yes!" she murmured with a sort of charming and victimized protest. -"That's all very well, but----" And she stopped, and the smile expired -from her face. - -He shrugged his shoulders, gave a short, affectionate, humouring laugh, -and said with kind superiority, utterly positive: - -"What have I told you? The thing's absolutely imposs!" - -And just as suddenly she was quite reassured and the apprehension -vanished away. It could not exist against his perfect certitude. She -lit up a new smile. - -"Look here," he went on, "we'll dine in the Casino if we can. Of -course, every blessed table may be booked, but I'll have a try." - -A quarter of an hour later, when she had begun to dress, he returned -with the exciting information that, at precisely the right instant, -somebody had telephoned to countermand an inside table and he had -secured it. - -They arrived very late in the Casino restaurant, yet more diners came -after them than had come before, so that ultimately it would have been -difficult to draw a straight line between dinner and supper. The stars -in the arched firmament of the vast and lofty hall challenged the stars -of heaven in number and splendour, and seemed to win easily. Light fell -in glittering floods on the flowered tables and on the shoulders of the -women. In the centre of the floor was an oblong parquet sacred to -dancing. The band, in which Englishmen and varied dagoes were mingled, -sat, clothed apparently in surplices, on a dais in a mighty alcove. The -drummer and the banjoist each procured an unnatural union of light and -sound by electric illumination of their instruments from within. The -leader wore a battered opera hat, and at the end of a piece he would -exclaim grimly and scornfully, "So that's that!" or, "We are the goods!" -or some such phrase. Now and then the band overflowed into song, and -the wild chants of the Marquesas or the Fiji Islands rang riotously -through the correctness of the restaurant, and Lilian caught fragments -of significant verse, such as: - - "The rich get rich, - And the poor get children, - Ain't we got fun?" - -showing that one touch of nature makes the Southern archipelago the very -sister and bride of Europe. - -The primary mission of the band was to induce a general exultant gaiety; -and the mission was accomplished, nobody understood how. Lilian exulted -in the food, the wine, the glitter, the noise, the wise, humorous face -of Felix, and the glances which assailed her on every hand. All care -fell away from her. She forgot the future, and the whole of her -vitality concentrated itself intensely in the moment. Most of the -conversation at neighbouring tables was in English, and it was all about -gambling, dancing, golf, lawn-tennis, polo, cards, racing, trains de -luxe, clothes, hotels, prices, and women. Even in the incomprehensible -French gabble that reached her she could distinguish words like "golf," -and "bridge," and "picnic." - -Then four elegant, waisted young men appeared mysteriously from nowhere -and approached certain tables and bowed with an assured air, and -instantly four elegant young women rose up, without being asked, and the -professional couples began to display to the amateurs the true art of -the dance. Lilian had never seen such dancing. - -"Why are they all Spanish girls?" she innocently asked, struck by the -rich, dark skin of the women. - -"They're no more Spanish than you are," said Felix. "You perceive that -one there. She's at our hotel, on our floor, and I've seen her as -blonde as a Norwegian. The dark olive is the result of strange -cosmetics, and a jolly fine result, too. Nothing finer has been -invented for a century. It's so perverse. Don't you like it?" - -"I think it's lovely!" she agreed with enthusiasm, also with a vague -envy. - -Later, when the senoritas had left their partners and resumed their -interrupted meals, and the parquet was empty again, she said: - -"I do really think it's awful, all this! It's so expensive, everything; -and it's all for pleasure. The whole town's for pleasure." In the -background she had a vision of her working life, with its discipline and -cast-iron hours and wristlets and fatigue and privations and penury. -The click of the typewriter, the green-shaded lamps, the Tube, the cold -bedroom, the washing and sewing done in the cold bedroom! The blue -working frock with its pathetic red line of clumsy embroidery! - -"What about Margate?" Felix demanded quietly. - -She was nonplussed. - -"Oh! But that's different!" - -"It is. It's not half as good. You must remember there's nothing new -in all this. It's been going on in the Mediterranean for thousands of -years, and it's likely to go on for thousands of years more. It's what -human nature is. What are you going to do about it? Would you abolish -luxury and pleasure? Not you. Do you imagine that God created the -shores of the Mediterranean and this climate for anything else but this? -What frightens you is the tremendous organization and concentration of -the affair. Nothing else. And let me tell you that this town is the -most interesting town on the coast just now. The fellow that's got the -new concession for the casino is a bit of a genius. He's moulding the -place into something fresh. It used to be the primmest place on earth. -He discovered that the English don't want to be prim any more; he showed -them to themselves. Do you suppose all these women began to come here -on their own? They're pawns in his great game. He brought them; but no -nice-minded person asks how, nor whether they really pay for their meals -or their rooms, nor how they manage to encourage big gambling in the -baccarat rooms. This fellow has put the wind up to the next town up the -coast: it used to be the most corrupt town in the whole of Europe, that -place used to be! And now the rival genius there is introducing large -families of children and nurses there in the hope of persuading the -English that they prefer to be prim and domestic after all. The fact is -these two geniuses are gambling against one another for far bigger -stakes than any of the baccarat maniacs. It's a battle for the command -of the coast. That's what it is. You don't get the hang of it all at -once; but you will in time. Let's dance." - -Lilian was startled by the invitation, for they had not yet danced -together. She remembered how, on that night when he first talked to her -about herself, he had known that she was being deprived of an evening's -dancing. They stood up as the chicken was being removed. She smiled at -him with fresh admiration. He had impregnated her with new ideas; he -had reassured her; he had justified her enjoyment; he was amazing; he -was mad about her, in his restrained style; and now he would -surprisingly dance with her. - -Although they took the floor early in the dance, when only two other -couples had begun to dance, it was impossible for her to be nervous -within his arm. Half the room gazed at her, for she had attracted -attention from the first. She knew that half the room was gazing at -her, and she liked it. She guessed that half the room was saying: "Look -at that fresh young creature who's with that middle-aged man--she must -be really very young." And she liked it. She liked to show herself with -the man who was more than old enough to be her father, worn by knowledge -and experience and the corrupting of the world; to contrast her untried -simplicity--the bloom of the virginal scarcely gone from it--with his -grey hairs and his wrinkled, disillusioned, passive eyes. She was happy -in the thought that everybody knew that she must have given herself to -him, and that there was something strange, sinister, and even odious in -her abandonment. He had used the word "perverse." She did not wholly -understand the word, but it appealed to her, and for her it expressed -her mood. - -She had noticed, in the room, how the women no longer unquestionably -young were more consciously and carefully charming towards their men, -receiving adulation but rendering it back; whereas the unquestionably -young were more negligent and far more egotistic. And so she behaved -like one no longer unquestionably young. She glanced up at her partner -with ravishing, ecstatic smiles; she publicly adored him. And she was -glad that her green and gold frock with its long arm-holes was not of -the Wigmore Street cut, but quite other in origin and spirit and in its -effect upon the imagination. - -The dancing had by this time become general, but the olive-tinted -temptresses were still prominent in the throng, and sometimes she -touched them in the curves of the dance. She knew where they beat her -and where she beat them. And it was vouchsafed to her from the eyes of -Felix that she was lovely and marvellous. She felt intensely, -inexpressibly happy, and more than happy--triumphant. Her quiet, -obstinate resentment against the domestic policy of her father died out, -and she forgave him as she danced. She thought with a secret sigh -almost painful in its relief: - -"Thank God I have fulfilled myself and succeeded not too late!" - -She had premonitions of power, a foretaste of dominion. Felix was hers. -She could influence him. She could re-make him. And for the thousandth -time she breathed to him in her soul: "I have made you happy, but I will -make you more happy--infinitely more happy. You don't know yet what I -am capable of." He danced very correctly and quite nicely,--rather -stiff, of course, but with a certain clever abandonment of his body to -the rhythm. She thought: "With what women did he learn to dance? He -must have danced a lot. Never will I ask! Never!" The fox-trot ended. - -As they were crossing the floor to their table she saw Lord Mackworth -dining with a man older than himself at a table near the windows. She -sat down to the sweet. He had caught sight of her and was looking at -her fixedly. She stared at him for a moment with the casually -interested stare of non-recognition, perfectly executed. - -"The yacht hasn't left, then, after all," she reflected, and to Felix: -"Did that big yacht leave to-night?" - -"No," said Felix. "I heard they'd changed their minds." Felix had the -faculty of hearing everything. - -In spite of herself Lilian was disturbed. - - - - - IV - - Chemin de Fer - - -When Felix said that of course they must visit the baccarat rooms she -vaguely acquiesced. A mood of the old apprehension had mysteriously -succeeded her exultation; she wanted to exorcise it and couldn't. She -would have tried to dance the gloom away, but Felix did not suggest -another dance; she understood that he had danced once because it was -proper for an enlightened amateur of life to forgo no sensation, and -that he would not dance again unless asked. She would not ask. He had -given her a cigarette and a liqueur; she had accepted a second liqueur -and then declined it, afraid of it and anxious for her reputation in his -eyes. There were formalities to accomplish at the entrance to the -baccarat rooms--forms to be filled up and money to be paid. - -"They make a small charge for emptying your pockets," said Felix. "They -pretend to be rather particular about their victims." - -The select rooms were crowded. Every table in the blazing interior had -round it a thick ring of sitters and standers, and many people were -walking to and fro, disappointed or hopeful. By tiptoeing and -supporting herself on Felix's shoulder Lilian could just see the green -cloth of a table, like the floor of a pit whose walls were bodies -elegant in evening dress; it was littered with white, rose, and green -counters, banknotes, cards, ash-trays, cigarette cases, and vanity bags. -More women were seated than men. A single croupier dominated and ruled -the game. Cards and counters were thrown about from side to side. - -"It seems frightfully exciting," murmured Lilian, scarcely audible, into -the ear of Felix. - -"It is," said Felix gruffly. "It's the real thing, you know, gambling -is. When people lose they lose real money, and when they win, ditto. -You can genuinely ruin yourself here. There's no sham about it. You -may go out without even your fare home." He offered these remarks -separately, between considerable pauses. - -"Is baccarat easy to learn?" - -"Very. But not here--and this isn't baccarat. This is _chemin de -fer_--equally easy, though. I'll get a pack of cards at the hotel and -teach you. It's _chemin de fer_ at every table. I suppose that's why -they call the rooms 'baccarat'?" - -He was edging nearer the croupier. A stout, middle-aged woman whose -flesh seemed to be insecurely and inadequately confined within frail -silk rose from her chair, gathering up bag and cigarette case--all that -remained to her. - -"Sit down here and keep the chair for me," Felix said sharply, and -pushed Lilian into the seat. - -Everybody gazed at her, and her constraint showed the conviction that -everybody guessed she had never sat at a gaming-table before. Felix had -vanished, and she was thrown with her arresting, innocent beauty upon -the envious and jealous world. He had gone to exchange notes for -counters, but she did not know. After a moment that was an hour he -returned and took the seat. - -"You stand behind me and watch," said he. "And when you get bored walk -about and see things for yourself, and when you need moral support again -come and put your hand on my chair. I'll stop playing whenever you tell -me." He spoke in a muttering voice, but three or four persons around -could not fail to catch every word; this, however, appeared not to -trouble him. - -Lilian was in a state of high excitation, but she was also extremely -confused, the game being a complete enigma to her. The croupier was -continually raking cards to and fro and counters to and fro, continually -tearing tickets out of a book, ripping them to pieces and throwing the -pieces behind him, continually dropping cards into a big hole, and -continually dropping counters into a little hole. An official opposite -the croupier, with pockets full of counters, was continually, and with -miraculous rapidity, exchanging rose counters for green and white -counters for rose. The player next to Felix had a small table behind -him furnished with champagne and sandwiches, which he consumed in hasty -gulps and mouthfuls, as one who feels the dread hour at hand when no man -may eat or drink. The players ejaculated short incomprehensible words, -and at brief intervals Lilian seized a word that sounded like "baunco." -She heard Felix utter the word, saw him turn up two cards, and then -receive from the croupier's rake a large assortment of green and rose -counters. He never looked at her to smile; she was ignored, but she -guessed that he must be winning. Soon afterwards his piles of counters -had strangely diminished. - -The heat stifled her, and the odour of flesh and tobacco and scent -nauseated. She held no key to the vast and splendid conundrum, unless -by chance her fundamental commonsense was right in its casual suggestion -that she was surrounded by lunatics. Yet how could persons so -well-dressed, so sure of themselves, so restrained and stylish in -manner, and seemingly so wealthy, be lunatics? Impossible! She grew -profoundly and inexplicably sad. - -At length she walked away, aimless. Felix did not notice her departure. -She thought it almost certain that Lord Mackworth would be somewhere in -the rooms; she desired above everything to avoid the danger incident to -meeting him face to face; but she walked away. All the tables were the -same as the table at which she had left Felix--crowded, entranced, -self-concentrated and perfectly unintelligible; and at every table the -croupier was continually dropping counters into a little hole, and -tearing up tickets and throwing the fragments behind him on to the -crimson carpet. The sole difference between the tables was that some -held more banknotes than others. The heaps of blue thousand-franc notes -piled about one table caused Lilian to halt and gaze. - -"Some ready there!" said a very young man to a fierce old woman. - -"Ah! But you should have seen it in the days of gold plaques before the -war. You could call a hundred-franc gold piece 'ready,' then, if you -like." The old woman sighed grimly. - -Lilian passed on under their combined stare. She glimpsed herself in -mirrors, as once she used to glimpse herself in the shop windows of Bond -Street, and was satisfied with the vision. Her walk was as remarkable -as her beauty. Yes, she knew how to put her feet on the ground and how -to make her body float smoothly and evenly above the moving limbs. Her -spirit rose as she began to suspect that no woman in the rooms was -getting more notice than herself. Fancy Felix being absorbed in his -gambling! She had forgotten Lord Mackworth; she had decided that he was -not in the rooms; and then suddenly, sprung from nothingness like a -ghost, he stood in her path between the wall and the end of a table. -She was disposed to retreat; besides, his attention was fixed on the -table and she might get by him unperceived. But just as she approached -he turned. Although she might have ignored him, and in the -circumstances was indeed entitled to do so, she did not because she -could not. She blushed, only slightly, acknowledged their acquaintance -with a faint smile, then stopped, but did not advance her hand to meet -his. - -"Ought I to have shaken hands?" she thought anxiously. All her quickly -acquired worldliness of manner left her in an instant. She was the -typewriting girl again, wearing the wristlets. He had all the physical -splendour that she remembered, and the style, and the benignant -large-hearted tolerance of an extensive sinner. As he looked at her he -drew back his chin and made several chins of it in just the old way. He -was enormous, superb, and perfect. And if not a boy he had real youth; -once more she had to contrast his youth with Felix's specious -sprightliness. She fought on behalf of Felix in her mind, and on points -Felix won; but in her mind Lord Mackworth had supporters which derided -all reasoning. And as she fronted him the old frightful apprehension -was powerfully revived, and it seemed to be building a wall between her -and the young man, and she was intensely dejected beneath the brightness -of her demeanour. - -"Very hot here, isn't it?" she was saying. ("A stupid typewriting girl -remark," she reflected as it slipped out.) - -"A great change since I was here last just before the war," said Lord -Mackworth gaily. - -"Warmer, do you mean?" - -"No! Much more cheery now. Jollier!" He waved a hand towards the -company in general. - -"Oh, _that_!" said Lilian, marshalling all her forces in a determined -effort to lose the typewriting girl in the woman of the world. "You -mean the company." She shrugged her shoulders, borrowing some of his -tolerance, "Of course, you know they've been brought here on purpose. -It's all part of a great battle for the command of the coast." - -The effort succeeded beyond her hopes. Lord Mackworth was clearly -impressed; he put questions which Lilian answered out of the mouth of -Felix. Strange that this man should be he who had inexcusably omitted to -pay his trumpery bill at Clifford Street, the man through whose -unconscious agency she had been unjustly cast into the street! However, -the past did not in the least affect her feeling for him. What she most -vividly recalled was that she had striven to serve him and had served -him. He made no reference--doubtless from delicacy--to the night of -their meeting; nor did he betray even the very smallest surprise at -seeing her, the typewriting girl, exquisitely and expensively dressed, -in the finest baccarat rooms on the Riviera. (Of course, she might be -married, or have inherited a fortune--he could think as he chose.) - -They went on talking and then a pause came, and Lord Mackworth said -bluntly: - -"I saw you from the yacht this afternoon." - -"Oh! What yacht?" - -"The _Qita_." - -"The big one? Is it yours?" - -"Oh lord, no! She belongs to my friend Macmusson--we dined together -here to-night." - -"It must be terribly big. I suppose you have an enormous party on -board?" - -"Not a bit. Only Macmusson and his three old aunts, and his -niece--adopted daughter. Nobody else." - -"That's the girl you were making love to," Lilian's heart accused him. -"She's going to be very rich and she'll pay all your family debts. -That's what it is. But what difference does it make?" her heart added, -"You are you." And aloud: "I heard the yacht was leaving to-night." - -"She was. But I persuaded old Macmusson to stop another day." - -"Really!" - -"And do you know why?" - -"No." - -"Because I had some hope of meeting you here to-night." - -She flushed again. She saw the ante-room at Clifford Street at the -moment when he came back to ask her to wake him by telephone. He must -have been well aware, then, that he had made a conquest, because in the -ante-room she had not been able to hide her soft emotion. From that -moment he had forgotten her; yet he could not have forgotten her. -Perhaps he had somehow been prevented from meeting her in the meantime. -Now at the mere second sight of her he had stopped the great yacht on -the chance of talking to her! He had thrown over the young rich girl at -a single glimpse of Lilian as she passed! It was astounding. But in -fact she was not astounded. She glanced up at him. His smooth, -handsome red face was alive with admiration. And was she not really to -be admired, even by the Lord Mackworths? Was she not marvellous? Did -not all the company in the rooms regard her as marvellous? She thrilled -to the romance of the incredible event. He was so young and big and -strong and handsome; he had such prestige in her eyes. She saw visions. - -But the frightful apprehension--no longer a wall, rather a -cloud--swallowed up the visions and froze the thrill. Felix held her. -A gust of ruthless common sense inspired her to say primly: - -"It's always dangerous to give reasons for what one's done." And, -nodding, she left him. Immediately afterwards she had to sit down. - - - - - V - - In the Hills - - -When she at length returned to Felix and, squeezing through the outer -rings of gladiators against chance, touched him delicately on the -shoulder, he faced her with a bright youthful smile, and without any -surprise--it was plain to her that he had recognized her from the light -touch of her finger. - -"Do you want me to stop?" - -She nodded. - -He gathered his counters together and rose with alacrity. - -"You came in the nick of time," he said. "But, of course, you would! -I've been playing wild and I've made a thousand francs into rather more -than six thousand. It was the very moment to flee from the wrath that -was coming. Let's run, run, to the change-desk before I change my mind -and decide to begin to lose. That's the only insurance--getting rid of -the counters, because when you've got rid of 'em you're too ashamed with -yourself to get more." - -He was quite uplifted, so gaily preoccupied with his achievement that he -noticed nothing strange in her mien. She was glad that he noticed -nothing; and yet also she was sorry; she would have liked him, after a -single glance at her, to have said in his curt, quiet, assured manner: -"What's wrong?" - -She kept thinking, but not of Felix: "He must be very fickle and -capricious. I'm certain he was making love to _her_. He happens to see -me and off he runs after me! He can't be any good, with his debts and -things. I was right to give him the bird. But he's terribly nice, and -I don't care. I don't know what on earth's the matter with me. I think -I must be a bit mad, and always was. If I wasn't, should I be here?" - -Transiently she viewed herself as, for example, Gertie Jackson would -have viewed her. And then she saw another and a worse self and viewed -that other self as Lilian the staid and constant friend of Felix would -naturally view such an abandoned girl. She was afraid of and disgusted -by the possibilities discovered in the depths of her own mind. - -At the desk the dancing girl whom Felix had indicated as inhabiting -their hotel hurried up passionately and forestalled them. She threw -down two green counters, as it were in anger. - -"Can I play with _that_!" she exclaimed in cockney English. - -The changer handed her two hundred-franc notes, which she crumpled in -her hand. - -"I must find a hundred thousand francs from somewhere!" she cried, -departing. She was talking to herself. As she moved away a stout, -oldish man with a thick lower lip, pearl studs in his shirt-front, and a -gleaming white waistcoat, joined her, and they disappeared together. - -Lilian stared after her in amazement. Felix's winnings suddenly seemed -very insignificant. Still when he received six fine fresh -thousand-franc notes, besides some small notes, in exchange for -valueless discs, and handed to her one of the fine fresh notes--"That's -for saving me from myself!"--she was impressed anew. A palace of magic, -the baccarat rooms! The real thing, gambling! - -"What do you want to do now?" he asked. "Dance? No? Well, I'll do -anything you like, anything, the most absurd thing. Is that talking?" - -They were moving somewhat aimlessly down the grand staircase. - -"Felix, darling," she murmured, "let's go for a motor run in the hills. -There's a lovely moon. I should so love it." She desired to be alone -with him precisely as she had been alone with him in the taxi after -their first dinner. She had a fancy for just that and nothing else. -She pictured them together in the car, in the midst of gigantic nature -and in the brilliant night. - -"But it will be cold!" he protested. - -"It wasn't cold when we came in here--it was quite warm--you said so," -she replied softly. "But just as you please. I don't mind." And into -the acquiescent charm of her voice she dropped one drop of angelic -resentment--one single drop; not because he objected to gratifying her, -but because she knew he was merely fussing himself about his throat and -his health generally. - -"We'll go, by all means. It won't take long," he yielded -affectionately, without reserve. - -She pressed his arm. She had won. He began to suspect that she was -overwrought--perhaps by the first sight of the spectacle of gambling on -a great scale--and he soothed her accordingly. Half a dozen automobiles -were waiting and willing to take them into the hills. - -Before Lilian had regained full possession of herself they were clear of -the town, and continually ascending, in long curves. The night was -magnificent; through the close-shut windows of the car could be seen, -not the moon, which was on high, but the strong moonlight and sharp -shadows, and the huge austere contours of the hills; and here and there -a distant, steady domestic lamp. Lilian sat in her corner and Felix in -his, and a space separated them because of the width of the car. She -felt a peculiar constraint and could not reach the mood she wanted. - -"Felix," she said, "you heard that girl say she must have a hundred -thousand francs, how will she get it? How can she get it?" - -"She'll just disappear for a day or two, and then she'll come back with -it. I dare say she owes most of it already to the casino." - -"But who will give it her?" - -"Ah! That's her secret. There's always somebody in the background that -these charmers have made themselves indispensable to. When this -particular charmer tackles the particular man or men that she's -indispensable to, she'll have what she needs out of them if they've got -it to give. That's a certainty. If a man has hypnotized himself into -the belief that a girl's body is paradise, he'll win paradise and keep -paradise. He'll steal, commit murder, sell his wife and children, -abandon his parents to the workhouse; there's nothing he won't do. And -he'll do it even if she'll only let him kiss her feet. Of course, all -men aren't like that, but there are quite a few of 'em, and these -charmers always find 'em out. Trust them." - -"I couldn't see that there was anything very extraordinary in her." - -"Neither could I. But perhaps we're blind to what that fellow who's -going to fork out the hundred thousand francs sees. I dare say if I -were to dance with her I might have glimpses of his notion of her. -Anyhow, you bet she's a highly finished product; she's got great gifts -and great skill--must have--and she knows exactly what she's about--and -she looks eighteen and isn't above twenty-five. You must remember she's -on the way to being a star in the most powerful profession in the world. -They've made practically all the history there is, even in the East, and -they're still making it--making it this very night." - -There was a considerable silence, and then Lilian shot across the seat -and leaned heavily against Felix and clasped his neck. - -"Darling," she said, "I know I'm going to have a baby!" - -They could just see each other. Felix paused before replying. - -"Very well! Very well," he said calmly. "We shall see who's right." -Her thoughts concerning Lord Mackworth now seemed utterly incredible to -her in their mad aberration. - -The next moment the car swerved unexpectedly to the side of the mounting -road and the engine stopped; the chauffeur jumped down, opened the -bonnet, unstrapped one of the side lamps and peered with it into the -secrets under the bonnet. Felix, loosing himself from Lilian, rapped -sharply on the front window, but got no response from the bent -chauffeur. Then impatiently he tried to let down the window and could -not. He lifted it, shook it, rattled it, broke the fragile fastening of -the strap. Suddenly the window fell with a bang into its slit, and there -was a tinkling of smashed glass. - -"Damn it! I ought to have opened the door, but I was afraid of too much -cold." - -The icy air of the hills rushed like an assassin into the interior of -the car, Felix shivered, unlatched the door and got out. The chauffeur -proved to be an Italian, with no more French than sufficed to take -orders and receive fares and tips. He could give no intelligible -explanation of the breakdown, but he smiled optimistically. The car was -absolutely alone on the road, and the road was alone in the vast -implacable landscape. No light anywhere, except the chilly, dazzling -moon and the stars, and the glitter of a far range of god-like peaks, -whence came the terrible wind. The scene and situation intimidated. -The inhuman and negligent grandeur of nature was revealed. Felix -returned into the car and shut the door, but could not shut out the -cold. Lilian covered his chest with her warm bosom. Gently he pushed her -away. - -"No, no!" - -"Let me, darling!" - -"It's no use. I shall suffer for this." - -After a few minutes the engine was throbbing again, and they had begun -the descent. But no device could conjure away the ruthless night air. -Back at the hotel Felix took brandy and hot water, accepted Lilian's hot -water bag in addition to his own, and was in bed and thickly enveloped -in no time at all. Lilian kissed him guiltily and left him. He bade her -good night kindly but absently, engrossed in himself. - - - - - VI - - The Benefactress - - -When Lilian was alone in her room she thought anxiously: - -"Supposing he should want more brandy in the night--there is none!" - -The travelling flask was now empty. (In the emergency, hot water from -the lavatory-basin tap had been used to dilute the brandy. Felix having -said impatiently that any water would do so long as it was hot--hang a -few germs!) She had noticed that he would always take a little brandy -if he felt unwell from whatever cause, and this habit caused her no -uneasiness, for from her father she had acquired a firm belief in the -restorative qualities of brandy; even her mother would say how unwise it -was to "be without" brandy, and before starting for the annual domestic -holiday invariably attended herself to the provision of it. The lack of -brandy settled upon Lilian's mind, intensifying somehow her sense of -guilt. She felt deeply the responsibilities of the situation, which -became graver and graver to her--the more so as she had no real status -to deal with it. - -She wanted to ring the bell, but the bell was within a few yards of -Felix's door--he often complained on this score--and to ring might be to -wake him. Cautiously she stepped into the corridor, hoping to find -Jacqueline in the service-room at the end of the shabby little side -corridor where the bell and the room-indicator were. She knew the -French for brandy. The main corridor stretched away with an effect of -endlessness. In its whole length only two electric lights had been left -to burn. Solitude and silence made it mysteriously solemn. A pair of -boots, or two pairs of boots--one large, one small and dainty--here and -there on a door-mat seemed inexplicably to symbolize the forlornness of -humanity in the sight of the infinite. The beating of Lilian's heart -attracted her attention. Not without an effort could she cross the -magic and formidable corridor. The door of the service-room was locked. -No hope! Even Jacqueline had a bed somewhere and was asleep in it; and -brandy was as unattainable as on a coral island. - -Lilian felt the rough hair-lining of pleasure. The idea of her -insecurity frightened her. She perceived that a life of toil, -abstinence, deprivation and cold virginity had its advantages. Of -course, Felix was not going to be ill; but if he were, and if her -dreadful fears about her own condition were realized--what then? What -would happen? Were the moral maxims and strict practice of her parents -after all horribly true? The wages of sin, and all that sort of thing -... She heard steps in the distance of the corridor. She peeped. -Somebody was approaching. Had she time to cross and vanish into the -shelter of her room? She hesitated. The visitant was a woman. It was -the girl who in the baccarat rooms had talked of a hundred thousand -francs in a cockney accent, the girl whom Felix had described as -probably a rising star in the most powerful of professions. She too had -a bed, and was seeking it at last. - -"I expect there's no chance of getting hold of a servant to-night," said -Lilian meekly, as the girl instinctively paused in passing. - -The girl, staring sharply out of her artificially enlarged eyes, -shrugged the shoulders of negation at Lilian's simplicity. - -"Anything the matter?" - -"I only wanted some brandy. My"--'husband' she meant to say, but could -not frame the majestic word--"my friend's not very well. Chill. He's -had a very little brandy, and might need some more in the night." She -flushed. - -"Come along of me. I'll let you have some." What a harsh, rasping -little voice! - -The benefactress's bedroom was in a state of rich disorder that -astounded Lilian. The girl turned on every light in the chamber, banged -the door, and pushing some clothes off a chair told Lilian to sit down. -Drawers were open, cupboards were open, the wardrobe was open. Attire, -boxes, bottles, parcels, candles, parasols, illustrated comic papers, -novels with shiny coloured covers were strewn everywhere; and in a -corner a terrific trunk stood upright. The benefactress began ferreting -in drawers, and slamming them to one after another. - -"I'm afraid I'm putting you to a lot of trouble," said Lilian. "You're -very kind, I'm sure." - -"Not a bit of it. I never _can_ find anything.... I think us girls -ought to stand by each other, that's what I think. Not as we ever do!" -Her voice seemed to thicken, almost to break. - -Lilian felt as if the entire hotel had trembled under her feet, but she -gave no sign of shock; she desired the brandy, if it was to be had. "Us -girls"! - -"You _are_ French, aren't you? I only ask because you speak English so -well." - -After a moment the girl replied, her head buried in a drawer: - -"You bet I'm French. My mother sent me to a convent in London so as I -could learn English properly. It was one of them boarding convents -where you're free to do what you like so long as you're in by seven -o'clock. They wanted a few French girls for the chorus of a revue at -the Pavilion. Soon as I got in there I never went back to the convent, -and I've never seen ma since, either. I was in that chorus for a year. -Oh!" She produced an ingenious and costly travelling spirit-case, and -then searched for the key of it. - -"I wish I could speak French half as well as you speak English." - -"If I had half your face and your figure I'd give all my English to -anybody that cared to have it. Oh! Damn the key! Excuse me. Here you -are." She offered the disengaged flask. "Now you go along and take -what you want, and bring me the flask back." - -She stood in front of Lilian, who rose. She was as flat as Milly -Merrislate, and neither tall nor graceful. Every lineament of the pert -face so heavily masked in paint and powder, every gesture, the too -bright stockings, the gilded shoes, the impudent coiffure, the huge and -flashy rings, the square-dialled wrist-watch--all were crudely -symptomatic of an ingrained and unalterable vulgarity. Lilian was -absolutely unable to understand how any man, however coarse and cynical, -could find any charm of any kind in such a girl. But Lilian did not -know that intense vulgarity is in itself irresistible to certain -amateurs of women, and she was far too young really to appreciate the -sorcery of mere lithe youthfulness. - -"Why! What is it?" Lilian exclaimed, as she took the flask. - -Tears were ravaging the cheeks of the benefactress. - -"Oh! Damn!" The benefactress stamped her foot, and raised her thin, -loose, bare shoulders. "Gambling's it. I always lose here. It's all -shemmy here, and when you win at shemmy you take other people's money, -not the bank's, and that puts me off like at the start. And you never -win if you don't feel as if you were going to. I was at Monte Carlo -last week, and you sh'd've seen me at roulette, taking the casino money. -I couldn't do wrong. But I had to come back here, and there you are! -Lost it all and a lot more!" She was speaking through her tears. -"Cleaned out to-night! Naked! You see, it's like this. Gambling gives -you an emotion. It's the only thing there is for that--I mean for me.... -Did you see that fat beast speak to me to-night in the casino? Well, he -said something to me and offered me ten thousand francs, and I slapped -his face for him in the entrance-hall. He knew I was stony. I was a -fool. Why shouldn't I have done what he wanted? What's it matter? But -no! I'm like that, and I slapped his face, and I'd do it again, I -would!! He's Scapini, you know, the biggest shareholder in both the big -hotels here. I tore it, I did! And, would you believe, I'd no sooner -got in here afterwards than the manager told me I must leave to-morrow -morning. It was all over the place as quick as that! I've only got to -go to Paris to get all the money I want. Yes. But I'd sell myself for -a year to be able to pay my bill straight off in the morning and cheek -'em. It'll be near a thousand francs, and I haven't got ten francs, -besides having the whole bally town against me." She laughed and threw -her head back. "Here! You go along. Don't listen to me. It's not the -first time, neither the last. Go along now." - -"I'm very sorry," said Lilian. She simply could not conceive that the -girl, possibly no older than herself, was standing alone and unaided -against what was to her the universe. How could these girls do it? What -was the quality in them that enabled them to do it? - -She was in the intimidating, silent, mystery-hiding corridor again. She -listened at the door, which she had left ajar, between the bathroom and -Felix's bedroom. No sound! In the solacing, perfect tidiness of her -room, she poured some of the brandy into a glass, and then, taking her -bag, returned to the benefactress. - -"Here's your flask, thank you very much!" she said. "And here's a -thousand francs, if it's any use to you." She produced the note which -Felix had given to her. The money was accepted, greedily. - -"If you're here in a week's time, in five days, you'll have it back," -said the benefactress, looking at her wrist-watch. "No! It's too late -to go and play again now!" She giggled. "Tell me your name. You can -trust _me_. I don't believe you're real, though! You couldn't be. -There aren't such girls--anyhow at your age." She stopped, and gave a -tremendous youthful sigh. "Ah!" she exclaimed, "if only I was dead. I -often dream of lying in my grave--eternal peace, eternal peace! No -emotions! No men! Quite still! Stretched straight out! Quiet for ever -and ever! Eternal peace! D'you know I've been like that all my life? -My God!" - -Lilian burst into tears, agonized. The original benefactress flung -herself at the other benefactress with amazing violence, and they -kissed, weeping. - -A quarter of an hour later the defier of Scapini murmured: - -"I wish to heaven I could do something for _you_!" - -Lilian answered: - -"I wish you'd tell me how you stain your skin that lovely Spanish -colour." - -And she immediately received, not merely the instructions, but the -complete materials necessary for the operation. - - - - - VII - - The Doctor - - -When she awoke the next morning after a very few hours' sleep, she did -so suddenly, to a full consciousness of her situation, and not little by -little, passing by gradual stages to realization, as was her wont. She -listened; no sound came through the two half-open doors. The brandy had -not been needed. Perhaps he was asleep; perhaps he had had a good night -and was perfectly restored. She rose, unfastened the window and very -quietly pushed back the shutters. It was raining. Just as she was, her -hair loose and the delicate and absurd rag of a nightdress all untied, -she surveyed herself sternly in the mirror. She was well content with -her beauty. Impossible to criticize it! In every way she was far more -beautiful than the nameless woman whom she had befriended and who had -befriended her. - -Partly because she had been generous to her, she felt sympathy for the -girl. The phrase "us girls" stung her still, but it was not ill meant; -in fact, it was a rather natural phrase, and no doubt already her -acquaintance must have perceived how wrong it was. She admired the girl -for her fierce defiance and courage, and for the intense passion with -which she had desired the grave. "Stretched straight out! Quiet for -ever and ever!" Startling and outrageous words, in that harsh young -voice; but there was something fine about them! ("I may say the same -one day soon," Lilian thought solemnly.) Moreover, she understood -better the power of the girl, whose kiss and clasp had communicated to -her a most disconcerting physical thrill. Indeed, it seemed to her that -she was on the threshold of all sorts of new comprehensions. Finally -she had astonished the girl by the grand loan; she had shone; she had -pleased; she had satisfied her instinct to give pleasure. She thought: - -"She may be stronger than I am, and cleverer; but she is very silly and -I am not. And I'm not weak either, even if some people take me for -weak." - -It was disturbing, though, how that phrase pricked and pricked: "Us -girls." Little flames shot up from the ashes of her early and abandoned -religion. "The wages of sin--the wages of sin." Was it true about the -wages of sin? Was she to be punished? The great, terrible fear of -conception still dominated her soul; and it grew hourly. At each -disappointing dawn the torture of it increased. She saw the powders and -preparations which the courtesan had given her; she recalled the minute -directions for the use of them, and smiled painfully. How could the -prospective mother employ such devices? Nevertheless, if she escaped, -she would employ them as soon as Felix was better. She knew that Felix -would delight in the perverse, provocative transformation, and she -yearned to gratify him afresh in a novel manner. When the surprise came -upon him he would pretend that it was nothing; but he would be -delighted, he would revel in it. - -Putting on her peignoir she slipped noiselessly into the other bedroom, -and crept up to the bed. Needless precaution; Felix was wide awake, -staring at the ceiling. Before speaking she tenderly kissed him, and -kept her face for a moment on his. - -"Better?" - -"Had an awful night. Couldn't sleep a wink. I won't get up just yet. -Order me tea instead of coffee. We'll go out after lunch, not before." - -"Do you think you ought to go out, dearest?" - -"Of course I ought to go out," he snapped peevishly. - -"It's raining." - -"Oh, well, if it's raining I dare say I shan't want to go out." He -placed his hand nervously on his right breast. - -"Does it hurt you?" - -"Not at all. Can't I touch myself?" - -She kissed him again. Then he gazed at her with love, as she moved over -him to ring the bell. - -"You all right?" - -"Oh, splendid! I listened once or twice at the door, but as I didn't -hear anything I made sure you were asleep." - -She kept silence about her awful, persistent fear, knowing that any -reference to it would only irritate him. He was more than ever like a -child--and a captious child. She realized the attitude of his sister -towards him. Thank God he was better! If he had fallen ill she would -have condemned herself as a criminal for life, for her insane, selfish -suggestion of an excursion to the hills at night. Not he, but she, was -the child. - -After his tea he did get up and dress; but he would not descend to -lunch; nor eat in the bedroom. At three o'clock he said that when it -rained on the Riviera the climate was the most damnable on earth, and -that he preferred to be in bed. And to bed he returned. Then Lilian -noticed him fingering his breast again. - -"Any pain there?" - -"Oh! Nothing. Nothing. Only a sort of sensation." - -Soon afterwards he gave a few very faint, short, dry coughs--scarcely -perceptible efforts to clear the throat. And at the same Lilian went -cold. She knew that cough. She had helped to nurse her father. It was -the affrighting pneumonia cough. Almost simultaneously it occurred to -her that Felix was trying to hide from her a difficulty in breathing. -She had not dreamed of anything so bad as pneumonia, which for her was -the direst of all diseases. And she with a plan for dyeing her skin to -amuse and excite him! ... She had thought of a severe chill at the -worst. - -She hurried downstairs to see the concierge. The lift was too slow in -coming up for her; she had to run down the flights of carpeted steps one -after another. The main question on her mind was: "Ought I to telegraph -to his sister?" If Miss Grig arrived, what would, what could happen to -herself? The concierge--a dark, haughty, long-moustached, somewhat -consumptive subject--adored Lilian for her beauty, and she had rewarded -his worship with exquisite smiles and tones. - -"Would you like the English doctor, madam?" said he. - -"_Is_ there an English doctor here?" She was immensely relieved. She -would be able to talk to an English doctor, whereas a French doctor with -his shrugs and science, and understanding nothing you said.... - -"Surely, madam! I will telephone at once, madam. He shall be here in -one quarter hour. I know where he is. He is a very good doctor." - -"Oh, thank you!" Concierges were marvellous persons. - -As soon as she had gone again the concierge made all the pages tremble. -It was the thwarted desire to kneel at Lilian's feet and kiss her divine -shoes that caused him to terrorize the pages. - -As for telegraphing to Miss Grig, she decided that obviously she could -send no message till the doctor had examined and reported. In regard to -the hotel authorities and servants she now had no shame. She alone was -responsible for Felix's welfare, and she would be responsible, and they -must all think what they liked about her relations with him. She did -not care. - -The concierge was indeed marvellous, for in less than twenty minutes -there was a knock at Felix's door. Lilian opened, saw a professional -face with hair half sandy, half grey, and, turning to Felix, murmured: - -"It's the doctor, darling." - -Felix, to whom she had audaciously said not a word about sending for a -doctor, actually sat up, furious. - -"I'm not going to see a doctor," he gasped. "I'm not going to see any -doctor." - -"Come in, doctor, please." - -The moment was dramatic. Felix of course was beaten. - -"You'll find me in the next room, doctor," she said, after a minute, and -the doctor bowed. In another ten minutes the doctor entered her -bedroom. - -"It's a mild attack of pneumonia," said he, standing in front of her. -"Very mild. I can see no cause for anxiety. You'd better have a nurse -for the night." - -"I would sooner sit up myself," Lilian answered. "I've nursed pneumonia -before." - -"Then have a nurse for the day," the doctor suggested. "I can get an -English one from the Alexandra Hospital--a very good one. She might -come in at once and stay till ten o'clock, say." Then he proceeded to -the treatment, prescriptions, and so on.... An English nurse! - -Lilian felt extraordinarily grateful and reassured. She knew where she -was now. She was in England again. - -"Ought I to telegraph home?" she asked. - -"I shouldn't if I were you," the doctor replied. "Better to wait for a -day or two. Telegrams are so disturbing, aren't they?" - -His gentle manner was inexpressibly soothing. It was so soothing that -just as he was leaving she kept him back with a gesture. - -"Doctor, before you go, I wish you would do something for me." And she -sat down, her face positively burning and shed tears. - -In the night, as she sat with Felix, the patient's condition -unquestionably improved. He even grew cheerful and laudatory. - -"You're a great girl," he muttered weakly but firmly. "I know I was -most absurdly cross, but I'm a rotten invalid." - -She looked at him steadily, and, her secret resolve enfeebled by his -surprising and ravishing appreciation, she let forth, against the -dictates of discretion, the terrific fact which was overwhelming her and -causing every fibre in her to creep. - -"It's true what I told you." - -"What?" - -"You know----" (A pause.) - -"How do you know it's true?" - -"The doctor----" - -His reception of the tidings falsified every expectation. He waited a -moment, and then said calmly: - -"That's all right. I'll see to that." - -She did not kiss him, but, sitting on the bed, put her head beside his -on the pillow. Seen close, his eyelashes appeared as big as horsehairs -and transcendently masculine. She tasted the full, deep savour of life -then, moveless, in an awkward posture, in the midst of the huge sleeping -hotel. She had no regrets, no past, only a future. - - - - - VIII - - Marriage - - -Lilian went to bed in the morning, not only with the assurance that -Felix was in no danger, but with his words echoing in her heart: "We -shall get married--here--the moment I'm fit." She was nursing his body; -he was nursing her mind. He had realized at once, of course, that the -situation was completely altered, and that he had now one sole duty--his -duty towards her. And, moreover, he had cared for her pride--had not -used the least word or even inflection to indicate that she was -absolutely dependent on his good nature. The very basis of his attitude -towards her was that he and she were indivisible in the matter. She -rose about two o'clock, and she had scarcely got out of bed when the -Irish nurse, Kate O'Connor, tapped at her door, and having received -permission to enter, came in with a conspiratorial air. - -"I heard you stirring. He's going on splendidly," said the glinting-eye -Kate, clad from head to foot in whitest white. "But he sent me out of -the room after we'd had our little talk with Dr. Samson, and the doctor -stayed some while afterwards. Then there came another gentleman--French -gentleman--and I was sent out again. He told me not to say anything to -you, and I promised I wouldn't; but naturally I must tell you." - -Lilian thanked her undisturbed, guessing that Felix was at work upon the -arrangements for the marriage. In the night he had asked her: "Where -were you born? What parish?" And on her inquiring why he wanted to -know he had replied casually: "Oh, it's nothing. Just curiosity." But -she had not been deceived. She understood him--how he loved to plan and -organize their doings by himself, saying naught. - -The fact was that he had been asking the doctor about local lawyers, -and, having learned what he desired, he had sent for the most suitable -_avoue_, and put into his hands all the business of the marriage of two -British subjects in a French town. Apparently, as he had foreseen, the -chief documents required were the birth certificates of himself and -Lilian, and he had telegraphed for these to his own solicitor in London. - -Lilian continued to receive no information concerning the progress of -the formalities, and she sought for none. She lived in a state of -contemplation. Her anxieties, except the vague, wonderful, and -semi-mystical anxiety of far-off motherhood had been dissipated. She -was uplifted; she had a magnificent sense of responsibility, which gave -her a new dignity, gravity and assurance. Kate O'Connor called her -"madam," and referred to her as "madam," especially when speaking to -Felix. The assumption underlying the behaviour of everybody was that -she was Felix's wife. As for the French lawyer, she never even saw him. - -Meanwhile Felix's recovery was unexpectedly slow, and he went through -several slight relapses. Now and then his voice was suddenly become -hoarse and faint, and with the same suddenness it resumed the normal. -At length he grew cantankerous. The two women were delighted, telling -each other that this crotchetiness was a certain sign of strength. One -day he got up and dressed fully and sat at the window for half an hour, -returning to bed immediately afterwards. The same evening he convinced -Lilian that there was no more need for her to watch through the night. - -The next morning when Lilian entered his room the nurse was not there. - -"I've sent her off," Felix explained. "I much prefer to have you with -me than any nurse on earth." He was dressed before ten-thirty. "Now -put your things on," said he. - -"What for? I don't want to go out." - -"We're going out together. Look what a fine day it is! We're going to -be married at eleven o'clock, at the _mairie_. Now hurry up." His -voice hardened into a command. - -"But--but does Dr. Samson agree to you going out?" she asked, quite -over-taxed. - -"Samson doesn't know, as it happens; but if he did of course he'd -agree." - -She might have refused to go. But could she refuse to go and be -married--she, the bearer of his child? She perceived that he had been -too clever for her, had trapped her, in his determination to regularize -her situation at the earliest possible moment. She forced a timid smile -and covered him up for the journey. - -The lift-boy smiled a welcome to him. The concierge was the very symbol -of attentive deference, and in the carriage enveloped Lilian's feet with -the rug as though they had been two precious jewels--as they were. The -manager himself made a majestic appearance, and shot out congratulations -like stars from a Roman candle. And the weather was supremely gorgeous. - -At the _mairie_ waited the _avoue_ and his clerk, who were to act as -witnesses. The _avoue_ and Felix talked to dirty and splendid -officials; Felix and Lilian signed papers. - -"Now _you_'ve only got one thing to do," said Felix. "When I nudge you, -say, '_Oui, monsieur le maire_.'" - -They were inducted into the sanctuary of celebration, and Lilian saw a -fat gentleman wearing the French national flag for a waistband. It -would have been very comical had it not been so impressive. The ceremony -started, Lilian understanding not a word. Felix nudged her. She -murmured: "_Oui, monsieur le maire_." ... The ceremony closed. -Immediately afterwards Felix handed her a sort of little tract in a -yellowish-brown cover. - -"You're married now, and if anybody says you aren't, show 'em this." - -The _avoue_ was tremendous with bows and smiles. They drove back to the -hotel. They were in the bedroom. Lilian took Felix apprehensively by -the shoulders. - -"Oh, darling. You're sure it hasn't done you any harm?" - -"And that's not quite all. There's my will," said he. "Ring the bell." - -He spoke to Jacqueline, who after a few minutes brought in an English -valet and an English lady's maid. Felix was set upon having his will -witnessed by people with English addresses. He silently gave Lilian the -will to read. He had written it himself. In three lines it bestowed -upon her all that was his. Not a syllable about his sister. Well, that -was quite right, because Miss Grig had means of her own. Sitting in the -easy chair, with a blotting-pad on his knees, Felix signed the will. -Then the valet and the lady's maid signed, with much constraint and -flourish. Felix gave them fifty francs apiece, and dismissed them. - -"Put that with your marriage certificate," he said to Lilian, folding up -the will and offering it to her. "I think I'll get back to bed. -Exhausting work, being married!" He laughed shortly. "I'm going to -sleep," he said later, after he had eaten and drunk. "You be off -downstairs and have your lunch." - -But, of course, she could not go downstairs. She dropped into her bed, -staggered by the swift evolution of her career. Staggered by it! Lo! -She was a typewriting girl wearing wristlets, poor, hopeless, with no -prospects. A little while, and lo! she was the wife of a rich and -brilliant adorer, and an honest man in whom her trust was absolute. And -she was pregnant. Strange fear invaded her mind, the ancient fear that -too much happiness is a crime that destiny will punish. - - - - - IX - - The Widow - - -"Felix seriously ill; double pneumonia; we are married.--Lilian Grig." -Ten words, plus Isabel's address and her own! She wrote the telegram -after several trials, in her bedroom, on half a sheet of the hotel -notepaper, Kate O'Connor standing by her side, the next morning but one. - -"Give it me," said the white nurse. "I'll see to it for you, Mrs. Grig, -as I go home." - -She looked up at the nurse, and the nurse, eyes no longer laughing, -looked down at her. The nurse knew everything, and, moreover, must have -assisted at scores of tragedies; yet Lilian regarded her as an innocent -who understood nothing essential in life. Her comforting kiss was like -the kiss of a very capable child pretending to be grown up. - -Voices in the other bedroom! The doctor had arrived and was talking to -the second nurse. They went in together. Felix lay a changed man, -horribly aged. He was a man who had suddenly learned that in order to -live it was necessary to breathe, and that breathing may be an intensely -difficult operation of mechanics. His lined, wrinkled face was drawn -with the awful anxieties incident to breathing, and with the acute pain -in both lungs. The enemy was growing in strength and Felix was losing -strength, but he could not surrender. He must continue to struggle, -despite the odds, and there was no referee to stop the fight, either on -the ground that it had developed into an assassination or on any other -ground. The brutality had to proceed. And the sun streamed through the -window; and outside, from the promenade where the idlers were strolling -and the band was playing, the window looked exactly the same as all the -other windows of the enormous hotel. - -After an examination, Dr. Samson injected morphia. The result was -almost instantaneous. The victim, freed from the anxiety of the pain, -could devote the whole of his energy to breathing. He sighed, and -smiled as if he had entered paradise. He gave a few short, faint -coughs, like the cough of a nervous veiled woman in church, and said in -a hoarse, feeble, whispering voice: - -"You must understand, doctor, it was all my fault. I insisted, and what -could she do?" The two nurses modestly bent their gaze. - -"Yes, yes," the doctor concurred. - -Felix had already made the same announcement several times. - -"But I want everybody to know," he persisted. - -"Yes, yes," said the doctor. "I shall give you some oxygen this -morning. It will be here in a minute. That will do you a lot of good. -You'll see." - -Lilian was the calmest person in the room. She had decided that there -was no hope, and had braced herself and become matter-of-fact. She was -full of health, power, and magnificent youth, and the living seed of -Felix was within her. She quietly kissed Felix on his damp cheek; no -gold now glistened in his half-empty mouth. She returned to her own -bedroom, and Dr. Samson followed. - -"He's much worse," she said firmly to the doctor. - -"He is not better," said the doctor. "But there is always hope." - -She glanced sadly at the soft and mournful face of the middle-aged -doctor. Nurse Kate had told her the story of the doctor, who was a -widower and solitary and possibly consumptive, and on account of his -lungs practised on the Riviera during the winter. The vast tragedy of -the world obsessed her; there was no joy nor pleasure in the whole -world, and the ceaseless activities of gaiety that wearied the hotel and -the Casino and the town and the neighbouring towns seemed to her -monstrous, pathetic, and more tragic even than Felix's bed. - -For five days she cabled daily to Miss Grig, and got nothing in reply. -Felix's strength consistently waned. And neither morphia nor oxygen -could help him more than momentarily. Jacqueline, the nurses, the -doctor, treated Lilian as a holy madonna. They all exclaimed at her -marvellous stedfastness. The manager of the hotel paid a decorous call -of inquiry--though it was apparent that he was already familiar with -every detail--and he, too, treated Lilian as a holy madonna. Two days -later, in the evening, just after Nurse Kate had come on duty, Felix -held out his hand for his wife's hand, and, casting off his frightful -physical preoccupation, said in a normal voice: - -"Everything's in order. Don't be an idle woman, my poor girl." - -She dropped on her knees, and throwing her arms on his body, cried: - -"Darling, I've killed you!" (The thought that she had brought about his -death was her continual companion.) But Felix, utterly absorbed again -in the ghastly effort to breathe, had no ears for the wild outburst. In -the night he died. He had written a short note to his sister before the -great relapse, and since then had not even mentioned her. - - - - - X - - The Wreath - - -Dr. Samson sat late with Lilian in her bedroom the next night. It was -the middle of the night. He was taller than Felix, and not so old; his -face was more flat and milder, but there was something in his expression -and about the wrinkles round his eyes that reminded her of Felix, and he -had attached himself to her to serve her; his mournful gaze appealed to -her. It was he who had made her understand that death in a hotel -devoted to gaiety was an indiscretion, a lapse from good taste that must -be carefully hidden. He stood faithfully between her and the world, the -captive of her beauty, wanting no reward but the satisfaction of having -helped her. - -Not that much help was needed. The routine of such episodes was -apparently fixed. Things moved of themselves. All requirements seemed -to be met automatically. There was even an English cemetery in the -region. Early on the morning after the death a young woman in black had -called to present the card of a great Paris shop with a branch in the -town, and by the evening Lilian was dressed in black. The layer-out had -arrived earlier yet than the dressmaker. Dr. Samson had interviewed the -manager of the hotel. An important part of the routine was that the -whole of the furniture of Felix's room should be removed, and the room -refurnished at the cost of the representative of the dead. Dr. Samson -settled the price. Lilian decided to give the old furniture to the -Alexandra Hospital. The doctor had volunteered to finance Lilian till -she should be back in London; but afterwards the equivalent of nearly -four hundred pounds in French and English money was discovered in -Felix's dispatch-case, the inside of which Lilian had never seen. The -doctor had also sent off the telegram to the mute Miss Grig: "Felix died -in the night; am returning London immediately," and got the railway -ticket, and accomplished the legal formalities preliminary to the -burial, and warned the English chaplain, and ordered a gravestone in a -suitable design and taken Lilian's wishes as to the inscription thereon. -Nothing remained to be done but wait. Lilian was quietly packing; the -doctor sat watchful to assist. They both heard a noise in the next room; -and at the noise Lilian was at last startled from her calm. The moment, -then, had come. Dr. Samson went first. The room, which ought to have -been in darkness, was lighted, and not by electricity but by two -candles, one on either side of the bed. - -"Who has done this?" Lilian murmured, and gave a sob. - -The door into the corridor was locked; to keep it locked had been part -of the unalterable routine. Therefore the candles could only have been -brought by somebody on the staff of the hotel. The next instant -Jacqueline entered, through the bathroom. She was weeping. - -"Pardon me, madam. I couldn't go to bed. I couldn't sleep. And I -thought of the candles. It was too much for me. I had to bring them. -If I was wrong, pardon me.... _They_ will be here soon." She threw -herself down on her knees at the foot of the bed. She had spoken in -French. The doctor interpreted. - -"Tell her I thank her very much," said Lilian, "and ask her to go to -bed. She'll have her work to do to-morrow, poor thing!" - -Jacqueline rose. Lilian took her hand and turned away. - -"And this came," Jacqueline added, pointing to a package in tissue-paper -that lay on a chair. "The night porter has only just brought it up, and -as I was coming in with the candles...." - -Lilian removed the tissue-paper and saw a magnificent wreath of lilies, -far finer than anything in her experience, a wreath for an imperial -monarch. In the middle was a white envelope. She opened the envelope; -it contained two French bank-notes for five hundred francs each. No -signature! Not a word! - -"She has got her money," thought Lilian. "How?" And, placing the wreath -on Felix's feet, she burst into tears. - -Jacqueline had vanished. Suddenly Lilian began to stride to and fro -across the room. She was full of youth and force. She was full of fury -and resentment. The moving muscles of her splendid, healthy body could -be discerned through her black dress. She frightened the doctor. - -"Ah!" she cried, with a gesture towards the wreath, "she is the only one -that understands that I don't _want_ to be comforted! Nobody else has -understood. I expect she just heard that he was dead, and she doesn't -know that I killed him; but she understood. _She_ understood." The -doctor, quite mystified, seized her arm to soothe her, and was -astonished at her strength as she shook him off. She was like a tigress. -Nevertheless, she let herself be persuaded to follow him into her own -room. There her eye caught the toilet preparations which the courtesan -had bestowed on her. - -"And she gave me these!" Lilian laughed, hesitated, and added fiercely: -"I will take them back with me! I will never use them, but I will keep -them for ever and ever!" And she cast them into one of the open trunks. -Then she said calmly: "Of course I know it was because of the window of -the car being broken, and it would have been all right if the engine -hadn't stopped. But it was my silly, silly idea to go out for a drive -at night.... I can't help it! I did kill him! He'd have been alive -now if I hadn't behaved myself like a perfect child!" - -The doctor offered no remark. She resumed all her old tranquillity, -wiping her eyes carefully with a fine, tiny handkerchief that Felix had -given her. The bearers arrived a quarter of an hour later--discreet, -furtive and sinister. The hotel slept in its vastness. All gaiety was -asleep. But even if some devoted slave of dissipation had surprised -them on their way back, he could not have guessed that it was a coffin -they bore. The doctor, by using his professional prestige, kept Lilian -in her own room till the bearers were nearly ready to depart with more -than they had brought. She went into the mortuary. The coffin was -disguised. Picking up the wreath, which had been forgotten or -intentionally left, she placed it upon the coffin and beneath the -disguise. It lay there alone in its expensive grandeur. The bearers -withdrew with their burden, tiptoeing along the dim, silent corridor -lest revellers should be disturbed from well-earned, refreshing sleep -and open their doors to see what was afoot in the night. The cortege -was lost to view round the corner at the end of the corridor. The -doctor remained a little while, and he also prepared to go. The two -nurses Lilian would never see again. - -"You should go to bed now and try to sleep. I'll call for you in good -time to-morrow for the funeral." - -Lilian shook her head. - -"No, I'm going to pack his things now." She stood at the door of his -room, and watched the doctor also disappear from view round the corner -at the end of the corridor. - - - - - PART IV - - - I - - The Return - - -It was early in July, on one of those long summer evenings of which the -melancholy twilight seems determined never to end, that Lilian, from -Victoria Station, drove up to her late husband's house, now her own. -The events leading to the arrival, and giving it a most poignant -dramatic quality, had one after another as they occurred impressed -everybody concerned as being very strange and sinister; but seen in -perspective they took on a rather ordinary complexion. - -At the very moment of leaving the Riviera Lilian had heard that Miss -Grig, on her way to the South to see Felix, had been detained in Paris -by serious ptomaine poisoning due to food eaten at home. Had Miss Grig -been able to get a berth in the through Calais-Mediterranee express, she -might well have died in the train; but she had not been able to get a -berth, and had travelled by a service which necessitated crossing Paris -by taxi. She never did cross Paris. Railway officials carried her to -the Hotel Terminus, and medical aid was obtained just in time. For -several days she was lost, like a mislaid and helpless parcel in the -international post. As soon as she could move again she returned home, -for Felix was by then dead and buried. - -Lilian, on her part, did travel towards London by the through -Calais-Mediterranee express, alighting at Calais extremely exhausted -after twenty-eight hours on the railway. A gale was raging in the -Channel. The steamer failed to enter Dover, a colossal harbour -constructed in defiance of common sense for the inconvenience of -seafarers, and put in at Folkestone. This detail changed the course of -Lilian's journey. She was lifted ashore suffering acutely from sickness -and nervous shock caused by the storm. At Dover she would assuredly not -have remained more than a day or two; but Folkestone is a health-resort, -and, installed in a big hotel on the Leas, she was tempted to let week -drift after week in languid and expectant meditation. Felix's solicitor -came down several times from London to see her and take her -instructions. From him she had news of Miss Grig and of the business; -but she neither saw Miss Grig nor heard from her; the silence between -the two mourners was absolute; and Lilian would not be the first to -break it; moreover, there was no official need for letters to pass, each -party being always well informed of the situation through the medium of -the lawyer. At the close of the Riviera season Lilian had a flattering -surprise. Dr. Samson the faithful came to see her in Folkestone. He -was staying at another hotel. He desired nothing, hoped for nothing, -except to exhibit his fidelity. She had in him someone upon whom she -could exercise her instinct to please, and to whom she could talk about -the unique qualities of Felix. But also she had grown capricious and -uncertain in temper. Perceiving at once that her little outbursts -charmed and delighted him, she did not check them, but rather bestowed -them upon him as favours; and the gloomy, fretful, transformed girl in -unbecoming black played with some spirit the role of spoiled virgin from -whom a suppliant adorer anticipates one day complete surrender. It was -touching and at the same time comical. - -As spring glowed into summer two factors gradually decided Lilian to -proceed to London. Visitors increased in Folkestone; the Leas were no -longer a desert, and she didn't care to be much remarked. And further, -Dr. Samson advised her to have her child in London, and to settle there -well in advance of the ordeal. He suggested more than one house; but -Lilian would listen to no counsel on this matter. She gave out sharply -that she would have Felix's child in Felix's house, which was her -house--and nowhere else. The ever-silent Miss Grig was still there, but -Lilian had no objection to her staying there. She knew what was due to -her husband's sister. She sent for the solicitor and invited him to -make all the arrangements, and to report when he had done so. In due -course she journeyed to London, deliberately missing train after train -on the day of departure. Dr. Samson accompanied her to the doorstep of -her house and Felix's, he paid the taxi-driver, and then he shook hands -and vanished. She wished to present herself alone, and to this end had -postponed ringing the bell until all that Dr. Samson could do was done. - -The facade of the house had been modernized, not untastefully, and was -different from nearly all the other houses in Montpelier Square. The -front door was of a rich, deep blue. The curtains of the windows had -individuality. Lilian looked the facade up and down and from side to -side. She had not even seen the house before; no, nor yet the Square. -Felix! It was all Felix. "Felix" was written right across it. And it -was hers--at any rate, the lease of the house was hers! It belonged to -none but herself. She knew the fact, but could not imaginatively grasp -it, and the effort to grasp it made her feel faint with emotion. She -was frightened, she was proud, she was ashamed, she was defiant, she was -almost sick. - -"Why did I insist on coming here like this?" she thought. "No girl was -ever in such a position before!" - -The blue door opened, as it were the door of a chamber of unguessed -tortures. A flush spread slowly over Lilian's face. - -"Now," she thought, "now I am in the middle of it all, and can't go -back." - -A parlourmaid stood in the doorway--tall, stiff, prim, perfect--such a -creature as would have refused to recognize for fellow-creatures the -cook-generals of Putney. Her mature, hard face relaxed into the minimum -of a ceremonial smile. - -"Oh, good evening!" said Lilian awkwardly, no better than a typewriting -girl, and stepped into the house. - -"Good evening'm," said the parlourmaid, and, as she realized Lilian's -condition the face relented still further and its smile flickered into -genuineness. Though her eyes and mouth showed that she was virtuous to -the verge of insanity, she seemed to be moved, in spite of herself, by -the spectacle of languid and soft and mourning Lilian. - -"Miss Grig wished me to say that she is engaged for the moment. She was -expecting you earlier in the day. And shall I show you the principal -bedroom? And if you have any orders.... Yes'm,"--following Lilian's -glance at her trunks piled in the porch--"we've got a young man in as -will see to them." - -Lilian sat down on an old carved chair with a wooden seat. How -characteristic and horrid of Miss Grig not to be ready to receive her! -Not that she, Lilian, the mistress of the house, needed a reception from -anyone! Certainly not! This notion braced and fortified her. A young -man did appear fussily from the dark basement staircase, and pulled the -trunks one after another within the house. The front door was then -shut. The hall and upward staircase were already gently lighted for the -evening. Beautiful silk shades over the two lamps! Not a very large -house, nor very luxurious! But the carpets, furniture, and pictures had -for Lilian just the peculiar distinction which she had hoped for. They -recalled the illustrations of interiors in _The Studio_ which used to -come every month to Putney; and they were utterly different from the -Putney furniture. Felix! All Felix! No Miss Grig! Impossible that -there should be a trace of Miss Grig anywhere! This interior had been -Felix's habitation. In a sense it was the history of Felix, his mind, -his taste. She would have to study it, to learn it. - -This interior was the first family interior she had seen since Putney. -She was entering it after a period of awful lodging-houses and garish -impersonal hotels. It was touchingly beautiful to her. The baby should -be born in it, should grow up in it, should know it as the home of -memory.... Then it became a vision, a hallucination, and the owning of -it became an illusion. How could she own it? Only yesterday Miss Grig -had thrown her out of Clifford Street with ten days' wages for a weapon -to fight the whole world with. All that had happened since was untrue -and hadn't happened. - -"I'll go upstairs," she said coldly to the parlour-maid. She had to be -cold in order to be dignified. Milly Merrislate used to pose like that -sometimes. The resemblance annoyed her, but what could she do in her -weakness against the power of the situation? She did as best she might. - -On the first floor the parlourmaid, switching lights off and on, said: - -"This is the bathroom and so on." - -"Yes. That is Miss Grig's room," in a hushed voice. - -Lilian murmured no affirmative at the face of the shut door; her eyes -had a gleam of cruelty, and involuntarily her hands clenched. The house -began to grow enormous, endless. - -"This is the principal bedroom." They went into it. Curtains drawn. -Two soft lights. A narrowish bed. The dressing-table naked. A -wonderful easy-chair. Polished surfaces everywhere. Cunning, mild -tints--the whole mysteriously beautiful. Felix! She sank into the -easy-chair, drawing off her black gloves. Another maid and the young -man were bumping the trunks up the stairs. - -"Will you have everything brought in here'm?" - -"Please." She asked that two of the trunks should be pushed under the -bed; they were Felix's. The other maid and the young man departed. - -"Will you take anything'm?" - -"No, thank you." - -The parlourmaid softened again. - -"Some tea and some nice bread-and-butter?" - -Lilian gave a smile of appreciation, and thought: - -"I will make this girl fond of me." - -"Up here'm?" - -"Yes, please." - -She was alone. The room was full of secrets. She opened a wardrobe, and -started back; it held Felix's suits. She gazed at herself in the mirror -of the naked dressing-table; tears were slipping down her wasted white -cheeks. Mechanically she pulled at a drawer. Neckties, scores of them, -neatly arranged. Could one man have possessed so many neckties? She -picked up a necktie at random, striped in violent colours. She did not -know, and could not have known, that the colours were those of a famous -school club. She was entirely ignorant of the immense, the unparalleled -prestige of club colours in the organized life of the ruling classes. -Mechanically again, she put the necktie to her mouth, nibbled at it, bit -it passionately, voluptuously; the feel of the woven stuff thrilled her; -and that club necktie was understood, comprehended, realized, as no club -necktie ever before in all the annals of the sacred public-school -tradition. Lilian sobbed like a child. The parlourmaid entered with -the tea and the nice bread-and-butter, and saw the child munching the -necktie, and was shaken in the steely citadel of her virtue. - -"You'll feel better when you've drunk this'm," said the parlourmaid -lumpily, pouring out some tea. "Hadn't you better sit down'm? ... It -won't do for you to tire yourself." - -God! The highly-trained girl so far forgot herself as to spill a tear -into the milk-jug! - - - - - II - - Miss Grig - - -Lilian, having fulfilled the prophecy of the parlour-maid and felt -better after drinking the tea, had just released her shoulders from her -dust cloak and dropped her forlorn little hat on the carpet, when she -heard a firm, light tap. - -"May I come in?" - -Miss Grig entered and shut the door carefully. - -Lilian tried to get up from the low easy chair. - -"Please! Please! Don't move. You must be exhausted." - -Miss Grig advanced and shook hands. Lilian raised her eyes and lowered -them. Miss Grig was shockingly, incredibly aged. In eight months she -had become an old woman and a tragic woman. (The lawyer had omitted to -furnish Lilian with this information.) But she was not less plump. -Indeed, owing to the triumph of her instinctive negligence in attire -over an artificial coquetry no longer stimulated by the presence of a -worshipped man, she seemed stouter and looser than ever. She was -dressed for the street. - -Lilian, extremely perturbed, looked at the dilapidation and thought: "I -have done this." She also thought: "This is the woman that turned me -out of my situation because she fancied Felix was after me--not me after -Felix. What a cruel shame it was!" And thus, though she felt guilty, -she felt far more resentful than guilty. What annoyed her was that she -felt so young and callow in face of the old woman, and that she was -renewing the humiliating sensations of their previous interview. She -felt like the former typist, and the wedding-ring on her finger had -somehow no force to charm away this feeling so uncomfortable and -illogical. She was not aware that her own appearance, pathetic in its -unshapely mingling of the girl and the matron, was in turn impressively -shocking to Miss Grig. - -"I thought I ought just to say good-bye to you before leaving," said -Miss Grig in a calm, polite but quavering voice. - -"Are you leaving?" Lilian exclaimed foolishly. "I expected you to----" - -"Felix left everything to you----" - -"I had nothing at all to do with the will--I----" - -"Oh no! I didn't suppose for a moment you had. Felix would never -consult anybody in such matters. I'm not complaining. Felix was quite -right. He made you his wife and he left you everything. It might have -been different if I'd had no money of my own. But, thank God, I'm -independent! And I prefer to have my own home." The tone was -unexceptionable, and yet Miss Grig managed to charge with the most -offensive significance the two phrases: "_He made you his wife_" and -"_Thank God_ I'm independent." It was as if she had said: "He raised -you up from being his kept woman to be his wife--he made you honest--and -he needn't have done!" and, "If I'd been at the mercy of a chit like -you----!" - -But Lilian, while she fully noticed it, was insensible to the offence. -She was thinking as she sat huddled beneath Miss Grig erect: - -"Who won? You didn't. I did. You thought you'd finished me. But you -hadn't." - -And added to this was the scarcely conscious exultation of youth and -energy confronting the end of a career. The man for whom they had -fought was dead and long decayed, but they were still fighting. It was -terrible. Lilian's feelings were terrible; she realized that they were -terrible; but they were her feelings. Worse, crueller than all, she -reflected: - -"One day you will come and swallow your pride and beg me humbly for a -sight of his child!" - -Miss Grig continued with wonderful dignity: - -"As I say, I thought it proper to stay till you actually arrived, and -formally hand over. Though really there's nothing to be done. I hope -you'll find everything to your satisfaction. The servants will stay, at -any rate as long as you need them. Of course, I told them beforehand -how things are with you. The household accounts I've given to Mr. -Farjiac to-day" (Mr. Farjiac was the solicitor). "And"--she opened her -Dorothy bag--"here are the keys. Masters--that's the parlourmaid--will -tell you which is which." - -Instead of handing the keys to Lilian, she dropped them by the necktie -on the dressing-table, where they made a disturbing noise in collision -with the glass-top--as if they had cracked the glass (but they had not). - -"I think that's everything." - -"But about the business?" Lilian asked weakly. - -"Oh yes, of course, I was forgetting. Mr. Farjiac knows all about it. -I've left Gertie Jackson in charge. She's very capable and devoted. -You needn't go near the place unless you care to. I've told her she -should come and see you to-morrow." - -"But are you giving it up entirely?" Lilian, who had heard not a word -from the lawyer as to this abandonment, was ready to cry. - -"How can I give up what doesn't belong to me?" asked Miss Grig, with a -revolting sweetness like the taste of horseflesh. "The business is -yours, and it was never mine. I merely managed it." - -"Won't you take it?" Lilian burst out, losing self-control in the -reaction of her natural benevolence against the awful bitterness of the -scene. "Take it all for yourself. I would so like you to have it. I -know you love it." - -Miss Grig's tone in reply recalled the young widow to the dreadful -proprieties of the interview. - -"No, thank you," said she coldly, with the miraculous duplicity of -wounded arrogance, "I'm only too glad to be rid of the responsibility -and the hard work--at my age. I only did it all to please Felix. So -that now he's dead.... By the way, I think I ought to let you know that -my poor brother's grave is sadly neglected. And the headstone has a -terribly foreign look. And it's all sunk in sideways, because you -didn't give the ground time to settle before you had it fixed." - -Miss Grig's "By the way" information absolutely effaced the effect on -Lilian of the magnificent lie which preceded it. She was staggered and -she was insulted and outraged. Had Miss Grig dared, without warning -her, to go down to the Riviera and examine Felix's grave? - -"You've been there?" she demanded brokenly. Miss Grig nodded. - -"I ventured," she said, with haughty deference, "to give orders about -it. I hope you don't disapprove." - -"When did you go?" - -"Oh! Not long since," said Miss Grig casually, carelessly, -victoriously. "I must leave you now. I think I've had all my own -things removed, and I hope nothing that belongs to you. If there's -anything wrong, or anything I can do, will you write to Mr. Farjiac?" - -She smiled gravely, steadily, and shook hands; and carried off her -grief, her frustration, her ever-lasting tragedy, safe and intact and -with pomp away from the poor, pretty little chit whom destiny had chosen -to be the instrument of devastation. - -Lilian sat dulled. The keys of the house lay beside the damp and -creased club necktie. She heard a taxi arrive and the door bang and the -taxi depart. A hot, dry, mournful wind of the summer night blew the -curtains with a swish suddenly inwards and made Lilian shiver. Ah! -What would she not have given for an endless, tearful, sobbing talk with -the only other creature on earth who had worshipped Felix? How she would -have confessed, abased herself, accused herself, excused herself, -abandoned herself, uncovered her inmost soul, at the signal of one soft -word from Isabel Grig! Hellish pride! Hellish implacable rancour! -Glutton of misery! The woman had not even offered a syllable of -goodwill for the welfare of the coming baby! Nevertheless, Lilian's -heart was breaking for Isabel Grig. Who could blame Isabel? Or who -Lilian? The situation inevitably arising from their characters and from -the character of the dead man had overpowered both of them. Lilian -thought of the neglected grave, and of the courtesan's prayer, "Eternal -peace! No emotions! Stretched straight out. Quiet for ever and ever! -Eternal peace!" In the indulgence of grief and depression she wanted to -keep that thought. But she could not. She was too young and too strong, -and the edges of the dangerous future were iridescent. - - - - - III - - The Lieutenant - - -Lilian slept heavily and without moving, and when the parlourmaid -aroused her with more tea at nine o'clock according to order, she drank -half the first cup before the process of waking was complete. Her mind -had been running jerkily: - -"So she actually went all that way to see his grave. And I haven't seen -the stone myself. Of course Felix wrote to her when he was getting -better, and told her he was going to marry me. That's how she must have -first known I was out there with him. He wrote on purpose to tell her. -And she went all that way to see my darling's grave, and never said a -word to me! It's her feeling for Felix makes her so cruel, poor thing! -Oh! But she's so hard, _hard_! Well, I could never be hard like -that--I don't care what happened. And it won't make her any happier." - -The parlourmaid returned with a parcel. - -"Oh yes, I know what that is," said Lilian. "Just cut the string and put -it down here, will you?" - -"Miss Jackson is waiting to see you'm. Will you see her or shall I ask -her to call to-night?" - -"Miss Jackson!" Lilian exclaimed, agitated by the swiftness of the -sequence of events. "Has she been waiting long?" - -"No'm. Only about twenty minutes." - -"Why didn't you tell me before?" - -"I thought you ought to have your tea quiet'm." - -"How nice of you!" said Lilian, with a weak, acquiescent smile. "But do -ask her to come in here now. She won't mind me being in bed, will she?" - -"I should hope not'm," said the parlourmaid, pawing the ground. - -Lilian pushed her lustreless hair out of her eyes. The sun was shining -on part of the tumbled bed. Then Gertie Jackson came in. Absolutely -unchanged! The same neat, provincial, Islingtonian toilette. The same -serious, cheerful, ingenuous gaze. The same unmarred complexion. The -same upright pose and throwing back of the shoulders in unconscious -rectitude and calm intention to front courageously the difficulties of -the day. The same mingling of self-respect and deference. She bent -over the bed; Lilian held up her face like a child with mute invitation, -and Gertie kissed her. What a fresh, honest, innocent, ignorant kiss on -Lilian's hot, wasted, experienced cheek! - -"You poor thing!" Gertrude murmured devotedly. - -"I'm seven months gone nearly," Lilian murmured, as if in despair. - -"Well, it'll soon be over, then!" said Gertie buoyantly, in a -matter-of-fact tone. - -"Yes, but shall I ever again be like I was?" Lilian demanded gloomily. - -"Of course you will, dear. _And_ prettier. They almost always are, you -know. I've often noticed it." - -"You dear!" cried Lilian, "and do you mean to say you've got up earlier -and come all the way down from Islington here to see me before going to -the office? And me keeping you waiting!" - -"Why! But of course I came. I'm responsible to you, now poor Miss -Grig's gone. I told her I would be. And I can't tell you how glad I -shall be if I suit you and you find you can keep me on. It's such a -good situation." - -Lilian lifted her face again and kissed her--but not the kiss of -gratitude (though there was gratitude in it), the kiss of recompense, of -reward. It was Lilian who, in allowing herself to be faithfully served, -was conferring the favour. Gertrude was the eternal lieutenant, without -ambition, without dreams, asking only to serve with loyalty in security. -In that moment Lilian understood as never before the function of these -priceless Gertrudes whose first instinct when they lost one master was -to attach themselves to another. - -"Look here!" said Lilian. "D'you know what I want? I want you to come -and live here till it's over." - -"Of course I will," Gertrude agreed, eagerly ready to abandon her -domestic habits and interior for as long as she was required to do so, -and to resume them whenever it might suit Lilian's convenience. And all -because Lilian had been beautiful and successful, and would be beautiful -and successful once more! - -"You must come to-night, will you?" Lilian insisted, transformed in a -moment into the spoilt and exacting queen. - -Gertrude nodded, brightly beaming. - -"I do so want to talk to you," Lilian went on. "I've had nobody to talk -to for--I mean like you. D'you know, Felix would have been alive now if -it hadn't been for me." She burst into tears, and then, recovering, -began an interminable detailed recital of events on the Riviera, coupled -with a laudation of Felix. She revelled in it, and was shameless, well -aware that Gertrude would defend her against herself. The relief which -she felt was intense. - -At the end of half an hour, when the torrent had slackened, Gertrude -said: - -"I really think I'd better be going now. What time would you like me to -come to-night? I'm quite free because I'm not taking night duty this -week. It's Milly's week." And as she was leaving she turned back -rather nervously to the bed. "D'you mind me suggesting one thing? I -wouldn't have you over-tire yourself; but if you could just show -yourself at the office, I feel it would be such a good thing for all of -us. The girls would understand then who the new employer is. Some of -them are very stupid, you know. If you could just show yourself--a -quarter of an hour. It's for your own sake, dear." - -"As I am? I mean--you know----" - -"Why not?" - -"But would they----" - -"Of course not," blandly and firmly decided Gertrude, who had been -brought up in Islington, where the enterprise of procreation proceeds on -an important scale and in a straightforward spirit. Strange that in -Gertrude's virginal mentality such realism could coexist with such -innocent ingenuousness! But it was so. - -When Gertrude had left, Lilian opened the parcel. It was from Dr. Samson -and contained two books recommended and promised by him about preparing -for motherhood, and motherhood, and cognate matters. The mere titles of -the chapters entranced her. - - - - - IV - - The New Employer - - -Appreciably less than a year had passed since she went down those office -stairs, thrust out by the implacable jealousy of Miss Grig, and yet in -that short time the stairs had shrunk and become most painfully dingy. -The sight of them saddened her; she wondered how it was that their -squalor had not affected her before. She felt acutely sorry for the -girl named Lilian Share who in the previous autumn used easily to run up -them from bottom to top, urged by the consciousness of being late. Now -she had to take the second flight very slowly. The door opened as she -reached it, and Gertie Jackson emerged to usher her in. A dozen pairs -of ears had been listening for her arrival. The doors of both the large -and the small rooms were ajar, and she had glimpses of watching faces as -she went with Gertrude into the principal's room. She was intensely -nervous and self-conscious. Gertrude explained that Miss Grig had -installed her in the principal's room months ago, and Lilian said that -that was quite right, and Gertrude said that she had hoped Lilian would -approve. - -Tea was laid on one of the desks, a dainty tea, such a tea as Lilian had -never seen in the office, with more pastry than even two girls could eat -who had had no lunch and expected no dinner; an extravagant display. -Then a flapper entered with the tea-pot and the hot-water jug, and -Lilian smiled at her, and the flapper blushed and smiled and tossed her -winged pigtail. The flapper had a shabby air. Lilian could swallow only -one cake because Gertrude was sitting where Felix had sat when he first -told her what she might do and ought to do with herself. - -"I am so glad you've come!" said Gertrude, in a sort of rapture. - -"Yes," Lilian agreed with dignity. "I was bound to come, of course." - -She felt wise and mature and tremendously aware of her responsibilities; -and she intended to remain so. Nobody should be able to say of her that -she had lost her head or that she was silly or weak or in any way -unequal to her situation. Above all, Miss Grig should be forced to -continue to respect her. - -"I suppose I'd better just go and see them all now," she suggested, -after more tea. - -"They'd be delighted if you would," said Gertrude, as if the thing had -not already been arranged. - -Naturally Lilian honoured the small room first. The three inhabitants of -the small room--two of them were unknown to her--sprang up, flattered, -ruffled, flustered, excited, at her entrance. There she stood, the -marvellous, the semi-legendary Lilian, who had captured the aristocratic -master, run off with him to the Continent, married him, buried him, -inherited all his possessions, and was soon going to have a baby. Her -famous beauty was under eclipse, her famous figure had grown monstrous -beyond any possible concealment; but she was still marvellous. She was -the most romantic figure that those girls had ever seen; she was all -picture-paper serials and cinema films rolled together and come to life -and reality. Her prestige was terrific. She felt it and knew it and -acted on it. How pathetically common the girls were, how slave-like! -How cheap their frocks! How very small the room (but evidently it had -been tidied for her visit)! She recognized one of the old Underwoods by -a dent in its frame, and remembered the stain on one of the green -lampshades, and the peculiarities of the woodwork of the absurdly small -mirror. She was touched; she might have wept a little, but her great -pride--in her achievement, in her position, in her condition, even in -her tragic sorrow--upheld her safely. Tenderly invited to sit down, she -sat down, and she put expert questions, to the wonderment of practising -typists, thus proving that she was not proud. And then with gracious -adieux she proceeded to the large room where, though her stay was -(properly) more brief, she created still more sensation. In the large -room she surprised one or two surreptitious exchanges of glance -betraying a too critical awareness on the part of some that she had -sinned against the code and perhaps only saved herself by the skin of -her teeth. These unkind exhibitions did not trouble her in the least. -The demeanour of the more serious and best-paid girls showed absolutely -no _arriere pensee_, and better than anybody else they knew what was -what in the real world. Gertrude Jackson, the honest soul of purity, -already adored her employer. - -As these two were returning to the principal's room the entrance-door -opened and Millicent Merrislate burst breathlessly in. - -"How splendid!" exclaimed Gertrude. - -She had sent a special message to Milly, and Milly for a sight of her -new mistress had got up and come to the office two hours earlier than -her official time. Lilian was amazed and very pleased. She remembered -that she had once spent at any rate one night of toil in perfect -friendliness with the queer, flat, cattish Millicent; and now she -insisted on Milly helping them to eat cakes in the sacred room. The -scene was idyllic. A little later Lilian, having arranged the details -of Gertrude's temporary removal to Montpelier Square, announced that she -must go, on account of some important shopping. Gertrude, sternly -watchful against undue fatigue for Lilian, raised her eyebrows at the -mention of shopping, but Lilian reassured her. A taxi was fetched by -the flapper-of-all-work, and, noticing then for the first time that the -road repairs in the neighbourhood were all finished, and every trace of -them vanished, Lilian gave the driver an address in Piccadilly. Several -girls were watching her departure from the windows; her upward glance -caught them in the act, and the heads disappeared sharply within. - -"They are all working for _me_!" she thought with complacency, and could -scarcely believe the wonderful thing. - - - - - V - - Layette - - -The pride of her reception in Clifford Street wafted her easily up the -somewhat austere stairs of the first floor establishment in Piccadilly. -She had long been familiar with the face of the commissionaire, and the -brass signs, of this mysterious shop, but never till the leading word -attracted her eyes as she was driving from Montpelier Square to Clifford -Street had it occurred to her what the word signified. The deceiving -staircase led to splendid rooms, indicating that the renown of the -establishment could not be spurious. A bright and rosy young woman came -smilingly forward and gave Lilian a chair. One other customer, a stout -lady with her back to the world, was being served in a distant corner. -A marvellous calm reigned, and the noise of Piccadilly seemed to beat -vainly against the high, curtained windows. - -"Layettes?" Lilian began questioningly, with a strange exultation. The -aspect of the interior had revived her taste for luxury while giving it -a new direction. - -"Yes, madam." - -The esoteric conversation was engaged. Lilian sat entranced by the -fineness and the diminutiveness and the disconcerting elegance of the -display ranged abroad for her on the glass counter. She was glad that -through culpable sloth she had done absolutely nothing as yet with her -own needle. It was the books from Dr. Samson that had aroused her to -the need for action of some sort, for she had had no wise woman to -murmur in her eager ear the traditions and the Spanish etiquette of -centuries of civilized maternity. - -"I shall bring Gertie to see these to-morrow," she thought. "It will -please her frightfully to come, and she'll stop me from being too -extravagant. Only I must arrange it so that her work won't be -interfered with. Perhaps at lunch time. Never do to upset discipline -right at the start!" - -And she asked to see still more stock. The articles stimulated her -memory and her imagination into a kind of tranquil and yet rapturous -contemplation of the events, voluptuous, tender and tragic, which had -set her where she was. The thrill of conception, the long patience of -gestation, the coming terror of labour mingled all together in her now -mystical mind. Her destiny had been changed, or at least it was gravely -diverted. Instead of glittering in public as the lovely darling and -blossom of luxurious civilization, and in private rendering a man to the -highest possible degree happy--instead of this she was secretly and -obscurely building a monument, in her body and also in her heart, to -Felix--Felix whom already she had raised to be the perfect man, Felix -who might have been alive then if she had not one evening behaved like a -child, or if his sense of his duty towards her had not been so -imperious. (Her commonsense had at last cured her of regarding herself -as his murderess.) Whether she had loved him to the height of which she -was capable of passionate love was doubtful. But she had profoundly -admired him; she had been passionately grateful to him for his love of -her; and, come what might when her beauty was restored to its empire, no -other man could ever stand to her in the relation in which Felix had -stood. He had set his imprint upon her and created her a woman. And so -she was creating him a god. - -All these movements of her brooding mind originated from the spectacle -of the articles on the counter. They did not prevent her from discussing -layettes with the bright, rosy, shop-girl. That innocent, charming and -unimaginative young creature fingered the treasures with the casualness -of use. For her layettes were layettes, existing of and for themselves; -they connoted nothing. - - - - - PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LONDON, E.C.4. - - - - - ---- - - - - - WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR - - -NOVELS - -A Man from the North -Helen With the High Hand -Anna of the Five Towns -The Card -Leonora -The Regent -A Great Man -The Lion's Share -Sacred and Profane Love -Clayhanger -Whom God Hath Joined -Hilda Lessways -Buried Alive -These Twain -The Old Wives' Tale -The Roll Call -The Glimpse -The Pretty Lady -The Price of Love -Mr. Prohack - - -FANTASIAS - -The Ghost -Teresa of Watling Street -The Grand Babylon Hotel -The Loot of Cities -The Gates of Wrath -Hugo -The City of Pleasure - - -SHORT STORIES - -Tales of the Five Towns -The Grim Smile of the Five Towns -The Matador of the Five Towns - - -BELLES-LETTRES - -Journalism for Women -Liberty -Fame and Fiction -Over There: War Scenes -How to Become an Author -Books and Persons -The Truth About an Author -Married Life -Mental Efficiency -The Author's Craft -How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day -Self and Self-Management -The Human Machine -From the Log of the "Velsa" -Literary Taste -Our Women -Friendship and Happiness -Things That Have Interested Me -Those United States -Paris Nights - - -DRAMA - -Polite Farces -The Great Adventure -Cupid and Commonsense -Judith -What the Public Wants -Sacred and Profane Love -The Honeymoon -The Love Match -The Title -Body and Soul -Milestones (in collaboration with Edward Knoblock) - - -(In collaboration with Eden Phillpotts) - -The Sinews of War: A Romance -The Statue: A Romance - - - - - - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LILIAN *** - - - - -A Word from Project Gutenberg - - -We will update this book if we find any errors. - -This book can be found under: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40343 - -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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