"The Old Wives' Tale\n\nArnold Bennett\n\n\n\n\nTo W. W. K.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THIS EDITION\n\nIn the autumn of 1903 I used to dine frequently in a restaurant in the\nRue de Clichy, Paris. Here were, among others, two waitresses that\nattracted my attention. One was a beautiful, pale young girl, to whom I\nnever spoke, for she was employed far away from the table which I\naffected. The other, a stout, middle-aged managing Breton woman, had\nsole command over my table and me, and gradually she began to assume\nsuch a maternal tone towards me that I saw I should be compelled to\nleave that restaurant. If I was absent for a couple of nights running\nshe would reproach me sharply: \"What! you are unfaithful to me?\" Once,\nwhen I complained about some French beans, she informed me roundly that\nFrench beans were a subject which I did not understand. I then decided\nto be eternally unfaithful to her, and I abandoned the restaurant. A\nfew nights before the final parting an old woman came into the\nrestaurant to dine. She was fat, shapeless, ugly, and grotesque. She\nhad a ridiculous voice, and ridiculous gestures. It was easy to see\nthat she lived alone, and that in the long lapse of years she had\ndeveloped the kind of peculiarity which induces guffaws among the\nthoughtless. She was burdened with a lot of small parcels, which she\nkept dropping. She chose one seat; and then, not liking it, chose\nanother; and then another. In a few moments she had the whole\nrestaurant laughing at her. That my middle-aged Breton should laugh was\nindifferent to me, but I was pained to see a coarse grimace of giggling\non the pale face of the beautiful young waitress to whom I had never\nspoken.\n\nI reflected, concerning the grotesque diner: \"This woman was once\nyoung, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free from these ridiculous\nmannerisms. Very probably she is unconscious of her singularities. Her\ncase is a tragedy. One ought to be able to make a heartrending novel\nout of the history of a woman such as she.\" Every stout, ageing woman\nis not grotesque--far from it!--but there is an extreme pathos in the\nmere fact that every stout ageing woman was once a young girl with the\nunique charm of youth in her form and movements and in her mind. And\nthe fact that the change from the young girl to the stout ageing woman\nis made up of an infinite number of infinitesimal changes, each\nunperceived by her, only intensifies the pathos.\n\nIt was at this instant that I was visited by the idea of writing the\nbook which ultimately became \"The Old Wives' Tale.\" Of course I felt\nthat the woman who caused the ignoble mirth in the restaurant would not\nserve me as a type of heroine. For she was much too old and obviously\nunsympathetic. It is an absolute rule that the principal character of a\nnovel must not be unsympathetic, and the whole modern tendency of\nrealistic fiction is against oddness in a prominent figure. I knew that\nI must choose the sort of woman who would pass unnoticed in a crowd.\n\nI put the idea aside for a long time, but it was never very distant\nfrom me. For several reasons it made a special appeal to me. I had\nalways been a convinced admirer of Mrs. W. K. Clifford's most precious\nnovel, \"Aunt Anne,\" but I wanted to see in the story of an old woman\nmany things that Mrs. W. K. Clifford had omitted from \"Aunt Anne.\"\nMoreover, I had always revolted against the absurd youthfulness, the\nunfading youthfulness of the average heroine. And as a protest against\nthis fashion, I was already, in 1903, planning a novel (\"Leonora\") of\nwhich the heroine was aged forty, and had daughters old enough to be in\nlove. The reviewers, by the way, were staggered by my hardihood in\noffering a woman of forty as a subject of serious interest to the\npublic. But I meant to go much farther than forty! Finally as a supreme\nreason, I had the example and the challenge of Guy de Maupassant's \"Une\nVie.\" In the nineties we used to regard \"Une Vie\" with mute awe, as\nbeing the summit of achievement in fiction. And I remember being very\ncross with Mr. Bernard Shaw because, having read \"Une Vie\" at the\nsuggestion (I think) of Mr. William Archer, he failed to see in it\nanything very remarkable. Here I must confess that, in 1908, I read\n\"Une Vie\" again, and in spite of a natural anxiety to differ from Mr.\nBernard Shaw, I was gravely disappointed with it. It is a fine novel,\nbut decidedly inferior to \"Pierre et Jean\" or even \"Fort Comme la\nMort.\" To return to the year 1903. \"Une Vie\" relates the entire life\nhistory of a woman. I settled in the privacy of my own head that my\nbook about the development of a young girl into a stout old lady must\nbe the English \"Une Vie.\" I have been accused of every fault except a\nlack of self-confidence, and in a few weeks I settled a further point,\nnamely, that my book must \"go one better\" than \"Une Vie,\" and that to\nthis end it must be the life-history of two women instead of only one.\nHence, \"The Old Wives' Tale\" has two heroines. Constance was the\noriginal; Sophia was created out of bravado, just to indicate that I\ndeclined to consider Guy de Maupassant as the last forerunner of the\ndeluge. I was intimidated by the audacity of my project, but I had\nsworn to carry it out. For several years I looked it squarely in the\nface at intervals, and then walked away to write novels of smaller\nscope, of which I produced five or six. But I could not dally forever,\nand in the autumn of 1907 I actually began to write it, in a village\nnear Fontainebleau, where I rented half a house from a retired railway\nservant. I calculated that it would be 200,000 words long (which it\nexactly proved to be), and I had a vague notion that no novel of such\ndimensions (except Richardson's) had ever been written before. So I\ncounted the words in several famous Victorian novels, and discovered to\nmy relief that the famous Victorian novels average 400,000 words\napiece. I wrote the first part of the novel in six weeks. It was fairly\neasy to me, because, in the seventies, in the first decade of my life,\nI had lived in the actual draper's shop of the Baines's, and knew it as\nonly a child could know it. Then I went to London on a visit. I tried\nto continue the book in a London hotel, but London was too distracting,\nand I put the thing away, and during January and February of 1908, I\nwrote \"Buried Alive,\" which was published immediately, and was received\nwith majestic indifference by the English public, an indifference which\nhas persisted to this day.\n\nI then returned to the Fontainebleau region and gave \"The Old Wives'\nTale\" no rest till I finished it at the end of July, 1908. It was\npublished in the autumn of the same year, and for six weeks afterward\nthe English public steadily confirmed an opinion expressed by a certain\nperson in whose judgment I had confidence, to the effect that the work\nwas honest but dull, and that when it was not dull it had a regrettable\ntendency to facetiousness. My publishers, though brave fellows, were\nsomewhat disheartened; however, the reception of the book gradually\nbecame less and less frigid.\n\nWith regard to the French portion of the story, it was not until I had\nwritten the first part that I saw from a study of my chronological\nbasis that the Siege of Paris might be brought into the tale. The idea\nwas seductive; but I hated, and still hate, the awful business of\nresearch; and I only knew the Paris of the Twentieth Century. Now I was\naware that my railway servant and his wife had been living in Paris at\nthe time of the war. I said to the old man, \"By the way, you went\nthrough the Siege of Paris, didn't you?\" He turned to his old wife and\nsaid, uncertainly, \"The Siege of Paris? Yes, we did, didn't we?\" The\nSiege of Paris had been only one incident among many in their lives. Of\ncourse, they remembered it well, though not vividly, and I gained much\ninformation from them. But the most useful thing which I gained from\nthem was the perception, startling at first, that ordinary people went\non living very ordinary lives in Paris during the siege, and that to\nthe vast mass of the population the siege was not the dramatic,\nspectacular, thrilling, ecstatic affair that is described in history.\nEncouraged by this perception, I decided to include the siege in my\nscheme. I read Sarcey's diary of the siege aloud to my wife, and I\nlooked at the pictures in Jules Claretie's popular work on the siege\nand the commune, and I glanced at the printed collection of official\ndocuments, and there my research ended.\n\nIt has been asserted that unless I had actually been present at a\npublic execution, I could not have written the chapter in which Sophia\nwas at the Auxerre solemnity. I have not been present at a public\nexecution, as the whole of my information about public executions was\nderived from a series of articles on them which I read in the Paris\nMatin. Mr. Frank Harris, discussing my book in \"Vanity Fair,\" said it\nwas clear that I had not seen an execution, (or words to that effect),\nand he proceeded to give his own description of an execution. It was a\nbrief but terribly convincing bit of writing, quite characteristic and\nquite worthy of the author of \"Montes the Matador\" and of a man who has\nbeen almost everywhere and seen almost everything. I comprehended how\nfar short I had fallen of the truth! I wrote to Mr. Frank Harris,\nregretting that his description had not been printed before I wrote\nmine, as I should assuredly have utilized it, and, of course, I\nadmitted that I had never witnessed an execution. He simply replied:\n\"Neither have I.\" This detail is worth preserving, for it is a reproof\nto that large body of readers, who, when a novelist has really carried\nconviction to them, assert off hand: \"O, that must be autobiography!\"\n\nARNOLD BENNETT.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nBOOK I.\n\nMRS. BAINES\n\n   I. THE SQUARE\n\n  II. THE TOOTH\n\n III. A BATTLE\n\n  IV. ELEPHANT\n\n   V. THE TRAVELLER\n\n  VI. ESCAPADE\n\n VII. A DEFEAT\n\n\n\nBOOK II.\n\nCONSTANCE\n\n   I. REVOLUTION\n\n  II. CHRISTMAS AND THE FUTURE\n\n III. CYRIL\n\n  IV. CRIME\n\n   V. ANOTHER CRIME\n\n  VI. THE WIDOW\n\n VII. BRICKS AND MORTAR\n\nVIII. THE PROUDEST MOTHER\n\n\n\nBOOK III.\n\nSOPHIA\n\n   I. THE ELOPEMENT\n\n  II. SUPPER\n\n III. AN AMBITION SATISFIED\n\n  IV. A CRISIS FOR GERALD\n\n   V. FEVER\n\n  VI. THE SIEGE\n\n VII. SUCCESS\n\n\n\nBOOK IV.\n\nWHAT LIFE IS\n\n   I. FRENSHAM'S\n\n  II. THE MEETING\n\n III. TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE\n\n  IV. END OF SOPHIA\n\n   V. END OF CONSTANCE\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I\n\nMRS. BAINES\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE SQUARE\n\nI\n\n\nThose two girls, Constance and Sophia Baines, paid no heed to the\nmanifold interest of their situation, of which, indeed, they had never\nbeen conscious. They were, for example, established almost precisely on\nthe fifty-third parallel of latitude. A little way to the north of\nthem, in the creases of a hill famous for its religious orgies, rose\nthe river Trent, the calm and characteristic stream of middle England.\nSomewhat further northwards, in the near neighbourhood of the highest\npublic-house in the realm, rose two lesser rivers, the Dane and the\nDove, which, quarrelling in early infancy, turned their backs on each\nother, and, the one by favour of the Weaver and the other by favour of\nthe Trent, watered between them the whole width of England, and poured\nthemselves respectively into the Irish Sea and the German Ocean. What a\ncounty of modest, unnoticed rivers! What a natural, simple county,\ncontent to fix its boundaries by these tortuous island brooks, with\ntheir comfortable names--Trent, Mease, Dove, Tern, Dane, Mees, Stour,\nTame, and even hasty Severn! Not that the Severn is suitable to the\ncounty! In the county excess is deprecated. The county is happy in not\nexciting remark. It is content that Shropshire should possess that\nswollen bump, the Wrekin, and that the exaggerated wildness of the Peak\nshould lie over its border. It does not desire to be a pancake like\nCheshire. It has everything that England has, including thirty miles of\nWatling Street; and England can show nothing more beautiful and nothing\nuglier than the works of nature and the works of man to be seen within\nthe limits of the county. It is England in little, lost in the midst of\nEngland, unsung by searchers after the extreme; perhaps occasionally\nsomewhat sore at this neglect, but how proud in the instinctive\ncognizance of its representative features and traits!\n\nConstance and Sophia, busy with the intense preoccupations of youth,\nrecked not of such matters. They were surrounded by the county. On\nevery side the fields and moors of Staffordshire, intersected by roads\nand lanes, railways, watercourses and telegraph-lines, patterned by\nhedges, ornamented and made respectable by halls and genteel parks,\nenlivened by villages at the intersections, and warmly surveyed by the\nsun, spread out undulating. And trains were rushing round curves in\ndeep cuttings, and carts and waggons trotting and jingling on the\nyellow roads, and long, narrow boats passing in a leisure majestic and\ninfinite over the surface of the stolid canals; the rivers had only\nthemselves to support, for Staffordshire rivers have remained virgin of\nkeels to this day. One could imagine the messages concerning prices,\nsudden death, and horses, in their flight through the wires under the\nfeet of birds. In the inns Utopians were shouting the universe into\norder over beer, and in the halls and parks the dignity of England was\nbeing preserved in a fitting manner. The villages were full of women\nwho did nothing but fight against dirt and hunger, and repair the\neffects of friction on clothes. Thousands of labourers were in the\nfields, but the fields were so broad and numerous that this scattered\nmultitude was totally lost therein. The cuckoo was much more\nperceptible than man, dominating whole square miles with his resounding\ncall. And on the airy moors heath-larks played in the ineffaceable\nmule-tracks that had served centuries before even the Romans thought of\nWatling Street. In short, the usual daily life of the county was\nproceeding with all its immense variety and importance; but though\nConstance and Sophia were in it they were not of it.\n\nThe fact is, that while in the county they were also in the district;\nand no person who lives in the district, even if he should be old and\nhave nothing to do but reflect upon things in general, ever thinks\nabout the county. So far as the county goes, the district might almost\nas well be in the middle of the Sahara. It ignores the county, save\nthat it uses it nonchalantly sometimes as leg-stretcher on holiday\nafternoons, as a man may use his back garden. It has nothing in common\nwith the county; it is richly sufficient to itself. Nevertheless, its\nself-sufficiency and the true salt savour of its life can only be\nappreciated by picturing it hemmed in by county. It lies on the face of\nthe county like an insignificant stain, like a dark Pleiades in a green\nand empty sky. And Hanbridge has the shape of a horse and its rider,\nBursley of half a donkey, Knype of a pair of trousers, Longshaw of an\noctopus, and little Turnhill of a beetle. The Five Towns seem to cling\ntogether for safety. Yet the idea of clinging together for safety would\nmake them laugh. They are unique and indispensable. From the north of\nthe county right down to the south they alone stand for civilization,\napplied science, organized manufacture, and the century--until you come\nto Wolverhampton. They are unique and indispensable because you cannot\ndrink tea out of a teacup without the aid of the Five Towns; because\nyou cannot eat a meal in decency without the aid of the Five Towns. For\nthis the architecture of the Five Towns is an architecture of ovens and\nchimneys; for this its atmosphere is as black as its mud; for this it\nburns and smokes all night, so that Longshaw has been compared to hell;\nfor this it is unlearned in the ways of agriculture, never having seen\ncorn except as packing straw and in quartern loaves; for this, on the\nother hand, it comprehends the mysterious habits of fire and pure,\nsterile earth; for this it lives crammed together in slippery streets\nwhere the housewife must change white window-curtains at least once a\nfortnight if she wishes to remain respectable; for this it gets up in\nthe mass at six a.m., winter and summer, and goes to bed when the\npublic-houses close; for this it exists--that you may drink tea out of\na teacup and toy with a chop on a plate. All the everyday crockery used\nin the kingdom is made in the Five Towns--all, and much besides. A\ndistrict capable of such gigantic manufacture, of such a perfect\nmonopoly--and which finds energy also to produce coal and iron and\ngreat men--may be an insignificant stain on a county, considered\ngeographically, but it is surely well justified in treating the county\nas its back garden once a week, and in blindly ignoring it the rest of\nthe time.\n\nEven the majestic thought that whenever and wherever in all England a\nwoman washes up, she washes up the product of the district; that\nwhenever and wherever in all England a plate is broken the fracture\nmeans new business for the district--even this majestic thought had\nprobably never occurred to either of the girls. The fact is, that while\nin the Five Towns they were also in the Square, Bursley and the Square\nignored the staple manufacture as perfectly as the district ignored the\ncounty. Bursley has the honours of antiquity in the Five Towns. No\nindustrial development can ever rob it of its superiority in age, which\nmakes it absolutely sure in its conceit. And the time will never come\nwhen the other towns--let them swell and bluster as they may--will not\npronounce the name of Bursley as one pronounces the name of one's\nmother. Add to this that the Square was the centre of Bursley's retail\ntrade (which scorned the staple as something wholesale, vulgar, and\nassuredly filthy), and you will comprehend the importance and the\nself-isolation of the Square in the scheme of the created universe.\nThere you have it, embedded in the district, and the district embedded\nin the county, and the county lost and dreaming in the heart of England!\n\nThe Square was named after St. Luke. The Evangelist might have been\nstartled by certain phenomena in his square, but, except in Wakes Week,\nwhen the shocking always happened, St. Luke's Square lived in a manner\npassably saintly--though it contained five public-houses. It contained\nfive public-houses, a bank, a barber's, a confectioner's, three\ngrocers', two chemists', an ironmonger's, a clothier's, and five\ndrapers'. These were all the catalogue. St. Luke's Square had no room\nfor minor establishments. The aristocracy of the Square undoubtedly\nconsisted of the drapers (for the bank was impersonal); and among the\nfive the shop of Baines stood supreme. No business establishment could\npossibly be more respected than that of Mr. Baines was respected. And\nthough John Baines had been bedridden for a dozen years, he still lived\non the lips of admiring, ceremonious burgesses as 'our honoured\nfellow-townsman.' He deserved his reputation.\n\nThe Baines's shop, to make which three dwellings had at intervals been\nthrown into one, lay at the bottom of the Square. It formed about\none-third of the south side of the Square, the remainder being made up\nof Critchlow's (chemist), the clothier's, and the Hanover Spirit\nVaults. (\"Vaults\" was a favourite synonym of the public-house in the\nSquare. Only two of the public-houses were crude public-houses: the\nrest were \"vaults.\") It was a composite building of three storeys, in\nblackish-crimson brick, with a projecting shop-front and, above and\nbehind that, two rows of little windows. On the sash of each window was\na red cloth roll stuffed with sawdust, to prevent draughts; plain white\nblinds descended about six inches from the top of each window. There\nwere no curtains to any of the windows save one; this was the window of\nthe drawing-room, on the first floor at the corner of the Square and\nKing Street. Another window, on the second storey, was peculiar, in\nthat it had neither blind nor pad, and was very dirty; this was the\nwindow of an unused room that had a separate staircase to itself, the\nstaircase being barred by a door always locked. Constance and Sophia\nhad lived in continual expectation of the abnormal issuing from that\nmysterious room, which was next to their own. But they were\ndisappointed. The room had no shameful secret except the incompetence\nof the architect who had made one house out of three; it was just an\nempty, unemployable room. The building had also a considerable frontage\non King Street, where, behind the shop, was sheltered the parlour, with\na large window and a door that led directly by two steps into the\nstreet. A strange peculiarity of the shop was that it bore no\nsignboard. Once it had had a large signboard which a memorable gale had\nblown into the Square. Mr. Baines had decided not to replace it. He had\nalways objected to what he called \"puffing,\" and for this reason would\nnever hear of such a thing as a clearance sale. The hatred of \"puffing\"\ngrew on him until he came to regard even a sign as \"puffing.\"\nUninformed persons who wished to find Baines's must ask and learn. For\nMr. Baines, to have replaced the sign would have been to condone, yea,\nto participate in, the modern craze for unscrupulous\nself-advertisement. This abstention of Mr. Baines's from indulgence in\nsignboards was somehow accepted by the more thoughtful members of the\ncommunity as evidence that the height of Mr. Baines's principles was\ngreater even than they had imagined.\n\nConstance and Sophia were the daughters of this credit to human nature.\nHe had no other children.\n\nII\n\nThey pressed their noses against the window of the show-room, and gazed\ndown into the Square as perpendicularly as the projecting front of the\nshop would allow. The show-room was over the millinery and silken half\nof the shop. Over the woollen and shirting half were the drawing-room\nand the chief bedroom. When in quest of articles of coquetry, you\nmounted from the shop by a curving stair, and your head gradually rose\nlevel with a large apartment having a mahogany counter in front of the\nwindow and along one side, yellow linoleum on the floor, many cardboard\nboxes, a magnificent hinged cheval glass, and two chairs. The\nwindow-sill being lower than the counter, there was a gulf between the\npanes and the back of the counter, into which important articles such\nas scissors, pencils, chalk, and artificial flowers were continually\ndisappearing: another proof of the architect's incompetence.\n\nThe girls could only press their noses against the window by kneeling\non the counter, and this they were doing. Constance's nose was snub,\nbut agreeably so. Sophia had a fine Roman nose; she was a beautiful\ncreature, beautiful and handsome at the same time. They were both of\nthem rather like racehorses, quivering with delicate, sensitive, and\nluxuriant life; exquisite, enchanting proof of the circulation of the\nblood; innocent, artful, roguish, prim, gushing, ignorant, and\nmiraculously wise. Their ages were sixteen and fifteen; it is an epoch\nwhen, if one is frank, one must admit that one has nothing to learn:\none has learnt simply everything in the previous six months.\n\n\"There she goes!\" exclaimed Sophia.\n\nUp the Square, from the corner of King Street, passed a woman in a new\nbonnet with pink strings, and a new blue dress that sloped at the\nshoulders and grew to a vast circumference at the hem. Through the\nsilent sunlit solitude of the Square (for it was Thursday afternoon,\nand all the shops shut except the confectioner's and one chemist's)\nthis bonnet and this dress floated northwards in search of romance,\nunder the relentless eyes of Constance and Sophia. Within them,\nsomewhere, was the soul of Maggie, domestic servant at Baines's. Maggie\nhad been at the shop since before the creation of Constance and Sophia.\nShe lived seventeen hours of each day in an underground kitchen and\nlarder, and the other seven in an attic, never going out except to\nchapel on Sunday evenings, and once a month on Thursday afternoons.\n\"Followers\" were most strictly forbidden to her; but on rare occasions\nan aunt from Longshaw was permitted as a tremendous favour to see her\nin the subterranean den. Everybody, including herself, considered that\nshe had a good \"place,\" and was well treated. It was undeniable, for\ninstance, that she was allowed to fall in love exactly as she chose,\nprovided she did not \"carry on\" in the kitchen or the yard. And as a\nfact, Maggie had fallen in love. In seventeen years she had been\nengaged eleven times. No one could conceive how that ugly and powerful\norganism could softly languish to the undoing of even a butty-collier,\nnor why, having caught a man in her sweet toils, she could ever be\nimbecile enough to set him free. There are, however, mysteries in the\nsouls of Maggies. The drudge had probably been affianced oftener than\nany woman in Bursley. Her employers were so accustomed to an\ninteresting announcement that for years they had taken to saying naught\nin reply but 'Really, Maggie!' Engagements and tragic partings were\nMaggie's pastime. Fixed otherwise, she might have studied the piano\ninstead.\n\n\"No gloves, of course!\" Sophia criticized.\n\n\"Well, you can't expect her to have gloves,\" said Constance.\n\nThen a pause, as the bonnet and dress neared the top of the Square.\n\n\"Supposing she turns round and sees us?\" Constance suggested.\n\n\"I don't care if she does,\" said Sophia, with a haughtiness almost\nimpassioned; and her head trembled slightly.\n\nThere were, as usual, several loafers at the top of the Square, in the\ncorner between the bank and the \"Marquis of Granby.\" And one of these\nloafers stepped forward and shook hands with an obviously willing\nMaggie. Clearly it was a rendezvous, open, unashamed. The twelfth\nvictim had been selected by the virgin of forty, whose kiss would not\nhave melted lard! The couple disappeared together down Oldcastle Street.\n\n\"WELL!\" cried Constance. \"Did you ever see such a thing?\"\n\nWhile Sophia, short of adequate words, flushed and bit her lip.\n\nWith the profound, instinctive cruelty of youth, Constance and Sophia\nhad assembled in their favourite haunt, the show-room, expressly to\nderide Maggie in her new clothes. They obscurely thought that a woman\nso ugly and soiled as Maggie was had no right to possess new clothes.\nEven her desire to take the air of a Thursday afternoon seemed to them\nunnatural and somewhat reprehensible. Why should she want to stir out\nof her kitchen? As for her tender yearnings, they positively grudged\nthese to Maggie. That Maggie should give rein to chaste passion was\nmore than grotesque; it was offensive and wicked. But let it not for an\ninstant be doubted that they were nice, kind-hearted, well-behaved, and\ndelightful girls! Because they were. They were not angels.\n\n\"It's too ridiculous!\" said Sophia, severely. She had youth, beauty,\nand rank in her favour. And to her it really was ridiculous.\n\n\"Poor old Maggie!\" Constance murmured. Constance was foolishly\ngood-natured, a perfect manufactory of excuses for other people; and\nher benevolence was eternally rising up and overpowering her reason.\n\n\"What time did mother say she should be back?\" Sophia asked.\n\n\"Not until supper.\"\n\n\"Oh! Hallelujah!\" Sophia burst out, clasping her hands in joy. And they\nboth slid down from the counter just as if they had been little boys,\nand not, as their mother called them, \"great girls.\"\n\n\"Let's go and play the Osborne quadrilles,\" Sophia suggested (the\nOsborne quadrilles being a series of dances arranged to be performed on\ndrawing-room pianos by four jewelled hands).\n\n\"I couldn't think of it,\" said Constance, with a precocious gesture of\nseriousness. In that gesture, and in her tone, was something which\nconveyed to Sophia: \"Sophia, how can you be so utterly blind to the\ngravity of our fleeting existence as to ask me to go and strum the\npiano with you?\" Yet a moment before she had been a little boy.\n\n\"Why not?\" Sophia demanded.\n\n\"I shall never have another chance like to-day for getting on with\nthis,\" said Constance, picking up a bag from the counter.\n\nShe sat down and took from the bag a piece of loosely woven canvas, on\nwhich she was embroidering a bunch of roses in coloured wools. The\ncanvas had once been stretched on a frame, but now, as the delicate\nlabour of the petals and leaves was done, and nothing remained to do\nbut the monotonous background, Constance was content to pin the stuff\nto her knee. With the long needle and several skeins of mustard-tinted\nwool, she bent over the canvas and resumed the filling-in of the tiny\nsquares. The whole design was in squares--the gradations of red and\ngreens, the curves of the smallest buds--all was contrived in squares,\nwith a result that mimicked a fragment of uncompromising Axminster\ncarpet. Still, the fine texture of the wool, the regular and rapid\ngrace of those fingers moving incessantly at back and front of the\ncanvas, the gentle sound of the wool as it passed through the holes,\nand the intent, youthful earnestness of that lowered gaze, excused and\ninvested with charm an activity which, on artistic grounds, could not\npossibly be justified. The canvas was destined to adorn a gilt\nfirescreen in the drawing-room, and also to form a birthday gift to\nMrs. Baines from her elder daughter. But whether the enterprise was as\nsecret from Mrs. Baines as Constance hoped, none save Mrs. Baines knew.\n\n\"Con,\" murmured Sophia, \"you're too sickening sometimes.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Constance, blandly, \"it's no use pretending that this\nhasn't got to be finished before we go back to school, because it has.\"\nSophia wandered about, a prey ripe for the Evil One. \"Oh,\" she\nexclaimed joyously--even ecstatically--looking behind the cheval glass,\n\"here's mother's new skirt! Miss Dunn's been putting the gimp on it!\nOh, mother, what a proud thing you will be!\" Constance heard swishings\nbehind the glass. \"What are you doing, Sophia?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"You surely aren't putting that skirt on?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"You'll catch it finely, I can tell you!\"\n\nWithout further defence, Sophia sprang out from behind the immense\nglass. She had already shed a notable part of her own costume, and the\nflush of mischief was in her face. She ran across to the other side of\nthe room and examined carefully a large coloured print that was affixed\nto the wall.\n\nThis print represented fifteen sisters, all of the same height and\nslimness of figure, all of the same age--about twenty-five or so, and\nall with exactly the same haughty and bored beauty. That they were in\ntruth sisters was clear from the facial resemblance between them; their\ndemeanour indicated that they were princesses, offspring of some\nimpossibly prolific king and queen. Those hands had never toiled, nor\nhad those features ever relaxed from the smile of courts. The\nprincesses moved in a landscape of marble steps and verandahs, with a\nbandstand and strange trees in the distance. One was in a riding-habit,\nanother in evening attire, another dressed for tea, another for the\ntheatre; another seemed to be ready to go to bed. One held a little\ngirl by the hand; it could not have been her own little girl, for these\nprincesses were far beyond human passions. Where had she obtained the\nlittle girl? Why was one sister going to the theatre, another to tea,\nanother to the stable, and another to bed? Why was one in a heavy\nmantle, and another sheltering from the sun's rays under a parasol? The\npicture was drenched in mystery, and the strangest thing about it was\nthat all these highnesses were apparently content with the most\nridiculous and out-moded fashions. Absurd hats, with veils flying\nbehind; absurd bonnets, fitting close to the head, and spotted; absurd\ncoiffures that nearly lay on the nape; absurd, clumsy sleeves; absurd\nwaists, almost above the elbow's level; absurd scolloped jackets! And\nthe skirts! What a sight were those skirts! They were nothing but vast\ndecorated pyramids; on the summit of each was stuck the upper half of a\nprincess. It was astounding that princesses should consent to be so\npreposterous and so uncomfortable. But Sophia perceived nothing uncanny\nin the picture, which bore the legend: \"Newest summer fashions from\nParis. Gratis supplement to Myra's Journal.\" Sophia had never imagined\nanything more stylish, lovely, and dashing than the raiment of the\nfifteen princesses.\n\nFor Constance and Sophia had the disadvantage of living in the middle\nages. The crinoline had not quite reached its full circumference, and\nthe dress-improver had not even been thought of. In all the Five Towns\nthere was not a public bath, nor a free library, nor a municipal park,\nnor a telephone, nor yet a board-school. People had not understood the\nvital necessity of going away to the seaside every year. Bishop Colenso\nhad just staggered Christianity by his shameless notions on the\nPentateuch. Half Lancashire was starving on account of the American\nwar. Garroting was the chief amusement of the homicidal classes.\nIncredible as it may appear, there was nothing but a horse-tram running\nbetween Bursley and Hanbridge--and that only twice an hour; and between\nthe other towns no stage of any kind! One went to Longshaw as one now\ngoes to Pekin. It was an era so dark and backward that one might wonder\nhow people could sleep in their beds at night for thinking about their\nsad state.\n\nHappily the inhabitants of the Five Towns in that era were passably\npleased with themselves, and they never even suspected that they were\nnot quite modern and quite awake. They thought that the intellectual,\nthe industrial, and the social movements had gone about as far as these\nmovements could go, and they were amazed at their own progress. Instead\nof being humble and ashamed, they actually showed pride in their\npitiful achievements. They ought to have looked forward meekly to the\nprodigious feats of posterity; but, having too little faith and too\nmuch conceit, they were content to look behind and make comparisons\nwith the past. They did not foresee the miraculous generation which is\nus. A poor, blind, complacent people! The ludicrous horse-car was\ntypical of them. The driver rang a huge bell, five minutes before\nstarting, that could be heard from the Wesleyan Chapel to the Cock\nYard, and then after deliberations and hesitations the vehicle rolled\noff on its rails into unknown dangers while passengers shouted\ngood-bye. At Bleakridge it had to stop for the turnpike, and it was\nassisted up the mountains of Leveson Place and Sutherland Street\n(towards Hanbridge) by a third horse, on whose back was perched a tiny,\nwhip-cracking boy; that boy lived like a shuttle on the road between\nLeveson Place and Sutherland Street, and even in wet weather he was the\nenvy of all other boys. After half an hour's perilous transit the car\ndrew up solemnly in a narrow street by the Signal office in Hanbridge,\nand the ruddy driver, having revolved many times the polished iron\nhandle of his sole brake, turned his attention to his passengers in\ncalm triumph, dismissing them with a sort of unsung doxology.\n\nAnd this was regarded as the last word of traction! A whip-cracking boy\non a tip horse! Oh, blind, blind! You could not foresee the hundred and\ntwenty electric cars that now rush madly bumping and thundering at\ntwenty miles an hour through all the main streets of the district!\n\nSo that naturally Sophia, infected with the pride of her period, had no\nmisgivings whatever concerning the final elegance of the princesses.\nShe studied them as the fifteen apostles of the ne plus ultra; then,\nhaving taken some flowers and plumes out of a box, amid warnings from\nConstance, she retreated behind the glass, and presently emerged as a\ngreat lady in the style of the princesses. Her mother's tremendous new\ngown ballooned about her in all its fantastic richness and\nexpensiveness. And with the gown she had put on her mother's\nimportance--that mien of assured authority, of capacity tested in many\na crisis, which characterized Mrs. Baines, and which Mrs. Baines seemed\nto impart to her dresses even before she had regularly worn them. For\nit was a fact that Mrs. Baines's empty garments inspired respect, as\nthough some essence had escaped from her and remained in them.\n\n\"Sophia!\"\n\nConstance stayed her needle, and, without lifting her head, gazed, with\neyes raised from the wool-work, motionless at the posturing figure of\nher sister. It was sacrilege that she was witnessing, a prodigious\nirreverence. She was conscious of an expectation that punishment would\ninstantly fall on this daring, impious child. But she, who never felt\nthese mad, amazing impulses, could nevertheless only smile fearfully.\n\n\"Sophia!\" she breathed, with an intensity of alarm that merged into\ncondoning admiration. \"Whatever will you do next?\"\n\nSophia's lovely flushed face crowned the extraordinary structure like a\nblossom, scarcely controlling its laughter. She was as tall as her\nmother, and as imperious, as crested, and proud; and in spite of the\npigtail, the girlish semi-circular comb, and the loose foal-like limbs,\nshe could support as well as her mother the majesty of the\ngimp-embroidered dress. Her eyes sparkled with all the challenges of\nthe untried virgin as she minced about the showroom. Abounding life\ninspired her movements. The confident and fierce joy of youth shone on\nher brow. \"What thing on earth equals me?\" she seemed to demand with\nenchanting and yet ruthless arrogance. She was the daughter of a\nrespected, bedridden draper in an insignificant town, lost in the\ncentral labyrinth of England, if you like; yet what manner of man,\nconfronted with her, would or could have denied her naive claim to\ndominion? She stood, in her mother's hoops, for the desire of the\nworld. And in the innocence of her soul she knew it! The heart of a\nyoung girl mysteriously speaks and tells her of her power long ere she\ncan use her power. If she can find nothing else to subdue, you may\ncatch her in the early years subduing a gate-post or drawing homage\nfrom an empty chair. Sophia's experimental victim was Constance, with\nsuspended needle and soft glance that shot out from the lowered face.\n\nThen Sophia fell, in stepping backwards; the pyramid was overbalanced;\ngreat distended rings of silk trembled and swayed gigantically on the\nfloor, and Sophia's small feet lay like the feet of a doll on the rim\nof the largest circle, which curved and arched above them like a\ncavern's mouth. The abrupt transition of her features from assured\npride to ludicrous astonishment and alarm was comical enough to have\nsent into wild uncharitable laughter any creature less humane than\nConstance. But Constance sprang to her, a single embodied instinct of\nbenevolence, with her snub nose, and tried to raise her.\n\n\"Oh, Sophia!\" she cried compassionately--that voice seemed not to know\nthe tones of reproof--\"I do hope you've not messed it, because mother\nwould be so--\"\n\nThe words were interrupted by the sound of groans beyond the door\nleading to the bedrooms. The groans, indicating direst physical\ntorment, grew louder. The two girls stared, wonder-struck and afraid,\nat the door, Sophia with her dark head raised, and Constance with her\narms round Sophia's waist. The door opened, letting in a much-magnified\nsound of groans, and there entered a youngish, undersized man, who was\nfrantically clutching his head in his hands and contorting all the\nmuscles of his face. On perceiving the sculptural group of two prone,\ninterlocked girls, one enveloped in a crinoline, and the other with a\nwool-work bunch of flowers pinned to her knee, he jumped back, ceased\ngroaning, arranged his face, and seriously tried to pretend that it was\nnot he who had been vocal in anguish, that, indeed, he was just passing\nas a casual, ordinary wayfarer through the showroom to the shop below.\nHe blushed darkly; and the girls also blushed.\n\n\"Oh, I beg pardon, I'm sure!\" said this youngish man suddenly; and with\na swift turn he disappeared whence he had come.\n\nHe was Mr. Povey, a person universally esteemed, both within and\nwithout the shop, the surrogate of bedridden Mr. Baines, the unfailing\ncomfort and stand-by of Mrs. Baines, the fount and radiating centre of\norder and discipline in the shop; a quiet, diffident, secretive,\ntedious, and obstinate youngish man, absolutely faithful, absolutely\nefficient in his sphere; without brilliance, without distinction;\nperhaps rather little-minded, certainly narrow-minded; but what a force\nin the shop! The shop was inconceivable without Mr. Povey. He was under\ntwenty and not out of his apprenticeship when Mr. Baines had been\nstruck down, and he had at once proved his worth. Of the assistants, he\nalone slept in the house. His bedroom was next to that of his employer;\nthere was a door between the two chambers, and the two steps led down\nfrom the larger to the less.\n\nThe girls regained their feet, Sophia with Constance's help. It was not\neasy to right a capsized crinoline. They both began to laugh nervously,\nwith a trace of hysteria.\n\n\"I thought he'd gone to the dentist's,\" whispered Constance.\n\nMr. Povey's toothache had been causing anxiety in the microcosm for two\ndays, and it had been clearly understood at dinner that Thursday\nmorning that Mr. Povey was to set forth to Oulsnam Bros., the dentists\nat Hillport, without any delay. Only on Thursdays and Sundays did Mr.\nPovey dine with the family. On other days he dined later, by himself,\nbut at the family table, when Mrs. Baines or one of the assistants\ncould \"relieve\" him in the shop. Before starting out to visit her elder\nsister at Axe, Mrs. Baines had insisted to Mr. Povey that he had eaten\npractically nothing but \"slops\" for twenty-four hours, and that if he\nwas not careful she would have him on her hands. He had replied in his\nquietest, most sagacious, matter-of-fact tone--the tone that carried\nweight with all who heard it--that he had only been waiting for\nThursday afternoon, and should of course go instantly to Oulsnams' and\nhave the thing attended to in a proper manner. He had even added that\npersons who put off going to the dentist's were simply sowing trouble\nfor themselves.\n\nNone could possibly have guessed that Mr. Povey was afraid of going to\nthe dentist's. But such was the case. He had not dared to set forth.\nThe paragon of commonsense, pictured by most people as being somehow\nunliable to human frailties, could not yet screw himself up to the\npoint of ringing a dentist's door-bell.\n\n\"He did look funny,\" said Sophia. \"I wonder what he thought. I couldn't\nhelp laughing!\"\n\nConstance made no answer; but when Sophia had resumed her own clothes,\nand it was ascertained beyond doubt that the new dress had not\nsuffered, and Constance herself was calmly stitching again, she said,\npoising her needle as she had poised it to watch Sophia:\n\n\"I was just wondering whether something oughtn't to be done for Mr.\nPovey.\"\n\n\"What?\" Sophia demanded.\n\n\"Has he gone back to his bedroom?\"\n\n\"Let's go and listen,\" said Sophia the adventuress.\n\nThey went, through the showroom door, past the foot of the stairs\nleading to the second storey, down the long corridor broken in the\nmiddle by two steps and carpeted with a narrow bordered carpet whose\nparallel lines increased its apparent length. They went on tiptoe,\nsticking close to one another. Mr. Povey's door was slightly ajar. They\nlistened; not a sound.\n\n\"Mr. Povey!\" Constance coughed discreetly.\n\nNo reply. It was Sophia who pushed the door open. Constance made an\nelderly prim plucking gesture at Sophia's bare arm, but she followed\nSophia gingerly into the forbidden room, which was, however, empty. The\nbed had been ruffled, and on it lay a book, \"The Harvest of a Quiet\nEye.\"\n\n\"Harvest of a quiet tooth!\" Sophia whispered, giggling very low.\n\n\"Hsh!\" Constance put her lips forward.\n\nFrom the next room came a regular, muffled, oratorical sound, as though\nsome one had begun many years ago to address a meeting and had\nforgotten to leave off and never would leave off. They were familiar\nwith the sound, and they quitted Mr. Povey's chamber in fear of\ndisturbing it. At the same moment Mr. Povey reappeared, this time in\nthe drawing-room doorway at the other extremity of the long corridor.\nHe seemed to be trying ineffectually to flee from his tooth as a\nmurderer tries to flee from his conscience.\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Povey!\" said Constance quickly--for he had surprised them\ncoming out of his bedroom; \"we were just looking for you.\"\n\n\"To see if we could do anything for you,\" Sophia added.\n\n\"Oh no, thanks!\" said Mr. Povey.\n\nThen he began to come down the corridor, slowly.\n\n\"You haven't been to the dentist's,\" said Constance sympathetically.\n\n\"No, I haven't,\" said Mr. Povey, as if Constance was indicating a fact\nwhich had escaped his attention. \"The truth is, I thought it looked\nlike rain, and if I'd got wet--you see--\"\n\nMiserable Mr. Povey!\n\n\"Yes,\" said Constance, \"you certainly ought to keep out of draughts.\nDon't you think it would be a good thing if you went and sat in the\nparlour? There's a fire there.\"\n\n\"I shall be all right, thank you,\" said Mr. Povey. And after a pause:\n\"Well, thanks, I will.\"\n\nIII\n\nThe girls made way for him to pass them at the head of the twisting\nstairs which led down to the parlour. Constance followed, and Sophia\nfollowed Constance.\n\n\"Have father's chair,\" said Constance.\n\nThere were two rocking-chairs with fluted backs covered by\nantimacassars, one on either side of the hearth. That to the left was\nstill entitled \"father's chair,\" though its owner had not sat in it\nsince long before the Crimean war, and would never sit in it again.\n\n\"I think I'd sooner have the other one,\" said Mr. Povey, \"because it's\non the right side, you see.\" And he touched his right cheek.\n\nHaving taken Mrs. Baines's chair, he bent his face down to the fire,\nseeking comfort from its warmth. Sophia poked the fire, whereupon Mr.\nPovey abruptly withdrew his face. He then felt something light on his\nshoulders. Constance had taken the antimacassar from the back of the\nchair, and protected him with it from the draughts. He did not\ninstantly rebel, and therefore was permanently barred from rebellion.\nHe was entrapped by the antimacassar. It formally constituted him an\ninvalid, and Constance and Sophia his nurses. Constance drew the\ncurtain across the street door. No draught could come from the window,\nfor the window was not 'made to open.' The age of ventilation had not\narrived. Sophia shut the other two doors. And, each near a door, the\ngirls gazed at Mr. Povey behind his back, irresolute, but filled with a\ndelicious sense of responsibility.\n\nThe situation was on a different plane now. The seriousness of Mr.\nPovey's toothache, which became more and more manifest, had already\nwiped out the ludicrous memory of the encounter in the showroom.\nLooking at these two big girls, with their short-sleeved black frocks\nand black aprons, and their smooth hair, and their composed serious\nfaces, one would have judged them incapable of the least lapse from an\narchangelic primness; Sophia especially presented a marvellous\nimitation of saintly innocence. As for the toothache, its action on Mr.\nPovey was apparently periodic; it gathered to a crisis like a wave,\ngradually, the torture increasing till the wave broke and left Mr.\nPovey exhausted, but free for a moment from pain. These crises recurred\nabout once a minute. And now, accustomed to the presence of the young\nvirgins, and having tacitly acknowledged by his acceptance of the\nantimacassar that his state was abnormal, he gave himself up frankly to\naffliction. He concealed nothing of his agony, which was fully\ndisplayed by sudden contortions of his frame, and frantic oscillations\nof the rocking-chair. Presently, as he lay back enfeebled in the wash\nof a spent wave, he murmured with a sick man's voice:\n\n\"I suppose you haven't got any laudanum?\"\n\nThe girls started into life. \"Laudanum, Mr. Povey?\"\n\n\"Yes, to hold in my mouth.\"\n\nHe sat up, tense; another wave was forming. The excellent fellow was\nlost to all self-respect, all decency.\n\n\"There's sure to be some in mother's cupboard,\" said Sophia.\n\nConstance, who bore Mrs. Baines's bunch of keys at her girdle, a solemn\ntrust, moved a little fearfully to a corner cupboard which was hung in\nthe angle to the right of the projecting fireplace, over a shelf on\nwhich stood a large copper tea-urn. That corner cupboard, of oak inlaid\nwith maple and ebony in a simple border pattern, was typical of the\nroom. It was of a piece with the deep green \"flock\" wall paper, and the\ntea-urn, and the rocking-chairs with their antimacassars, and the\nharmonium in rosewood with a Chinese paper-mache tea-caddy on the top\nof it; even with the carpet, certainly the most curious parlour carpet\nthat ever was, being made of lengths of the stair-carpet sewn together\nside by side. That corner cupboard was already old in service; it had\nheld the medicines of generations. It gleamed darkly with the grave and\ngenuine polish which comes from ancient use alone. The key which\nConstance chose from her bunch was like the cupboard, smooth and\nshining with years; it fitted and turned very easily, yet with a firm\nsnap. The single wide door opened sedately as a portal.\n\nThe girls examined the sacred interior, which had the air of being\ninhabited by an army of diminutive prisoners, each crying aloud with\nthe full strength of its label to be set free on a mission.\n\n\"There it is!\" said Sophia eagerly.\n\nAnd there it was: a blue bottle, with a saffron label, \"Caution.\nPOISON. Laudanum. Charles Critchlow, M.P.S. Dispensing Chemist. St.\nLuke's Square, Bursley.\"\n\nThose large capitals frightened the girls. Constance took the bottle as\nshe might have taken a loaded revolver, and she glanced at Sophia.\nTheir omnipotent, all-wise mother was not present to tell them what to\ndo. They, who had never decided, had to decide now. And Constance was\nthe elder. Must this fearsome stuff, whose very name was a name of\nfear, be introduced in spite of printed warnings into Mr. Povey's\nmouth? The responsibility was terrifying.\n\n\"Perhaps I'd just better ask Mr. Critchlow,\" Constance faltered.\n\nThe expectation of beneficent laudanum had enlivened Mr. Povey, had\nalready, indeed, by a sort of suggestion, half cured his toothache.\n\n\"Oh no!\" he said. \"No need to ask Mr. Critchlow ... Two or three drops\nin a little water.\" He showed impatience to be at the laudanum.\n\nThe girls knew that an antipathy existed between the chemist and Mr.\nPovey.\n\n\"It's sure to be all right,\" said Sophia. \"I'll get the water.\"\n\nWith youthful cries and alarms they succeeded in pouring four mortal\ndark drops (one more than Constance intended) into a cup containing a\nlittle water. And as they handed the cup to Mr. Povey their faces were\nthe faces of affrighted comical conspirators. They felt so old and they\nlooked so young.\n\nMr. Povey imbibed eagerly of the potion, put the cup on the\nmantelpiece, and then tilted his head to the right so as to submerge\nthe affected tooth. In this posture he remained, awaiting the sweet\ninfluence of the remedy. The girls, out of a nice modesty, turned away,\nfor Mr. Povey must not swallow the medicine, and they preferred to\nleave him unhampered in the solution of a delicate problem. When next\nthey examined him, he was leaning back in the rocking-chair with his\nmouth open and his eyes shut.\n\n\"Has it done you any good, Mr. Povey?\"\n\n\"I think I'll lie down on the sofa for a minute,\" was Mr. Povey's\nstrange reply; and forthwith he sprang up and flung himself on to the\nhorse-hair sofa between the fireplace and the window, where he lay\nstripped of all his dignity, a mere beaten animal in a grey suit with\npeculiar coat-tails, and a very creased waistcoat, and a lapel that was\nplanted with pins, and a paper collar and close-fitting paper cuffs.\n\nConstance ran after him with the antimacassar, which she spread softly\non his shoulders; and Sophia put another one over his thin little legs,\nall drawn up.\n\nThey then gazed at their handiwork, with secret self-accusations and\nthe most dreadful misgivings.\n\n\"He surely never swallowed it!\" Constance whispered.\n\n\"He's asleep, anyhow,\" said Sophia, more loudly.\n\nMr. Povey was certainly asleep, and his mouth was very wide open--like\na shop-door. The only question was whether his sleep was not an eternal\nsleep; the only question was whether he was not out of his pain for\never.\n\nThen he snored--horribly; his snore seemed a portent of disaster.\n\nSophia approached him as though he were a bomb, and stared, growing\nbolder, into his mouth.\n\n\"Oh, Con,\" she summoned her sister, \"do come and look! It's too droll!\"\n\nIn an instant all their four eyes were exploring the singular landscape\nof Mr. Povey's mouth. In a corner, to the right of that interior, was\none sizeable fragment of a tooth, that was attached to Mr. Povey by the\nslenderest tie, so that at each respiration of Mr. Povey, when his body\nslightly heaved and the gale moaned in the cavern, this tooth moved\nseparately, showing that its long connection with Mr. Povey was drawing\nto a close.\n\n\"That's the one,\" said Sophia, pointing. \"And it's as loose as\nanything. Did you ever see such a funny thing?\"\n\nThe extreme funniness of the thing had lulled in Sophia the fear of Mr.\nPovey's sudden death.\n\n\"I'll see how much he's taken,\" said Constance, preoccupied, going to\nthe mantelpiece.\n\n\"Why, I do believe--\" Sophia began, and then stopped, glancing at the\nsewing-machine, which stood next to the sofa.\n\nIt was a Howe sewing-machine. It had a little tool-drawer, and in the\ntool-drawer was a small pair of pliers. Constance, engaged in sniffing\nat the lees of the potion in order to estimate its probable deadliness,\nheard the well-known click of the little tool-drawer, and then she saw\nSophia nearing Mr. Povey's mouth with the pliers.\n\n\"Sophia!\" she exclaimed, aghast. \"What in the name of goodness are you\ndoing?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Sophia.\n\nThe next instant Mr. Povey sprang up out of his laudanum dream.\n\n\"It jumps!\" he muttered; and, after a reflective pause, \"but it's much\nbetter.\" He had at any rate escaped death.\n\nSophia's right hand was behind her back.\n\nJust then a hawker passed down King Street, crying mussels and cockles.\n\n\"Oh!\" Sophia almost shrieked. \"Do let's have mussels and cockles for\ntea!\" And she rushed to the door, and unlocked and opened it,\nregardless of the risk of draughts to Mr. Povey.\n\nIn those days people often depended upon the caprices of hawkers for\nthe tastiness of their teas; but it was an adventurous age, when errant\nknights of commerce were numerous and enterprising. You went on to your\ndoorstep, caught your meal as it passed, withdrew, cooked it and ate\nit, quite in the manner of the early Briton.\n\nConstance was obliged to join her sister on the top step. Sophia\ndescended to the second step.\n\n\"Fresh mussels and cockles all alive oh!\" bawled the hawker, looking\nacross the road in the April breeze. He was the celebrated Hollins, a\nprofessional Irish drunkard, aged in iniquity, who cheerfully saluted\nmagistrates in the street, and referred to the workhouse, which he\noccasionally visited, as the Bastile.\n\nSophia was trembling from head to foot.\n\n\"What ARE you laughing at, you silly thing?\" Constance demanded.\n\nSophia surreptitiously showed the pliers, which she had partly thrust\ninto her pocket. Between their points was a most perceptible, and even\nrecognizable, fragment of Mr. Povey.\n\nThis was the crown of Sophia's career as a perpetrator of the\nunutterable.\n\n\"What!\" Constance's face showed the final contortions of that horrified\nincredulity which is forced to believe.\n\nSophia nudged her violently to remind her that they were in the street,\nand also quite close to Mr. Povey.\n\n\"Now, my little missies,\" said the vile Hollins. \"Three pence a pint,\nand how's your honoured mother to-day? Yes, fresh, so help me God!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE TOOTH\n\nI\n\n\nThe two girls came up the unlighted stone staircase which led from\nMaggie's cave to the door of the parlour. Sophia, foremost, was\ncarrying a large tray, and Constance a small one. Constance, who had\nnothing on her tray but a teapot, a bowl of steaming and balmy-scented\nmussels and cockles, and a plate of hot buttered toast, went directly\ninto the parlour on the left. Sophia had in her arms the entire\nmaterial and apparatus of a high tea for two, including eggs, jam, and\ntoast (covered with the slop-basin turned upside down), but not\nincluding mussels and cockles. She turned to the right, passed along\nthe corridor by the cutting-out room, up two steps into the sheeted and\nshuttered gloom of the closed shop, up the showroom stairs, through the\nshowroom, and so into the bedroom corridor. Experience had proved it\neasier to make this long detour than to round the difficult corner of\nthe parlour stairs with a large loaded tray. Sophia knocked with the\nedge of the tray at the door of the principal bedroom. The muffled\noratorical sound from within suddenly ceased, and the door was opened\nby a very tall, very thin, black-bearded man, who looked down at Sophia\nas if to demand what she meant by such an interruption.\n\n\"I've brought the tea, Mr. Critchlow,\" said Sophia.\n\nAnd Mr. Critchlow carefully accepted the tray.\n\n\"Is that my little Sophia?\" asked a faint voice from the depths of the\nbedroom.\n\n\"Yes, father,\" said Sophia.\n\nBut she did not attempt to enter the room. Mr. Critchlow put the tray\non a white-clad chest of drawers near the door, and then he shut the\ndoor, with no ceremony. Mr. Critchlow was John Baines's oldest and\nclosest friend, though decidedly younger than the draper. He frequently\n\"popped in\" to have a word with the invalid; but Thursday afternoon was\nhis special afternoon, consecrated by him to the service of the sick.\nFrom two o'clock precisely till eight o'clock precisely he took charge\nof John Baines, reigning autocratically over the bedroom. It was known\nthat he would not tolerate invasions, nor even ambassadorial visits.\nNo! He gave up his weekly holiday to this business of friendship, and\nhe must be allowed to conduct the business in his own way. Mrs. Baines\nherself avoided disturbing Mr. Critchlow's ministrations on her\nhusband. She was glad to do so; for Mr. Baines was never to be left\nalone under any circumstances, and the convenience of being able to\nrely upon the presence of a staid member of the Pharmaceutical Society\nfor six hours of a given day every week outweighed the slight affront\nto her prerogatives as wife and house-mistress. Mr. Critchlow was an\nextremely peculiar man, but when he was in the bedroom she could leave\nthe house with an easy mind. Moreover, John Baines enjoyed these\nThursday afternoons. For him, there was 'none like Charles Critchlow.'\nThe two old friends experienced a sort of grim, desiccated happiness,\ncooped up together in the bedroom, secure from women and fools\ngenerally. How they spent the time did not seem to be certainly known,\nbut the impression was that politics occupied them. Undoubtedly Mr.\nCritchlow was an extremely peculiar man. He was a man of habits. He\nmust always have the same things for his tea. Black-currant jam, for\ninstance. (He called it \"preserve.\") The idea of offering Mr. Critchlow\na tea which did not comprise black-currant jam was inconceivable by the\nintelligence of St. Luke's Square. Thus for years past, in the\nfruit-preserving season, when all the house and all the shop smelt\nrichly of fruit boiling in sugar, Mrs. Baines had filled an extra\nnumber of jars with black-currant jam, 'because Mr. Critchlow wouldn't\nTOUCH any other sort.'\n\nSo Sophia, faced with the shut door of the bedroom, went down to the\nparlour by the shorter route. She knew that on going up again, after\ntea, she would find the devastated tray on the doormat.\n\nConstance was helping Mr. Povey to mussels and cockles. And Mr. Povey\nstill wore one of the antimacassars. It must have stuck to his\nshoulders when he sprang up from the sofa, woollen antimacassars being\nnotoriously parasitic things. Sophia sat down, somewhat\nself-consciously. The serious Constance was also perturbed. Mr. Povey\ndid not usually take tea in the house on Thursday afternoons; his\npractice was to go out into the great, mysterious world. Never before\nhad he shared a meal with the girls alone. The situation was\nindubitably unexpected, unforeseen; it was, too, piquant, and what\nadded to its piquancy was the fact that Constance and Sophia were,\nsomehow, responsible for Mr. Povey. They felt that they were\nresponsible for him. They had offered the practical sympathy of two\nintelligent and well-trained young women, born nurses by reason of\ntheir sex, and Mr. Povey had accepted; he was now on their hands.\nSophia's monstrous, sly operation in Mr. Povey's mouth did not cause\neither of them much alarm, Constance having apparently recovered from\nthe first shock of it. They had discussed it in the kitchen while\npreparing the teas; Constance's extraordinarily severe and dictatorial\ntone in condemning it had led to a certain heat. But the success of the\nimpudent wrench justified it despite any irrefutable argument to the\ncontrary. Mr. Povey was better already, and he evidently remained in\nignorance of his loss.\n\n\"Have some?\" Constance asked of Sophia, with a large spoon hovering\nover the bowl of shells.\n\n\"Yes, PLEASE,\" said Sophia, positively.\n\nConstance well knew that she would have some, and had only asked from\nsheer nervousness.\n\n\"Pass your plate, then.\"\n\nNow when everybody was served with mussels, cockles, tea, and toast,\nand Mr. Povey had been persuaded to cut the crust off his toast, and\nConstance had, quite unnecessarily, warned Sophia against the deadly\ngreen stuff in the mussels, and Constance had further pointed out that\nthe evenings were getting longer, and Mr. Povey had agreed that they\nwere, there remained nothing to say. An irksome silence fell on them\nall, and no one could lift it off. Tiny clashes of shell and crockery\nsounded with the terrible clearness of noises heard in the night. Each\nperson avoided the eyes of the others. And both Constance and Sophia\nkept straightening their bodies at intervals, and expanding their\nchests, and then looking at their plates; occasionally a prim cough was\ndischarged. It was a sad example of the difference between young\nwomen's dreams of social brilliance and the reality of life. These\ngirls got more and more girlish, until, from being women at the\nadministering of laudanum, they sank back to about eight years of\nage--perfect children--at the tea-table.\n\nThe tension was snapped by Mr. Povey. \"My God!\" he muttered, moved by a\nstartling discovery to this impious and disgraceful oath (he, the\npattern and exemplar--and in the presence of innocent girlhood too!).\n\"I've swallowed it!\"\n\n\"Swallowed what, Mr. Povey?\" Constance inquired.\n\nThe tip of Mr. Povey's tongue made a careful voyage of inspection all\nround the right side of his mouth.\n\n\"Oh yes!\" he said, as if solemnly accepting the inevitable. \"I've\nswallowed it!\"\n\nSophia's face was now scarlet; she seemed to be looking for some place\nto hide it. Constance could not think of anything to say.\n\n\"That tooth has been loose for two years,\" said Mr. Povey, \"and now\nI've swallowed it with a mussel.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Povey!\" Constance cried in confusion, and added, \"There's one\ngood thing, it can't hurt you any more now.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Povey. \"It wasn't THAT tooth that was hurting me. It's\nan old stump at the back that's upset me so this last day or two. I\nwish it had been.\"\n\nSophia had her teacup close to her red face. At these words of Mr.\nPovey her cheeks seemed to fill out like plump apples. She dashed the\ncup into its saucer, spilling tea recklessly, and then ran from the\nroom with stifled snorts.\n\n\"Sophia!\" Constance protested.\n\n\"I must just--\" Sophia incoherently spluttered in the doorway. \"I\nshall be all right. Don't----\"\n\nConstance, who had risen, sat down again.\n\nII\n\nSophia fled along the passage leading to the shop and took refuge in\nthe cutting-out room, a room which the astonishing architect had\ndevised upon what must have been a backyard of one of the three\nconstituent houses. It was lighted from its roof, and only a wooden\npartition, eight feet high, separated it from the passage. Here Sophia\ngave rein to her feelings; she laughed and cried together, weeping\ngenerously into her handkerchief and wildly giggling, in a hysteria\nwhich she could not control. The spectacle of Mr. Povey mourning for a\ntooth which he thought he had swallowed, but which in fact lay all the\ntime in her pocket, seemed to her to be by far the most ridiculous,\nside-splitting thing that had ever happened or could happen on earth.\nIt utterly overcame her. And when she fancied that she had exhausted\nand conquered its surpassing ridiculousness, this ridiculousness seized\nher again and rolled her anew in depths of mad, trembling laughter.\n\nGradually she grew calmer. She heard the parlour door open, and\nConstance descend the kitchen steps with a rattling tray of tea-things.\nTea, then, was finished, without her! Constance did not remain in the\nkitchen, because the cups and saucers were left for Maggie to wash up\nas a fitting coda to Maggie's monthly holiday. The parlour door closed.\nAnd the vision of Mr. Povey in his antimacassar swept Sophia off into\nanother convulsion of laughter and tears. Upon this the parlour door\nopened again, and Sophia choked herself into silence while Constance\nhastened along the passage. In a minute Constance returned with her\nwoolwork, which she had got from the showroom, and the parlour received\nher. Not the least curiosity on the part of Constance as to what had\nbecome of Sophia!\n\nAt length Sophia, a faint meditative smile being all that was left of\nthe storm in her, ascended slowly to the showroom, through the shop.\nNothing there of interest! Thence she wandered towards the\ndrawing-room, and encountered Mr. Critchlow's tray on the mat. She\npicked it up and carried it by way of the showroom and shop down to the\nkitchen, where she dreamily munched two pieces of toast that had cooled\nto the consistency of leather. She mounted the stone steps and listened\nat the door of the parlour. No sound! This seclusion of Mr. Povey and\nConstance was really very strange. She roved right round the house, and\ndescended creepingly by the twisted house-stairs, and listened intently\nat the other door of the parlour. She now detected a faint regular\nsnore. Mr. Povey, a prey to laudanum and mussels, was sleeping while\nConstance worked at her fire-screen! It was now in the highest degree\nodd, this seclusion of Mr. Povey and Constance; unlike anything in\nSophia's experience! She wanted to go into the parlour, but she could\nnot bring herself to do so. She crept away again, forlorn and puzzled,\nand next discovered herself in the bedroom which she shared with\nConstance at the top of the house; she lay down in the dusk on the bed\nand began to read \"The Days of Bruce;\" but she read only with her eyes.\n\nLater, she heard movements on the house-stairs, and the familiar\nwhining creak of the door at the foot thereof. She skipped lightly to\nthe door of the bedroom.\n\n\"Good-night, Mr. Povey. I hope you'll be able to sleep.\"\n\nConstance's voice!\n\n\"It will probably come on again.\"\n\nMr. Povey's voice, pessimistic!\n\nThen the shutting of doors. It was almost dark. She went back to the\nbed, expecting a visit from Constance. But a clock struck eight, and\nall the various phenomena connected with the departure of Mr. Critchlow\noccurred one after another. At the same time Maggie came home from the\nland of romance. Then long silences! Constance was now immured with her\nfather, it being her \"turn\" to nurse; Maggie was washing up in her\ncave, and Mr. Povey was lost to sight in his bedroom. Then Sophia heard\nher mother's lively, commanding knock on the King Street door. Dusk had\ndefinitely yielded to black night in the bedroom. Sophia dozed and\ndreamed. When she awoke, her ear caught the sound of knocking. She\njumped up, tiptoed to the landing, and looked over the balustrade,\nwhence she had a view of all the first-floor corridor. The gas had been\nlighted; through the round aperture at the top of the porcelain globe\nshe could see the wavering flame. It was her mother, still bonneted,\nwho was knocking at the door of Mr. Povey's room. Constance stood in\nthe doorway of her parents' room. Mrs. Baines knocked twice with an\ninterval, and then said to Constance, in a resonant whisper that\nvibrated up the corridor----\n\n\"He seems to be fast asleep. I'd better not disturb him.\"\n\n\"But suppose he wants something in the night?\"\n\n\"Well, child, I should hear him moving. Sleep's the best thing for him.\"\n\nMrs. Baines left Mr. Povey to the effects of laudanum, and came along\nthe corridor. She was a stout woman, all black stuff and gold chain,\nand her skirt more than filled the width of the corridor. Sophia\nwatched her habitual heavy mounting gesture as she climbed the two\nsteps that gave variety to the corridor. At the gas-jet she paused,\nand, putting her hand to the tap, gazed up into the globe.\n\n\"Where's Sophia?\" she demanded, her eyes fixed on the gas as she\nlowered the flame.\n\n\"I think she must be in bed, mother,\" said Constance, nonchalantly.\n\nThe returned mistress was point by point resuming knowledge and control\nof that complicated machine--her household.\n\nThen Constance and her mother disappeared into the bedroom, and the\ndoor was shut with a gentle, decisive bang that to the silent watcher\non the floor above seemed to create a special excluding intimacy round\nabout the figures of Constance and her father and mother. The watcher\nwondered, with a little prick of jealousy, what they would be\ndiscussing in the large bedroom, her father's beard wagging feebly and\nhis long arms on the counterpane, Constance perched at the foot of the\nbed, and her mother walking to and fro, putting her cameo brooch on the\ndressing-table or stretching creases out of her gloves. Certainly, in\nsome subtle way, Constance had a standing with her parents which was\nmore confidential than Sophia's.\n\nIII\n\nWhen Constance came to bed, half an hour later, Sophia was already in\nbed. The room was fairly spacious. It had been the girls' retreat and\nfortress since their earliest years. Its features seemed to them as\nnatural and unalterable as the features of a cave to a cave-dweller. It\nhad been repapered twice in their lives, and each papering stood out in\ntheir memories like an epoch; a third epoch was due to the replacing of\na drugget by a resplendent old carpet degraded from the drawing-room.\nThere was only one bed, the bedstead being of painted iron; they never\ninterfered with each other in that bed, sleeping with a detachment as\nperfect as if they had slept on opposite sides of St. Luke's Square;\nyet if Constance had one night lain down on the half near the window\ninstead of on the half near the door, the secret nature of the universe\nwould have seemed to be altered. The small fire-grate was filled with a\nmass of shavings of silver paper; now the rare illnesses which they had\nsuffered were recalled chiefly as periods when that silver paper was\ncrammed into a large slipper-case which hung by the mantelpiece, and a\nfire of coals unnaturally reigned in its place--the silver paper was\npart of the order of the world. The sash of the window would not work\nquite properly, owing to a slight subsidence in the wall, and even when\nthe window was fastened there was always a narrow slit to the left hand\nbetween the window and its frame; through this slit came draughts, and\nthus very keen frosts were remembered by the nights when Mrs. Baines\ncaused the sash to be forced and kept at its full height by means of\nwedges--the slit of exposure was part of the order of the world.\n\nThey possessed only one bed, one washstand, and one dressing-table; but\nin some other respects they were rather fortunate girls, for they had\ntwo mahogany wardrobes; this mutual independence as regards wardrobes\nwas due partly to Mrs. Baines's strong commonsense, and partly to their\nfather's tendency to spoil them a little. They had, moreover, a chest\nof drawers with a curved front, of which structure Constance occupied\ntwo short drawers and one long one, and Sophia two long drawers. On it\nstood two fancy work-boxes, in which each sister kept jewellery, a\nsavings-bank book, and other treasures, and these boxes were absolutely\nsacred to their respective owners. They were different, but one was not\nmore magnificent than the other. Indeed, a rigid equality was the rule\nin the chamber, the single exception being that behind the door were\nthree hooks, of which Constance commanded two.\n\n\"Well,\" Sophia began, when Constance appeared. \"How's darling Mr.\nPovey?\" She was lying on her back, and smiling at her two hands, which\nshe held up in front of her.\n\n\"Asleep,\" said Constance. \"At least mother thinks so. She says sleep is\nthe best thing for him.\"\n\n\"'It will probably come on again,'\" said Sophia.\n\n\"What's that you say?\" Constance asked, undressing.\n\n\"'It will probably come on again.'\"\n\nThese words were a quotation from the utterances of darling Mr. Povey\non the stairs, and Sophia delivered them with an exact imitation of Mr.\nPovey's vocal mannerism.\n\n\"Sophia,\" said Constance, firmly, approaching the bed, \"I wish you\nwouldn't be so silly!\" She had benevolently ignored the satirical note\nin Sophia's first remark, but a strong instinct in her rose up and\nobjected to further derision. \"Surely you've done enough for one day!\"\nshe added.\n\nFor answer Sophia exploded into violent laughter, which she made no\nattempt to control. She laughed too long and too freely while Constance\nstared at her.\n\n\"_I_ don't know what's come over you!\" said Constance.\n\n\"It's only because I can't look at it without simply going off into\nfits!\" Sophia gasped out. And she held up a tiny object in her left\nhand.\n\nConstance started, flushing. \"You don't mean to say you've kept it!\"\nshe protested earnestly. \"How horrid you are, Sophia! Give it me at\nonce and let me throw it away. I never heard of such doings. Now give\nit me!\"\n\n\"No,\" Sophia objected, still laughing. \"I wouldn't part with it for\nworlds. It's too lovely.\"\n\nShe had laughed away all her secret resentment against Constance for\nhaving ignored her during the whole evening and for being on such\nintimate terms with their parents. And she was ready to be candidly\njolly with Constance.\n\n\"Give it me,\" said Constance, doggedly.\n\nSophia hid her hand under the clothes. \"You can have his old stump,\nwhen it comes out, if you like. But not this. What a pity it's the\nwrong one!\"\n\n\"Sophia, I'm ashamed of you! Give it me.\"\n\nThen it was that Sophia first perceived Constance's extreme\nseriousness. She was surprised and a little intimidated by it. For the\nexpression of Constance's face, usually so benign and calm, was harsh,\nalmost fierce. However, Sophia had a great deal of what is called\n\"spirit,\" and not even ferocity on the face of mild Constance could\nintimidate her for more than a few seconds. Her gaiety expired and her\nteeth were hidden.\n\n\"I've said nothing to mother----\" Constance proceeded.\n\n\"I should hope you haven't,\" Sophia put in tersely.\n\n\"But I certainly shall if you don't throw that away,\" Constance\nfinished.\n\n\"You can say what you like,\" Sophia retorted, adding contemptuously a\nterm of opprobrium which has long since passed out of use: \"Cant!\"\n\n\"Will you give it me or won't you?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\nIt was a battle suddenly engaged in the bedroom. The atmosphere had\naltered completely with the swiftness of magic. The beauty of Sophia,\nthe angelic tenderness of Constance, and the youthful, naive, innocent\ncharm of both of them, were transformed into something sinister and\ncruel. Sophia lay back on the pillow amid her dark-brown hair, and\ngazed with relentless defiance into the angry eyes of Constance, who\nstood threatening by the bed. They could hear the gas singing over the\ndressing-table, and their hearts beating the blood wildly in their\nveins. They ceased to be young without growing old; the eternal had\nleapt up in them from its sleep.\n\nConstance walked away from the bed to the dressing-table and began to\nloose her hair and brush it, holding back her head, shaking it, and\nbending forward, in the changeless gesture of that rite. She was so\ndisturbed that she had unconsciously reversed the customary order of\nthe toilette. After a moment Sophia slipped out of bed and, stepping\nwith her bare feet to the chest of drawers, opened her work-box and\ndeposited the fragment of Mr. Povey therein; she dropped the lid with\nan uncompromising bang, as if to say, \"We shall see if I am to be trod\nupon, miss!\" Their eyes met again in the looking-glass. Then Sophia got\nback into bed.\n\nFive minutes later, when her hair was quite finished, Constance knelt\ndown and said her prayers. Having said her prayers, she went straight\nto Sophia's work-box, opened it, seized the fragment of Mr. Povey, ran\nto the window, and frantically pushed the fragment through the slit\ninto the Square.\n\n\"There!\" she exclaimed nervously.\n\nShe had accomplished this inconceivable transgression of the code of\nhonour, beyond all undoing, before Sophia could recover from the\nstupefaction of seeing her sacred work-box impudently violated. In a\nsingle moment one of Sophia's chief ideals had been smashed utterly,\nand that by the sweetest, gentlest creature she had ever known. It was\na revealing experience for Sophia--and also for Constance. And it\nfrightened them equally. Sophia, staring at the text, \"Thou God seest\nme,\" framed in straw over the chest of drawers, did not stir. She was\ndefeated, and so profoundly moved in her defeat that she did not even\nreflect upon the obvious inefficacy of illuminated texts as a deterrent\nfrom evil-doing. Not that she cared a fig for the fragment of Mr.\nPovey! It was the moral aspect of the affair, and the astounding,\ninexplicable development in Constance's character, that staggered her\ninto silent acceptance of the inevitable.\n\nConstance, trembling, took pains to finish undressing with dignified\ndeliberation. Sophia's behaviour under the blow seemed too good to be\ntrue; but it gave her courage. At length she turned out the gas and lay\ndown by Sophia. And there was a little shuffling, and then stillness\nfor a while.\n\n\"And if you want to know,\" said Constance in a tone that mingled\namicableness with righteousness, \"mother's decided with Aunt Harriet\nthat we are BOTH to leave school next term.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nA BATTLE\n\nI\n\n\nThe day sanctioned by custom in the Five Towns for the making of pastry\nis Saturday. But Mrs. Baines made her pastry on Friday, because\nSaturday afternoon was, of course, a busy time in the shop. It is true\nthat Mrs. Baines made her pastry in the morning, and that Saturday\nmorning in the shop was scarcely different from any other morning.\nNevertheless, Mrs. Baines made her pastry on Friday morning instead of\nSaturday morning because Saturday afternoon was a busy time in the\nshop. She was thus free to do her marketing without breath-taking\nflurry on Saturday morning.\n\nOn the morning after Sophia's first essay in dentistry, therefore, Mrs.\nBaines was making her pastry in the underground kitchen. This kitchen,\nMaggie's cavern-home, had the mystery of a church, and on dark days it\nhad the mystery of a crypt. The stone steps leading down to it from the\nlevel of earth were quite unlighted. You felt for them with the feet of\nfaith, and when you arrived in the kitchen, the kitchen, by contrast,\nseemed luminous and gay; the architect may have considered and intended\nthis effect of the staircase. The kitchen saw day through a wide,\nshallow window whose top touched the ceiling and whose bottom had been\nout of the girls' reach until long after they had begun to go to\nschool. Its panes were small, and about half of them were of the \"knot\"\nkind, through which no object could be distinguished; the other half\nwere of a later date, and stood for the march of civilization. The view\nfrom the window consisted of the vast plate-glass windows of the newly\nbuilt Sun vaults, and of passing legs and skirts. A strong wire grating\nprevented any excess of illumination, and also protected the glass from\nthe caprices of wayfarers in King Street. Boys had a habit of stopping\nto kick with their full strength at the grating.\n\nForget-me-nots on a brown field ornamented the walls of the kitchen.\nIts ceiling was irregular and grimy, and a beam ran across it; in this\nbeam were two hooks; from these hooks had once depended the ropes of a\nswing, much used by Constance and Sophia in the old days before they\nwere grown up. A large range stood out from the wall between the stairs\nand the window. The rest of the furniture comprised a table--against\nthe wall opposite the range--a cupboard, and two Windsor chairs.\nOpposite the foot of the steps was a doorway, without a door, leading\nto two larders, dimmer even than the kitchen, vague retreats made\nvisible by whitewash, where bowls of milk, dishes of cold bones, and\nremainders of fruit-pies, reposed on stillages; in the corner nearest\nthe kitchen was a great steen in which the bread was kept. Another\ndoorway on the other side of the kitchen led to the first coal-cellar,\nwhere was also the slopstone and tap, and thence a tunnel took you to\nthe second coal-cellar, where coke and ashes were stored; the tunnel\nproceeded to a distant, infinitesimal yard, and from the yard, by ways\nbehind Mr. Critchlow's shop, you could finally emerge, astonished, upon\nBrougham Street. The sense of the vast-obscure of those regions which\nbegan at the top of the kitchen steps and ended in black corners of\nlarders or abruptly in the common dailiness of Brougham Street, a sense\nwhich Constance and Sophia had acquired in infancy, remained with them\nalmost unimpaired as they grew old.\n\nMrs. Baines wore black alpaca, shielded by a white apron whose string\ndrew attention to the amplitude of her waist. Her sleeves were turned\nup, and her hands, as far as the knuckles, covered with damp flour. Her\nageless smooth paste-board occupied a corner of the table, and near it\nwere her paste-roller, butter, some pie-dishes, shredded apples, sugar,\nand other things. Those rosy hands were at work among a sticky\nsubstance in a large white bowl.\n\n\"Mother, are you there?\" she heard a voice from above.\n\n\"Yes, my chuck.\"\n\nFootsteps apparently reluctant and hesitating clinked on the stairs,\nand Sophia entered the kitchen.\n\n\"Put this curl straight,\" said Mrs. Baines, lowering her head slightly\nand holding up her floured hands, which might not touch anything but\nflour. \"Thank you. It bothered me. And now stand out of my light. I'm\nin a hurry. I must get into the shop so that I can send Mr. Povey off\nto the dentist's. What is Constance doing?\"\n\n\"Helping Maggie to make Mr. Povey's bed.\"\n\n\"Oh!\"\n\nThough fat, Mrs. Baines was a comely woman, with fine brown hair, and\nconfidently calm eyes that indicated her belief in her own capacity to\naccomplish whatever she could be called on to accomplish. She looked\nneither more nor less than her age, which was forty-five. She was not a\nnative of the district, having been culled by her husband from the\nmoorland town of Axe, twelve miles off. Like nearly all women who\nsettle in a strange land upon marriage, at the bottom of her heart she\nhad considered herself just a trifle superior to the strange land and\nits ways. This feeling, confirmed by long experience, had never left\nher. It was this feeling which induced her to continue making her own\npastry--with two thoroughly trained \"great girls\" in the house!\nConstance could make good pastry, but it was not her mother's pastry.\nIn pastry-making everything can be taught except the \"hand,\" light and\nfirm, which wields the roller. One is born with this hand, or without\nit. And if one is born without it, the highest flights of pastry are\nimpossible. Constance was born without it. There were days when Sophia\nseemed to possess it; but there were other days when Sophia's pastry\nwas uneatable by any one except Maggie. Thus Mrs. Baines, though\nintensely proud and fond of her daughters, had justifiably preserved a\ncertain condescension towards them. She honestly doubted whether either\nof them would develop into the equal of their mother.\n\n\"Now you little vixen!\" she exclaimed. Sophia was stealing and eating\nslices of half-cooked apple. \"This comes of having no breakfast! And\nwhy didn't you come down to supper last night?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I forgot.\"\n\nMrs. Baines scrutinized the child's eyes, which met hers with a sort of\ndiffident boldness. She knew everything that a mother can know of a\ndaughter, and she was sure that Sophia had no cause to be indisposed.\nTherefore she scrutinized those eyes with a faint apprehension.\n\n\"If you can't find anything better to do,\" said she, \"butter me the\ninside of this dish. Are your hands clean? No, better not touch it.\"\n\nMrs. Baines was now at the stage of depositing little pats of butter in\nrows on a large plain of paste. The best fresh butter! Cooking butter,\nto say naught of lard, was unknown in that kitchen on Friday mornings.\nShe doubled the expanse of paste on itself and rolled the butter\nin--supreme operation!\n\n\"Constance has told you--about leaving school?\" said Mrs. Baines, in\nthe vein of small-talk, as she trimmed the paste to the shape of a\npie-dish.\n\n\"Yes,\" Sophia replied shortly. Then she moved away from the table to\nthe range. There was a toasting-fork on the rack, and she began to play\nwith it.\n\n\"Well, are you glad? Your aunt Harriet thinks you are quite old enough\nto leave. And as we'd decided in any case that Constance was to leave,\nit's really much simpler that you should both leave together.\"\n\n\"Mother,\" said Sophia, rattling the toasting-fork, \"what am I going to\ndo after I've left school?\"\n\n\"I hope,\" Mrs. Baines answered with that sententiousness which even the\ncleverest of parents are not always clever enough to deny themselves,\n\"I hope that both of you will do what you can to help your mother--and\nfather,\" she added.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Sophia, irritated. \"But what am I going to DO?\"\n\n\"That must be considered. As Constance is to learn the millinery, I've\nbeen thinking that you might begin to make yourself useful in the\nunderwear, gloves, silks, and so on. Then between you, you would one\nday be able to manage quite nicely all that side of the shop, and I\nshould be--\"\n\n\"I don't want to go into the shop, mother.\"\n\nThis interruption was made in a voice apparently cold and inimical. But\nSophia trembled with nervous excitement as she uttered the words. Mrs.\nBaines gave a brief glance at her, unobserved by the child, whose face\nwas towards the fire. She deemed herself a finished expert in the\nreading of Sophia's moods; nevertheless, as she looked at that straight\nback and proud head, she had no suspicion that the whole essence and\nbeing of Sophia was silently but intensely imploring sympathy.\n\n\"I wish you would be quiet with that fork,\" said Mrs. Baines, with the\ncurious, grim politeness which often characterized her relations with\nher daughters.\n\nThe toasting-fork fell on the brick floor, after having rebounded from\nthe ash-tin. Sophia hurriedly replaced it on the rack.\n\n\"Then what SHALL you do?\" Mrs. Baines proceeded, conquering the\nannoyance caused by the toasting-fork. \"I think it's me that should ask\nyou instead of you asking me. What shall you do? Your father and I were\nboth hoping you would take kindly to the shop and try to repay us for\nall the--\"\n\nMrs. Baines was unfortunate in her phrasing that morning. She happened\nto be, in truth, rather an exceptional parent, but that morning she\nseemed unable to avoid the absurd pretensions which parents of those\ndays assumed quite sincerely and which every good child with meekness\naccepted.\n\nSophia was not a good child, and she obstinately denied in her heart\nthe cardinal principle of family life, namely, that the parent has\nconferred on the offspring a supreme favour by bringing it into the\nworld. She interrupted her mother again, rudely.\n\n\"I don't want to leave school at all,\" she said passionately.\n\n\"But you will have to leave school sooner or later,\" argued Mrs.\nBaines, with an air of quiet reasoning, of putting herself on a level\nwith Sophia. \"You can't stay at school for ever, my pet, can you? Out\nof my way!\"\n\nShe hurried across the kitchen with a pie, which she whipped into the\noven, shutting the iron door with a careful gesture.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Sophia. \"I should like to be a teacher. That's what I want\nto be.\"\n\nThe tap in the coal-cellar, out of repair, could be heard distinctly\nand systematically dropping water into a jar on the slopstone.\n\n\"A school-teacher?\" inquired Mrs. Baines.\n\n\"Of course. What other kind is there?\" said Sophia, sharply. \"With Miss\nChetwynd.\"\n\n\"I don't think your father would like that,\" Mrs. Baines replied. \"I'm\nsure he wouldn't like it.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"It wouldn't be quite suitable.\"\n\n\"Why not, mother?\" the girl demanded with a sort of ferocity. She had\nnow quitted the range. A man's feet twinkled past the window.\n\nMrs. Baines was startled and surprised. Sophia's attitude was really\nvery trying; her manners deserved correction. But it was not these\nphenomena which seriously affected Mrs. Baines; she was used to them\nand had come to regard them as somehow the inevitable accompaniment of\nSophia's beauty, as the penalty of that surpassing charm which\noccasionally emanated from the girl like a radiance. What startled and\nsurprised Mrs. Baines was the perfect and unthinkable madness of\nSophia's infantile scheme. It was a revelation to Mrs. Baines. Why in\nthe name of heaven had the girl taken such a notion into her head?\nOrphans, widows, and spinsters of a certain age suddenly thrown on the\nworld--these were the women who, naturally, became teachers, because\nthey had to become something. But that the daughter of comfortable\nparents, surrounded by love and the pleasures of an excellent home,\nshould wish to teach in a school was beyond the horizons of Mrs.\nBaines's common sense. Comfortable parents of to-day who have a\ndifficulty in sympathizing with Mrs. Baines, should picture what their\nfeelings would be if their Sophias showed a rude desire to adopt the\nvocation of chauffeur.\n\n\"It would take you too much away from home,\" said Mrs. Baines,\nachieving a second pie.\n\nShe spoke softly. The experience of being Sophia's mother for nearly\nsixteen years had not been lost on Mrs. Baines, and though she was now\ndiscovering undreamt-of dangers in Sophia's erratic temperament, she\nkept her presence of mind sufficiently well to behave with diplomatic\nsmoothness. It was undoubtedly humiliating to a mother to be forced to\nuse diplomacy in dealing with a girl in short sleeves. In HER day\nmothers had been autocrats. But Sophia was Sophia.\n\n\"What if it did?\" Sophia curtly demanded.\n\n\"And there's no opening in Bursley,\" said Mrs. Baines.\n\n\"Miss Chetwynd would have me, and then after a time I could go to her\nsister.\"\n\n\"Her sister? What sister?\"\n\n\"Her sister that has a big school in London somewhere.\"\n\nMrs. Baines covered her unprecedented emotions by gazing into the oven\nat the first pie. The pie was doing well, under all the circumstances.\nIn those few seconds she reflected rapidly and decided that to a\ndesperate disease a desperate remedy must be applied.\n\nLondon! She herself had never been further than Manchester. London,\n'after a time'! No, diplomacy would be misplaced in this crisis of\nSophia's development!\n\n\"Sophia,\" she said, in a changed and solemn voice, fronting her\ndaughter, and holding away from her apron those floured, ringed hands,\n\"I don't know what has come over you. Truly I don't! Your father and I\nare prepared to put up with a certain amount, but the line must be\ndrawn. The fact is, we've spoilt you, and instead of getting better as\nyou grow up, you're getting worse. Now let me hear no more of this,\nplease. I wish you would imitate your sister a little more. Of course\nif you won't do your share in the shop, no one can make you. If you\nchoose to be an idler about the house, we shall have to endure it. We\ncan only advise you for your own good. But as for this ...\" She\nstopped, and let silence speak, and then finished: \"Let me hear no more\nof it.\"\n\nIt was a powerful and impressive speech, enunciated clearly in such a\ntone as Mrs. Baines had not employed since dismissing a young lady\nassistant five years ago for light conduct.\n\n\"But, mother--\"\n\nA commotion of pails resounded at the top of the stone steps. It was\nMaggie in descent from the bedrooms. Now, the Baines family passed its\nlife in doing its best to keep its affairs to itself, the assumption\nbeing that Maggie and all the shop-staff (Mr. Povey possibly excepted)\nwere obsessed by a ravening appetite for that which did not concern\nthem. Therefore the voices of the Baineses always died away, or fell to\na hushed, mysterious whisper, whenever the foot of the eavesdropper was\nheard.\n\nMrs. Baines put a floured finger to her double chin. \"That will do,\"\nsaid she, with finality.\n\nMaggie appeared, and Sophia, with a brusque precipitation of herself,\nvanished upstairs.\n\nII\n\n\"Now, really, Mr. Povey, this is not like you,\" said Mrs. Baines, who,\non her way into the shop, had discovered the Indispensable in the\ncutting-out room.\n\nIt is true that the cutting-out room was almost Mr. Povey's sanctum,\nwhither he retired from time to time to cut out suits of clothes and\nodd garments for the tailoring department. It is true that the\ntailoring department flourished with orders, employing several tailors\nwho crossed legs in their own homes, and that appointments were\ncontinually being made with customers for trying-on in that room. But\nthese considerations did not affect Mrs. Baines's attitude of\ndisapproval.\n\n\"I'm just cutting out that suit for the minister,\" said Mr. Povey.\n\nThe Reverend Mr. Murley, superintendent of the Wesleyan Methodist\ncircuit, called on Mr. Baines every week. On a recent visit Mr. Baines\nhad remarked that the parson's coat was ageing into green, and had\ncommanded that a new suit should be built and presented to Mr. Murley.\nMr. Murley, who had a genuine mediaeval passion for souls, and who\nspent his money and health freely in gratifying the passion, had\naccepted the offer strictly on behalf of Christ, and had carefully\nexplained to Mr. Povey Christ's use for multifarious pockets.\n\n\"I see you are,\" said Mrs. Baines tartly. \"But that's no reason why you\nshould be without a coat--and in this cold room too. You with\ntoothache!\"\n\nThe fact was that Mr. Povey always doffed his coat when cutting out.\nInstead of a coat he wore a tape-measure.\n\n\"My tooth doesn't hurt me,\" said he, sheepishly, dropping the great\nscissors and picking up a cake of chalk.\n\n\"Fiddlesticks!\" said Mrs. Baines.\n\nThis exclamation shocked Mr. Povey. It was not unknown on the lips of\nMrs. Baines, but she usually reserved it for members of her own sex.\nMr. Povey could not recall that she had ever applied it to any\nstatement of his. \"What's the matter with the woman?\" he thought. The\nredness of her face did not help him to answer the question, for her\nface was always red after the operations of Friday in the kitchen.\n\n\"You men are all alike,\" Mrs. Baines continued. \"The very thought of\nthe dentist's cures you. Why don't you go in at once to Mr. Critchlow\nand have it out--like a man?\"\n\nMr. Critchlow extracted teeth, and his shop sign said \"Bone-setter and\nchemist.\" But Mr. Povey had his views.\n\n\"I make no account of Mr. Critchlow as a dentist,\" said he.\n\n\"Then for goodness' sake go up to Oulsnam's.\"\n\n\"When? I can't very well go now, and to-morrow is Saturday.\"\n\n\"Why can't you go now?\"\n\n\"Well, of course, I COULD go now,\" he admitted.\n\n\"Let me advise you to go, then, and don't come back with that tooth in\nyour head. I shall be having you laid up next. Show some pluck, do!\"\n\n\"Oh! pluck--!\" he protested, hurt.\n\nAt that moment Constance came down the passage singing.\n\n\"Constance, my pet!\" Mrs. Baines called.\n\n\"Yes, mother.\" She put her head into the room. \"Oh!\" Mr. Povey was\nassuming his coat.\n\n\"Mr. Povey is going to the dentist's.\"\n\n\"Yes, I'm going at once,\" Mr. Povey confirmed.\n\n\"Oh! I'm so GLAD!\" Constance exclaimed. Her face expressed a pure\nsympathy, uncomplicated by critical sentiments. Mr. Povey rapidly\nbathed in that sympathy, and then decided that he must show himself a\nman of oak and iron.\n\n\"It's always best to get these things done with,\" said he, with stern\ndetachment. \"I'll just slip my overcoat on.\"\n\n\"Here it is,\" said Constance, quickly. Mr. Povey's overcoat and hat\nwere hung on a hook immediately outside the room, in the passage. She\ngave him the overcoat, anxious to be of service.\n\n\"I didn't call you in here to be Mr. Povey's valet,\" said Mrs. Baines\nto herself with mild grimness; and aloud: \"I can't stay in the shop\nlong, Constance, but you can be there, can't you, till Mr. Povey comes\nback? And if anything happens run upstairs and tell me.\"\n\n\"Yes, mother,\" Constance eagerly consented. She hesitated and then\nturned to obey at once.\n\n\"I want to speak to you first, my pet,\" Mrs. Baines stopped her. And\nher tone was peculiar, charged with import, confidential, and therefore\nvery flattering to Constance.\n\n\"I think I'll go out by the side-door,\" said Mr. Povey. \"It'll be\nnearer.\"\n\nThis was truth. He would save about ten yards, in two miles, by going\nout through the side-door instead of through the shop. Who could have\nguessed that he was ashamed to be seen going to the dentist's, afraid\nlest, if he went through the shop, Mrs. Baines might follow him and\nutter some remark prejudicial to his dignity before the assistants?\n(Mrs. Baines could have guessed, and did.)\n\n\"You won't want that tape-measure,\" said Mrs. Baines, dryly, as Mr.\nPovey dragged open the side-door. The ends of the forgotten\ntape-measure were dangling beneath coat and overcoat.\n\n\"Oh!\" Mr. Povey scowled at his forgetfulness.\n\n\"I'll put it in its place,\" said Constance, offering to receive the\ntape-measure.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Mr. Povey, gravely. \"I don't suppose they'll be long\nover my bit of a job,\" he added, with a difficult, miserable smile.\n\nThen he went off down King Street, with an exterior of gay briskness\nand dignified joy in the fine May morning. But there was no May morning\nin his cowardly human heart.\n\n\"Hi! Povey!\" cried a voice from the Square.\n\nBut Mr. Povey disregarded all appeals. He had put his hand to the\nplough, and he would not look back.\n\n\"Hi! Povey!\"\n\nUseless!\n\nMrs. Baines and Constance were both at the door. A middle-aged man was\ncrossing the road from Boulton Terrace, the lofty erection of new shops\nwhich the envious rest of the Square had decided to call \"showy.\" He\nwaved a hand to Mrs. Baines, who kept the door open.\n\n\"It's Dr. Harrop,\" she said to Constance. \"I shouldn't be surprised if\nthat baby's come at last, and he wanted to tell Mr. Povey.\"\n\nConstance blushed, full of pride. Mrs. Povey, wife of \"our Mr. Povey's\"\nrenowned cousin, the high-class confectioner and baker in Boulton\nTerrace, was a frequent subject of discussion in the Baines family,\nbut this was absolutely the first time that Mrs. Baines had\nacknowledged, in presence of Constance, the marked and growing change\nwhich had characterized Mrs. Povey's condition during recent months.\nSuch frankness on the part of her mother, coming after the decision\nabout leaving school, proved indeed that Constance had ceased to be a\nmere girl.\n\n\"Good morning, doctor.\"\n\nThe doctor, who carried a little bag and wore riding-breeches (he was\nthe last doctor in Bursley to abandon the saddle for the dog-cart),\nsaluted and straightened his high, black stock.\n\n\"Morning! Morning, missy! Well, it's a boy.\"\n\n\"What? Yonder?\" asked Mrs. Baines, indicating the confectioner's.\n\nDr. Harrop nodded. \"I wanted to inform him,\" said he, jerking his\nshoulder in the direction of the swaggering coward.\n\n\"What did I tell you, Constance?\" said Mrs. Baines, turning to her\ndaughter.\n\nConstance's confusion was equal to her pleasure. The alert doctor had\nhalted at the foot of the two steps, and with one hand in the pocket of\nhis \"full-fall\" breeches, he gazed up, smiling out of little eyes, at\nthe ample matron and the slender virgin.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"Been up most of th' night. Difficult! Difficult!\"\n\n\"It's all RIGHT, I hope?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. Fine child! Fine child! But he put his mother to some trouble,\nfor all that. Nothing fresh?\" This time he lifted his eyes to indicate\nMr. Baines's bedroom.\n\n\"No,\" said Mrs. Baines, with a different expression.\n\n\"Keeps cheerful?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Good! A very good morning to you.\"\n\nHe strode off towards his house, which was lower down the street.\n\n\"I hope she'll turn over a new leaf now,\" observed Mrs. Baines to\nConstance as she closed the door. Constance knew that her mother was\nreferring to the confectioner's wife; she gathered that the hope was\nslight in the extreme.\n\n\"What did you want to speak to me about, mother?\" she asked, as a way\nout of her delicious confusion.\n\n\"Shut that door,\" Mrs. Baines replied, pointing to the door which led\nto the passage; and while Constance obeyed, Mrs. Baines herself shut\nthe staircase-door. She then said, in a low, guarded voice--\n\n\"What's all this about Sophia wanting to be a school-teacher?\"\n\n\"Wanting to be a school-teacher?\" Constance repeated, in tones of\namazement.\n\n\"Yes. Hasn't she said anything to you?\"\n\n\"Not a word!\"\n\n\"Well, I never! She wants to keep on with Miss Chetwynd and be a\nteacher.\" Mrs. Baines had half a mind to add that Sophia had mentioned\nLondon. But she restrained herself. There are some things which one\ncannot bring one's self to say. She added, \"Instead of going into the\nshop!\"\n\n\"I never heard of such a thing!\" Constance murmured brokenly, in the\nexcess of her astonishment. She was rolling up Mr. Povey's tape-measure.\n\n\"Neither did I!\" said Mrs. Baines.\n\n\"And shall you let her, mother?\"\n\n\"Neither your father nor I would ever dream of it!\" Mrs. Baines\nreplied, with calm and yet terrible decision. \"I only mentioned it to\nyou because I thought Sophia would have told you something.\"\n\n\"No, mother!\"\n\nAs Constance put Mr. Povey's tape-measure neatly away in its drawer\nunder the cutting-out counter, she thought how serious life was--what\nwith babies and Sophias. She was very proud of her mother's confidence\nin her; this simple pride filled her ardent breast with a most\nagreeable commotion. And she wanted to help everybody, to show in some\nway how much she sympathized with and loved everybody. Even the madness\nof Sophia did not weaken her longing to comfort Sophia.\n\nIII\n\nThat afternoon there was a search for Sophia, whom no one had seen\nsince dinner. She was discovered by her mother, sitting alone and\nunoccupied in the drawing-room. The circumstance was in itself\nsufficiently peculiar, for on weekdays the drawing-room was never used,\neven by the girls during their holidays, except for the purpose of\nplaying the piano. However, Mrs. Baines offered no comment on Sophia's\ngeographical situation, nor on her idleness.\n\n\"My dear,\" she said, standing at the door, with a self-conscious effort\nto behave as though nothing had happened, \"will you come and sit with\nyour father a bit?\"\n\n\"Yes, mother,\" answered Sophia, with a sort of cold alacrity.\n\n\"Sophia is coming, father,\" said Mrs. Baines at the open door of the\nbedroom, which was at right-angles with, and close to, the drawing-room\ndoor. Then she surged swishing along the corridor and went into the\nshowroom, whither she had been called.\n\nSophia passed to the bedroom, the eternal prison of John Baines.\nAlthough, on account of his nervous restlessness, Mr. Baines was never\nleft alone, it was not a part of the usual duty of the girls to sit\nwith him. The person who undertook the main portion of the vigils was a\ncertain Aunt Maria--whom the girls knew to be not a real aunt, not a\npowerful, effective aunt like Aunt Harriet of Axe--but a poor second\ncousin of John Baines; one of those necessitous, pitiful relatives who\nso often make life difficult for a great family in a small town. The\nexistence of Aunt Maria, after being rather a \"trial\" to the Baineses,\nhad for twelve years past developed into something absolutely\n\"providential\" for them. (It is to be remembered that in those days\nProvidence was still busying himself with everybody's affairs, and\nforeseeing the future in the most extraordinary manner. Thus, having\nforeseen that John Baines would have a \"stroke\" and need a faithful,\ntireless nurse, he had begun fifty years in advance by creating Aunt\nMaria, and had kept her carefully in misfortune's way, so that at the\nproper moment she would be ready to cope with the stroke. Such at least\nis the only theory which will explain the use by the Baineses, and\nindeed by all thinking Bursley, of the word \"providential\" in\nconnection with Aunt Maria.) She was a shrivelled little woman, capable\nof sitting twelve hours a day in a bedroom and thriving on the regime.\nAt nights she went home to her little cottage in Brougham Street; she\nhad her Thursday afternoons and generally her Sundays, and during the\nschool vacations she was supposed to come only when she felt inclined,\nor when the cleaning of her cottage permitted her to come. Hence, in\nholiday seasons, Mr. Baines weighed more heavily on his household than\nat other times, and his nurses relieved each other according to the\ncontingencies of the moment rather than by a set programme of hours.\n\nThe tragedy in ten thousand acts of which that bedroom was the scene,\nalmost entirely escaped Sophia's perception, as it did Constance's.\nSophia went into the bedroom as though it were a mere bedroom, with its\nmajestic mahogany furniture, its crimson rep curtains (edged with\ngold), and its white, heavily tasselled counterpane. She was aged four\nwhen John Baines had suddenly been seized with giddiness on the steps\nof his shop, and had fallen, and, without losing consciousness, had\nbeen transformed from John Baines into a curious and pathetic survival\nof John Baines. She had no notion of the thrill which ran through the\ntown on that night when it was known that John Baines had had a stroke,\nand that his left arm and left leg and his right eyelid were paralyzed,\nand that the active member of the Local Board, the orator, the\nreligious worker, the very life of the town's life, was permanently\ndone for. She had never heard of the crisis through which her mother,\nassisted by Aunt Harriet, had passed, and out of which she had\ntriumphantly emerged. She was not yet old enough even to suspect it.\nShe possessed only the vaguest memory of her father before he had\nfinished with the world. She knew him simply as an organism on a bed,\nwhose left side was wasted, whose eyes were often inflamed, whose mouth\nwas crooked, who had no creases from the nose to the corners of the\nmouth like other people, who experienced difficulty in eating because\nthe food would somehow get between his gums and his cheek, who slept a\ngreat deal but was excessively fidgety while awake, who seemed to hear\nwhat was said to him a long time after it was uttered, as if the sense\nhad to travel miles by labyrinthine passages to his brain, and who\ntalked very, very slowly in a weak, trembling voice.\n\nAnd she had an image of that remote brain as something with a red spot\non it, for once Constance had said: \"Mother, why did father have a\nstroke?\" and Mrs. Baines had replied: \"It was a haemorrhage of the\nbrain, my dear, here\"--putting a thimbled finger on a particular part\nof Sophia's head.\n\nNot merely had Constance and Sophia never really felt their father's\ntragedy; Mrs. Baines herself had largely lost the sense of it--such is\nthe effect of use. Even the ruined organism only remembered fitfully\nand partially that it had once been John Baines. And if Mrs. Baines had\nnot, by the habit of years, gradually built up a gigantic fiction that\nthe organism remained ever the supreme consultative head of the family;\nif Mr. Critchlow had not obstinately continued to treat it as a crony,\nthe mass of living and dead nerves on the rich Victorian bedstead would\nhave been of no more account than some Aunt Maria in similar case.\nThese two persons, his wife and his friend, just managed to keep him\nmorally alive by indefatigably feeding his importance and his dignity.\nThe feat was a miracle of stubborn self-deceiving, splendidly blind\ndevotion, and incorrigible pride.\n\nWhen Sophia entered the room, the paralytic followed her with his\nnervous gaze until she had sat down on the end of the sofa at the foot\nof the bed. He seemed to study her for a long time, and then he\nmurmured in his slow, enfeebled, irregular voice:\n\n\"Is that Sophia?\"\n\n\"Yes, father,\" she answered cheerfully.\n\nAnd after another pause, the old man said: \"Ay! It's Sophia.\"\n\nAnd later: \"Your mother said she should send ye.\"\n\nSophia saw that this was one of his bad, dull days. He had,\noccasionally, days of comparative nimbleness, when his wits seized\nalmost easily the meanings of external phenomena.\n\nPresently his sallow face and long white beard began to slip down the\nsteep slant of the pillows, and a troubled look came into his left eye.\nSophia rose and, putting her hands under his armpits, lifted him higher\nin the bed. He was not heavy, but only a strong girl of her years could\nhave done it.\n\n\"Ay!\" he muttered. \"That's it. That's it.\"\n\nAnd, with his controllable right hand, he took her hand as she stood by\nthe bed. She was so young and fresh, such an incarnation of the spirit\nof health, and he was so far gone in decay and corruption, that there\nseemed in this contact of body with body something unnatural and\nrepulsive. But Sophia did not so feel it.\n\n\"Sophia,\" he addressed her, and made preparatory noises in his throat\nwhile she waited.\n\nHe continued after an interval, now clutching her arm, \"Your mother's\nbeen telling me you don't want to go in the shop.\"\n\nShe turned her eyes on him, and his anxious, dim gaze met hers. She\nnodded.\n\n\"Nay, Sophia,\" he mumbled, with the extreme of slowness. \"I'm surprised\nat ye...  Trade's bad, bad! Ye know trade's bad?\" He was still\nclutching her arm.\n\nShe nodded. She was, in fact, aware of the badness of trade, caused by\na vague war in the United States. The words \"North\" and \"South\" had a\nhabit of recurring in the conversation of adult persons. That was all\nshe knew, though people were starving in the Five Towns as they were\nstarving in Manchester.\n\n\"There's your mother,\" his thought struggled on, like an aged horse\nover a hilly road. \"There's your mother!\" he repeated, as if wishful to\ndirect Sophia's attention to the spectacle of her mother. \"Working\nhard! Con--Constance and you must help her.... Trade's bad! What can I\ndo ... lying here?\"\n\nThe heat from his dry fingers was warming her arm. She wanted to move,\nbut she could not have withdrawn her arm without appearing impatient.\nFor a similar reason she would not avert her glance. A deepening flush\nincreased the lustre of her immature loveliness as she bent over him.\nBut though it was so close he did not feel that radiance. He had long\noutlived a susceptibility to the strange influences of youth and beauty.\n\n\"Teaching!\" he muttered. \"Nay, nay! I canna' allow that.\"\n\nThen his white beard rose at the tip as he looked up at the ceiling\nabove his head, reflectively.\n\n\"You understand me?\" he questioned finally.\n\nShe nodded again; he loosed her arm, and she turned away. She could not\nhave spoken. Glittering tears enriched her eyes. She was saddened into\na profound and sudden grief by the ridiculousness of the scene. She had\nyouth, physical perfection; she brimmed with energy, with the sense of\nvital power; all existence lay before her; when she put her lips\ntogether she felt capable of outvying no matter whom in fortitude of\nresolution. She had always hated the shop. She did not understand how\nher mother and Constance could bring themselves to be deferential and\nflattering to every customer that entered. No, she did not understand\nit; but her mother (though a proud woman) and Constance seemed to\npractise such behaviour so naturally, so unquestioningly, that she had\nnever imparted to either of them her feelings; she guessed that she\nwould not be comprehended. But long ago she had decided that she would\nnever \"go into the shop.\" She knew that she would be expected to do\nsomething, and she had fixed on teaching as the one possibility. These\ndecisions had formed part of her inner life for years past. She had not\nmentioned them, being secretive and scarcely anxious for\nunpleasantness. But she had been slowly preparing herself to mention\nthem. The extraordinary announcement that she was to leave school at\nthe same time as Constance had taken her unawares, before the\npreparations ripening in her mind were complete--before, as it were,\nshe had girded up her loins for the fray. She had been caught unready,\nand the opposing forces had obtained the advantage of her. But did they\nsuppose she was beaten?\n\nNo argument from her mother! No hearing, even! Just a curt and haughty\n'Let me hear no more of this'! And so the great desire of her life,\nnourished year after year in her inmost bosom, was to be flouted and\nsacrificed with a word! Her mother did not appear ridiculous in the\naffair, for her mother was a genuine power, commanding by turns genuine\nlove and genuine hate, and always, till then, obedience and the respect\nof reason. It was her father who appeared tragically ridiculous; and,\nin turn, the whole movement against her grew grotesque in its\nabsurdity. Here was this antique wreck, helpless, useless,\npowerless--merely pathetic--actually thinking that he had only to\nmumble in order to make her 'understand'! He knew nothing; he perceived\nnothing; he was a ferocious egoist, like most bedridden invalids, out\nof touch with life,--and he thought himself justified in making\ndestinies, and capable of making them! Sophia could not, perhaps,\ndefine the feelings which overwhelmed her; but she was conscious of\ntheir tendency. They aged her, by years. They aged her so that, in a\nkind of momentary ecstasy of insight, she felt older than her father\nhimself.\n\n\"You will be a good girl,\" he said. \"I'm sure o' that.\"\n\nIt was too painful. The grotesqueness of her father's complacency\nhumiliated her past bearing. She was humiliated, not for herself, but\nfor him. Singular creature! She ran out of the room.\n\nFortunately Constance was passing in the corridor, otherwise Sophia had\nbeen found guilty of a great breach of duty.\n\n\"Go to father,\" she whispered hysterically to Constance, and fled\nupwards to the second floor.\n\nIV\n\nAt supper, with her red, downcast eyes, she had returned to sheer\ngirlishness again, overawed by her mother. The meal had an unusual\naspect. Mr. Povey, safe from the dentist's, but having lost two teeth\nin two days, was being fed on 'slops'--bread and milk, to wit; he sat\nnear the fire. The others had cold pork, half a cold apple-pie, and\ncheese; but Sophia only pretended to eat; each time she tried to\nswallow, the tears came into her eyes, and her throat shut itself up.\nMrs. Baines and Constance had a too careful air of eating just as\nusual. Mrs. Baines's handsome ringlets dominated the table under the\ngas.\n\n\"I'm not so set up with my pastry to-day,\" observed Mrs. Baines,\ncritically munching a fragment of pie-crust.\n\nShe rang a little hand-bell. Maggie appeared from the cave. She wore a\nplain white bib-less apron, but no cap.\n\n\"Maggie, will you have some pie?\"\n\n\"Yes, if you can spare it, ma'am.\"\n\nThis was Maggie's customary answer to offers of food.\n\n\"We can always spare it, Maggie,\" said her mistress, as usual. \"Sophia,\nif you aren't going to use that plate, give it to me.\"\n\nMaggie disappeared with liberal pie.\n\nMrs. Baines then talked to Mr. Povey about his condition, and in\nparticular as to the need for precautions against taking cold in the\nbereaved gum. She was a brave and determined woman; from start to\nfinish she behaved as though nothing whatever in the household except\nher pastry and Mr. Povey had deviated that day from the normal. She\nkissed Constance and Sophia with the most exact equality, and called\nthem 'my chucks' when they went up to bed.\n\nConstance, excellent kind heart, tried to imitate her mother's tactics\nas the girls undressed in their room. She thought she could not do\nbetter than ignore Sophia's deplorable state.\n\n\"Mother's new dress is quite finished, and she's going to wear it on\nSunday,\" said she, blandly.\n\n\"If you say another word I'll scratch your eyes out!\" Sophia turned on\nher viciously, with a catch in her voice, and then began to sob at\nintervals. She did not mean this threat, but its utterance gave her\nrelief. Constance, faced with the fact that her mother's shoes were too\nbig for her, decided to preserve her eyesight.\n\nLong after the gas was out, rare sobs from Sophia shook the bed, and\nthey both lay awake in silence.\n\n\"I suppose you and mother have been talking me over finely to-day?\"\nSophia burst forth, to Constance's surprise, in a wet voice.\n\n\"No,\" said Constance soothingly. \"Mother only told me.\"\n\n\"Told you what?\"\n\n\"That you wanted to be a teacher.\"\n\n\"And I will be, too!\" said Sophia, bitterly.\n\n\"You don't know mother,\" thought Constance; but she made no audible\ncomment.\n\nThere was another detached, hard sob. And then, such is the astonishing\ntalent of youth, they both fell asleep.\n\nThe next morning, early, Sophia stood gazing out of the window at the\nSquare. It was Saturday, and all over the Square little stalls, with\nyellow linen roofs, were being erected for the principal market of the\nweek. In those barbaric days Bursley had a majestic edifice, black as\nbasalt, for the sale of dead animals by the limb and rib--it was\nentitled 'the Shambles'--but vegetables, fruit, cheese, eggs, and\npikelets were still sold under canvas. Eggs are now offered at five\nfarthings apiece in a palace that cost twenty-five thousand pounds. Yet\nyou will find people in Bursley ready to assert that things generally\nare not what they were, and that in particular the romance of life has\ngone. But until it has gone it is never romance. To Sophia, though she\nwas in a mood which usually stimulates the sense of the romantic, there\nwas nothing of romance in this picturesque tented field. It was just\nthe market. Holl's, the leading grocer's, was already open, at the\nextremity of the Square, and a boy apprentice was sweeping the pavement\nin front of it. The public-houses were open, several of them\nspecializing in hot rum at 5.30 a.m. The town-crier, in his blue coat\nwith red facings, crossed the Square, carrying his big bell by the\ntongue. There was the same shocking hole in one of Mrs. Povey's\n(confectioner's) window-curtains--a hole which even her recent travail\ncould scarcely excuse. Such matters it was that Sophia noticed with\ndull, smarting eyes.\n\n\"Sophia, you'll take your death of cold standing there like that!\"\n\nShe jumped. The voice was her mother's. That vigorous woman, after a\ncalm night by the side of the paralytic, was already up and neatly\ndressed. She carried a bottle and an egg-cup, and a small quantity of\njam in a table-spoon.\n\n\"Get into bed again, do! There's a dear! You're shivering.\"\n\nWhite Sophia obeyed. It was true; she was shivering. Constance awoke.\nMrs. Baines went to the dressing-table and filled the egg-cup out of\nthe bottle.\n\n\"Who's that for, mother?\" Constance asked sleepily.\n\n\"It's for Sophia,\" said Mrs. Baines, with good cheer. \"Now, Sophia!\"\nand she advanced with the egg-cup in one hand and the table-spoon in\nthe other.\n\n\"What is it, mother?\" asked Sophia, who well knew what it was.\n\n\"Castor-oil, my dear,\" said Mrs. Baines, winningly.\n\nThe ludicrousness of attempting to cure obstinacy and yearnings for a\nfreer life by means of castor-oil is perhaps less real than apparent.\nThe strange interdependence of spirit and body, though only understood\nintelligently in these intelligent days, was guessed at by sensible\nmediaeval mothers. And certainly, at the period when Mrs. Baines\nrepresented modernity, castor-oil was still the remedy of remedies. It\nhad supplanted cupping. And, if part of its vogue was due to its\nextreme unpleasantness, it had at least proved its qualities in many a\ncontest with disease. Less than two years previously old Dr. Harrop\n(father of him who told Mrs. Baines about Mrs. Povey), being then aged\neighty-six, had fallen from top to bottom of his staircase. He had\nscrambled up, taken a dose of castor-oil at once, and on the morrow was\nas well as if he had never seen a staircase. This episode was town\nproperty and had sunk deep into all hearts.\n\n\"I don't want any, mother,\" said Sophia, in dejection. \"I'm quite well.\"\n\n\"You simply ate nothing all day yesterday,\" said Mrs. Baines. And she\nadded, \"Come!\" As if to say, \"There's always this silly fuss with\ncastor-oil. Don't keep me waiting.\"\n\n\"I don't WANT any,\" said Sophia, irritated and captious.\n\nThe two girls lay side by side, on their backs. They seemed very thin\nand fragile in comparison with the solidity of their mother. Constance\nwisely held her peace.\n\nMrs. Baines put her lips together, meaning: \"This is becoming tedious.\nI shall have to be angry in another moment!\"\n\n\"Come!\" said she again.\n\nThe girls could hear her foot tapping on the floor.\n\n\"I really don't want it, mamma,\" Sophia fought. \"I suppose I ought to\nknow whether I need it or not!\" This was insolence.\n\n\"Sophia, will you take this medicine, or won't you?\"\n\nIn conflicts with her children, the mother's ultimatum always took the\nformula in which this phrase was cast. The girls knew, when things had\narrived at the pitch of 'or won't you' spoken in Mrs. Baines's firmest\ntone, that the end was upon them. Never had the ultimatum failed.\n\nThere was a silence.\n\n\"And I'll thank you to mind your manners,\" Mrs. Baines added.\n\n\"I won't take it,\" said Sophia, sullenly and flatly; and she hid her\nface in the pillow.\n\nIt was a historic moment in the family life. Mrs. Baines thought the\nlast day had come. But still she held herself in dignity while the\napocalypse roared in her ears.\n\n\"OF COURSE I CAN'T FORCE YOU TO TAKE IT,\" she said with superb\nevenness, masking anger by compassionate grief. \"You're a big girl and\na naughty girl. And if you will be ill you must.\"\n\nUpon this immense admission, Mrs. Baines departed.\n\nConstance trembled.\n\nNor was that all. In the middle of the morning, when Mrs. Baines was\npricing new potatoes at a stall at the top end of the Square, and\nConstance choosing threepennyworth of flowers at the same stall, whom\nshould they both see, walking all alone across the empty corner by the\nBank, but Sophia Baines! The Square was busy and populous, and Sophia\nwas only visible behind a foreground of restless, chattering figures.\nBut she was unmistakably seen. She had been beyond the Square and was\nreturning. Constance could scarcely believe her eyes. Mrs. Baines's\nheart jumped. For let it be said that the girls never under any\ncircumstances went forth without permission, and scarcely ever alone.\nThat Sophia should be at large in the town, without leave, without\nnotice, exactly as if she were her own mistress, was a proposition\nwhich a day earlier had been inconceivable. Yet there she was, and\nmoving with a leisureliness that must be described as effrontery!\n\nRed with apprehension, Constance wondered what would happen. Mrs.\nBaines said nought of her feelings, did not even indicate that she had\nseen the scandalous, the breath-taking sight. And they descended the\nSquare laden with the lighter portions of what they had bought during\nan hour of buying. They went into the house by the King Street door;\nand the first thing they heard was the sound of the piano upstairs.\nNothing happened. Mr. Povey had his dinner alone; then the table was\nlaid for them, and the bell rung, and Sophia came insolently downstairs\nto join her mother and sister. And nothing happened. The dinner was\nsilently eaten, and Constance having rendered thanks to God, Sophia\nrose abruptly to go.\n\n\"Sophia!\"\n\n\"Yes, mother.\"\n\n\"Constance, stay where you are,\" said Mrs. Baines suddenly to\nConstance, who had meant to flee. Constance was therefore destined to\nbe present at the happening, doubtless in order to emphasize its\nimportance and seriousness.\n\n\"Sophia,\" Mrs. Baines resumed to her younger daughter in an ominous\nvoice. \"No, please shut the door. There is no reason why everybody in\nthe house should hear. Come right into the room--right in! That's it.\nNow, what were you doing out in the town this morning?\"\n\nSophia was fidgeting nervously with the edge of her little black apron,\nand worrying a seam of the carpet with her toes. She bent her head\ntowards her left shoulder, at first smiling vaguely. She said nothing,\nbut every limb, every glance, every curve, was speaking. Mrs. Baines\nsat firmly in her own rocking-chair, full of the sensation that she had\nSophia, as it were, writhing on the end of a skewer. Constance was\nbraced into a moveless anguish.\n\n\"I will have an answer,\" pursued Mrs. Baines. \"What were you doing out\nin the town this morning?\"\n\n\"I just went out,\" answered Sophia at length, still with eyes downcast,\nand in a rather simpering tone.\n\n\"Why did you go out? You said nothing to me about going out. I heard\nConstance ask you if you were coming with us to the market, and you\nsaid, very rudely, that you weren't.\"\n\n\"I didn't say it rudely,\" Sophia objected.\n\n\"Yes you did. And I'll thank you not to answer back.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean to say it rudely, did I, Constance?\" Sophia's head\nturned sharply to her sister. Constance knew not where to look.\n\n\"Don't answer back,\" Mrs. Baines repeated sternly. \"And don't try to\ndrag Constance into this, for I won't have it.\"\n\n\"Oh, of course Constance is always right!\" observed Sophia, with an\nirony whose unparalleled impudence shook Mrs. Baines to her massive\nfoundations.\n\n\"Do you want me to have to smack you, child?\"\n\nHer temper flashed out and you could see ringlets vibrating under the\nprovocation of Sophia's sauciness. Then Sophia's lower lip began to\nfall and to bulge outwards, and all the muscles of her face seemed to\nslacken.\n\n\"You are a very naughty girl,\" said Mrs. Baines, with restraint. (\"I've\ngot her,\" said Mrs. Baines to herself. \"I may just as well keep my\ntemper.\")\n\nAnd a sob broke out of Sophia. She was behaving like a little child.\nShe bore no trace of the young maiden sedately crossing the Square\nwithout leave and without an escort.\n\n(\"I knew she was going to cry,\" said Mrs. Baines, breathing relief.)\n\n\"I'm waiting,\" said Mrs. Baines aloud.\n\nA second sob. Mrs. Baines manufactured patience to meet the demand.\n\n\"You tell me not to answer back, and then you say you're waiting,\"\nSophia blubbered thickly.\n\n\"What's that you say? How can I tell what you say if you talk like\nthat?\" (But Mrs. Baines failed to hear out of discretion, which is\nbetter than valour.)\n\n\"It's of no consequence,\" Sophia blurted forth in a sob. She was\nweeping now, and tears were ricocheting off her lovely crimson cheeks\non to the carpet; her whole body was trembling.\n\n\"Don't be a great baby,\" Mrs. Baines enjoined, with a touch of rough\npersuasiveness in her voice.\n\n\"It's you who make me cry,\" said Sophia, bitterly. \"You make me cry and\nthen you call me a great baby!\" And sobs ran through her frame like\nwaves one after another. She spoke so indistinctly that her mother now\nreally had some difficulty in catching her words.\n\n\"Sophia,\" said Mrs. Baines, with god-like calm, \"it is not I who make\nyou cry. It is your guilty conscience makes you cry. I have merely\nasked you a question, and I intend to have an answer.\"\n\n\"I've told you.\" Here Sophia checked the sobs with an immense effort.\n\n\"What have you told me?\"\n\n\"I just went out.\"\n\n\"I will have no trifling,\" said Mrs. Baines. \"What did you go out for,\nand without telling me? If you had told me afterwards, when I came in,\nof your own accord, it might have been different. But no, not a word!\nIt is I who have to ask! Now, quick! I can't wait any longer.\"\n\n(\"I gave way over the castor-oil, my girl,\" Mrs. Baines said in her own\nbreast. \"But not again! Not again!\")\n\n\"I don't know,\" Sophia murmured.\n\n\"What do you mean--you don't know?\"\n\nThe sobbing recommenced tempestuously. \"I mean I don't know. I just\nwent out.\" Her voice rose; it was noisy, but scarcely articulate. \"What\nif I did go out?\"\n\n\"Sophia, I am not going to be talked to like this. If you think because\nyou're leaving school you can do exactly as you like--\"\n\n\"Do I want to leave school?\" yelled Sophia, stamping. In a moment a\nhurricane of emotion overwhelmed her, as though that stamping of the\nfoot had released the demons of the storm. Her face was transfigured by\nuncontrollable passion. \"You all want to make me miserable!\" she\nshrieked with terrible violence. \"And now I can't even go out! You are\na horrid, cruel woman, and I hate you! And you can do what you like!\nPut me in prison if you like! I know you'd be glad if I was dead!\"\n\nShe dashed from the room, banging the door with a shock that made the\nhouse rattle. And she had shouted so loud that she might have been\nheard in the shop, and even in the kitchen. It was a startling\nexperience for Mrs. Baines. Mrs. Baines, why did you saddle yourself\nwith a witness? Why did you so positively say that you intended to have\nan answer?\n\n\"Really,\" she stammered, pulling her dignity about her shoulders like a\ngarment that the wind has snatched off. \"I never dreamed that poor girl\nhad such a dreadful temper! What a pity it is, for her OWN sake!\" It\nwas the best she could do.\n\nConstance, who could not bear to witness her mother's humiliation,\nvanished very quietly from the room. She got halfway upstairs to the\nsecond floor, and then, hearing the loud, rapid, painful, regular\nintake of sobbing breaths, she hesitated and crept down again.\n\nThis was Mrs. Baines's first costly experience of the child thankless\nfor having been brought into the world. It robbed her of her profound,\nabsolute belief in herself. She had thought she knew everything in her\nhouse and could do everything there. And lo! she had suddenly stumbled\nagainst an unsuspected personality at large in her house, a sort of\nhard marble affair that informed her by means of bumps that if she did\nnot want to be hurt she must keep out of the way.\n\nV\n\nOn the Sunday afternoon Mrs. Baines was trying to repose a little in\nthe drawing-room, where she had caused a fire to be lighted. Constance\nwas in the adjacent bedroom with her father. Sophia lay between\nblankets in the room overhead with a feverish cold. This cold and her\nnew dress were Mrs. Baines's sole consolation at the moment. She had\nprophesied a cold for Sophia, refuser of castor-oil, and it had come.\nSophia had received, for standing in her nightdress at a draughty\nwindow of a May morning, what Mrs. Baines called 'nature's slap in the\nface.' As for the dress, she had worshipped God in it, and prayed for\nSophia in it, before dinner; and its four double rows of gimp on the\nskirt had been accounted a great success. With her lace-bordered mantle\nand her low, stringed bonnet she had assuredly given a unique lustre to\nthe congregation at chapel. She was stout; but the fashions,\nprescribing vague outlines, broad downward slopes, and vast amplitudes,\nwere favourable to her shape. It must not be supposed that stout women\nof a certain age never seek to seduce the eye and trouble the\nmeditations of man by other than moral charms. Mrs. Baines knew that\nshe was comely, natty, imposing, and elegant; and the knowledge gave\nher real pleasure. She would look over her shoulder in the glass as\nanxious as a girl: make no mistake.\n\nShe did not repose; she could not. She sat thinking, in exactly the\nsame posture as Sophia's two afternoons previously. She would have been\nsurprised to hear that her attitude, bearing, and expression powerfully\nrecalled those of her reprehensible daughter. But it was so. A good\nangel made her restless, and she went idly to the window and glanced\nupon the empty, shuttered Square. She too, majestic matron, had\nstrange, brief yearnings for an existence more romantic than this;\nshootings across her spirit's firmament of tailed comets; soft,\ninexplicable melancholies. The good angel, withdrawing her from such a\nmood, directed her gaze to a particular spot at the top of the square.\n\nShe passed at once out of the room--not precisely in a hurry, yet\nwithout wasting time. In a recess under the stairs, immediately outside\nthe door, was a box about a foot square and eighteen inches deep\ncovered with black American cloth. She bent down and unlocked this box,\nwhich was padded within and contained the Baines silver tea-service.\nShe drew from the box teapot, sugar-bowl, milk-jug, sugar-tongs,\nhot-water jug, and cake-stand (a flattish dish with an arching\nsemicircular handle)--chased vessels, silver without and silver-gilt\nwithin; glittering heirlooms that shone in the dark corner like the\nsecret pride of respectable families. These she put on a tray that\nalways stood on end in the recess. Then she looked upwards through the\nbanisters to the second floor.\n\n\"Maggie!\" she piercingly whispered.\n\n\"Yes, mum,\" came a voice.\n\n\"Are you dressed?\"\n\n\"Yes, mum. I'm just coming.\"\n\n\"Well, put on your muslin.\" \"Apron,\" Mrs. Baines implied.\n\nMaggie understood.\n\n\"Take these for tea,\" said Mrs. Baines when Maggie descended. \"Better\nrub them over. You know where the cake is--that new one. The best cups.\nAnd the silver spoons.\"\n\nThey both heard a knock at the side-door, far off, below.\n\n\"There!\" exclaimed Mrs. Baines. \"Now take these right down into the\nkitchen before you open.\"\n\n\"Yes, mum,\" said Maggie, departing.\n\nMrs. Baines was wearing a black alpaca apron. She removed it and put on\nanother one of black satin embroidered with yellow flowers, which, by\nmerely inserting her arm into the chamber, she had taken from off the\nchest of drawers in her bedroom. Then she fixed herself in the\ndrawing-room.\n\nMaggie returned, rather short of breath, convoying the visitor.\n\n\"Ah! Miss Chetwynd,\" said Mrs. Baines, rising to welcome. \"I'm sure I'm\ndelighted to see you. I saw you coming down the Square, and I said to\nmyself, 'Now, I do hope Miss Chetwynd isn't going to forget us.'\"\n\nMiss Chetwynd, simpering momentarily, came forward with that\nself-conscious, slightly histrionic air, which is one of the penalties\nof pedagogy. She lived under the eyes of her pupils. Her life was one\nceaseless effort to avoid doing anything which might influence her\ncharges for evil or shock the natural sensitiveness of their parents.\nShe had to wind her earthly way through a forest of the most delicate\nsusceptibilities--fern-fronds that stretched across the path, and that\nshe must not even accidentally disturb with her skirt as she passed. No\nwonder she walked mincingly! No wonder she had a habit of keeping her\nelbows close to her sides, and drawing her mantle tight in the streets!\nHer prospectus talked about 'a sound and religious course of training,'\n'study embracing the usual branches of English, with music by a\ntalented master, drawing, dancing, and calisthenics.' Also 'needlework\nplain and ornamental;' also 'moral influence;' and finally about terms,\n'which are very moderate, and every particular, with references to\nparents and others, furnished on application.' (Sometimes, too, without\napplication.) As an illustration of the delicacy of fern-fronds, that\nsingle word 'dancing' had nearly lost her Constance and Sophia seven\nyears before!\n\nShe was a pinched virgin, aged forty, and not 'well off;' in her family\nthe gift of success had been monopolized by her elder sister. For these\ncharacteristics Mrs. Baines, as a matron in easy circumstances, pitied\nMiss Chetwynd. On the other hand, Miss Chetwynd could choose ground\nfrom which to look down upon Mrs. Baines, who after all was in trade.\nMiss Chetwynd had no trace of the local accent; she spoke with a\nsouthern refinement which the Five Towns, while making fun of it,\nenvied. All her O's had a genteel leaning towards 'ow,' as ritualism\nleans towards Romanism. And she was the fount of etiquette, a wonder of\ncorrectness; in the eyes of her pupils' parents not so much 'a perfect\nLADY' as 'a PERFECT lady.' So that it was an extremely nice question\nwhether, upon the whole, Mrs. Baines secretly condescended to Miss\nChetwynd or Miss Chetwynd to Mrs. Baines. Perhaps Mrs. Baines, by\nvirtue of her wifehood, carried the day.\n\nMiss Chetwynd, carefully and precisely seated, opened the conversation\nby explaining that even if Mrs. Baines had not written she should have\ncalled in any case, as she made a practice of calling at the home of\nher pupils in vacation time: which was true. Mrs. Baines, it should be\nstated, had on Friday afternoon sent to Miss Chetwynd one of her most\nluxurious notes--lavender-coloured paper with scalloped edges, the\nselectest mode of the day--to announce, in her Italian hand, that\nConstance and Sophia would both leave school at the end of the next\nterm, and giving reasons in regard to Sophia.\n\nBefore the visitor had got very far, Maggie came in with a lacquered\ntea-caddy and the silver teapot and a silver spoon on a lacquered tray.\nMrs. Baines, while continuing to talk, chose a key from her bunch,\nunlocked the tea-caddy, and transferred four teaspoonfuls of tea from\nit to the teapot and relocked the caddy.\n\n\"Strawberry,\" she mysteriously whispered to Maggie; and Maggie\ndisappeared, bearing the tray and its contents.\n\n\"And how is your sister? It is quite a long time since she was down\nhere,\" Mrs. Baines went on to Miss Chetwynd, after whispering\n\"strawberry.\"\n\nThe remark was merely in the way of small-talk--for the hostess felt a\ncertain unwilling hesitation to approach the topic of daughters--but it\nhappened to suit the social purpose of Miss Chetwynd to a nicety. Miss\nChetwynd was a vessel brimming with great tidings.\n\n\"She is very well, thank you,\" said Miss Chetwynd, and her expression\ngrew exceedingly vivacious. Her face glowed with pride as she added,\n\"Of course everything is changed now.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" murmured Mrs. Baines, with polite curiosity.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Miss Chetwynd. \"You've not heard?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mrs. Baines. Miss Chetwynd knew that she had not heard.\n\n\"About Elizabeth's engagement? To the Reverend Archibald Jones?\"\n\nIt is the fact that Mrs. Baines was taken aback. She did nothing\nindiscreet; she did not give vent to her excusable amazement that the\nelder Miss Chetwynd should be engaged to any one at all, as some women\nwould have done in the stress of the moment. She kept her presence of\nmind.\n\n\"This is really MOST interesting!\" said she.\n\nIt was. For Archibald Jones was one of the idols of the Wesleyan\nMethodist Connexion, a special preacher famous throughout England. At\n'Anniversaries' and 'Trust sermons,' Archibald Jones had probably no\nrival. His Christian name helped him; it was a luscious, resounding\nmouthful for admirers. He was not an itinerant minister, migrating\nevery three years. His function was to direct the affairs of the 'Book\nRoom,' the publishing department of the Connexion. He lived in London,\nand shot out into the provinces at week-ends, preaching on Sundays and\ngiving a lecture, tinctured with bookishness, 'in the chapel' on Monday\nevenings. In every town he visited there was competition for the\nprivilege of entertaining him. He had zeal, indefatigable energy, and a\nbreezy wit. He was a widower of fifty, and his wife had been dead for\ntwenty years. It had seemed as if women were not for this bright star.\nAnd here Elizabeth Chetwynd, who had left the Five Towns a quarter of a\ncentury before at the age of twenty, had caught him! Austere,\nmoustached, formidable, desiccated, she must have done it with her\npowerful intellect! It must be a union of intellects! He had been\nimpressed by hers, and she by his, and then their intellects had\nkissed. Within a week fifty thousand women in forty counties had\npictured to themselves this osculation of intellects, and shrugged\ntheir shoulders, and decided once more that men were incomprehensible.\nThese great ones in London, falling in love like the rest! But no! Love\nwas a ribald and voluptuous word to use in such a matter as this. It\nwas generally felt that the Reverend Archibald Jones and Miss Chetwynd\nthe elder would lift marriage to what would now be termed an astral\nplane.\n\nAfter tea had been served, Mrs. Baines gradually recovered her\nposition, both in her own private esteem and in the deference of Miss\nAline Chetwynd.\n\n\"Yes,\" said she. \"You can talk about your sister, and you can call HIM\nArchibald, and you can mince up your words. But have you got a\ntea-service like this? Can you conceive more perfect strawberry jam\nthan this? Did not my dress cost more than you spend on your clothes in\na year? Has a man ever looked at you? After all, is there not something\nabout my situation ... in short, something...?\"\n\nShe did not say this aloud. She in no way deviated from the scrupulous\npoliteness of a hostess. There was nothing in even her tone to indicate\nthat Mrs. John Baines was a personage. Yet it suddenly occurred to Miss\nChetwynd that her pride in being the prospective sister-in-law of the\nRev. Archibald Jones would be better for a while in her pocket. And she\ninquired after Mr. Baines. After this the conversation limped somewhat.\n\n\"I suppose you weren't surprised by my letter?\" said Mrs. Baines.\n\n\"I was and I wasn't,\" answered Miss Chetwynd, in her professional\nmanner and not her manner of a prospective sister-in-law. \"Of course I\nam naturally sorry to lose two such good pupils, but we can't keep our\npupils for ever.\" She smiled; she was not without fortitude--it is\neasier to lose pupils than to replace them. \"Still\"--a pause--\"what you\nsay of Sophia is perfectly true, perfectly. She is quite as advanced as\nConstance. Still\"--another pause and a more rapid enunciation--\"Sophia\nis by no means an ordinary girl.\"\n\n\"I hope she hasn't been a very great trouble to you?\"\n\n\"Oh NO!\" exclaimed Miss Chetwynd. \"Sophia and I have got on very well\ntogether. I have always tried to appeal to her reason. I have never\nFORCED her ... Now, with some girls ... In some ways I look on Sophia\nas the most remarkable girl--not pupil--but the most remarkable--what\nshall I say?--individuality, that I have ever met with.\" And her\ndemeanour added, \"And, mind you, this is something--from me!\"\n\n\"Indeed!\" said Mrs. Baines. She told herself, \"I am not your common\nfoolish parent. I see my children impartially. I am incapable of being\nflattered concerning them.\"\n\nNevertheless she was flattered, and the thought shaped itself that\nreally Sophia was no ordinary girl.\n\n\"I suppose she has talked to you about becoming a teacher?\" asked Miss\nChetwynd, taking a morsel of the unparalleled jam.\n\nShe held the spoon with her thumb and three fingers. Her fourth finger,\nin matters of honest labour, would never associate with the other\nthree; delicately curved, it always drew proudly away from them.\n\n\"Has she mentioned that to you?\" Mrs. Baines demanded, startled.\n\n\"Oh yes!\" said Miss Chetwynd. \"Several times. Sophia is a very\nsecretive girl, very--but I think I may say I have always had her\nconfidence. There have been times when Sophia and I have been very near\neach other. Elizabeth was much struck with her. Indeed, I may tell you\nthat in one of her last letters to me she spoke of Sophia and said she\nhad mentioned her to Mr. Jones, and Mr. Jones remembered her quite\nwell.\"\n\nImpossible for even a wise, uncommon parent not to be affected by such\nan announcement!\n\n\"I dare say your sister will give up her school now,\" observed Mrs.\nBaines, to divert attention from her self-consciousness.\n\n\"Oh NO!\" And this time Mrs. Baines had genuinely shocked Miss Chetwynd.\n\"Nothing would induce Elizabeth to give up the cause of education.\nArchibald takes the keenest interest in the school. Oh no! Not for\nworlds!\"\n\n\"THEN YOU THINK SOPHIA WOULD MAKE A GOOD TEACHER?\" asked Mrs. Baines\nwith apparent inconsequence, and with a smile. But the words marked an\nepoch in her mind. All was over.\n\n\"I think she is very much set on it and--\"\n\n\"That wouldn't affect her father--or me,\" said Mrs. Baines quickly.\n\n\"Certainly not! I merely say that she is very much set on it. Yes, she\nwould, at any rate, make a teacher far superior to the average.\" (\"That\ngirl has got the better of her mother without me!\" she reflected.) \"Ah!\nHere is dear Constance!\"\n\nConstance, tempted beyond her strength by the sounds of the visit and\nthe colloquy, had slipped into the room.\n\n\"I've left both doors open, mother,\" she excused herself for quitting\nher father, and kissed Miss Chetwynd.\n\nShe blushed, but she blushed happily, and really made a most creditable\ndebut as a young lady. Her mother rewarded her by taking her into the\nconversation. And history was soon made.\n\nSo Sophia was apprenticed to Miss Aline Chetwynd. Mrs. Baines bore\nherself greatly. It was Miss Chetwynd who had urged, and her respect\nfor Miss Chetwynd ... Also somehow the Reverend Archibald Jones came\ninto the cause.\n\nOf course the idea of Sophia ever going to London was ridiculous,\nridiculous! (Mrs. Baines secretly feared that the ridiculous might\nhappen; but, with the Reverend Archibald Jones on the spot, the worst\ncould be faced.) Sophia must understand that even the apprenticeship in\nBursley was merely a trial. They would see how things went on. She had\nto thank Miss Chetwynd.\n\n\"I made Miss Chetwynd come and talk to mother,\" said Sophia\nmagnificently one night to simple Constance, as if to imply, 'Your Miss\nChetwynd is my washpot.'\n\nTo Constance, Sophia's mere enterprise was just as staggering as her\nsuccess. Fancy her deliberately going out that Saturday morning, after\nher mother's definite decision, to enlist Miss Chetwynd in her aid!\n\nThere is no need to insist on the tragic grandeur of Mrs. Baines's\nrenunciation--a renunciation which implied her acceptance of a change\nin the balance of power in her realm. Part of its tragedy was that\nnone, not even Constance, could divine the intensity of Mrs. Baines's\nsuffering. She had no confidant; she was incapable of showing a wound.\nBut when she lay awake at night by the organism which had once been her\nhusband, she dwelt long and deeply on the martyrdom of her life. What\nhad she done to deserve it? Always had she conscientiously endeavoured\nto be kind, just, patient. And she knew herself to be sagacious and\nprudent. In the frightful and unguessed trials of her existence as a\nwife, surely she might have been granted consolations as a mother! Yet\nno; it had not been! And she felt all the bitterness of age against\nyouth--youth egotistic, harsh, cruel, uncompromising; youth that is so\ncrude, so ignorant of life, so slow to understand! She had Constance.\nYes, but it would be twenty years before Constance could appreciate the\nsacrifice of judgment and of pride which her mother had made, in a\nsudden decision, during that rambling, starched, simpering interview\nwith Miss Aline Chetwynd. Probably Constance thought that she had\nyielded to Sophia's passionate temper! Impossible to explain to\nConstance that she had yielded to nothing but a perception of Sophia's\ncomplete inability to hear reason and wisdom. Ah! Sometimes as she lay\nin the dark, she would, in fancy, snatch her heart from her bosom and\nfling it down before Sophia, bleeding, and cry: \"See what I carry about\nwith me, on your account!\" Then she would take it back and hide it\nagain, and sweeten her bitterness with wise admonitions to herself.\n\nAll this because Sophia, aware that if she stayed in the house she\nwould be compelled to help in the shop, chose an honourable activity\nwhich freed her from the danger. Heart, how absurd of you to bleed!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nELEPHANT\n\nI\n\n\n\"Sophia, will you come and see the elephant? Do come!\" Constance\nentered the drawing-room with this request on her eager lips.\n\n\"No,\" said Sophia, with a touch of condescension. \"I'm far too busy for\nelephants.\"\n\nOnly two years had passed; but both girls were grown up now; long\nsleeves, long skirts, hair that had settled down in life; and a\ndemeanour immensely serious, as though existence were terrific in its\nresponsibilities; yet sometimes childhood surprisingly broke through\nthe crust of gravity, as now in Constance, aroused by such things as\nelephants, and proclaimed with vivacious gestures that it was not dead\nafter all. The sisters were sharply differentiated. Constance wore the\nblack alpaca apron and the scissors at the end of a long black elastic,\nwhich indicated her vocation in the shop. She was proving a\nconsiderable success in the millinery department. She had learnt how to\ntalk to people, and was, in her modest way, very self-possessed. She\nwas getting a little stouter. Everybody liked her. Sophia had developed\ninto the student. Time had accentuated her reserve. Her sole friend was\nMiss Chetwynd, with whom she was, having regard to the disparity of\ntheir ages, very intimate. At home she spoke little. She lacked\namiability; as her mother said, she was 'touchy.' She required\ndiplomacy from others, but did not render it again. Her attitude,\nindeed, was one of half-hidden disdain, now gentle, now coldly bitter.\nShe would not wear an apron, in an age when aprons were almost\nessential to decency. No! She would not wear an apron, and there was an\nend of it. She was not so tidy as Constance, and if Constance's hands\nhad taken on the coarse texture which comes from commerce with needles,\npins, artificial flowers, and stuffs, Sophia's fine hands were seldom\ninnocent of ink. But Sophia was splendidly beautiful. And even her\nmother and Constance had an instinctive idea that that face was, at any\nrate, a partial excuse for her asperity.\n\n\"Well,\" said Constance, \"if you won't, I do believe I shall ask mother\nif she will.\"\n\nSophia, bending over her books, made no answer. But the top of her head\nsaid: \"This has no interest for me whatever.\"\n\nConstance left the room, and in a moment returned with her mother.\n\n\"Sophia,\" said her mother, with gay excitement, \"you might go and sit\nwith your father for a bit while Constance and I just run up to the\nplayground to see the elephant. You can work just as well in there as\nhere. Your father's asleep.\"\n\n\"Oh, very, well!\" Sophia agreed haughtily. \"Whatever is all this fuss\nabout an elephant? Anyhow, it'll be quieter in your room. The noise\nhere is splitting.\" She gave a supercilious glance into the Square as\nshe languidly rose.\n\nIt was the morning of the third day of Bursley Wakes; not the modern\nfinicking and respectable, but an orgiastic carnival, gross in all its\nmanifestations of joy. The whole centre of the town was given over to\nthe furious pleasures of the people. Most of the Square was occupied by\nWombwell's Menagerie, in a vast oblong tent, whose raging beasts roared\nand growled day and night. And spreading away from this supreme\nattraction, right up through the market-place past the Town Hall to\nDuck Bank, Duck Square and the waste land called the 'playground' were\nhundreds of booths with banners displaying all the delights of the\nhorrible. You could see the atrocities of the French Revolution, and of\nthe Fiji Islands, and the ravages of unspeakable diseases, and the\nliving flesh of a nearly nude human female guaranteed to turn the scale\nat twenty-two stone, and the skeletons of the mysterious phantoscope,\nand the bloody contests of champions naked to the waist (with the\nchance of picking up a red tooth as a relic). You could try your\nstrength by hitting an image of a fellow-creature in the stomach, and\ntest your aim by knocking off the heads of other images with a wooden\nball. You could also shoot with rifles at various targets. All the\nstreets were lined with stalls loaded with food in heaps, chiefly dried\nfish, the entrails of animals, and gingerbread. All the public-houses\nwere crammed, and frenzied jolly drunkards, men and women, lunged along\nthe pavements everywhere, their shouts vying with the trumpets, horns,\nand drums of the booths, and the shrieking, rattling toys that the\nchildren carried.\n\nIt was a glorious spectacle, but not a spectacle for the leading\nfamilies. Miss Chetwynd's school was closed, so that the daughters of\nleading families might remain in seclusion till the worst was over. The\nBaineses ignored the Wakes in every possible way, choosing that week to\nhave a show of mourning goods in the left-hand window, and refusing to\nlet Maggie outside on any pretext. Therefore the dazzling social\nsuccess of the elephant, which was quite easily drawing Mrs. Baines\ninto the vortex, cannot imaginably be over-estimated.\n\nOn the previous night one of the three Wombwell elephants had suddenly\nknelt on a man in the tent; he had then walked out of the tent and\npicked up another man at haphazard from the crowd which was staring at\nthe great pictures in front, and tried to put this second man into his\nmouth. Being stopped by his Indian attendant with a pitchfork, he\nplaced the man on the ground and stuck his tusk through an artery of\nthe victim's arm. He then, amid unexampled excitement, suffered himself\nto be led away. He was conducted to the rear of the tent, just in front\nof Baines's shuttered windows, and by means of stakes, pulleys, and\nropes forced to his knees. His head was whitewashed, and six men of the\nRifle Corps were engaged to shoot at him at a distance of five yards,\nwhile constables kept the crowd off with truncheons. He died instantly,\nrolling over with a soft thud. The crowd cheered, and, intoxicated by\ntheir importance, the Volunteers fired three more volleys into the\ncarcase, and were then borne off as heroes to different inns. The\nelephant, by the help of his two companions, was got on to a railway\nlorry and disappeared into the night. Such was the greatest sensation\nthat has ever occurred, or perhaps will ever occur, in Bursley. The\nexcitement about the repeal of the Corn Laws, or about Inkerman, was\nfeeble compared to that excitement. Mr. Critchlow, who had been called\non to put a hasty tourniquet round the arm of the second victim, had\npopped in afterwards to tell John Baines all about it. Mr. Baines's\ninterest, however, had been slight. Mr. Critchlow succeeded better with\nthe ladies, who, though they had witnessed the shooting from the\ndrawing-room, were thirsty for the most trifling details.\n\nThe next day it was known that the elephant lay near the playground,\npending the decision of the Chief Bailiff and the Medical Officer as to\nhis burial. And everybody had to visit the corpse. No social\nexclusiveness could withstand the seduction of that dead elephant.\nPilgrims travelled from all the Five Towns to see him.\n\n\"We're going now,\" said Mrs. Baines, after she had assumed her bonnet\nand shawl.\n\n\"All right,\" said Sophia, pretending to be absorbed in study, as she\nsat on the sofa at the foot of her father's bed.\n\nAnd Constance, having put her head in at the door, drew her mother\nafter her like a magnet.\n\nThen Sophia heard a remarkable conversation in the passage.\n\n\"Are you going up to see the elephant, Mrs. Baines?\" asked the voice of\nMr. Povey.\n\n\"Yes. Why?\"\n\n\"I think I had better come with you. The crowd is sure to be very\nrough.\" Mr. Povey's tone was firm; he had a position.\n\n\"But the shop?\"\n\n\"We shall not be long,\" said Mr. Povey.\n\n\"Oh yes, mother,\" Constance added appealingly.\n\nSophia felt the house thrill as the side-door banged. She sprang up and\nwatched the three cross King Street diagonally, and so plunge into the\nWakes. This triple departure was surely the crowning tribute to the\ndead elephant! It was simply astonishing. It caused Sophia to perceive\nthat she had miscalculated the importance of the elephant. It made her\nregret her scorn of the elephant as an attraction. She was left behind;\nand the joy of life was calling her. She could see down into the Vaults\non the opposite side of the street, where working men--potters and\ncolliers--in their best clothes, some with high hats, were drinking,\ngesticulating, and laughing in a row at a long counter.\n\nShe noticed, while she was thus at the bedroom window, a young man\nascending King Street, followed by a porter trundling a flat barrow of\nluggage. He passed slowly under the very window. She flushed. She had\nevidently been startled by the sight of this young man into no ordinary\nstate of commotion. She glanced at the books on the sofa, and then at\nher father. Mr. Baines, thin and gaunt, and acutely pitiable, still\nslept. His brain had almost ceased to be active now; he had to be fed\nand tended like a bearded baby, and he would sleep for hours at a\nstretch even in the daytime. Sophia left the room. A moment later she\nran into the shop, an apparition that amazed the three young lady\nassistants. At the corner near the window on the fancy side a little\nnook had been formed by screening off a portion of the counter with\nlarge flower-boxes placed end-up. This corner had come to be known as\n\"Miss Baines's corner.\" Sophia hastened to it, squeezing past a young\nlady assistant in the narrow space between the back of the counter and\nthe shelf-lined wall. She sat down in Constance's chair and pretended\nto look for something. She had examined herself in the cheval-glass in\nthe showroom, on her way from the sick-chamber. When she heard a voice\nnear the door of the shop asking first for Mr. Povey and then for Mrs.\nBaines, she rose, and seizing the object nearest to her, which happened\nto be a pair of scissors, she hurried towards the showroom stairs as\nthough the scissors had been a grail, passionately sought and to be\njealously hidden away. She wanted to stop and turn round, but something\nprevented her. She was at the end of the counter, under the curving\nstairs, when one of the assistants said:\n\n\"I suppose you don't know when Mr. Povey or your mother are likely to\nbe back, Miss Sophia? Here's--\"\n\nIt was a divine release for Sophia.\n\n\"They're--I--\" she stammered, turning round abruptly. Luckily she was\nstill sheltered behind the counter.\n\nThe young man whom she had seen in the street came boldly forward.\n\n\"Good morning, Miss Sophia,\" said he, hat in hand. \"It is a long time\nsince I had the pleasure of seeing you.\"\n\nNever had she blushed as she blushed then. She scarcely knew what she\nwas doing as she moved slowly towards her sister's corner again, the\nyoung man following her on the customer's side of the counter.\n\nII\n\nShe knew that he was a traveller for the most renowned and gigantic of\nall Manchester wholesale firms--Birkinshaws. But she did not know his\nname, which was Gerald Scales. He was a rather short but extremely\nwell-proportioned man of thirty, with fair hair, and a distinguished\nappearance, as became a representative of Birkinshaws. His broad, tight\nnecktie, with an edge of white collar showing above it, was\nparticularly elegant. He had been on the road for Birkinshaws for\nseveral years; but Sophia had only seen him once before in her life,\nwhen she was a little girl, three years ago. The relations between the\ntravellers of the great firms and their solid, sure clients in small\ntowns were in those days often cordially intimate. The traveller came\nwith the lustre of a historic reputation around him; there was no need\nto fawn for orders; and the client's immense and immaculate\nrespectability made him the equal of no matter what ambassador. It was\na case of mutual esteem, and of that confidence-generating phenomenon,\n\"an old account.\" The tone in which a commercial traveller of middle\nage would utter the phrase \"an old account\" revealed in a flash all\nthat was romantic, prim, and stately in mid-Victorian commerce. In the\ndays of Baines, after one of the elaborately engraved advice-circulars\nhad arrived ('Our Mr. ---- will have the pleasure of waiting upon you\non ----day next, the ---- inst.') John might in certain cases be expected to\nsay, on the morning of ----day, 'Missis, what have ye gotten for supper\nto-night?'\n\nMr. Gerald Scales had never been asked to supper; he had never even\nseen John Baines; but, as the youthful successor of an aged traveller\nwho had had the pleasure of St. Luke's Square, on behalf of\nBirkinshaws, since before railways, Mrs. Baines had treated him with a\nfaint agreeable touch of maternal familiarity; and, both her daughters\nbeing once in the shop during his visit, she had on that occasion\ncommanded the gawky girls to shake hands with him.\n\nSophia had never forgotten that glimpse. The young man without a name\nhad lived in her mind, brightly glowing, as the very symbol and\nincarnation of the masculine and the elegant.\n\nThe renewed sight of him seemed to have wakened her out of a sleep.\nAssuredly she was not the same Sophia. As she sat in her sister's chair\nin the corner, entrenched behind the perpendicular boxes, playing\nnervously with the scissors, her beautiful face was transfigured into\nthe ravishingly angelic. It would have been impossible for Mr. Gerald\nScales, or anybody else, to credit, as he gazed at those lovely,\nsensitive, vivacious, responsive features, that Sophia was not a\ncharacter of heavenly sweetness and perfection. She did not know what\nshe was doing; she was nothing but the exquisite expression of a deep\ninstinct to attract and charm. Her soul itself emanated from her in an\natmosphere of allurement and acquiescence. Could those laughing lips\nhang in a heavy pout? Could that delicate and mild voice be harsh?\nCould those burning eyes be coldly inimical? Never! The idea was\ninconceivable! And Mr. Gerald Scales, with his head over the top of the\nboxes, yielded to the spell. Remarkable that Mr. Gerald Scales, with\nall his experience, should have had to come to Bursley to find the\npearl, the paragon, the ideal! But so it was. They met in an equal\nabandonment; the only difference between them was that Mr. Scales, by\nforce of habit, kept his head.\n\n\"I see it's your wakes here,\" said he.\n\nHe was polite to the wakes; but now, with the least inflection in the\nworld, he put the wakes at its proper level in the scheme of things as\na local unimportance! She adored him for this; she was athirst for\nsympathy in the task of scorning everything local.\n\n\"I expect you didn't know,\" she said, implying that there was every\nreason why a man of his mundane interests should not know.\n\n\"I should have remembered if I had thought,\" said he. \"But I didn't\nthink. What's this about an elephant?\"\n\n\"Oh!\" she exclaimed. \"Have you heard of that?\"\n\n\"My porter was full of it.\"\n\n\"Well,\" she said, \"of course it's a very big thing in Bursley.\"\n\nAs she smiled in gentle pity of poor Bursley, he naturally did the\nsame. And he thought how much more advanced and broad the younger\ngeneration was than the old! He would never have dared to express his\nreal feelings about Bursley to Mrs. Baines, or even to Mr. Povey (who\nwas, however, of no generation); yet here was a young woman actually\nsharing them.\n\nShe told him all the history of the elephant.\n\n\"Must have been very exciting,\" he commented, despite himself.\n\n\"Do you know,\" she replied, \"it WAS.\"\n\nAfter all, Bursley was climbing in their opinion.\n\n\"And mother and my sister and Mr. Povey have all gone to see it. That's\nwhy they're not here.\"\n\nThat the elephant should have caused both Mr. Povey and Mrs. Baines to\nforget that the representative of Birkinshaws was due to call was\nindeed a final victory for the elephant.\n\n\"But not you!\" he exclaimed.\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"Not me.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you go too?\" He continued his flattering investigations\nwith a generous smile.\n\n\"I simply didn't care to,\" said she, proudly nonchalant.\n\n\"And I suppose you are in charge here?\"\n\n\"No,\" she answered. \"I just happened to have run down here for these\nscissors. That's all.\"\n\n\"I often see your sister,\" said he. \"'Often' do I say?--that is,\ngenerally, when I come; but never you.\"\n\n\"I'm never in the shop,\" she said. \"It's just an accident to-day.\"\n\n\"Oh! So you leave the shop to your sister?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" She said nothing of her teaching.\n\nThen there was a silence. Sophia was very thankful to be hidden from\nthe curiosity of the shop. The shop could see nothing of her, and only\nthe back of the young man; and the conversation had been conducted in\nlow voices. She tapped her foot, stared at the worn, polished surface\nof the counter, with the brass yard-measure nailed along its edge, and\nthen she uneasily turned her gaze to the left and seemed to be\nexamining the backs of the black bonnets which were perched on high\nstands in the great window. Then her eyes caught his for an important\nmoment.\n\n\"Yes,\" she breathed. Somebody had to say something. If the shop missed\nthe murmur of their voices the shop would wonder what had happened to\nthem.\n\nMr. Scales looked at his watch. '\"I dare say if I come in again about\ntwo--\" he began.\n\n\"Oh yes, they're SURE to be in then,\" she burst out before he could\nfinish his sentence.\n\nHe left abruptly, queerly, without shaking hands (but then it would\nhave been difficult--she argued--for him to have put his arm over the\nboxes), and without expressing the hope of seeing her again. She peeped\nthrough the black bonnets, and saw the porter put the leather strap\nover his shoulders, raise the rear of the barrow, and trundle off; but\nshe did not see Mr. Scales. She was drunk; thoughts were tumbling about\nin her brain like cargo loose in a rolling ship. Her entire conception\nof herself was being altered; her attitude towards life was being\naltered. The thought which knocked hardest against its fellows was,\n\"Only in these moments have I begun to live!\"\n\nAnd as she flitted upstairs to resume watch over her father she sought\nto devise an innocent-looking method by which she might see Mr. Scales\nwhen he next called. And she speculated as to what his name was.\n\nIII\n\nWhen Sophia arrived in the bedroom, she was startled because her\nfather's head and beard were not in their accustomed place on the\npillow. She could only make out something vaguely unusual sloping off\nthe side of the bed. A few seconds passed--not to be measured in\ntime--and she saw that the upper part of his body had slipped down, and\nhis head was hanging, inverted, near the floor between the bed and the\nottoman. His face, neck, and hands were dark and congested; his mouth\nwas open, and the tongue protruded between the black, swollen, mucous\nlips; his eyes were prominent and coldly staring. The fact was that Mr.\nBaines had wakened up, and, being restless, had slid out partially from\nhis bed and died of asphyxia. After having been unceasingly watched for\nfourteen years, he had, with an invalid's natural perverseness, taken\nadvantage of Sophia's brief dereliction to expire. Say what you will,\namid Sophia's horror, and her terrible grief and shame, she had\nvisitings of the idea: he did it on purpose!\n\nShe ran out of the room, knowing by intuition that he was dead, and\nshrieked out, \"Maggie,\" at the top of her voice; the house echoed.\n\n\"Yes, miss,\" said Maggie, quite close, coming out of Mr. Povey's\nchamber with a slop-pail.\n\n\"Fetch Mr. Critchlow at once. Be quick. Just as you are. It's father--\"\n\nMaggie, perceiving darkly that disaster was in the air, and instantly\nfilled with importance and a sort of black joy, dropped her pail in the\nexact middle of the passage, and almost fell down the crooked stairs.\nOne of Maggie's deepest instincts, always held in check by the stern\ndominance of Mrs. Baines, was to leave pails prominent on the main\nroutes of the house; and now, divining what was at hand, it flamed into\ninsurrection.\n\nNo sleepless night had ever been so long to Sophia as the three minutes\nwhich elapsed before Mr. Critchlow came. As she stood on the mat\noutside the bedroom door she tried to draw her mother and Constance and\nMr. Povey by magnetic force out of the wakes into the house, and her\nmuscles were contracted in this strange effort. She felt that it was\nimpossible to continue living if the secret of the bedroom remained\nunknown one instant longer, so intense was her torture, and yet that\nthe torture which could not be borne must be borne. Not a sound in the\nhouse! Not a sound from the shop! Only the distant murmur of the wakes!\n\n\"Why did I forget father?\" she asked herself with awe. \"I only meant to\ntell him that they were all out, and run back. Why did I forget\nfather?\" She would never be able to persuade anybody that she had\nliterally forgotten her father's existence for quite ten minutes; but\nit was true, though shocking.\n\nThen there were noises downstairs.\n\n\"Bless us! Bless us!\" came the unpleasant voice of Mr. Critchlow as he\nbounded up the stairs on his long legs; he strode over the pail.\n\"What's amiss?\" He was wearing his white apron, and he carried his\nspectacles in his bony hand.\n\n\"It's father--he's--\" Sophia faltered.\n\nShe stood away so that he should enter the room first. He glanced at\nher keenly, and as it were resentfully, and went in. She followed,\ntimidly, remaining near the door while Mr. Critchlow inspected her\nhandiwork. He put on his spectacles with strange deliberation, and\nthen, bending his knees outwards, thus lowered his body so that he\ncould examine John Baines point-blank. He remained staring like this,\nhis hands on his sharp apron-covered knees, for a little space; and\nthen he seized the inert mass and restored it to the bed, and wiped\nthose clotted lips with his apron.\n\nSophia heard loud breathing behind her. It was Maggie. She heard a\nhuge, snorting sob; Maggie was showing her emotion.\n\n\"Go fetch doctor!\" Mr. Critchlow rasped. \"And don't stand gaping there!\"\n\n\"Run for the doctor, Maggie,\" said Sophia.\n\n\"How came ye to let him fall?\" Mr. Critchlow demanded.\n\n\"I was out of the room. I just ran down into the shop--\"\n\n\"Gallivanting with that young Scales!\" said Mr. Critchlow, with\ndevilish ferocity. \"Well, you've killed yer father; that's all!\"\n\nHe must have been at his shop door and seen the entry of the traveller!\nAnd it was precisely characteristic of Mr. Critchlow to jump in the\ndark at a horrible conclusion, and to be right after all. For Sophia\nMr. Critchlow had always been the personification of malignity and\nmalevolence, and now these qualities in him made him, to her, almost\nobscene. Her pride brought up tremendous reinforcements, and she\napproached the bed.\n\n\"Is he dead?\" she asked in a quiet tone. (Somewhere within a voice was\nwhispering, \"So his name is Scales.\")\n\n\"Don't I tell you he's dead?\"\n\n\"Pail on the stairs!\"\n\nThis mild exclamation came from the passage. Mrs. Baines, misliking the\ncrowds abroad, had returned alone; she had left Constance in charge of\nMr. Povey. Coming into her house by the shop and showroom, she had\nfirst noted the phenomenon of the pail--proof of her theory of\nMaggie's incurable untidiness.\n\n\"Been to see the elephant, I reckon!\" said Mr. Critchlow, in fierce\nsarcasm, as he recognized Mrs. Baines's voice.\n\nSophia leaped towards the door, as though to bar her mother's entrance.\nBut Mrs. Baines was already opening the door.\n\n\"Well, my pet--\" she was beginning cheerfully.\n\nMr. Critchlow confronted her. And he had no more pity for the wife than\nfor the daughter. He was furiously angry because his precious property\nhad been irretrievably damaged by the momentary carelessness of a silly\ngirl. Yes, John Baines was his property, his dearest toy! He was\nconvinced that he alone had kept John Baines alive for fourteen years,\nthat he alone had fully understood the case and sympathized with the\nsufferer, that none but he had been capable of displaying ordinary\ncommon sense in the sick-room. He had learned to regard John Baines as,\nin some sort, his creation. And now, with their stupidity, their\nneglect, their elephants, between them they had done for John Baines.\nHe had always known it would come to that, and it had come to that.\n\n\"She let him fall out o' bed, and ye're a widow now, missis!\" he\nannounced with a virulence hardly conceivable. His angular features and\ndark eyes expressed a murderous hate for every woman named Baines.\n\n\"Mother!\" cried Sophia, \"I only ran down into the shop to--to--\"\n\nShe seized her mother's arm in frenzied agony.\n\n\"My child!\" said Mrs. Baines, rising miraculously to the situation with\na calm benevolence of tone and gesture that remained for ever sublime\nin the stormy heart of Sophia, \"do not hold me.\" With infinite\ngentleness she loosed herself from those clasping hands. \"Have you sent\nfor the doctor?\" she questioned Mr. Critchlow.\n\nThe fate of her husband presented no mysteries to Mrs. Baines.\nEverybody had been warned a thousand times of the danger of leaving the\nparalytic, whose life depended on his position, and whose fidgetiness\nwas thereby a constant menace of death to him. For five thousand nights\nshe had wakened infallibly every time he stirred, and rearranged him by\nthe flicker of a little oil lamp. But Sophia, unhappy creature, had\nmerely left him. That was all.\n\nMr. Critchlow and the widow gazed, helplessly waiting, at the pitiable\ncorpse, of which the salient part was the white beard. They knew not\nthat they were gazing at a vanished era. John Baines had belonged to\nthe past, to the age when men really did think of their souls, when\norators by phrases could move crowds to fury or to pity, when no one\nhad learnt to hurry, when Demos was only turning in his sleep, when the\nsole beauty of life resided in its inflexible and slow dignity, when\nhell really had no bottom, and a gilt-clasped Bible really was the\nsecret of England's greatness. Mid-Victorian England lay on that\nmahogany bed. Ideals had passed away with John Baines. It is thus that\nideals die; not in the conventional pageantry of honoured death, but\nsorrily, ignobly, while one's head is turned--\n\nAnd Mr. Povey and Constance, very self-conscious, went and saw the dead\nelephant, and came back; and at the corner of King Street, Constance\nexclaimed brightly--\n\n\"Why! who's gone out and left the side-door open?\"\n\nFor the doctor had at length arrived, and Maggie, in showing him\nupstairs with pious haste, had forgotten to shut the door.\n\nAnd they took advantage of the side-door, rather guiltily, to avoid the\neyes of the shop. They feared that in the parlour they would be the\ncentre of a curiosity half ironical and half reproving; for had they\nnot accomplished an escapade? So they walked slowly.\n\nThe real murderer was having his dinner in the commercial room up at\nthe Tiger, opposite the Town Hall.\n\nIV\n\nSeveral shutters were put up in the windows of the shop, to indicate a\ndeath, and the news instantly became known in trading circles\nthroughout the town. Many people simultaneously remarked upon the\ncoincidence that Mr. Baines should have died while there was a show of\nmourning goods in his establishment. This coincidence was regarded as\nextremely sinister, and it was apparently felt that, for the sake of\nthe mind's peace, one ought not to inquire into such things too\nclosely. From the moment of putting up the prescribed shutters, John\nBaines and his funeral began to acquire importance in Bursley, and\ntheir importance grew rapidly almost from hour to hour. The wakes\ncontinued as usual, except that the Chief Constable, upon\nrepresentations being made to him by Mr. Critchlow and other citizens,\ndescended upon St. Luke's Square and forbade the activities of\nWombwell's orchestra. Wombwell and the Chief Constable differed as to\nthe justice of the decree, but every well-minded person praised the\nChief Constable, and he himself considered that he had enhanced the\ntown's reputation for a decent propriety. It was noticed, too, not\nwithout a shiver of the uncanny, that that night the lions and tigers\nbehaved like lambs, whereas on the previous night they had roared the\nwhole Square out of its sleep.\n\nThe Chief Constable was not the only individual enlisted by Mr.\nCritchlow in the service of his friend's fame. Mr. Critchlow spent\nhours in recalling the principal citizens to a due sense of John\nBaines's past greatness. He was determined that his treasured toy\nshould vanish underground with due pomp, and he left nothing undone to\nthat end. He went over to Hanbridge on the still wonderful horse-car,\nand saw the editor-proprietor of the Staffordshire Signal (then a\ntwo-penny weekly with no thought of Football editions), and on the very\nday of the funeral the Signal came out with a long and eloquent\nbiography of John Baines. This biography, giving details of his public\nlife, definitely restored him to his legitimate position in the civic\nmemory as an ex-chief bailiff, an ex-chairman of the Burial Board, and\nof the Five Towns Association for the Advancement of Useful Knowledge,\nand also as a \"prime mover\" in the local Turnpike Act, in the\nnegotiations for the new Town Hall, and in the Corinthian facade of the\nWesleyan Chapel; it narrated the anecdote of his courageous speech from\nthe portico of the Shambles during the riots of 1848, and it did not\nomit a eulogy of his steady adherence to the wise old English maxims of\ncommerce and his avoidance of dangerous modern methods. Even in the\nsixties the modern had reared its shameless head. The panegyric closed\nwith an appreciation of the dead man's fortitude in the terrible\naffliction with which a divine providence had seen fit to try him; and\nfinally the Signal uttered its absolute conviction that his native town\nwould raise a cenotaph to his honour. Mr. Critchlow, being unfamiliar\nwith the word \"cenotaph,\" consulted Worcester's Dictionary, and when he\nfound that it meant \"a sepulchral monument to one who is buried\nelsewhere,\" he was as pleased with the Signal's language as with the\nidea, and decided that a cenotaph should come to pass.\n\nThe house and shop were transformed into a hive of preparation for the\nfuneral. All was changed. Mr. Povey kindly slept for three nights on\nthe parlour sofa, in order that Mrs. Baines might have his room. The\nfuneral grew into an obsession, for multitudinous things had to be\nperformed and done sumptuously and in strict accordance with precedent.\nThere were the family mourning, the funeral repast, the choice of the\ntext on the memorial card, the composition of the legend on the coffin,\nthe legal arrangements, the letters to relations, the selection of\nguests, and the questions of bell-ringing, hearse, plumes, number of\nhorses, and grave-digging. Nobody had leisure for the indulgence of\ngrief except Aunt Maria, who, after she had helped in the laying-out,\nsimply sat down and bemoaned unceasingly for hours her absence on the\nfatal morning. \"If I hadn't been so fixed on polishing my\ncandle-sticks,\" she weepingly repeated, \"he mit ha' been alive and well\nnow.\" Not that Aunt Maria had been informed of the precise\ncircumstances of the death; she was not clearly aware that Mr. Baines\nhad died through a piece of neglect. But, like Mr. Critchlow, she was\nconvinced that there had been only one person in the world truly\ncapable of nursing Mr. Baines. Beyond the family, no one save Mr.\nCritchlow and Dr. Harrop knew just how the martyr had finished his\ncareer. Dr. Harrop, having been asked bluntly if an inquest would be\nnecessary, had reflected a moment and had then replied: \"No.\" And he\nadded, \"Least said soonest mended--mark me!\" They had marked him. He\nwas commonsense in breeches.\n\nAs for Aunt Maria, she was sent about her snivelling business by Aunt\nHarriet. The arrival in the house of this genuine aunt from Axe, of\nthis majestic and enormous widow whom even the imperial Mrs. Baines\nregarded with a certain awe, set a seal of ultimate solemnity on the\nwhole event. In Mr. Povey's bedroom Mrs. Baines fell like a child into\nAunt Harriet's arms and sobbed:\n\n\"If it had been anything else but that elephant!\"\n\nSuch was Mrs. Baines's sole weakness from first to last.\n\nAunt Harriet was an exhaustless fountain of authority upon every detail\nconcerning interments. And, to a series of questions ending with the\nword \"sister,\" and answers ending with the word \"sister,\" the\nprodigious travail incident to the funeral was gradually and\nsuccessfully accomplished. Dress and the repast exceeded all other\nmatters in complexity and difficulty. But on the morning of the funeral\nAunt Harriet had the satisfaction of beholding her younger sister the\ncentre of a tremendous cocoon of crape, whose slightest pleat was\nperfect. Aunt Harriet seemed to welcome her then, like a veteran,\nformally into the august army of relicts. As they stood side by side\nsurveying the special table which was being laid in the showroom for\nthe repast, it appeared inconceivable that they had reposed together in\nMr. Povey's limited bed. They descended from the showroom to the\nkitchen, where the last delicate dishes were inspected. The shop was,\nof course, closed for the day, but Mr. Povey was busy there, and in\nAunt Harriet's all-seeing glance he came next after the dishes. She\nrose from the kitchen to speak with him.\n\n\"You've got your boxes of gloves all ready?\" she questioned him.\n\n\"Yes, Mrs. Maddack.\"\n\n\"You'll not forget to have a measure handy?\"\n\n\"No, Mrs. Maddack.\"\n\n\"You'll find you'll want more of seven-and-three-quarters and eights\nthan anything.\"\n\n\"Yes. I have allowed for that.\"\n\n\"If you place yourself behind the side-door and put your boxes on the\nharmonium, you'll be able to catch every one as they come in.\"\n\n\"That is what I had thought of, Mrs. Maddack.\"\n\nShe went upstairs. Mrs. Baines had reached the showroom again, and was\nsmoothing out creases in the white damask cloth and arranging glass\ndishes of jam at equal distances from each other.\n\n\"Come, sister,\" said Mrs. Maddack. \"A last look.\"\n\nAnd they passed into the mortuary bedroom to gaze at Mr. Baines before\nhe should be everlastingly nailed down. In death he had recovered some\nof his earlier dignity; but even so he was a startling sight. The two\nwidows bent over him, one on either side, and gravely stared at that\ntwisted, worn white face all neatly tucked up in linen.\n\n\"I shall fetch Constance and Sophia,\" said Mrs. Maddack, with tears in\nher voice. \"Do you go into the drawing-room, sister.\"\n\nBut Mrs. Maddack only succeeded in fetching Constance.\n\nThen there was the sound of wheels in King Street. The long rite of the\nfuneral was about to begin. Every guest, after having been measured and\npresented with a pair of the finest black kid gloves by Mr. Povey, had\nto mount the crooked stairs and gaze upon the carcase of John Baines,\ngoing afterwards to the drawing-room to condole briefly with the widow.\nAnd every guest, while conscious of the enormity of so thinking,\nthought what an excellent thing it was that John Baines should be at\nlast dead and gone. The tramping on the stairs was continual, and\nfinally Mr. Baines himself went downstairs, bumping against corners,\nand led a cortege of twenty vehicles.\n\nThe funeral tea was not over at seven o'clock, five hours after the\ncommencement of the rite. It was a gigantic and faultless meal, worthy\nof John Baines's distant past. Only two persons were absent from\nit--John Baines and Sophia. The emptiness of Sophia's chair was much\nnoticed; Mrs. Maddack explained that Sophia was very high-strung and\ncould not trust herself. Great efforts were put forth by the company to\nbe lugubrious and inconsolable, but the secret relief resulting from\nthe death would not be entirely hidden. The vast pretence of acute\nsorrow could not stand intact against that secret relief and the lavish\nrichness of the food.\n\nTo the offending of sundry important relatives from a distance, Mr.\nCritchlow informally presided over that assemblage of grave men in high\nstocks and crinolined women. He had closed his shop, which had never\nbefore been closed on a weekday, and he had a great deal to say about\nthis extraordinary closure. It was due as much to the elephant as to\nthe funeral. The elephant had become a victim to the craze for\nsouvenirs. Already in the night his tusks had been stolen; then his\nfeet disappeared for umbrella-stands, and most of his flesh had\ndeparted in little hunks. Everybody in Bursley had resolved to\nparticipate in the elephant. One consequence was that all the chemists'\nshops in the town were assaulted by strings of boys. 'Please a pennorth\no' alum to tak' smell out o' a bit o' elephant.' Mr. Critchlow hated\nboys.\n\n\"'I'll alum ye!' says I, and I did. I alummed him out o' my shop with a\npestle. If there'd been one there'd been twenty between opening and\nnine o'clock. 'George,' I says to my apprentice, 'shut shop up. My old\nfriend John Baines is going to his long home to-day, and I'll close.\nI've had enough o' alum for one day.'\"\n\nThe elephant fed the conversation until after the second relay of hot\nmuffins. When Mr. Critchlow had eaten to his capacity, he took the\nSignal importantly from his pocket, posed his spectacles, and read the\nobituary all through in slow, impressive accents. Before he reached the\nend Mrs. Baines began to perceive that familiarity had blinded her to\nthe heroic qualities of her late husband. The fourteen years of\nceaseless care were quite genuinely forgotten, and she saw him in his\nstrength and in his glory. When Mr. Critchlow arrived at the eulogy of\nthe husband and father, Mrs. Baines rose and left the showroom. The\nguests looked at each other in sympathy for her. Mr. Critchlow shot a\nglance at her over his spectacles and continued steadily reading. After\nhe had finished he approached the question of the cenotaph.\n\nMrs. Baines, driven from the banquet by her feelings, went into the\ndrawing-room. Sophia was there, and Sophia, seeing tears in her\nmother's eyes, gave a sob, and flung herself bodily against her mother,\nclutching her, and hiding her face in that broad crape, which abraded\nher soft skin.\n\n\"Mother,\" she wept passionately, \"I want to leave the school now. I\nwant to please you. I'll do anything in the world to please you. I'll\ngo into the shop if you'd like me to!\" Her voice lost itself in tears.\n\n\"Calm yourself, my pet,\" said Mrs. Baines, tenderly, caressing her. It\nwas a triumph for the mother in the very hour when she needed a triumph.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE TRAVELLER\n\nI\n\n\n'Equisite, 1s. 11d.'\n\nThese singular signs were being painted in shiny black on an\nunrectangular parallelogram of white cardboard by Constance one evening\nin the parlour. She was seated, with her left side to the fire and to\nthe fizzing gas, at the dining-table, which was covered with a checked\ncloth in red and white. Her dress was of dark crimson; she wore a cameo\nbrooch and a gold chain round her neck; over her shoulders was thrown a\nwhite knitted shawl, for the weather was extremely cold, the English\nclimate being much more serious and downright at that day than it is\nnow. She bent low to the task, holding her head slightly askew, putting\nthe tip of her tongue between her lips, and expending all the energy of\nher soul and body in an intense effort to do what she was doing as well\nas it could be done.\n\n\"Splendid!\" said Mr. Povey.\n\nMr. Povey was fronting her at the table; he had his elbows on the\ntable, and watched her carefully, with the breathless and divine\nanxiety of a dreamer who is witnessing the realization of his dream.\nAnd Constance, without moving any part of her frame except her head,\nlooked up at him and smiled for a moment, and he could see her\ndelicious little nostrils at the end of her snub nose.\n\nThose two, without knowing or guessing it, were making history--the\nhistory of commerce. They had no suspicion that they were the forces of\nthe future insidiously at work to destroy what the forces of the past\nhad created, but such was the case. They were conscious merely of a\ndesire to do their duty in the shop and to the shop; probably it had\nnot even occurred to them that this desire, which each stimulated in\nthe breast of the other, had assumed the dimensions of a passion. It\nwas ageing Mr. Povey, and it had made of Constance a young lady\ntremendously industrious and preoccupied.\n\nMr. Povey had recently been giving attention to the question of\ntickets. It is not too much to say that Mr. Povey, to whom heaven had\ngranted a minimum share of imagination, had nevertheless discovered his\nlittle parcel of imagination in the recesses of being, and brought it\neffectively to bear on tickets. Tickets ran in conventional grooves.\nThere were heavy oblong tickets for flannels, shirting, and other\nstuffs in the piece; there were smaller and lighter tickets for\nintermediate goods; and there were diamond-shaped tickets (containing\nnothing but the price) for bonnets, gloves, and flimflams generally.\nThe legends on the tickets gave no sort of original invention. The\nwords 'lasting,' 'durable,' 'unshrinkable,' 'latest,' 'cheap,'\n'stylish,' 'novelty,' 'choice' (as an adjective), 'new,' and\n'tasteful,' exhausted the entire vocabulary of tickets. Now Mr. Povey\nattached importance to tickets, and since he was acknowledged to be the\nbest window-dresser in Bursley, his views were entitled to respect. He\ndreamed of other tickets, in original shapes, with original legends. In\nbrief, he achieved, in regard to tickets, the rare feat of ridding\nhimself of preconceived notions, and of approaching a subject with\nfresh, virginal eyes. When he indicated the nature of his wishes to Mr.\nChawner, the wholesale stationer who supplied all the Five Towns with\nshop-tickets, Mr. Chawner grew uneasy and worried; Mr. Chawner was\nindeed shocked. For Mr. Chawner there had always been certain\nwell-defined genera of tickets, and he could not conceive the existence\nof other genera. When Mr. Povey suggested circular tickets--tickets\nwith a blue and a red line round them, tickets with legends such as\n'unsurpassable,' 'very dainty,' or 'please note,' Mr. Chawner hummed\nand hawed, and finally stated that it would be impossible to\nmanufacture these preposterous tickets, these tickets which would\noutrage the decency of trade.\n\nIf Mr. Povey had not happened to be an exceedingly obstinate man, he\nmight have been defeated by the crass Toryism of Mr. Chawner. But Mr.\nPovey was obstinate, and he had resources of ingenuity which Mr.\nChawner little suspected. The great, tramping march of progress was not\nto be impeded by Mr. Chawner. Mr. Povey began to make his own tickets.\nAt first he suffered as all reformers and inventors suffer. He used the\ninternal surface of collar-boxes and ordinary ink and pens, and the\nresult was such as to give customers the idea that Baineses were too\npoor or too mean to buy tickets like other shops. For bought tickets\nhad an ivory-tinted gloss, and the ink was black and glossy, and the\nedges were very straight and did not show yellow between two layers of\nwhite. Whereas Mr. Povey's tickets were of a bluish-white, without\ngloss; the ink was neither black nor shiny, and the edges were\namateurishly rough: the tickets had an unmistakable air of having been\n'made out of something else'; moreover, the lettering had not the free,\ndashing style of Mr. Chawner's tickets.\n\nAnd did Mrs. Baines encourage him in his single-minded enterprise on\nbehalf of HER business? Not a bit! Mrs. Baines's attitude, when not\ndisdainful, was inimical! So curious is human nature, so blind is man\nto his own advantage! Life was very complex for Mr. Povey. It might\nhave been less complex had Bristol board and Chinese ink been less\nexpensive; with these materials he could have achieved marvels to\nsilence all prejudice and stupidity; but they were too costly. Still,\nhe persevered, and Constance morally supported him; he drew his\ninspiration and his courage from Constance. Instead of the internal\nsurface of collar-boxes, he tried the external surface, which was at\nany rate shiny. But the ink would not 'take' on it. He made as many\nexperiments as Edison was to make, and as many failures. Then Constance\nwas visited by a notion for mixing sugar with ink. Simple, innocent\ncreature--why should providence have chosen her to be the vessel of\nsuch a sublime notion? Puzzling enigma, which, however, did not\nexercise Mr. Povey! He found it quite natural that she should save him.\nSave him she did. Sugar and ink would 'take' on anything, and it shone\nlike a 'patent leather' boot. Further, Constance developed a 'hand' for\nlettering which outdid Mr. Povey's. Between them they manufactured\ntickets by the dozen and by the score--tickets which, while possessing\nnearly all the smartness and finish of Mr. Chawner's tickets, were much\nsuperior to these in originality and strikingness. Constance and Mr.\nPovey were delighted and fascinated by them. As for Mrs. Baines, she\nsaid little, but the modern spirit was too elated by its success to\ncare whether she said little or much. And every few days Mr. Povey\nthought of some new and wonderful word to put on a ticket.\n\nHis last miracle was the word 'exquisite.' 'Exquisite,' pinned on a\npiece of broad tartan ribbon, appeared to Constance and Mr. Povey as\nthe finality of appropriateness. A climax worthy to close the year! Mr.\nPovey had cut the card and sketched the word and figures in pencil, and\nConstance was doing her executive portion of the undertaking. They were\nvery happy, very absorbed, in this strictly business matter. The clock\nshowed five minutes past ten. Stern duty, a pure desire for the\nprosperity of the shop, had kept them at hard labour since before eight\no'clock that morning!\n\nThe stairs-door opened, and Mrs. Baines appeared, in bonnet and furs\nand gloves, all clad for going out. She had abandoned the cocoon of\ncrape, but still wore weeds. She was stouter than ever.\n\n\"What!\" she cried. \"Not ready! Now really!\"\n\n\"Oh, mother! How you made me jump!\" Constance protested. \"What time is\nit? It surely isn't time to go yet!\"\n\n\"Look at the clock!\" said Mrs. Baines, drily.\n\n\"Well, I never!\" Constance murmured, confused.\n\n\"Come, put your things together, and don't keep me waiting,\" said Mrs.\nBaines, going past the table to the window, and lifting the blind to\npeep out. \"Still snowing,\" she observed. \"Oh, the band's going away at\nlast! I wonder how they can play at all in this weather. By the way,\nwhat was that tune they gave us just now? I couldn't make out whether\nit was 'Redhead,' or--\"\n\n\"Band?\" questioned Constance--the simpleton!\n\nNeither she nor Mr. Povey had heard the strains of the Bursley Town\nSilver Prize Band which had been enlivening the season according to its\nusual custom. These two practical, duteous, commonsense young and\nyoungish persons had been so absorbed in their efforts for the welfare\nof the shop that they had positively not only forgotten the time, but\nhad also failed to notice the band! But if Constance had had her wits\nabout her she would at least have pretended that she had heard it.\n\n\"What's this?\" asked Mrs. Baines, bringing her vast form to the table\nand picking up a ticket.\n\nMr. Povey said nothing. Constance said: \"Mr. Povey thought of it\nto-day. Don't you think it's very good, mother?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I don't,\" Mrs. Baines coldly replied.\n\nShe had mildly objected already to certain words; but 'exquisite'\nseemed to her silly; it seemed out of place; she considered that it\nwould merely bring ridicule on her shop. 'Exquisite' written upon a\nwindow-ticket! No! What would John Baines have thought of 'exquisite'?\n\n\"'Exquisite!'\" She repeated the word with a sarcastic inflection,\nputting the accent, as every one put it, on the second syllable. \"I\ndon't think that will quite do.\"\n\n\"But why not, mother?\"\n\n\"It's not suitable, my dear.\"\n\nShe dropped the ticket from her gloved hand. Mr. Povey had darkly\nflashed. Though he spoke little, he was as sensitive as he was\nobstinate. On this occasion he said nothing. He expressed his feelings\nby seizing the ticket and throwing it into the fire.\n\nThe situation was extremely delicate. Priceless employes like Mr. Povey\ncannot be treated as machines, and Mrs. Baines of course instantly saw\nthat tact was needed.\n\n\"Go along to my bedroom and get ready, my pet,\" said she to Constance.\n\"Sophia is there. There's a good fire. I must just speak to Maggie.\"\nShe tactfully left the room.\n\nMr. Povey glanced at the fire and the curling red remains of the\nticket. Trade was bad; owing to weather and war, destitution was\nabroad; and he had been doing his utmost for the welfare of the shop;\nand here was the reward!\n\nConstance's eyes were full of tears. \"Never mind!\" she murmured, and\nwent upstairs.\n\nIt was all over in a moment.\n\nII\n\nIn the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on Duck Bank there was a full and\ninfluential congregation. For in those days influential people were not\nmerely content to live in the town where their fathers had lived,\nwithout dreaming of country residences and smokeless air--they were\ncontent also to believe what their fathers had believed about the\nbeginning and the end of all. There was no such thing as the unknowable\nin those days. The eternal mysteries were as simple as an addition sum;\na child could tell you with absolute certainty where you would be and\nwhat you would be doing a million years hence, and exactly what God\nthought of you. Accordingly, every one being of the same mind, every\none met on certain occasions in certain places in order to express the\nuniversal mind. And in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, for example,\ninstead of a sparse handful of persons disturbingly conscious of being\nin a minority, as now, a magnificent and proud majority had collected,\ndeeply aware of its rightness and its correctness.\n\nAnd the minister, backed by minor ministers, knelt and covered his face\nin the superb mahogany rostrum; and behind him, in what was then still\ncalled the 'orchestra' (though no musical instruments except the grand\norgan had sounded in it for decades), the choir knelt and covered their\nfaces; and all around in the richly painted gallery and on the\nground-floor, multitudinous rows of people, in easy circumstances of\nbody and soul, knelt in high pews and covered their faces. And there\nfloated before them, in the intense and prolonged silence, the clear\nvision of Jehovah on a throne, a God of sixty or so with a moustache\nand a beard, and a non-committal expression which declined to say\nwhether or not he would require more bloodshed; and this God, destitute\nof pinions, was surrounded by white-winged creatures that wafted\nthemselves to and fro while chanting; and afar off was an obscene\nmonstrosity, with cloven hoofs and a tail very dangerous and rude and\ninterfering, who could exist comfortably in the middle of a coal-fire,\nand who took a malignant and exhaustless pleasure in coaxing you by\nfalse pretences into the same fire; but of course you had too much\nsense to swallow his wicked absurdities. Once a year, for ten minutes\nby the clock, you knelt thus, in mass, and by meditation convinced\nyourself that you had too much sense to swallow his wicked absurdities.\nAnd the hour was very solemn, the most solemn of all the hours.\n\nStrange that immortal souls should be found with the temerity to\nreflect upon mundane affairs in that hour! Yet there were undoubtedly\nsuch in the congregation; there were perhaps many to whom the vision,\nif clear, was spasmodic and fleeting. And among them the inhabitants of\nthe Baines family pew! Who would have supposed that Mr. Povey, a recent\nconvert from Primitive Methodism in King Street to Wesleyan Methodism\non Duck Bank, was dwelling upon window-tickets and the injustice of\nwomen, instead of upon his relations with Jehovah and the tailed one?\nWho would have supposed that the gentle-eyed Constance, pattern of\ndaughters, was risking her eternal welfare by smiling at the tailed\none, who, concealing his tail, had assumed the image of Mr. Povey? Who\nwould have supposed that Mrs. Baines, instead of resolving that Jehovah\nand not the tailed one should have ultimate rule over her, was\nresolving that she and not Mr. Povey should have ultimate rule over her\nhouse and shop? It was a pew-ful that belied its highly satisfactory\nappearance. (And possibly there were other pew-fuls equally deceptive.)\n\nSophia alone, in the corner next to the wall, with her beautiful stern\nface pressed convulsively against her hands, was truly busy with\nimmortal things. Turbulent heart, the violence of her spiritual life\nhad made her older! Never was a passionate, proud girl in a harder case\nthan Sophia! In the splendour of her remorse for a fatal forgetfulness,\nshe had renounced that which she loved and thrown herself into that\nwhich she loathed. It was her nature so to do. She had done it\nhaughtily, and not with kindness, but she had done it with the whole\nforce of her will. Constance had been compelled to yield up to her the\nmillinery department, for Sophia's fingers had a gift of manipulating\nribbons and feathers that was beyond Constance. Sophia had accomplished\nmiracles in the millinery. Yes, and she would be utterly polite to\ncustomers; but afterwards, when the customers were gone, let mothers,\nsisters, and Mr. Poveys beware of her fiery darts!\n\nBut why, when nearly three months had elapsed after her father's death,\nhad she spent more and more time in the shop, secretly aflame with\nexpectancy? Why, when one day a strange traveller entered the shop and\nannounced himself the new representative of Birkinshaws--why had her\nvery soul died away within her and an awful sickness seized her? She\nknew then that she had been her own deceiver. She recognized and\nadmitted, abasing herself lower than the lowest, that her motive in\nleaving Miss Chetwynd's and joining the shop had been, at the best,\nvery mixed, very impure. Engaged at Miss Chetwynd's, she might easily\nhave never set eyes on Gerald Scales again. Employed in the shop, she\ncould not fail to meet him. In this light was to be seen the true\ncomplexion of the splendour of her remorse. A terrible thought for her!\nAnd she could not dismiss it. It contaminated her existence, this\nthought! And she could confide in no one. She was incapable of showing\na wound. Quarter had succeeded quarter, and Gerald Scales was no more\nheard of. She had sacrificed her life for worse than nothing. She had\nmade her own tragedy. She had killed her father, cheated and shamed\nherself with a remorse horribly spurious, exchanged content for misery\nand pride for humiliation--and with it all, Gerald Scales had vanished!\nShe was ruined.\n\nShe took to religion, and her conscientious Christian virtues,\npractised with stern inclemency, were the canker of the family. Thus a\nyear and a half had passed.\n\nAnd then, on this last day of the year, the second year of her shame\nand of her heart's widowhood, Mr. Scales had reappeared. She had gone\ncasually into the shop and found him talking to her mother and Mr.\nPovey. He had come back to the provincial round and to her. She shook\nhis hand and fled, because she could not have stayed. None had noticed\nher agitation, for she had held her body as in a vice. She knew the\nreason neither of his absence nor of his return. She knew nothing. And\nnot a word had been said at meals. And the day had gone and the night\ncome; and now she was in chapel, with Constance by her side and Gerald\nScales in her soul! Happy beyond previous conception of happiness!\nWretched beyond an unutterable woe! And none knew! What was she to pray\nfor? To what purpose and end ought she to steel herself? Ought she to\nhope, or ought she to despair? \"O God, help me!\" she kept whispering to\nJehovah whenever the heavenly vision shone through the wrack of her\nmeditation. \"O God, help me!\" She had a conscience that, when it was in\nthe mood for severity, could be unspeakably cruel to her.\n\nAnd whenever she looked, with dry, hot eyes, through her gloved\nfingers, she saw in front of her on the wall a marble tablet inscribed\nin gilt letters, the cenotaph! She knew all the lines by heart, in\ntheir spacious grandiloquence; lines such as:\n\nEVER READY WITH HIS TONGUE HIS PEN AND HIS PURSE TO HELP THE CHURCH OF\nHIS FATHERS IN HER HE LIVED AND IN HER HE DIED CHERISHING A DEEP AND\nARDENT AFFECTION FOR HIS BELOVED FAITH AND CREED.\n\nAnd again:\n\nHIS SYMPATHIES EXTENDED BEYOND HIS OWN COMMUNITY HE WAS ALWAYS TO THE\nFORE IN GOOD WORKS AND HE SERVED THE CIRCUIT THE TOWN AND THE DISTRICT\nWITH GREAT ACCEPTANCE AND USEFULNESS.\n\nThus had Mr. Critchlow's vanity been duly appeased.\n\nAs the minutes sped in the breathing silence of the chapel the\nemotional tension grew tighter; worshippers sighed heavily, or called\nupon Jehovah for a sign, or merely coughed an invocation. And then at\nlast the clock in the middle of the balcony gave forth the single\nstroke to which it was limited; the ministers rose, and the\ncongregation after them; and everybody smiled as though it was the\nmillennium, and not simply the new year, that had set in. Then,\nfaintly, through walls and shut windows, came the sound of bells and of\nsteam syrens and whistles. The superintendent minister opened his\nhymn-book, and the hymn was sung which had been sung in Wesleyan\nChapels on New Year's morn since the era of John Wesley himself. The\norgan finished with a clanguor of all its pipes; the minister had a few\nlast words with Jehovah, and nothing was left to do except to persevere\nin well-doing. The people leaned towards each other across the high\nbacks of the pews.\n\n\"A happy New Year!\"\n\n\"Eh, thank ye! The same to you!\"\n\n\"Another Watch Night service over!\"\n\n\"Eh, yes!\" And a sigh.\n\nThen the aisles were suddenly crowded, and there was a good-humoured,\noptimistic pushing towards the door. In the Corinthian porch occurred a\ngreat putting-on of cloaks, ulsters, goloshes, and even pattens, and a\ngreat putting-up of umbrellas. And the congregation went out into the\nwhirling snow, dividing into several black, silent-footed processions,\ndown Trafalgar Road, up towards the playground, along the market-place,\nand across Duck Square in the direction of St. Luke's Square.\n\nMr. Povey was between Mrs. Baines and Constance.\n\n\"You must take my arm, my pet,\" said Mrs. Baines to Sophia.\n\nThen Mr. Povey and Constance waded on in front through the drifts.\nSophia balanced that enormous swaying mass, her mother. Owing to their\nhoops, she had much difficulty in keeping close to her. Mrs. Baines\nlaughed with the complacent ease of obesity, yet a fall would have been\nalmost irremediable for her; and so Sophia had to laugh too. But,\nthough she laughed, God had not helped her. She did not know where she\nwas going, nor what might happen to her next.\n\n\"Why, bless us!\" exclaimed Mrs. Baines, as they turned the corner into\nKing Street. \"There's some one sitting on our door-step!\"\n\nThere was: a figure swathed in an ulster, a maud over the ulster, and a\nhigh hat on the top of all. It could not have been there very long,\nbecause it was only speckled with snow. Mr. Povey plunged forward.\n\n\"It's Mr. Scales, of all people!\" said Mr. Povey.\n\n\"Mr. Scales!\" cried Mrs. Baines.\n\nAnd, \"Mr. Scales!\" murmured Sophia, terribly afraid.\n\nPerhaps she was afraid of miracles. Mr. Scales sitting on her mother's\ndoorstep in the middle of the snowy night had assuredly the air of a\nmiracle, of something dreamed in a dream, of something pathetically and\nimpossibly appropriate--'pat,' as they say in the Five Towns. But he\nwas a tangible fact there. And years afterwards, in the light of\nfurther knowledge of Mr. Scales, Sophia came to regard his being on the\ndoorstep as the most natural and characteristic thing in the world.\nReal miracles never seem to be miracles, and that which at the first\nblush resembles one usually proves to be an instance of the extremely\nprosaic.\n\nIII\n\n\"Is that you, Mrs. Baines?\" asked Gerald Scales, in a half-witted\nvoice, looking up, and then getting to his feet. \"Is this your house?\nSo it is! Well, I'd no idea I was sitting on your doorstep.\"\n\nHe smiled timidly, nay, sheepishly, while the women and Mr. Povey\nsurrounded him with their astonished faces under the light of the\ngas-lamp. Certainly he was very pale.\n\n\"But whatever is the matter, Mr. Scales?\" Mrs. Baines demanded in an\nanxious tone. \"Are you ill? Have you been suddenly--\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" said the young man lightly. \"It's nothing. Only I was set on\njust now, down there,\"--he pointed to the depths of King Street.\n\n\"Set on!\" Mrs. Baines repeated, alarmed.\n\n\"That makes the fourth case in a week, that we KNOW of!\" said Mr.\nPovey. \"It really is becoming a scandal.\"\n\nThe fact was that, owing to depression of trade, lack of employment,\nand rigorous weather, public security in the Five Towns was at that\nperiod not as perfect as it ought to have been. In the stress of hunger\nthe lower classes were forgetting their manners--and this in spite of\nthe altruistic and noble efforts of their social superiors to relieve\nthe destitution due, of course, to short-sighted improvidence. When\n(the social superiors were asking in despair) will the lower classes\nlearn to put by for a rainy day? (They might have said a snowy and a\nfrosty day.) It was 'really too bad' of the lower classes, when\neverything that could be done was being done for them, to kill, or even\nattempt to kill, the goose that lays the golden eggs! And especially in\na respectable town! What, indeed, were things coming to? Well, here was\nMr. Gerald Scales, gentleman from Manchester, a witness and victim to\nthe deplorable moral condition of the Five Towns. What would he think\nof the Five Towns? The evil and the danger had been a topic of\ndiscussion in the shop for a week past, and now it was brought home to\nthem.\n\n\"I hope you weren't--\" said Mrs. Baines, apologetically and\nsympathetically.\n\n\"Oh no!\" Mr. Scales interrupted her quite gaily. \"I managed to beat\nthem off. Only my elbow--\"\n\nMeanwhile it was continuing to snow.\n\n\"Do come in!\" said Mrs. Baines.\n\n\"I couldn't think of troubling you,\" said Mr. Scales. \"I'm all right\nnow, and I can find my way to the Tiger.\"\n\n\"You must come in, if it's only for a minute,\" said Mrs. Baines, with\ndecision. She had to think of the honour of the town.\n\n\"You're very kind,\" said Mr. Scales.\n\nThe door was suddenly opened from within, and Maggie surveyed them from\nthe height of the two steps.\n\n\"A happy New Year, mum, to all of you.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Maggie,\" said Mrs. Baines, and primly added:\n\n\"The same to you!\" And in her own mind she said that Maggie could best\nprove her desire for a happy new year by contriving in future not to\n'scamp her corners,' and not to break so much crockery.\n\nSophia, scarce knowing what she did, mounted the steps.\n\n\"Mr. Scales ought to let our New Year in, my pet,\" Mrs. Baines stopped\nher.\n\n\"Oh, of course, mother!\" Sophia concurred with, a gasp, springing back\nnervously.\n\nMr. Scales raised his hat, and duly let the new year, and much snow,\ninto the Baines parlour. And there was a vast deal of stamping of feet,\nagitating of umbrellas, and shaking of cloaks and ulsters on the\ndoormat in the corner by the harmonium. And Maggie took away an armful\nof everything snowy, including goloshes, and received instructions to\nboil milk and to bring 'mince.' Mr. Povey said \"B-r-r-r!\" and shut the\ndoor (which was bordered with felt to stop ventilation); Mrs. Baines\nturned up the gas till it sang, and told Sophia to poke the fire, and\nactually told Constance to light the second gas.\n\nExcitement prevailed.\n\nThe placidity of existence had been agreeably disturbed (yes,\nagreeably, in spite of horror at the attack on Mr. Scales's elbow) by\nan adventure. Moreover, Mr. Scales proved to be in evening-dress. And\nnobody had ever worn evening-dress in that house before.\n\nSophia's blood was in her face, and it remained there, enhancing the\nvivid richness of her beauty. She was dizzy with a strange and\ndisconcerting intoxication. She seemed to be in a world of unrealities\nand incredibilities. Her ears heard with indistinctness, and the edges\nof things and people had a prismatic colouring. She was in a state of\necstatic, unreasonable, inexplicable happiness. All her misery, doubts,\ndespair, rancour, churlishness, had disappeared. She was as softly\ngentle as Constance. Her eyes were the eyes of a fawn, and her gestures\ndelicious in their modest and sensitive grace. Constance was sitting on\nthe sofa, and, after glancing about as if for shelter, she sat down on\nthe sofa by Constance's side. She tried not to stare at Mr. Scales, but\nher gaze would not leave him. She was sure that he was the most perfect\nman in the world. A shortish man, perhaps, but a perfect. That such\nperfection could be was almost past her belief. He excelled all her\ndreams of the ideal man. His smile, his voice, his hand, his\nhair--never were such! Why, when he spoke--it was positively music!\nWhen he smiled--it was heaven! His smile, to Sophia, was one of those\nnatural phenomena which are so lovely that they make you want to shed\ntears. There is no hyperbole in this description of Sophia's\nsensations, but rather an under-statement of them. She was utterly\nobsessed by the unique qualities of Mr. Scales. Nothing would have\npersuaded her that the peer of Mr. Scales existed among men, or could\npossibly exist. And it was her intense and profound conviction of his\ncomplete pre-eminence that gave him, as he sat there in the\nrocking-chair in her mother's parlour, that air of the unreal and the\nincredible.\n\n\"I stayed in the town on purpose to go to a New Year's party at Mr.\nLawton's,\" Mr. Scales was saying.\n\n\"Ah! So you know Lawyer Lawton!\" observed Mrs. Baines, impressed, for\nLawyer Lawton did not consort with tradespeople. He was jolly with\nthem, and he did their legal business for them, but he was not of them.\nHis friends came from afar.\n\n\"My people are old acquaintances of his,\" said Mr. Scales, sipping the\nmilk which Maggie had brought.\n\n\"Now, Mr. Scales, you must taste my mince. A happy month for every tart\nyou eat, you know,\" Mrs. Baines reminded him.\n\nHe bowed. \"And it was as I was coming away from there that I got into\ndifficulties.\" He laughed.\n\nThen he recounted the struggle, which had, however, been brief, as the\nassailants lacked pluck. He had slipped and fallen on his elbow on the\nkerb, and his elbow might have been broken, had not the snow been so\nthick. No, it did not hurt him now; doubtless a mere bruise. It was\nfortunate that the miscreants had not got the better of him, for he had\nin his pocket-book a considerable sum of money in notes--accounts paid!\nHe had often thought what an excellent thing it would be if commercials\ncould travel with dogs, particularly in winter. There was nothing like\na dog.\n\n\"You are fond of dogs?\" asked Mr. Povey, who had always had a secret\nbut impracticable ambition to keep a dog.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Scales, turning now to Mr. Povey.\n\n\"Keep one?\" asked Mr. Povey, in a sporting tone.\n\n\"I have a fox-terrier bitch,\" said Mr. Scales, \"that took a first at\nKnutsford; but she's getting old now.\"\n\nThe sexual epithet fell queerly on the room. Mr. Povey, being a man of\nthe world, behaved as if nothing had happened; but Mrs. Baines's curls\nprotested against this unnecessary coarseness. Constance pretended not\nto hear. Sophia did not understandingly hear. Mr. Scales had no\nsuspicion that he was transgressing a convention by virtue of which\ndogs have no sex. Further, he had no suspicion of the local fame of\nMrs. Baines's mince-tarts. He had already eaten more mince-tarts than\nhe could enjoy, before beginning upon hers, and Mrs. Baines missed the\nenthusiasm to which she was habituated from consumers of her pastry.\n\nMr. Povey, fascinated, proceeded in the direction of dogs, and it grew\nmore and more evident that Mr. Scales, who went out to parties in\nevening dress, instead of going in respectable broad-cloth to\nwatch night-services, who knew the great ones of the land, and who kept\ndogs of an inconvenient sex, was neither an ordinary commercial\ntraveller nor the kind of man to which the Square was accustomed. He\ncame from a different world.\n\n\"Lawyer Lawton's party broke up early--at least I mean, considering--\"\nMrs. Baines hesitated.\n\nAfter a pause Mr. Scales replied, \"Yes, I left immediately the clock\nstruck twelve. I've a heavy day to-morrow--I mean to-day.\"\n\nIt was not an hour for a prolonged visit, and in a few minutes Mr.\nScales was ready again to depart. He admitted a certain feebleness\n('wankiness,' he playfully called it, being proud of his skill in the\ndialect), and a burning in his elbow; but otherwise he was quite\nwell--thanks to Mrs. Baines's most kind hospitality ... He really\ndidn't know how he came to be sitting on her doorstep. Mrs. Baines\nurged him, if he met a policeman on his road to the Tiger, to furnish\nall particulars about the attempted highway robbery, and he said he\ndecidedly would.\n\nHe took his leave with distinguished courtliness.\n\n\"If I have a moment I shall run in to-morrow morning just to let you\nknow I'm all right,\" said he, in the white street.\n\n\"Oh, do!\" said Constance. Constance's perfect innocence made her\nstrangely forward at times.\n\n\"A happy New Year and many of them!\"\n\n\"Thanks! Same to you! Don't get lost.\"\n\n\"Straight up the Square and first on the right,\" called the commonsense\nof Mr. Povey.\n\nNothing else remained to say, and the visitor disappeared silently in\nthe whirling snow. \"Brrr!\" murmured Mr. Povey, shutting the door.\nEverybody felt: \"What a funny ending of the old year!\"\n\n\"Sophia, my pet,\" Mrs. Baines began.\n\nBut Sophia had vanished to bed.\n\n\"Tell her about her new night-dress,\" said Mrs. Baines to Constance.\n\n\"Yes, mother.\"\n\n\"I don't know that I'm so set up with that young man, after all,\" Mrs.\nBaines reflected aloud.\n\n\"Oh, mother!\" Constance protested. \"I think he's just lovely.\"\n\n\"He never looks you straight in the face,\" said Mrs. Baines.\n\n\"Don't tell ME!\" laughed Constance, kissing her mother good night.\n\"You're only on your high horse because he didn't praise your mince.\n_I_ noticed it.\"\n\nIV\n\n\"If anybody thinks I'm going to stand the cold in this showroom any\nlonger, they're mistaken,\" said Sophia the next morning loudly, and in\nher mother's hearing. And she went down into the shop carrying bonnets.\n\nShe pretended to be angry, but she was not. She felt, on the contrary,\nextremely joyous, and charitable to all the world. Usually she would\ntake pains to keep out of the shop; usually she was preoccupied and\nstern. Hence her presence on the ground-floor, and her demeanour,\nexcited interest among the three young lady assistants who sat sewing\nround the stove in the middle of the shop, sheltered by the great pile\nof shirtings and linseys that fronted the entrance.\n\nSophia shared Constance's corner. They had hot bricks under their feet,\nand fine-knitted wraps on their shoulders. They would have been more\ncomfortable near the stove, but greatness has its penalties. The\nweather was exceptionally severe. The windows were thickly frosted\nover, so that Mr. Povey's art in dressing them was quite wasted.\nAnd--rare phenomenon!--the doors of the shop were shut. In the ordinary\nway they were not merely open, but hidden by a display of 'cheap\nlines.' Mr. Povey, after consulting Mrs. Baines, had decided to close\nthem, foregoing the customary display. Mr. Povey had also, in order to\nget a little warmth into his limbs, personally assisted two casual\nlabourers to scrape the thick frozen snow off the pavement; and he wore\nhis kid mittens. All these things together proved better than the\nevidence of barometers how the weather nipped.\n\nMr. Scales came about ten o'clock. Instead of going to Mr. Povey's\ncounter, he walked boldly to Constance's corner, and looked over the\nboxes, smiling and saluting. Both the girls candidly delighted in his\nvisit. Both blushed; both laughed--without knowing why they laughed.\nMr. Scales said he was just departing and had slipped in for a moment\nto thank all of them for their kindness of last night--'or rather this\nmorning.' The girls laughed again at this witticism. Nothing could have\nbeen more simple than his speech. Yet it appeared to them magically\nattractive. A customer entered, a lady; one of the assistants rose from\nthe neighbourhood of the stove, but the daughters of the house ignored\nthe customer; it was part of the etiquette of the shop that customers,\nat any rate chance customers, should not exist for the daughters of the\nhouse, until an assistant had formally drawn attention to them.\nOtherwise every one who wanted a pennyworth of tape would be expecting\nto be served by Miss Baines, or Miss Sophia, if Miss Sophia were there.\nWhich would have been ridiculous.\n\nSophia, glancing sidelong, saw the assistant parleying with the\ncustomer; and then the assistant came softly behind the counter and\napproached the corner.\n\n\"Miss Constance, can you spare a minute?\" the assistant whispered\ndiscreetly.\n\nConstance extinguished her smile for Mr. Scales, and, turning away,\nlighted an entirely different and inferior smile for the customer.\n\n\"Good morning, Miss Baines. Very cold, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Good morning, Mrs. Chatterley. Yes, it is. I suppose you're getting\nanxious about those--\" Constance stopped.\n\nSophia was now alone with Mr. Scales, for in order to discuss the\nunnameable freely with Mrs. Chatterley her sister was edging up the\ncounter. Sophia had dreamed of a private conversation as something\ndelicious and impossible. But chance had favoured her. She was alone\nwith him. And his neat fair hair and his blue eyes and his delicate\nmouth were as wonderful to her as ever. He was gentlemanly to a degree\nthat impressed her more than anything had impressed her in her life.\nAnd all the proud and aristocratic instinct that was at the base of her\ncharacter sprang up and seized on his gentlemanliness like a famished\nanimal seizing on food.\n\n\"The last time I saw you,\" said Mr. Scales, in a new tone, \"you said\nyou were never in the shop.\"\n\n\"What? Yesterday? Did I?\"\n\n\"No, I mean the last time I saw you alone,\" said he.\n\n\"Oh!\" she exclaimed. \"It's just an accident.\"\n\n\"That's exactly what you said last time.\"\n\n\"Is it?\"\n\nWas it his manner, or what he said, that flattered her, that\nintensified her beautiful vivacity?\n\n\"I suppose you don't often go out?\" he went on.\n\n\"What? In this weather?\"\n\n\"Any time.\"\n\n\"I go to chapel,\" said she, \"and marketing with mother.\" There was a\nlittle pause. \"And to the Free Library.\"\n\n\"Oh yes. You've got a Free Library here now, haven't you?\"\n\n\"Yes. We've had it over a year.\"\n\n\"And you belong to it? What do you read?\"\n\n\"Oh, stories, you know. I get a fresh book out once a week.\"\n\n\"Saturdays, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said. \"Wednesdays.\" And she smiled. \"Usually.\"\n\n\"It's Wednesday to-day,\" said he. \"Not been already?\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I don't think I shall go to-day. It's too cold. I\ndon't think I shall venture out to-day.\"\n\n\"You must be very fond of reading,\" said he.\n\nThen Mr. Povey appeared, rubbing his mittened hands. And Mrs.\nChatterley went.\n\n\"I'll run and fetch mother,\" said Constance.\n\nMrs. Baines was very polite to the young man. He related his interview\nwith the police, whose opinion was that he had been attacked by stray\nmembers of a gang from Hanbridge. The young lady assistants, with ears\ncocked, gathered the nature of Mr. Scales's adventure, and were\nthrilled to the point of questioning Mr. Povey about it after Mr.\nScales had gone. His farewell was marked by much handshaking, and\nfinally Mr. Povey ran after him into the Square to mention something\nabout dogs.\n\nAt half-past one, while Mrs. Baines was dozing after dinner, Sophia\nwrapped herself up, and with a book under her arm went forth into the\nworld, through the shop. She returned in less than twenty minutes. But\nher mother had already awakened, and was hovering about the back of the\nshop. Mothers have supernatural gifts.\n\nSophia nonchalantly passed her and hurried into the parlour where she\nthrew down her muff and a book and knelt before the fire to warm\nherself.\n\nMrs. Baines followed her. \"Been to the Library?\" questioned Mrs. Baines.\n\n\"Yes, mother. And it's simply perishing.\"\n\n\"I wonder at your going on a day like to-day. I thought you always went\non Thursdays?\"\n\n\"So I do. But I'd finished my book.\"\n\n\"What is this?\" Mrs. Baines picked up the volume, which was covered\nwith black oil-cloth.\n\nShe picked it up with a hostile air. For her attitude towards the Free\nLibrary was obscurely inimical. She never read anything herself except\nThe Sunday at Home, and Constance never read anything except The Sunday\nat Home. There were scriptural commentaries, Dugdale's Gazetteer,\nCulpepper's Herbal, and works by Bunyan and Flavius Josephus in the\ndrawing-room bookcase; also Uncle Tom's Cabin. And Mrs. Baines, in\nconsidering the welfare of her daughters, looked askance at the whole\nremainder of printed literature. If the Free Library had not formed\npart of the Famous Wedgwood Institution, which had been opened with\nimmense eclat by the semi-divine Gladstone; if the first book had not\nbeen ceremoniously 'taken out' of the Free Library by the Chief Bailiff\nin person--a grandfather of stainless renown--Mrs. Baines would\nprobably have risked her authority in forbidding the Free Library.\n\n\"You needn't be afraid,\" said Sophia, laughing. \"It's Miss Sewell's\nExperience of Life.\"\n\n\"A novel, I see,\" observed Mrs. Baines, dropping the book.\n\nGold and jewels would probably not tempt a Sophia of these days to read\nExperience of Life; but to Sophia Baines the bland story had the\npiquancy of the disapproved.\n\nThe next day Mrs. Baines summoned Sophia into her bedroom.\n\n\"Sophia,\" said she, trembling, \"I shall be glad if you will not walk\nabout the streets with young men until you have my permission.\"\n\nThe girl blushed violently. \"I--I--\"\n\n\"You were seen in Wedgwood Street,\" said Mrs. Baines.\n\n\"Who's been gossiping--Mr. Critchlow, I suppose?\" Sophia exclaimed\nscornfully.\n\n\"No one has been 'gossiping,'\" said Mrs. Baines. \"Well, if I meet some\none by accident in the street I can't help it, can I?\" Sophia's voice\nshook.\n\n\"You know what I mean, my child,\" said Mrs. Baines, with careful calm.\n\nSophia dashed angrily from the room.\n\n\"I like the idea of him having 'a heavy day'!\" Mrs. Baines reflected\nironically, recalling a phrase which had lodged in her mind. And very\nvaguely, with an uneasiness scarcely perceptible, she remembered that\n'he,' and no other, had been in the shop on the day her husband died.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nESCAPADE\n\nI\n\n\nThe uneasiness of Mrs. Baines flowed and ebbed, during the next three\nmonths, influenced by Sophia's moods. There were days when Sophia was\nthe old Sophia--the forbidding, difficult, waspish, and even hedgehog\nSophia. But there were other days on which Sophia seemed to be drawing\njoy and gaiety and goodwill from some secret source, from some fount\nwhose nature and origin none could divine. It was on these days that\nthe uneasiness of Mrs. Baines waxed. She had the wildest suspicions;\nshe was almost capable of accusing Sophia of carrying on a clandestine\ncorrespondence; she saw Sophia and Gerald Scales deeply and wickedly in\nlove; she saw them with their arms round each other's necks.... And\nthen she called herself a middle-aged fool, to base such a structure of\nsuspicion on a brief encounter in the street and on an idea, a fancy, a\ncurious and irrational notion! Sophia had a certain streak of pure\nnobility in that exceedingly heterogeneous thing, her character.\nMoreover, Mrs. Baines watched the posts, and she also watched\nSophia--she was not the woman to trust to a streak of pure\nnobility--and she came to be sure that Sophia's sinfulness, if any, was\nnot such as could be weighed in a balance, or collected together by\nstealth and then suddenly placed before the girl on a charger.\n\nStill, she would have given much to see inside Sophia's lovely head.\nAh! Could she have done so, what sleep-destroying wonders she would\nhave witnessed! By what bright lamps burning in what mysterious\ngrottoes and caverns of the brain would her mature eyes have been\ndazzled! Sophia was living for months on the exhaustless ardent\nvitality absorbed during a magical two minutes in Wedgwood Street. She\nwas living chiefly on the flaming fire struck in her soul by the shock\nof seeing Gerald Scales in the porch of the Wedgwood Institution as she\ncame out of the Free Library with Experience Of Life tucked into her\nlarge astrakhan muff. He had stayed to meet her, then: she knew it!\n\"After all,\" her heart said, \"I must be very beautiful, for I have\nattracted the pearl of men!\" And she remembered her face in the glass.\nThe value and the power of beauty were tremendously proved to her. He,\nthe great man of the world, the handsome and elegant man with a\nthousand strange friends and a thousand interests far remote from her,\nhad remained in Bursley on the mere chance of meeting her! She was\nproud, but her pride was drowned in bliss. \"I was just looking at this\ninscription about Mr. Gladstone.\" \"So you decided to come out as\nusual!\" \"And may I ask what book you have chosen?\" These were the\nphrases she heard, and to which she responded with similar phrases. And\nmeanwhile a miracle of ecstasy had opened--opened like a flower. She\nwas walking along Wedgwood Street by his side, slowly, on the scraped\npavements, where marble bulbs of snow had defied the spade and\nremained. She and he were exactly of the same height, and she kept\nlooking into his face and he into hers. This was all the miracle.\nExcept that she was not walking on the pavement--she was walking on the\nintangible sward of paradise! Except that the houses had receded and\nfaded, and the passers-by were subtilized into unnoticeable ghosts!\nExcept that her mother and Constance had become phantasmal beings\nexisting at an immense distance!\n\nWhat had happened? Nothing! The most commonplace occurrence! The\neternal cause had picked up a commercial traveller (it might have been\na clerk or curate, but it in fact was a commercial traveller), and\nendowed him with all the glorious, unique, incredible attributes of a\ngod, and planted him down before Sophia in order to produce the eternal\neffect. A miracle performed specially for Sophia's benefit! No one else\nin Wedgwood Street saw the god walking along by her side. No one else\nsaw anything but a simple commercial traveller. Yes, the most\ncommonplace occurrence!\n\nOf course at the corner of the street he had to go. \"Till next time!\"\nhe murmured. And fire came out of his eyes and lighted in Sophia's\nlovely head those lamps which Mrs. Baines was mercifully spared from\nseeing. And he had shaken hands and raised his hat. Imagine a god\nraising his hat! And he went off on two legs, precisely like a dashing\nlittle commercial traveller.\n\nAnd, escorted by the equivocal Angel of Eclipses, she had turned into\nKing Street, and arranged her face, and courageously met her mother.\nHer mother had not at first perceived the unusual; for mothers, despite\ntheir reputation to the contrary, really are the blindest creatures.\nSophia, the naive ninny, had actually supposed that her walking along a\nhundred yards of pavement with a god by her side was not going to\nexcite remark! What a delusion! It is true, certainly, that no one saw\nthe god by direct vision. But Sophia's cheeks, Sophia's eyes, the curve\nof Sophia's neck as her soul yearned towards the soul of the god--these\nphenomena were immeasurably more notable than Sophia guessed. An\naccount of them, in a modified form to respect Mrs. Baines's notorious\ndignity, had healed the mother of her blindness and led to that\ncharacteristic protest from her, \"I shall be glad if you will not walk\nabout the streets with young men,\" etc.\n\nWhen the period came for the reappearance of Mr. Scales, Mrs. Baines\noutlined a plan, and when the circular announcing the exact time of his\narrival was dropped into the letter-box, she formulated the plan in\ndetail. In the first place, she was determined to be indisposed and\ninvisible herself, so that Mr. Scales might be foiled in any possible\ndesign to renew social relations in the parlour. In the second place,\nshe flattered Constance with a single hint--oh, the vaguest and\nbriefest!--and Constance understood that she was not to quit the shop\non the appointed morning. In the third place, she invented a way of\nexplaining to Mr. Povey that the approaching advent of Gerald Scales\nmust not be mentioned. And in the fourth place, she deliberately made\nappointments for Sophia with two millinery customers in the showroom,\nso that Sophia might be imprisoned in the showroom.\n\nHaving thus left nothing to chance, she told herself that she was a\nfoolish woman full of nonsense. But this did not prevent her from\nputting her lips together firmly and resolving that Mr. Scales should\nhave no finger in the pie of HER family. She had acquired information\nconcerning Mr. Scales, at secondhand, from Lawyer Pratt. More than\nthis, she posed the question in a broader form--why should a young girl\nbe permitted any interest in any young man whatsoever? The everlasting\npurpose had made use of Mrs. Baines and cast her off, and, like most\npersons in a similar situation, she was, unconsciously and quite\nhonestly, at odds with the everlasting purpose.\n\nII\n\nOn the day of Mr. Scales's visit to the shop to obtain orders and money\non behalf of Birkinshaws, a singular success seemed to attend the\nmachinations of Mrs. Baines. With Mr. Scales punctuality was not an\ninveterate habit, and he had rarely been known, in the past, to fulfil\nexactly the prophecy of the letter of advice concerning his arrival.\nBut that morning his promptitude was unexampled. He entered the shop,\nand by chance Mr. Povey was arranging unshrinkable flannels in the\ndoorway. The two youngish little men talked amiably about flannels,\ndogs, and quarter-day (which was just past), and then Mr. Povey led Mr.\nScales to his desk in the dark corner behind the high pile of twills,\nand paid the quarterly bill, in notes and gold--as always; and then Mr.\nScales offered for the august inspection of Mr. Povey all that\nManchester had recently invented for the temptation of drapers, and Mr.\nPovey gave him an order which, if not reckless, was nearer 'handsome'\nthan 'good.' During the process Mr. Scales had to go out of the shop\ntwice or three times in order to bring in from his barrow at the\nkerb-stone certain small black boxes edged with brass. On none of these\nexcursions did Mr. Scales glance wantonly about him in satisfaction of\nthe lust of the eye. Even if he had permitted himself this freedom he\nwould have seen nothing more interesting than three young lady\nassistants seated round the stove and sewing with pricked fingers from\nwhich the chilblains were at last deciding to depart. When Mr. Scales\nhad finished writing down the details of the order with his\nivory-handled stylo, and repacked his boxes, he drew the interview to a\nconclusion after the manner of a capable commercial traveller; that is\nto say, he implanted in Mr. Povey his opinion that Mr. Povey was a\nwise, a shrewd and an upright man, and that the world would be all the\nbetter for a few more like him. He inquired for Mrs. Baines, and was\ndeeply pained to hear of her indisposition while finding consolation in\nthe assurance that the Misses Baines were well. Mr. Povey was on the\npoint of accompanying the pattern of commercial travellers to the door,\nwhen two customers simultaneously came in--ladies. One made straight\nfor Mr. Povey, whereupon Mr. Scales parted from him at once, it being a\nuniversal maxim in shops that even the most distinguished commercial\nshall not hinder the business of even the least distinguished customer.\nThe other customer had the effect of causing Constance to pop up from\nher cloistral corner. Constance had been there all the time, but of\ncourse, though she heard the remembered voice, her maidenliness had not\npermitted that she should show herself to Mr. Scales.\n\nNow, as he was leaving, Mr. Scales saw her, with her agreeable snub\nnose and her kind, simple eyes. She was requesting the second customer\nto mount to the showroom, where was Miss Sophia. Mr. Scales hesitated a\nmoment, and in that moment Constance, catching his eye, smiled upon\nhim, and nodded. What else could she do? Vaguely aware though she was\nthat her mother was not 'set up' with Mr. Scales, and even feared the\npossible influence of the young man on Sophia, she could not exclude\nhim from her general benevolence towards the universe. Moreover, she\nliked him; she liked him very much and thought him a very fine specimen\nof a man.\n\nHe left the door and went across to her. They shook hands and opened a\nconversation instantly; for Constance, while retaining all her modesty,\nhad lost all her shyness in the shop, and could chatter with anybody.\nShe sidled towards her corner, precisely as Sophia had done on another\noccasion, and Mr. Scales put his chin over the screening boxes, and\neagerly prosecuted the conversation.\n\nThere was absolutely nothing in the fact of the interview itself to\ncause alarm to a mother, nothing to render futile the precautions of\nMrs. Baines on behalf of the flower of Sophia's innocence. And yet it\nheld danger for Mrs. Baines, all unconscious in her parlour. Mrs.\nBaines could rely utterly on Constance not to be led away by the\ndandiacal charms of Mr. Scales (she knew in what quarter sat the wind\nfor Constance); in her plan she had forgotten nothing, except Mr.\nPovey; and it must be said that she could not possibly have foreseen\nthe effect on the situation of Mr. Povey's character.\n\nMr. Povey, attending to his customer, had noticed the bright smile of\nConstance on the traveller, and his heart did not like it. And when he\nsaw the lively gestures of a Mr. Scales in apparently intimate talk\nwith a Constance hidden behind boxes, his uneasiness grew into fury. He\nwas a man capable of black and terrible furies. Outwardly\ninsignificant, possessing a mind as little as his body, easily abashed,\nhe was none the less a very susceptible young man, soon offended,\nproud, vain, and obscurely passionate. You might offend Mr. Povey\nwithout guessing it, and only discover your sin when Mr. Povey had done\nsomething too decisive as a result of it.\n\nThe reason of his fury was jealousy. Mr. Povey had made great advances\nsince the death of John Baines. He had consolidated his position, and\nhe was in every way a personage of the first importance. His misfortune\nwas that he could never translate his importance, or his sense of his\nimportance, into terms of outward demeanour. Most people, had they been\ntold that Mr. Povey was seriously aspiring to enter the Baines family,\nwould have laughed. But they would have been wrong. To laugh at Mr.\nPovey was invariably wrong. Only Constance knew what inroads he had\neffected upon her.\n\nThe customer went, but Mr. Scales did not go. Mr. Povey, free to\nreconnoitre, did so. From the shadow of the till he could catch\nglimpses of Constance's blushing, vivacious face. She was obviously\nabsorbed in Mr. Scales. She and he had a tremendous air of intimacy.\nAnd the murmur of their chatter continued. Their chatter was nothing,\nand about nothing, but Mr. Povey imagined that they were exchanging\neternal vows. He endured Mr. Scales's odious freedom until it became\ninsufferable, until it deprived him of all his self-control; and then\nhe retired into his cutting-out room. He meditated there in a condition\nof insanity for perhaps a minute, and excogitated a device. Dashing\nback into the shop, he spoke up, half across the shop, in a loud, curt\ntone:\n\n\"Miss Baines, your mother wants you at once.\"\n\nHe was launched on the phrase before he noticed that, during his\nabsence, Sophia had descended from the showroom and joined her sister\nand Mr. Scales. The danger and scandal were now less, he perceived, but\nhe was glad he had summoned Constance away, and he was in a state to\ndespise consequences.\n\nThe three chatterers, startled, looked at Mr. Povey, who left the shop\nabruptly. Constance could do nothing but obey the call.\n\nShe met him at the door of the cutting-out room in the passage leading\nto the parlour.\n\n\"Where is mother? In the parlour?\" Constance inquired innocently.\n\nThere was a dark flush on Mr. Povey's face. \"If you wish to know,\" said\nhe in a hard voice, \"she hasn't asked for you and she doesn't want you.\"\n\nHe turned his back on her, and retreated into his lair.\n\n\"Then what--?\" she began, puzzled.\n\nHe fronted her. \"Haven't you been gabbling long enough with that\njackanapes?\" he spit at her. There were tears in his eyes.\n\nConstance, though without experience in these matters, comprehended.\nShe comprehended perfectly and immediately. She ought to have put Mr.\nPovey into his place. She ought to have protested with firm, dignified\nfinality against such a ridiculous and monstrous outrage as that which\nMr. Povey had committed. Mr. Povey ought to have been ruined for ever\nin her esteem and in her heart. But she hesitated.\n\n\"And only last Sunday--afternoon,\" Mr. Povey blubbered.\n\n(Not that anything overt had occurred, or been articulately said,\nbetween them last Sunday afternoon. But they had been alone together,\nand had each witnessed strange and disturbing matters in the eyes of\nthe other.)\n\nTears now fell suddenly from Constance's eyes. \"You ought to be\nashamed--\" she stammered.\n\nStill, the tears were in her eyes, and in his too. What he or she\nmerely said, therefore, was of secondary importance.\n\nMrs. Baines, coming from the kitchen, and hearing Constance's voice,\nburst upon the scene, which silenced her. Parents are sometimes\nsilenced. She found Sophia and Mr. Scales in the shop.\n\nIII\n\nThat afternoon Sophia, too busy with her own affairs to notice anything\nabnormal in the relations between her mother and Constance, and quite\nignorant that there had been an unsuccessful plot against her, went\nforth to call upon Miss Chetwynd, with whom she had remained very\nfriendly: she considered that she and Miss Chetwynd formed an\naristocracy of intellect, and the family indeed tacitly admitted this.\nShe practised no secrecy in her departure from the shop; she merely\ndressed, in her second-best hoop, and went, having been ready at any\nmoment to tell her mother, if her mother caught her and inquired, that\nshe was going to see Miss Chetwynd. And she did go to see Miss\nChetwynd, arriving at the house-school, which lay amid trees on the\nroad to Turnhill, just beyond the turnpike, at precisely a quarter-past\nfour. As Miss Chetwynd's pupils left at four o'clock, and as Miss\nChetwynd invariably took a walk immediately afterwards, Sophia was able\nto contain her surprise upon being informed that Miss Chetwynd was not\nin. She had not intended that Miss Chetwynd should be in.\n\nShe turned off to the right, up the side road which, starting from the\nturnpike, led in the direction of Moorthorne and Red Cow, two mining\nvillages. Her heart beat with fear as she began to follow that road,\nfor she was upon a terrific adventure. What most frightened her,\nperhaps, was her own astounding audacity. She was alarmed by something\nwithin herself which seemed to be no part of herself and which produced\nin her curious, disconcerting, fleeting impressions of unreality.\n\nIn the morning she had heard the voice of Mr. Scales from the\nshowroom--that voice whose even distant murmur caused creepings of the\nskin in her back. And she had actually stood on the counter in front of\nthe window in order to see down perpendicularly into the Square; by so\ndoing she had had a glimpse of the top of his luggage on a barrow, and\nof the crown of his hat occasionally when he went outside to tempt Mr.\nPovey. She might have gone down into the shop--there was no slightest\nreason why she should not; three months had elapsed since the name of\nMr. Scales had been mentioned, and her mother had evidently forgotten\nthe trifling incident of New Year's Day--but she was incapable of\ndescending the stairs! She went to the head of the stairs and peeped\nthrough the balustrade--and she could not get further. For nearly a\nhundred days those extraordinary lamps had been brightly burning in her\nhead; and now the light-giver had come again, and her feet would not\nmove to the meeting; now the moment had arrived for which alone she had\nlived, and she could not seize it as it passed! \"Why don't I go\ndownstairs?\" she asked herself. \"Am I afraid to meet him?\"\n\nThe customer sent up by Constance had occupied the surface of her life\nfor ten minutes, trying on hats; and during this time she was praying\nwildly that Mr. Scales might not go, and asserting that it was\nimpossible he should go without at least asking for her. Had she not\ncounted the days to this day? When the customer left Sophia followed\nher downstairs, and saw Mr. Scales chatting with Constance. All her\nself-possession instantly returned to her, and she joined them with a\nrather mocking smile. After Mr. Povey's strange summons had withdrawn\nConstance from the corner, Mr. Scales's tone had changed; it had\nthrilled her. \"You are YOU,\" it had said, \"there is you--and there is\nthe rest of the universe!\" Then he had not forgotten; she had lived in\nhis heart; she had not for three months been the victim of her own\nfancies! ... She saw him put a piece of folded white paper on the top\nedge of the screening box and flick it down to her. She blushed\nscarlet, staring at it as it lay on the counter. He said nothing, and\nshe could not speak.... He had prepared that paper, then, beforehand,\non the chance of being able to give it to her! This thought was\nexquisite but full of terror. \"I must really go,\" he had said, lamely,\nwith emotion in his voice, and he had gone--like that! And she put the\npiece of paper into the pocket of her apron, and hastened away. She had\nnot even seen, as she turned up the stairs, her mother standing by the\ntill--that spot which was the conning-tower of the whole shop. She ran,\nran, breathless to the bedroom.\n\n\"I am a wicked girl!\" she said quite frankly, on the road to the\nrendezvous. \"It is a dream that I am going to meet him. It cannot be\ntrue. There is time to go back. If I go back I am safe. I have simply\ncalled at Miss Chetwynd's and she wasn't in, and no one can say a word.\nBut if I go on--if I'm seen! What a fool I am to go on!\"\n\nAnd she went on, impelled by, amongst other things, an immense, naive\ncuriosity, and the vanity which the bare fact of his note had excited.\nThe Loop railway was being constructed at that period, and hundreds of\nnavvies were at work on it between Bursley and Turnhill. When she came\nto the new bridge over the cutting, he was there, as he had written\nthat he would be.\n\nThey were very nervous, they greeted each other stiffly and as though\nthey had met then for the first time that day. Nothing was said about\nhis note, nor about her response to it. Her presence was treated by\nboth of them as a basic fact of the situation which it would be well\nnot to disturb by comment. Sophia could not hide her shame, but her\nshame only aggravated the stinging charm of her beauty. She was wearing\na hard Amazonian hat, with a lifted veil, the final word of fashion\nthat spring in the Five Towns; her face, beaten by the fresh breeze,\nshone rosily; her eyes glittered under the dark hat, and the violent\ncolours of her Victorian frock--green and crimson--could not spoil\nthose cheeks. If she looked earthwards, frowning, she was the more\nadorable so. He had come down the clayey incline from the unfinished\nred bridge to welcome her, and when the salutations were over they\nstood still, he gazing apparently at the horizon and she at the yellow\nmarl round the edges of his boots. The encounter was as far away from\nSophia's ideal conception as Manchester from Venice.\n\n\"So this is the new railway!\" said she.\n\n\"Yes,\" said he. \"This is your new railway. You can see it better from\nthe bridge.\"\n\n\"But it's very sludgy up there,\" she objected with a pout.\n\n\"Further on it's quite dry,\" he reassured her.\n\nFrom the bridge they had a sudden view of a raw gash in the earth; and\nhundreds of men were crawling about in it, busy with minute operations,\nlike flies in a great wound. There was a continuous rattle of picks,\nresembling a muffled shower of hail, and in the distance a tiny\nlocomotive was leading a procession of tiny waggons.\n\n\"And those are the navvies!\" she murmured.\n\nThe unspeakable doings of the navvies in the Five Towns had reached\neven her: how they drank and swore all day on Sundays, how their huts\nand houses were dens of the most appalling infamy, how they were the\ncurse of a God-fearing and respectable district! She and Gerald Scales\nglanced down at these dangerous beasts of prey in their yellow\ncorduroys and their open shirts revealing hairy chests. No doubt they\nboth thought how inconvenient it was that railways could not be brought\ninto existence without the aid of such revolting and swinish animals.\nThey glanced down from the height of their nice decorum and felt the\npowerful attraction of similar superior manners. The manners of the\nnavvies were such that Sophia could not even regard them, nor Gerald\nScales permit her to regard them, without blushing.\n\nIn a united blush they turned away, up the gradual slope. Sophia knew\nno longer what she was doing. For some minutes she was as helpless as\nthough she had been in a balloon with him.\n\n\"I got my work done early,\" he said; and added complacently, \"As a\nmatter of fact I've had a pretty good day.\"\n\nShe was reassured to learn that he was not neglecting his duties. To be\nphilandering with a commercial traveller who has finished a good day's\nwork seemed less shocking than dalliance with a neglecter of business;\nit seemed indeed, by comparison, respectable.\n\n\"It must be very interesting,\" she said primly.\n\n\"What, my trade?\"\n\n\"Yes. Always seeing new places and so on.\"\n\n\"In a way it is,\" he admitted judicially. \"But I can tell you it was\nmuch more agreeable being in Paris.\"\n\n\"Oh! Have you been to Paris?\"\n\n\"Lived there for nearly two years,\" he said carelessly. Then, looking\nat her, \"Didn't you notice I never came for a long time?\"\n\n\"I didn't know you were in Paris,\" she evaded him.\n\n\"I went to start a sort of agency for Birkinshaws,\" he said.\n\n\"I suppose you talk French like anything.\"\n\n\"Of course one has to talk French,\" said he. \"I learnt French when I\nwas a child from a governess--my uncle made me--but I forgot most of it\nat school, and at the Varsity you never learn anything--precious\nlittle, anyhow! Certainly not French!\"\n\nShe was deeply impressed. He was a much greater personage than she had\nguessed. It had never occurred to her that commercial travellers had to\ngo to a university to finish their complex education. And then, Paris!\nParis meant absolutely nothing to her but pure, impossible,\nunattainable romance. And he had been there! The clouds of glory were\naround him. He was a hero, dazzling. He had come to her out of another\nworld. He was her miracle. He was almost too miraculous to be true.\n\nShe, living her humdrum life at the shop! And he, elegant, brilliant,\ncoming from far cities! They together, side by side, strolling up the\nroad towards the Moorthorne ridge! There was nothing quite like this in\nthe stories of Miss Sewell.\n\n\"Your uncle...?\" she questioned vaguely.\n\n\"Yes, Mr. Boldero. He's a partner in Birkinshaws.\"\n\n\"Oh!\"\n\n\"You've heard of him? He's a great Wesleyan.\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" she said. \"When we had the Wesleyan Conference here, he--\"\n\n\"He's always very great at Conferences,\" said Gerald Scales.\n\n\"I didn't know he had anything to do with Birkinshaws.\"\n\n\"He isn't a working partner of course,\" Mr. Scales explained. \"But he\nmeans me to be one. I have to learn the business from the bottom. So\nnow you understand why I'm a traveller.\"\n\n\"I see,\" she said, still more deeply impressed.\n\n\"I'm an orphan,\" said Gerald. \"And Uncle Boldero took me in hand when I\nwas three.\"\n\n\"I SEE!\" she repeated.\n\nIt seemed strange to her that Mr. Scales should be a Wesleyan--just\nlike herself. She would have been sure that he was 'Church.' Her\nnotions of Wesleyanism, with her notions of various other things, were\nsharply modified.\n\n\"Now tell me about you,\" Mr. Scales suggested.\n\n\"Oh! I'm nothing!\" she burst out.\n\nThe exclamation was perfectly sincere. Mr. Scales's disclosures\nconcerning himself, while they excited her, discouraged her.\n\n\"You're the finest girl I've ever met, anyhow,\" said Mr. Scales with\ngallant emphasis, and he dug his stick into the soft ground.\n\nShe blushed and made no answer.\n\nThey walked on in silence, each wondering apprehensively what might\nhappen next.\n\nSuddenly Mr. Scales stopped at a dilapidated low brick wall, built in a\ncircle, close to the side of the road.\n\n\"I expect that's an old pit-shaft,\" said he.\n\n\"Yes, I expect it is.\"\n\nHe picked up a rather large stone and approached the wall.\n\n\"Be careful!\" she enjoined him.\n\n\"Oh! It's all right,\" he said lightly. \"Let's listen. Come near and\nlisten.\"\n\nShe reluctantly obeyed, and he threw the stone over the dirty ruined\nwall, the top of which was about level with his hat. For two or three\nseconds there was no sound. Then a faint reverberation echoed from the\ndepths of the shaft. And on Sophia's brain arose dreadful images of the\nghosts of miners wandering for ever in subterranean passages, far, far\nbeneath. The noise of the falling stone had awakened for her the secret\nterrors of the earth. She could scarcely even look at the wall without\na spasm of fear.\n\n\"How strange,\" said Mr. Scales, a little awe in his voice, too, \"that\nthat should be left there like that! I suppose it's very deep.\"\n\n\"Some of them are,\" she trembled.\n\n\"I must just have a look,\" he said, and put his hands on the top of the\nwall.\n\n\"Come away!\" she cried.\n\n\"Oh! It's all right!\" he said again, soothingly. \"The wall's as firm as\na rock.\" And he took a slight spring and looked over.\n\nShe shrieked loudly. She saw him at the distant bottom of the shaft,\nmangled, drowning. The ground seemed to quake under her feet. A\nhorrible sickness seized her. And she shrieked again. Never had she\nguessed that existence could be such pain.\n\nHe slid down from the wall, and turned to her. \"No bottom to be seen!\"\nhe said. Then, observing her transformed face, he came close to her,\nwith a superior masculine smile. \"Silly little thing!\" he said\ncoaxingly, endearingly, putting forth all his power to charm.\n\nHe perceived at once that he had miscalculated the effects of his\naction. Her alarm changed swiftly to angry offence. She drew back with\na haughty gesture, as if he had intended actually to touch her. Did he\nsuppose, because she chanced to be walking with him, that he had the\nright to address her familiarly, to tease her, to call her 'silly\nlittle thing' and to put his face against hers? She resented his\nfreedom with quick and passionate indignation.\n\nShe showed him her proud back and nodding head and wrathful skirts; and\nhurried off without a word, almost running. As for him, he was so\nstartled by unexpected phenomena that he did nothing for a\nmoment--merely stood looking and feeling foolish.\n\nThen she heard him in pursuit. She was too proud to stop or even to\nreduce her speed.\n\n\"I didn't mean to--\" he muttered behind her.\n\nNo recognition from her.\n\n\"I suppose I ought to apologize,\" he said.\n\n\"I should just think you ought,\" she answered, furious.\n\n\"Well, I do!\" said he. \"Do stop a minute.\"\n\n\"I'll thank you not to follow me, Mr. Scales.\" She paused, and scorched\nhim with her displeasure. Then she went forward. And her heart was in\ntorture because it could not persuade her to remain with him, and smile\nand forgive, and win his smile.\n\n\"I shall write to you,\" he shouted down the slope.\n\nShe kept on, the ridiculous child. But the agony she had suffered as he\nclung to the frail wall was not ridiculous, nor her dark vision of the\nmine, nor her tremendous indignation when, after disobeying her, he\nforgot that she was a queen. To her the scene was sublimely tragic.\nSoon she had recrossed the bridge, but not the same she! So this was\nthe end of the incredible adventure!\n\nWhen she reached the turnpike she thought of her mother and of\nConstance. She had completely forgotten them; for a space they had\nutterly ceased to exist for her.\n\nIV\n\n\"You've been out, Sophia?\" said Mrs. Baines in the parlour,\nquestioningly. Sophia had taken off her hat and mantle hurriedly in the\ncutting-out room, for she was in danger of being late for tea; but her\nhair and face showed traces of the March breeze. Mrs. Baines, whose\nstoutness seemed to increase, sat in the rocking-chair with a number of\nThe Sunday at Home in her hand. Tea was set.\n\n\"Yes, mother. I called to see Miss Chetwynd.\"\n\n\"I wish you'd tell me when you are going out.\"\n\n\"I looked all over for you before I started.\"\n\n\"No, you didn't, for I haven't stirred from this room since four\no'clock.... You should not say things like that,\" Mrs. Baines added in\na gentler tone.\n\nMrs. Baines had suffered much that day. She knew that she was in an\nirritable, nervous state, and therefore she said to herself, in her\nquality of wise woman, \"I must watch myself. I mustn't let myself go.\"\nAnd she thought how reasonable she was. She did not guess that all her\ngestures betrayed her; nor did it occur to her that few things are more\ngalling than the spectacle of a person, actuated by lofty motives,\nobviously trying to be kind and patient under what he considers to be\nextreme provocation.\n\nMaggie blundered up the kitchen stairs with the teapot and hot toast;\nand so Sophia had an excuse for silence. Sophia too had suffered much,\nsuffered excruciatingly; she carried at that moment a whole tragedy in\nher young soul, unaccustomed to such burdens. Her attitude towards her\nmother was half fearful and half defiant; it might be summed up in the\nphrase which she had repeated again and again under her breath on the\nway home, \"Well, mother can't kill me!\"\n\nMrs. Baines put down the blue-covered magazine and twisted her\nrocking-chair towards the table.\n\n\"You can pour out the tea,\" said Mrs. Baines.\n\n\"Where's Constance?\"\n\n\"She's not very well. She's lying down.\"\n\n\"Anything the matter with her?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThis was inaccurate. Nearly everything was the matter with Constance,\nwho had never been less Constance than during that afternoon. But Mrs.\nBaines had no intention of discussing Constance's love-affairs with\nSophia. The less said to Sophia about love, the better! Sophia was\nexcitable enough already!\n\nThey sat opposite to each other, on either side of the fire--the\nmonumental matron whose black bodice heavily overhung the table, whose\nlarge rounded face was creased and wrinkled by what seemed countless\nyears of joy and disillusion; and the young, slim girl, so fresh, so\nvirginal, so ignorant, with all the pathos of an unsuspecting victim\nabout to be sacrificed to the minotaur of Time! They both ate hot\ntoast, with careless haste, in silence, preoccupied, worried, and\noutwardly nonchalant.\n\n\"And what has Miss Chetwynd got to say?\" Mrs. Baines inquired.\n\n\"She wasn't in.\"\n\nHere was a blow for Mrs. Baines, whose suspicions about Sophia, driven\noff by her certainties regarding Constance, suddenly sprang forward in\nher mind, and prowled to and fro like a band of tigers.\n\nStill, Mrs. Baines was determined to be calm and careful. \"Oh! What\ntime did you call?\"\n\n\"I don't know. About half-past four.\" Sophia finished her tea quickly,\nand rose. \"Shall I tell Mr. Povey he can come?\"\n\n(Mr. Povey had his tea after the ladies of the house.)\n\n\"Yes, if you will stay in the shop till I come. Light me the gas before\nyou go.\"\n\nSophia took a wax taper from a vase on the mantelpiece, stuck it in the\nfire and lit the gas, which exploded in its crystal cloister with a\nmild report.\n\n\"What's all that clay on your boots, child?\" asked Mrs. Baines.\n\n\"Clay?\" repeated Sophia, staring foolishly at her boots.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mrs. Baines. \"It looks like marl. Where on earth have you\nbeen?\"\n\nShe interrogated her daughter with an upward gaze, frigid and\nunconsciously hostile, through her gold-rimmed glasses.\n\n\"I must have picked it up on the roads,\" said Sophia, and hastened to\nthe door.\n\n\"Sophia!\"\n\n\"Yes, mother.\"\n\n\"Shut the door.\"\n\nSophia unwillingly shut the door which she had half opened.\n\n\"Come here.\"\n\nSophia obeyed, with falling lip.\n\n\"You are deceiving me, Sophia,\" said Mrs. Baines, with fierce\nsolemnity. \"Where have you been this afternoon?\"\n\nSophia's foot was restless on the carpet behind the table. \"I haven't\nbeen anywhere,\" she murmured glumly.\n\n\"Have you seen young Scales?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Sophia with grimness, glancing audaciously for an instant\nat her mother. (\"She can't kill me: She can't kill me,\" her heart\nmuttered. And she had youth and beauty in her favour, while her mother\nwas only a fat middle-aged woman. \"She can't kill me,\" said her heart,\nwith the trembling, cruel insolence of the mirror-flattered child.)\n\n\"How came you to meet him?\"\n\nNo answer.\n\n\"Sophia, you heard what I said!\"\n\nStill no answer. Sophia looked down at the table. (\"She can't kill me.\")\n\n\"If you are going to be sullen, I shall have to suppose the worst,\"\nsaid Mrs. Baines.\n\nSophia kept her silence.\n\n\"Of course,\" Mrs. Baines resumed, \"if you choose to be wicked, neither\nyour mother nor any one else can stop you. There are certain things I\nCAN do, and these I SHALL do ... Let me warn you that young Scales is a\nthoroughly bad lot. I know all about him. He has been living a wild\nlife abroad, and if it hadn't been that his uncle is a partner in\nBirkinshaws, they would never have taken him on again.\" A pause. \"I\nhope that one day you will be a happy wife, but you are much too young\nyet to be meeting young men, and nothing would ever induce me to let\nyou have anything to do with this Scales. I won't have it. In future\nyou are not to go out alone. You understand me?\"\n\nSophia kept silence.\n\n\"I hope you will be in a better frame of mind to-morrow. I can only\nhope so. But if you aren't, I shall take very severe measures. You\nthink you can defy me. But you never were more mistaken in your life. I\ndon't want to see any more of you now. Go and tell Mr. Povey; and call\nMaggie for the fresh tea. You make me almost glad that your father died\neven as he did. He has, at any rate, been spared this.\"\n\nThose words 'died even as he did' achieved the intimidation of Sophia.\nThey seemed to indicate that Mrs. Baines, though she had magnanimously\nnever mentioned the subject to Sophia, knew exactly how the old man had\ndied. Sophia escaped from the room in fear, cowed. Nevertheless, her\nthought was, \"She hasn't killed me. I made up my mind I wouldn't talk,\nand I didn't.\"\n\nIn the evening, as she sat in the shop primly and sternly sewing at\nhats--while her mother wept in secret on the first floor, and Constance\nremained hidden on the second--Sophia lived over again the scene at the\nold shaft; but she lived it differently, admitting that she had been\nwrong, guessing by instinct that she had shown a foolish mistrust of\nlove. As she sat in the shop, she adopted just the right attitude and\nsaid just the right things. Instead of being a silly baby she was an\naccomplished and dazzling woman, then. When customers came in, and the\nyoung lady assistants unobtrusively turned higher the central gas,\naccording to the regime of the shop, it was really extraordinary that\nthey could not read in the heart of the beautiful Miss Baines the words\nwhich blazed there; \"YOU'RE THE FINEST GIRL I EVER MET,\" and \"I SHALL\nWRITE TO YOU.\" The young lady assistants had their notions as to both\nConstance and Sophia, but the truth, at least as regarded Sophia, was\nbeyond the flight of their imaginations. When eight o'clock struck and\nshe gave the formal order for dust-sheets, the shop being empty, they\nnever supposed that she was dreaming about posts and plotting how to\nget hold of the morning's letters before Mr. Povey.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nA DEFEAT\n\nI\n\n\nIt was during the month of June that Aunt Harriet came over from Axe to\nspend a few days with her little sister, Mrs. Baines. The railway\nbetween Axe and the Five Towns had not yet been opened; but even if it\nhad been opened Aunt Harriet would probably not have used it. She had\nalways travelled from Axe to Bursley in the same vehicle, a small\nwaggonette which she hired from Bratt's livery stables at Axe, driven\nby a coachman who thoroughly understood the importance, and the\npeculiarities, of Aunt Harriet.\n\nMrs. Baines had increased in stoutness, so that now Aunt Harriet had\nvery little advantage over her, physically. But the moral ascendency of\nthe elder still persisted. The two vast widows shared Mrs. Baines's\nbedroom, spending much of their time there in long, hushed\nconversations--interviews from which Mrs. Baines emerged with the air\nof one who has received enlightenment and Aunt Harriet with the air of\none who has rendered it. The pair went about together, in the shop, the\nshowroom, the parlour, the kitchen, and also into the town, addressing\neach other as 'Sister,' 'Sister.' Everywhere it was 'sister,' 'sister,'\n'my sister,' 'your dear mother,' 'your Aunt Harriet.' They referred to\neach other as oracular sources of wisdom and good taste. Respectability\nstalked abroad when they were afoot. The whole Square wriggled uneasily\nas though God's eye were peculiarly upon it. The meals in the parlour\nbecame solemn collations, at which shone the best silver and the finest\ndiaper, but from which gaiety and naturalness seemed to be banished. (I\nsay 'seemed' because it cannot be doubted that Aunt Harriet was\nnatural, and there were moments when she possibly considered herself to\nbe practising gaiety--a gaiety more desolating than her severity.) The\nyounger generation was extinguished, pressed flat and lifeless under\nthe ponderosity of the widows.\n\nMr. Povey was not the man to be easily flattened by ponderosity of any\nkind, and his suppression was a striking proof of the prowess of the\nwidows; who, indeed, went over Mr. Povey like traction-engines, with\nthe sublime unconsciousness of traction-engines, leaving an inanimate\nobject in the road behind them, and scarce aware even of the jolt. Mr.\nPovey hated Aunt Harriet, but, lying crushed there in the road, how\ncould he rebel? He felt all the time that Aunt Harriet was adding him\nup, and reporting the result at frequent intervals to Mrs. Baines in\nthe bedroom. He felt that she knew everything about him--even to those\ntears which had been in his eyes. He felt that he could hope to do\nnothing right for Aunt Harriet, that absolute perfection in the\nperformance of duty would make no more impression on her than a caress\non the fly-wheel of a traction-engine. Constance, the dear Constance,\nwas also looked at askance. There was nothing in Aunt Harriet's\ndemeanour to her that you could take hold of, but there was\nemphatically something that you could not take hold of--a hint, an\ninkling, that insinuated to Constance, \"Have a care, lest peradventure\nyou become the second cousin of the scarlet woman.\"\n\nSophia was petted. Sophia was liable to be playfully tapped by Aunt\nHarriet's thimble when Aunt Harriet was hemming dusters (for the\nelderly lady could lift a duster to her own dignity). Sophia was called\non two separate occasions, 'My little butterfly.' And Sophia was\nentrusted with the trimming of Aunt Harriet's new summer bonnet. Aunt\nHarriet deemed that Sophia was looking pale. As the days passed,\nSophia's pallor was emphasized by Aunt Harriet until it developed into\nan article of faith, to which you were compelled to subscribe on pain\nof excommunication. Then dawned the day when Aunt Harriet said, staring\nat Sophia as an affectionate aunt may: \"That child would do with a\nchange.\" And then there dawned another day when Aunt Harriet, staring\nat Sophia compassionately, as a devoted aunt may, said: \"It's a pity\nthat child can't have a change.\" And Mrs. Baines also stared--and said:\n\"It is.\"\n\nAnd on another day Aunt Harriet said: \"I've been wondering whether my\nlittle Sophia would care to come and keep her old aunt company a while.\"\n\nThere were few things for which Sophia would have cared less. The girl\nswore to herself angrily that she would not go, that no allurement\nwould induce her to go. But she was in a net; she was in the meshes of\nfamily correctness. Do what she would, she could not invent a reason\nfor not going. Certainly she could not tell her aunt that she merely\ndid not want to go. She was capable of enormities, but not of that. And\nthen began Aunt Harriet's intricate preparations for going. Aunt\nHarriet never did anything simply. And she could not be hurried.\nSeventy-two hours before leaving she had to commence upon her trunk;\nbut first the trunk had to be wiped by Maggie with a damp cloth under\nthe eye and direction of Aunt Harriet. And the liveryman at Axe had to\nbe written to, and the servants at Axe written to, and the weather\nprospects weighed and considered. And somehow, by the time these\nmatters were accomplished, it was tacitly understood that Sophia should\naccompany her kind aunt into the bracing moorland air of Axe. No smoke\nat Axe! No stuffiness at Axe! The spacious existence of a wealthy widow\nin a residential town with a low death-rate and famous scenery! \"Have\nyou packed your box, Sophia?\" No, she had not. \"Well, I will come and\nhelp you.\"\n\nImpossible to bear up against the momentum of a massive body like Aunt\nHarriet's! It was irresistible.\n\nThe day of departure came, throwing the entire household into a\ncommotion. Dinner was put a quarter of an hour earlier than usual so\nthat Aunt Harriet might achieve Axe at her accustomed hour of tea.\nAfter dinner Maggie was the recipient of three amazing muslin aprons,\ngiven with a regal gesture. And the trunk and the box were brought\ndown, and there was a slight odour of black kid gloves in the parlour.\nThe waggonette was due and the waggonette appeared (\"I can always rely\nupon Bladen!\" said Aunt Harriet), and the door was opened, and Bladen,\nstiff on his legs, descended from the box and touched his hat to Aunt\nHarriet as she filled up the doorway.\n\n\"Have you baited, Bladen?\" asked she.\n\n\"Yes'm,\" said he, assuringly.\n\nBladen and Mr. Povey carried out the trunk and the box, and Constance\ncharged herself with parcels which she bestowed in the corners of the\nvehicle according to her aunt's prescription; it was like stowing the\ncargo of a vessel.\n\n\"Now, Sophia, my chuck!\" Mrs. Baines called up the stairs. And Sophia\ncame slowly downstairs. Mrs. Baines offered her mouth. Sophia glanced\nat her.\n\n\"You needn't think I don't see why you're sending me away!\" exclaimed\nSophia in a hard, furious voice, with glistening eyes. \"I'm not so\nblind as all that!\" She kissed her mother--nothing but a contemptuous\npeck. Then, as she turned away she added: \"But you let Constance do\njust as she likes!\"\n\nThis was her sole bitter comment on the episode, but into it she put\nall the profound bitterness accumulated during many mutinous nights.\n\nMrs. Baines concealed a sigh. The explosion certainly disturbed her.\nShe had hoped that the smooth surface of things would not be ruffled.\n\nSophia bounced out. And the assembly, including several urchins,\nwatched with held breath while Aunt Harriet, after having bid majestic\ngood-byes, got on to the step and introduced herself through the\ndoorway of the waggonette into the interior of the vehicle; it was an\noperation like threading a needle with cotton too thick. Once within,\nher hoops distended in sudden release, filling the waggonette. Sophia\nfollowed, agilely.\n\nAs, with due formalities, the equipage drove off, Mrs. Baines gave\nanother sigh, one of relief. The sisters had won. She could now await\nthe imminent next advent of Mr. Gerald Scales with tranquillity.\n\nII\n\nThose singular words of Sophia's, 'But you let Constance do just as she\nlikes,' had disturbed Mrs. Baines more than was at first apparent. They\nworried her like a late fly in autumn. For she had said nothing to any\none about Constance's case, Mrs. Maddack of course excepted. She had\ninstinctively felt that she could not show the slightest leniency\ntowards the romantic impulses of her elder daughter without seeming\nunjust to the younger, and she had acted accordingly. On the memorable\nmorn of Mr. Povey's acute jealousy, she had, temporarily at any rate,\nslaked the fire, banked it down, and hidden it; and since then no word\nhad passed as to the state of Constance's heart. In the great peril to\nbe feared from Mr. Scales, Constance's heart had been put aside as a\nthing that could wait; so one puts aside the mending of linen when\nearthquake shocks are about. Mrs. Baines was sure that Constance had\nnot chattered to Sophia concerning Mr. Povey. Constance, who understood\nher mother, had too much commonsense and too nice a sense of propriety\nto do that--and yet here was Sophia exclaiming, 'But you let Constance\ndo just as she likes.' Were the relations between Constance and Mr.\nPovey, then, common property? Did the young lady assistants discuss\nthem?\n\nAs a fact, the young lady assistants did discuss them; not in the\nshop--for either one of the principal parties, or Mrs. Baines herself,\nwas always in the shop, but elsewhere. They discussed little else, when\nthey were free; how she had looked at him to-day, and how he had\nblushed, and so forth interminably. Yet Mrs. Baines really thought that\nshe alone knew. Such is the power of the ineradicable delusion that\none's own affairs, and especially one's own children, are mysteriously\ndifferent from those of others.\n\nAfter Sophia's departure Mrs. Baines surveyed her daughter and her\nmanager at supper-time with a curious and a diffident eye. They worked,\ntalked, and ate just as though Mrs. Baines had never caught them\nweeping together in the cutting-out room. They had the most\nmatter-of-fact air. They might never have heard whispered the name of\nlove. And there could be no deceit beneath that decorum; for Constance\nwould not deceive. Still, Mrs. Baines's conscience was unruly. Order\nreigned, but nevertheless she knew that she ought to do something, find\nout something, decide something; she ought, if she did her duty, to\ntake Constance aside and say: \"Now, Constance, my mind is freer now.\nTell me frankly what has been going on between you and Mr. Povey. I\nhave never understood the meaning of that scene in the cutting-out\nroom. Tell me.\" She ought to have talked in this strain. But she could\nnot. That energetic woman had not sufficient energy left. She wanted\nrest, rest--even though it were a coward's rest, an ostrich's\ntranquillity--after the turmoil of apprehensions caused by Sophia. Her\nsoul cried out for peace. She was not, however, to have peace.\n\nOn the very first Sunday after Sophia's departure, Mr. Povey did not go\nto chapel in the morning, and he offered no reason for his unusual\nconduct. He ate his breakfast with appetite, but there was something\npeculiar in his glance that made Mrs. Baines a little uneasy; this\nsomething she could not seize upon and define. When she and Constance\nreturned from chapel Mr. Povey was playing \"Rock of Ages\" on the\nharmonium--again unusual! The serious part of the dinner comprised\nroast beef and Yorkshire pudding--the pudding being served as a sweet\ncourse before the meat. Mrs. Baines ate freely of these things, for she\nloved them, and she was always hungry after a sermon. She also did well\nwith the Cheshire cheese. Her intention was to sleep in the\ndrawing-room after the repast. On Sunday afternoons she invariably\ntried to sleep in the drawing-room, and she did not often fail. As a\nrule the girls accompanied her thither from the table, and either\n'settled down' likewise or crept out of the room when they perceived\nthe gradual sinking of the majestic form into the deep hollows of the\neasy-chair. Mrs. Baines was anticipating with pleasure her somnolent\nSunday afternoon.\n\nConstance said grace after meat, and the formula on this particular\noccasion ran thus--\n\n\"Thank God for our good dinner, Amen.--Mother, I must just run upstairs\nto my room.\" ('MY room'-Sophia being far away.)\n\nAnd off she ran, strangely girlish.\n\n\"Well, child, you needn't be in such a hurry,\" said Mrs. Baines,\nringing the bell and rising.\n\nShe hoped that Constance would remember the conditions precedent to\nsleep.\n\n\"I should like to have a word with you, if it's all the same to you,\nMrs. Baines,\" said Mr. Povey suddenly, with obvious nervousness. And\nhis tone struck a rude unexpected blow at Mrs. Baines's peace of mind.\nIt was a portentous tone.\n\n\"What about?\" asked she, with an inflection subtly to remind Mr. Povey\nwhat day it was.\n\n\"About Constance,\" said the astonishing man.\n\n\"Constance!\" exclaimed Mrs. Baines with a histrionic air of\nbewilderment.\n\nMaggie entered the room, solely in response to the bell, yet a thought\njumped up in Mrs. Baines's brain, \"How prying servants are, to be\nsure!\" For quite five seconds she had a grievance against Maggie. She\nwas compelled to sit down again and wait while Maggie cleared the\ntable. Mr. Povey put both his hands in his pockets, got up, went to the\nwindow, whistled, and generally behaved in a manner which foretold the\nworst.\n\nAt last Maggie vanished, shutting the door.\n\n\"What is it, Mr. Povey?\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Povey, facing her with absurd nervous brusqueness, as\nthough pretending: \"Ah, yes! We have something to say--I was\nforgetting!\" Then he began: \"It's about Constance and me.\"\n\nYes, they had evidently plotted this interview. Constance had evidently\ntaken herself off on purpose to leave Mr. Povey unhampered. They were\nin league. The inevitable had come. No sleep! No repose! Nothing but\nworry once more!\n\n\"I'm not at all satisfied with the present situation,\" said Mr. Povey,\nin a tone that corresponded to his words.\n\n\"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Povey,\" said Mrs. Baines stiffly. This\nwas a simple lie.\n\n\"Well, really, Mrs. Baines!\" Mr. Povey protested, \"I suppose you won't\ndeny that you know there is something between me and Constance? I\nsuppose you won't deny that?\"\n\n\"What is there between you and Constance? I can assure you I--\"\n\n\"That depends on you,\" Mr. Povey interrupted her. When he was nervous\nhis manners deteriorated into a behaviour that resembled rudeness.\n\"That depends on you!\" he repeated grimly.\n\n\"But--\"\n\n\"Are we to be engaged or are we not?\" pursued Mr. Povey, as though Mrs.\nBaines had been guilty of some grave lapse and he was determined not to\nspare her. \"That's what I think ought to be settled, one way or the\nother. I wish to be perfectly open and aboveboard--in the future, as I\nhave been in the past.\"\n\n\"But you have said nothing to me at all!\" Mrs. Baines remonstrated,\nlifting her eyebrows. The way in which the man had sprung this matter\nupon her was truly too audacious.\n\nMr. Povey approached her as she sat at the table, shaking her ringlets\nand looking at her hands.\n\n\"You know there's something between us!\" he insisted.\n\n\"How should I know there is something between you? Constance has never\nsaid a word to me. And have you?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said he. \"We've hidden nothing.\"\n\n\"What is there between you and Constance? If I may ask!\"\n\n\"That depends on you,\" said he again.\n\n\"Have you asked her to be your wife?\"\n\n\"No. I haven't exactly asked her to be my wife.\" He hesitated. \"You\nsee--\"\n\nMrs. Baines collected her forces. \"Have you kissed her?\" This in a cold\nvoice.\n\nMr. Povey now blushed. \"I haven't exactly kissed her,\" he stammered,\napparently shocked by the inquisition. \"No, I should not say that I had\nkissed her.\"\n\nIt might have been that before committing himself he felt a desire for\nMrs. Baines's definition of a kiss.\n\n\"You are very extraordinary,\" she said loftily. It was no less than the\ntruth.\n\n\"All I want to know is--have you got anything against me?\" he demanded\nroughly. \"Because if so--\"\n\n\"Anything against you, Mr. Povey? Why should I have anything against\nyou?\"\n\n\"Then why can't we be engaged?\"\n\nShe considered that he was bullying her. \"That's another question,\"\nsaid she.\n\n\"Why can't we be engaged? Ain't I good enough?\"\n\nThe fact was that he was not regarded as good enough. Mrs. Maddack had\ncertainly deemed that he was not good enough. He was a solid mass of\nexcellent qualities; but he lacked brilliance, importance, dignity. He\ncould not impose himself. Such had been the verdict.\n\nAnd now, while Mrs. Baines was secretly reproaching Mr. Povey for his\ninability to impose himself, he was most patently imposing himself on\nher--and the phenomenon escaped her! She felt that he was bullying her,\nbut somehow she could not perceive his power. Yet the man who could\nbully Mrs. Baines was surely no common soul!\n\n\"You know my very high opinion of you,\" she said.\n\nMr. Povey pursued in a mollified tone. \"Assuming that Constance is\nwilling to be engaged, do I understand you consent?\"\n\n\"But Constance is too young.\"\n\n\"Constance is twenty. She is more than twenty.\"\n\n\"In any case you won't expect me to give you an answer now.\"\n\n\"Why not? You know my position.\"\n\nShe did. From a practical point of view the match would be ideal: no\nfault could be found with it on that side. But Mrs. Baines could not\nextinguish the idea that it would be a 'come-down' for her daughter.\nWho, after all, was Mr. Povey? Mr. Povey was nobody.\n\n\"I must think things over,\" she said firmly, putting her lips together.\n\"I can't reply like this. It is a serious matter.\"\n\n\"When can I have your answer? To-morrow?\"\n\n\"No--really--\"\n\n\"In a week, then?\"\n\n\"I cannot bind myself to a date,\" said Mrs. Baines, haughtily. She felt\nthat she was gaining ground.\n\n\"Because I can't stay on here indefinitely as things are,\" Mr. Povey\nburst out, and there was a touch of hysteria in his tone.\n\n\"Now, Mr. Povey, please do be reasonable.\"\n\n\"That's all very well,\" he went on. \"That's all very well. But what I\nsay is that employers have no right to have male assistants in their\nhouses unless they are prepared to let their daughters marry! That's\nwhat I say! No RIGHT!\"\n\nMrs. Baines did not know what to answer.\n\nThe aspirant wound up: \"I must leave if that's the case.\"\n\n\"If what's the case?\" she asked herself. \"What has come over him?\" And\naloud: \"You know you would place me in a very awkward position by\nleaving, and I hope you don't want to mix up two quite different\nthings. I hope you aren't trying to threaten me.\"\n\n\"Threaten you!\" he cried. \"Do you suppose I should leave here for fun?\nIf I leave it will be because I can't stand it. That's all. I can't\nstand it. I want Constance, and if I can't have her, then I can't stand\nit. What do you think I'm made of?\"\n\n\"I'm sure--\" she began.\n\n\"That's all very well!\" he almost shouted.\n\n\"But please let me speak,' she said quietly.\n\n\"All I say is I can't stand it. That's all.... Employers have no\nright.... We have our feelings like other men.\"\n\nHe was deeply moved. He might have appeared somewhat grotesque to the\nstrictly impartial observer of human nature. Nevertheless he was deeply\nand genuinely moved, and possibly human nature could have shown nothing\nmore human than Mr. Povey at the moment when, unable any longer to\nrestrain the paroxysm which had so surprisingly overtaken him, he fled\nfrom the parlour, passionately, to the retreat of his bedroom.\n\n\"That's the worst of those quiet calm ones,\" said Mrs. Baines to\nherself. \"You never know if they won't give way. And when they do, it's\nawful--awful.... What did I do, what did I say, to bring it on?\nNothing! Nothing!\"\n\nAnd where was her afternoon sleep? What was going to happen to her\ndaughter? What could she say to Constance? How next could she meet Mr.\nPovey? Ah! It needed a brave, indomitable woman not to cry out\nbrokenly: \"I've suffered too much. Do anything you like; only let me\ndie in peace!\" And so saying, to let everything indifferently slide!\n\nIII\n\nNeither Mr. Povey nor Constance introduced the delicate subject to her\nagain, and she was determined not to be the first to speak of it. She\nconsidered that Mr. Povey had taken advantage of his position, and that\nhe had also been infantile and impolite. And somehow she privately\nblamed Constance for his behaviour. So the matter hung, as it were,\nsuspended in the ether between the opposing forces of pride and passion.\n\nShortly afterwards events occurred compared to which the vicissitudes\nof Mr. Povey's heart were of no more account than a shower of rain in\nApril. And fate gave no warning of them; it rather indicated a complete\nabsence of events. When the customary advice circular arrived from\nBirkinshaws, the name of 'our Mr. Gerald Scales' was replaced on it by\nanother and an unfamiliar name. Mrs. Baines, seeing the circular by\naccident, experienced a sense of relief, mingled with the professional\ndisappointment of a diplomatist who has elaborately provided for\ncontingencies which have failed to happen. She had sent Sophia away for\nnothing; and no doubt her maternal affection had exaggerated a molehill\ninto a mountain. Really, when she reflected on the past, she could not\nrecall a single fact that would justify her theory of an attachment\nsecretly budding between Sophia and the young man Scales! Not a single\nlittle fact! All she could bring forward was that Sophia had twice\nencountered Scales in the street.\n\nShe felt a curious interest in the fate of Scales, for whom in her own\nmind she had long prophesied evil, and when Birkinshaws' representative\ncame she took care to be in the shop; her intention was to converse\nwith him, and ascertain as much as was ascertainable, after Mr. Povey\nhad transacted business. For this purpose, at a suitable moment, she\ntraversed the shop to Mr. Povey's side, and in so doing she had a\nfleeting view of King Street, and in King Street of a familiar vehicle.\nShe stopped, and seemed to catch the distant sound of knocking.\nAbandoning the traveller, she hurried towards the parlour, in the\npassage she assuredly did hear knocking, angry and impatient knocking,\nthe knocking of someone who thinks he has knocked too long.\n\n\"Of course Maggie is at the top of the house!\" she muttered\nsarcastically.\n\nShe unchained, unbolted, and unlocked the side-door.\n\n\"At last!\" It was Aunt Harriet's voice, exacerbated. \"What! You,\nsister? You're soon up. What a blessing!\"\n\nThe two majestic and imposing creatures met on the mat, craning forward\nso that their lips might meet above their terrific bosoms.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" Mrs. Baines asked, fearfully.\n\n\"Well, I do declare!\" said Mrs. Maddack. \"And I've driven specially\nover to ask you!\"\n\n\"Where's Sophia?\" demanded Mrs. Baines.\n\n\"You don't mean to say she's not come, sister?\" Mrs. Maddack sank down\non to the sofa.\n\n\"Come?\" Mrs. Baines repeated. \"Of course she's not come! What do you\nmean, sister?\"\n\n\"The very moment she got Constance's letter yesterday, saying you were\nill in bed and she'd better come over to help in the shop, she started.\nI got Bratt's dog-cart for her.\"\n\nMrs. Baines in her turn also sank down on to the sofa.\n\n\"I've not been ill,\" she said. \"And Constance hasn't written for a\nweek! Only yesterday I was telling her--\"\n\n\"Sister--it can't be! Sophia had letters from Constance every morning.\nAt least she said they were from Constance. I told her to be sure and\nwrite me how you were last night, and she promised faithfully she\nwould. And it was because I got nothing by this morning's post that I\ndecided to come over myself, to see if it was anything serious.\"\n\n\"Serious it is!\" murmured Mrs. Baines.\n\n\"What--\"\n\n\"Sophia's run off. That's the plain English of it!\" said Mrs. Baines\nwith frigid calm.\n\n\"Nay! That I'll never believe. I've looked after Sophia night and day\nas if she was my own, and--\"\n\n\"If she hasn't run off, where is she?\"\n\nMrs. Maddack opened the door with a tragic gesture.\n\n\"Bladen,\" she called in a loud voice to the driver of the waggonette,\nwho was standing on the pavement.\n\n\"Yes'm.\"\n\n\"It was Pember drove Miss Sophia yesterday, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes'm.\"\n\nShe hesitated. A clumsy question might enlighten a member of the class\nwhich ought never to be enlightened about one's private affairs.\n\n\"He didn't come all the way here?\"\n\n\"No'm. He happened to say last night when he got back as Miss Sophia\nhad told him to set her down at Knype Station.\"\n\n\"I thought so!\" said Mrs. Maddack, courageously.\n\n\"Yes'm.\"\n\n\"Sister!\" she moaned, after carefully shutting the door.\n\nThey clung to each other.\n\nThe horror of what had occurred did not instantly take full possession\nof them, because the power of credence, of imaginatively realizing a\nsupreme event, whether of great grief or of great happiness, is\nridiculously finite. But every minute the horror grew more clear, more\nintense, more tragically dominant over them. There were many things\nthat they could not say to each other,--from pride, from shame, from\nthe inadequacy of words. Neither could utter the name of Gerald Scales.\nAnd Aunt Harriet could not stoop to defend herself from a possible\ncharge of neglect; nor could Mrs. Baines stoop to assure her sister\nthat she was incapable of preferring such a charge. And the sheer,\nimmense criminal folly of Sophia could not even be referred to: it was\nunspeakable. So the interview proceeded, lamely, clumsily,\ninconsequently, leading to naught.\n\nSophia was gone. She was gone with Gerald Scales.\n\nThat beautiful child, that incalculable, untamable, impossible\ncreature, had committed the final folly; without pretext or excuse, and\nwith what elaborate deceit! Yes, without excuse! She had not been\ntreated harshly; she had had a degree of liberty which would have\nastounded and shocked her grandmothers; she had been petted, humoured,\nspoilt. And her answer was to disgrace the family by an act as\nirrevocable as it was utterly vicious. If among her desires was the\ndesire to humiliate those majesties, her mother and Aunt Harriet, she\nwould have been content could she have seen them on the sofa there,\nhumbled, shamed, mortally wounded! Ah, the monstrous Chinese cruelty of\nyouth!\n\nWhat was to be done? Tell dear Constance? No, this was not, at the\nmoment, an affair for the younger generation. It was too new and raw\nfor the younger generation. Moreover, capable, proud, and experienced\nas they were, they felt the need of a man's voice, and a man's hard,\ncallous ideas. It was a case for Mr. Critchlow. Maggie was sent to\nfetch him, with a particular request that he should come to the\nside-door. He came expectant, with the pleasurable anticipation of\ndisaster, and he was not disappointed. He passed with the sisters the\nhappiest hour that had fallen to him for years. Quickly he arranged the\nalternatives for them. Would they tell the police, or would they take\nthe risks of waiting? They shied away, but with fierce brutality he\nbrought them again and again to the immediate point of decision....\nWell, they could not tell the police! They simply could not. Then they\nmust face another danger.... He had no mercy for them. And while he was\ntorturing them there arrived a telegram, despatched from Charing Cross,\n\"I am all right, Sophia.\" That proved, at any rate, that the child was\nnot heartless, not merely careless.\n\nOnly yesterday, it seemed to Mrs. Baines, she had borne Sophia; only\nyesterday she was a baby, a schoolgirl to be smacked. The years rolled\nup in a few hours. And now she was sending telegrams from a place\ncalled Charing Cross! How unlike was the hand of the telegram to\nSophia's hand! How mysteriously curt and inhuman was that official\nhand, as Mrs. Baines stared at it through red, wet eyes!\n\nMr. Critchlow said some one should go to Manchester, to ascertain about\nScales. He went himself, that afternoon, and returned with the news\nthat an aunt of Scales had recently died, leaving him twelve thousand\npounds, and that he had, after quarrelling with his uncle Boldero,\nabandoned Birkinshaws at an hour's notice and vanished with his\ninheritance.\n\n\"It's as plain as a pikestaff,\" said Mr. Critchlow. \"I could ha' warned\nye o' all this years ago, even since she killed her father!\"\n\nMr. Critchlow left nothing unsaid.\n\nDuring the night Mrs. Baines lived through all Sophia's life, lived\nthrough it more intensely than ever Sophia had done.\n\nThe next day people began to know. A whisper almost inaudible went\nacross the Square, and into the town: and in the stillness every one\nheard it. \"Sophia Baines run off with a commercial!\"\n\nIn another fortnight a note came, also dated from London.\n\n\"Dear Mother, I am married to Gerald Scales. Please don't worry about\nme. We are going abroad. Your affectionate Sophia. Love to Constance.\"\nNo tear-stains on that pale blue sheet! No sign of agitation!\n\nAnd Mrs. Baines said: \"My life is over.\" It was, though she was\nscarcely fifty. She felt old, old and beaten. She had fought and been\nvanquished. The everlasting purpose had been too much for her. Virtue\nhad gone out of her--the virtue to hold up her head and look the Square\nin the face. She, the wife of John Baines! She, a Syme of Axe!\n\nOld houses, in the course of their history, see sad sights, and never\nforget them! And ever since, in the solemn physiognomy of the triple\nhouse of John Baines at the corner of St. Luke's Square and King\nStreet, have remained the traces of the sight it saw on the morning of\nthe afternoon when Mr. and Mrs. Povey returned from their\nhoneymoon--the sight of Mrs. Baines getting into the waggonette for\nAxe; Mrs. Baines, encumbered with trunks and parcels, leaving the scene\nof her struggles and her defeat, whither she had once come as slim as a\nwand, to return stout and heavy, and heavy-hearted, to her childhood;\ncontent to live with her grandiose sister until such time as she should\nbe ready for burial! The grimy and impassive old house perhaps heard\nher heart saying: \"Only yesterday they were little girls, ever so tiny,\nand now--\" The driving-off of a waggonette can be a dreadful thing.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II\n\nCONSTANCE\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nREVOLUTION\n\nI\n\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Povey, rising from the rocking-chair that in a\nprevious age had been John Baines's, \"I've got to make a start some\ntime, so I may as well begin now!\"\n\nAnd he went from the parlour into the shop. Constance's eye followed\nhim as far as the door, where their glances met for an instant in the\ntransient gaze which expresses the tenderness of people who feel more\nthan they kiss.\n\nIt was on the morning of this day that Mrs. Baines, relinquishing the\nsovereignty of St. Luke's Square, had gone to live as a younger sister\nin the house of Harriet Maddack at Axe. Constance guessed little of the\nsecret anguish of that departure. She only knew that it was just like\nher mother, having perfectly arranged the entire house for the arrival\nof the honeymoon couple from Buxton, to flit early away so as to spare\nthe natural blushing diffidence of the said couple. It was like her\nmother's commonsense and her mother's sympathetic comprehension.\nFurther, Constance did not pursue her mother's feelings, being far too\nbusy with her own. She sat there full of new knowledge and new\nimportance, brimming with experience and strange, unexpected\naspirations, purposes, yes--and cunnings! And yet, though the very\ncurves of her cheeks seemed to be mysteriously altering, the old\nConstance still lingered in that frame, an innocent soul hesitating to\nspread its wings and quit for ever the body which had been its home;\nyou could see the timid thing peeping wistfully out of the eyes of the\nmarried woman.\n\nConstance rang the bell for Maggie to clear the table; and as she did\nso she had the illusion that she was not really a married woman and a\nhouse-mistress, but only a kind of counterfeit. She did most fervently\nhope that all would go right in the house--at any rate until she had\ngrown more accustomed to her situation.\n\nThe hope was to be disappointed. Maggie's rather silly, obsequious\nsmile concealed but for a moment the ineffable tragedy that had lain in\nwait for unarmed Constance.\n\n\"If you please, Mrs. Povey,\" said Maggie, as she crushed cups together\non the tin tray with her great, red hands, which always looked like\nsomething out of a butcher's shop; then a pause, \"Will you please\naccept of this?\"\n\nNow, before the wedding Maggie had already, with tears of affection,\ngiven Constance a pair of blue glass vases (in order to purchase which\nshe had been obliged to ask for special permission to go out), and\nConstance wondered what was coming now from Maggie's pocket. A small\npiece of folded paper came from Maggie's pocket. Constance accepted of\nit, and read: \"I begs to give one month's notice to leave. Signed\nMaggie. June 10, 1867.\"\n\n\"Maggie!\" exclaimed the old Constance, terrified by this incredible\noccurrence, ere the married woman could strangle her.\n\n\"I never give notice before, Mrs. Povey,\" said Maggie, \"so I don't know\nas I know how it ought for be done--not rightly. But I hope as you'll\naccept of it, Mrs. Povey.\"\n\n\"Oh! of course,\" said Mrs. Povey, primly, just as if Maggie was not the\ncentral supporting pillar of the house, just as if Maggie had not\nassisted at her birth, just as if the end of the world had not abruptly\nbeen announced, just as if St. Luke's Square were not inconceivable\nwithout Maggie. \"But why--\"\n\n\"Well, Mrs. Povey, I've been a-thinking it over in my kitchen, and I\nsaid to myself: 'If there's going to be one change there'd better be\ntwo,' I says. Not but what I wouldn't work my fingers to the bone for\nye, Miss Constance.\"\n\nHere Maggie began to cry into the tray.\n\nConstance looked at her. Despite the special muslin of that day she had\ntraces of the slatternliness of which Mrs. Baines had never been able\nto cure her. She was over forty, big, gawky. She had no figure, no\ncharms of any kind. She was what was left of a woman after twenty-two\nyears in the cave of a philanthropic family. And in her cave she had\nactually been thinking things over! Constance detected for the first\ntime, beneath the dehumanized drudge, the stirrings of a separate and\nperhaps capricious individuality. Maggie's engagements had never been\nreal to her employers. Within the house she had never been, in\npractice, anything but 'Maggie'--an organism. And now she was\npermitting herself ideas about changes!\n\n\"You'll soon be suited with another, Mrs. Povey,\" said Maggie. \"There's\nmany a--many a--\" She burst into sobs.\n\n\"But if you really want to leave, what are you crying for, Maggie?\"\nasked Mrs. Povey, at her wisest. \"Have you told mother?\"\n\n\"No, miss,\" Maggie whimpered, absently wiping her wrinkled cheeks with\nineffectual muslin. \"I couldn't seem to fancy telling your mother. And\nas you're the mistress now, I thought as I'd save it for you when you\ncome home. I hope you'll excuse me, Mrs. Povey.\"\n\n\"Of course I'm very sorry. You've been a very good servant. And in\nthese days--\"\n\nThe child had acquired this turn of speech from her mother. It did not\nappear to occur to either of them that they were living in the sixties.\n\n\"Thank ye, miss.\"\n\n\"And what are you thinking of doing, Maggie? You know you won't get\nmany places like this.\"\n\n\"To tell ye the truth, Mrs. Povey, I'm going to get married mysen.\"\n\n\"Indeed!\" murmured Constance, with the perfunctoriness of habit in\nreplying to these tidings.\n\n\"Oh! but I am, mum,\" Maggie insisted. \"It's all settled. Mr. Hollins,\nmum.\"\n\n\"Not Hollins, the fish-hawker!\"\n\n\"Yes, mum. I seem to fancy him. You don't remember as him and me was\nengaged in '48. He was my first, like. I broke it off because he was in\nthat Chartist lot, and I knew as Mr. Baines would never stand that. Now\nhe's asked me again. He's been a widower this long time.\"\n\n\"I'm sure I hope you'll be happy, Maggie. But what about his habits?\"\n\n\"He won't have no habits with me, Mrs. Povey.\"\n\nA woman was definitely emerging from the drudge.\n\nWhen Maggie, having entirely ceased sobbing, had put the folded cloth\nin the table-drawer and departed with the tray, her mistress became\nfrankly the girl again. No primness about her as she stood alone there\nin the parlour; no pretence that Maggie's notice to leave was an\neveryday document, to be casually glanced at--as one glances at an\nunpaid bill! She would be compelled to find a new servant, making\nsolemn inquiries into character, and to train the new servant, and to\ntalk to her from heights from which she had never addressed Maggie. At\nthat moment she had an illusion that there were no other available,\nsuitable servants in the whole world. And the arranged marriage? She\nfelt that this time--the thirteenth or fourteenth time--the engagement\nwas serious and would only end at the altar. The vision of Maggie and\nHollins at the altar shocked her. Marriage was a series of phenomena,\nand a general state, very holy and wonderful--too sacred, somehow, for\nsuch creatures as Maggie and Hollins. Her vague, instinctive revolt\nagainst such a usage of matrimony centred round the idea of a strong,\neternal smell of fish. However, the projected outrage on a hallowed\ninstitution troubled her much less than the imminent problem of\ndomestic service.\n\nShe ran into the shop--or she would have run if she had not checked her\ngirlishness betimes--and on her lips, ready to be whispered importantly\ninto a husband's astounded ear, were the words, \"Maggie has given\nnotice! Yes! Truly!\" But Samuel Povey was engaged. He was leaning over\nthe counter and staring at an outspread paper upon which a certain Mr.\nYardley was making strokes with a thick pencil. Mr. Yardley, who had a\nlong red beard, painted houses and rooms. She knew him only by sight.\nIn her mind she always associated him with the sign over his premises\nin Trafalgar Road, \"Yardley Bros., Authorised plumbers. Painters.\nDecorators. Paper-hangers. Facia writers.\" For years, in childhood, she\nhad passed that sign without knowing what sort of things 'Bros,' and\n'Facia' were, and what was the mysterious similarity between a plumber\nand a version of the Bible. She could not interrupt her husband, he was\nwholly absorbed; nor could she stay in the shop (which appeared just a\nlittle smaller than usual), for that would have meant an unsuccessful\nendeavour to front the young lady-assistants as though nothing in\nparticular had happened to her. So she went sedately up the showroom\nstairs and thus to the bedroom floors of the house--her house! Mrs.\nPovey's house! She even climbed to Constance's old bedroom; her mother\nhad stripped the bed--that was all, except a slight diminution of this\nroom, corresponding to that of the shop! Then to the drawing-room. In\nthe recess outside the drawing-room door the black box of silver plate\nstill lay. She had expected her mother to take it; but no! Assuredly\nher mother was one to do things handsomely--when she did them. In the\ndrawing-room, not a tassel of an antimacassar touched! Yes, the\nfire-screen, the luscious bunch of roses on an expanse of mustard,\nwhich Constance had worked for her mother years ago, was gone! That her\nmother should have clung to just that one souvenir, out of all the\nheavy opulence of the drawing-room, touched Constance intimately. She\nperceived that if she could not talk to her husband she must write to\nher mother. And she sat down at the oval table and wrote, \"Darling\nmother, I am sure you will be very surprised to hear.... She means\nit.... I think she is making a serious mistake. Ought I to put an\nadvertisement in the Signal, or will it do if.... Please write by\nreturn. We are back and have enjoyed ourselves very much. Sam says he\nenjoys getting up late....\" And so on to the last inch of the fourth\nscolloped page.\n\nShe was obliged to revisit the shop for a stamp, stamps being kept in\nMr. Povey's desk in the corner--a high desk, at which you stood. Mr.\nPovey was now in earnest converse with Mr. Yardley at the door, and\ntwilight, which began a full hour earlier in the shop than in the\nSquare, had cast faint shadows in corners behind counters.\n\n\"Will you just run out with this to the pillar, Miss Dadd?\"\n\n\"With pleasure, Mrs. Povey.\"\n\n\"Where are you going to?\" Mr. Povey interrupted his conversation to\nstop the flying girl.\n\n\"She's just going to the post for me,\" Constance called out from the\nregion of the till.\n\n\"Oh! All right!\"\n\nA trifle! A nothing! Yet somehow, in the quiet customerless shop, the\nepisode, with the scarce perceptible difference in Samuel's tone at his\nsecond remark, was delicious to Constance. Somehow it was the REAL\nbeginning of her wifehood. (There had been about nine other real\nbeginnings in the past fortnight.)\n\nMr. Povey came in to supper, laden with ledgers and similar works which\nConstance had never even pretended to understand. It was a sign from\nhim that the honeymoon was over. He was proprietor now, and his ardour\nfor ledgers most justifiable. Still, there was the question of her\nservant.\n\n\"Never!\" he exclaimed, when she told him all about the end of the\nworld. A 'never' which expressed extreme astonishment and the liveliest\nconcern!\n\nBut Constance had anticipated that he would have been just a little\nmore knocked down, bowled over, staggered, stunned, flabbergasted. In a\nswift gleam of insight she saw that she had been in danger of\nforgetting her role of experienced, capable married woman.\n\n\"I shall have to set about getting a fresh one,\" she said hastily, with\nan admirable assumption of light and easy casualness.\n\nMr. Povey seemed to think that Hollins would suit Maggie pretty well.\nHe made no remark to the betrothed when she answered the final bell of\nthe night.\n\nHe opened his ledgers, whistling.\n\n\"I think I shall go up, dear,\" said Constance. \"I've a lot of things to\nput away.\"\n\n\"Do,\" said he. \"Call out when you've done.\"\n\nII\n\n\"Sam!\" she cried from the top of the crooked stairs.\n\nNo answer. The door at the foot was closed.\n\n\"Sam!\"\n\n\"Hello?\" Distantly, faintly.\n\n\"I've done all I'm going to do to-night.\"\n\nAnd she ran back along the corridor, a white figure in the deep gloom,\nand hurried into bed, and drew the clothes up to her chin.\n\nIn the life of a bride there are some dramatic moments. If she has\nmarried the industrious apprentice, one of those moments occurs when\nshe first occupies the sacred bed-chamber of her ancestors, and the bed\non which she was born. Her parents' room had always been to Constance,\nif not sacred, at least invested with a certain moral solemnity. She\ncould not enter it as she would enter another room. The course of\nnature, with its succession of deaths, conceptions, and births, slowly\nmakes such a room august with a mysterious quality which interprets the\ngrandeur of mere existence and imposes itself on all. Constance had the\nstrangest sensations in that bed, whose heavy dignity of ornament\nsymbolized a past age; sensations of sacrilege and trespass, of being a\nnaughty girl to whom punishment would accrue for this shocking freak.\nNot since she was quite tiny had she slept in that bed--one night with\nher mother, before her father's seizure, when he had been away. What a\nlimitless, unfathomable bed it was then! Now it was just a bed--so she\nhad to tell herself--like any other bed. The tiny child that, safely\ntouching its mother, had slept in the vast expanse, seemed to her now a\npathetic little thing; its image made her feel melancholy. And her mind\ndwelt on sad events: the death of her father, the flight of darling\nSophia; the immense grief, and the exile, of her mother. She esteemed\nthat she knew what life was, and that it was grim. And she sighed. But\nthe sigh was an affectation, meant partly to convince herself that she\nwas grown-up, and partly to keep her in countenance in the intimidating\nbed. This melancholy was factitious, was less than transient foam on\nthe deep sea of her joy. Death and sorrow and sin were dim shapes to\nher; the ruthless egoism of happiness blew them away with a puff, and\ntheir wistful faces vanished. To see her there in the bed, framed in\nmahogany and tassels, lying on her side, with her young glowing cheeks,\nand honest but not artless gaze, and the rich curve of her hip lifting\nthe counterpane, one would have said that she had never heard of aught\nbut love.\n\nMr. Povey entered, the bridegroom, quickly, firmly, carrying it off\nrather well, but still self-conscious. \"After all,\" his shoulders were\ntrying to say, \"what's the difference between this bedroom and the\nbedroom of a boarding-house? Indeed, ought we not to feel more at home\nhere? Besides, confound it, we've been married a fortnight!\"\n\n\"Doesn't it give you a funny feeling, sleeping in this room? It does\nme,\" said Constance. Women, even experienced women, are so foolishly\nfrank. They have no decency, no self-respect.\n\n\"Really?\" replied Mr. Povey, with loftiness, as who should say: \"What\nan extraordinary thing that a reasonable creature can have such\nfancies! Now to me this room is exactly like any other room.\" And he\nadded aloud, glancing away from the glass, where he was unfastening his\nnecktie: \"It's not a bad room at all.\" This, with the judicial air of\nan auctioneer.\n\nNot for an instant did he deceive Constance, who read his real\nsensations with accuracy. But his futile poses did not in the slightest\ndegree lessen her respect for him. On the contrary, she admired him the\nmore for them; they were a sort of embroidery on the solid stuff of his\ncharacter. At that period he could not do wrong for her. The basis of\nher regard for him was, she often thought, his honesty, his industry,\nhis genuine kindliness of act, his grasp of the business, his\nperseverance, his passion for doing at once that which had to be done.\nShe had the greatest admiration for his qualities, and he was in her\neyes an indivisible whole; she could not admire one part of him and\nfrown upon another. Whatever he did was good because he did it. She\nknew that some people were apt to smile at certain phases of his\nindividuality; she knew that far down in her mother's heart was a\nsuspicion that she had married ever so little beneath her. But this\nknowledge did not disturb her. She had no doubt as to the correctness\nof her own estimate.\n\nMr. Povey was an exceedingly methodical person, and he was also one of\nthose persons who must always be 'beforehand' with time. Thus at night\nhe would arrange his raiment so that in the morning it might be\nreassumed in the minimum of minutes. He was not a man, for example, to\nleave the changing of studs from one shirt to another till the morrow.\nHad it been practicable, he would have brushed his hair the night\nbefore. Constance already loved to watch his meticulous preparations.\nShe saw him now go into his old bedroom and return with a paper collar,\nwhich he put on the dressing-table next to a black necktie. His\nshop-suit was laid out on a chair.\n\n\"Oh, Sam!\" she exclaimed impulsively, \"you surely aren't going to begin\nwearing those horrid paper collars again!\" During the honeymoon he had\nworn linen collars.\n\nHer tone was perfectly gentle, but the remark, nevertheless, showed a\nlack of tact. It implied that all his life Mr. Povey had been\nenveloping his neck in something which was horrid. Like all persons\nwith a tendency to fall into the ridiculous, Mr. Povey was exceedingly\nsensitive to personal criticisms. He flushed darkly.\n\n\"I didn't know they were 'horrid,'\" he snapped. He was hurt and angry.\nAnger had surprised him unawares.\n\nBoth of them suddenly saw that they were standing on the edge of a\nchasm, and drew back. They had imagined themselves to be wandering\nsafely in a flowered meadow, and here was this bottomless chasm! It was\nmost disconcerting.\n\nMr. Povey's hand hovered undecided over the collar. \"However--\" he\nmuttered.\n\nShe could feel that he was trying with all his might to be gentle and\npacific. And she was aghast at her own stupid clumsiness, she so\nexperienced!\n\n\"Just as you like, dear,\" she said quickly. \"Please!\"\n\n\"Oh no!\" And he did his best to smile, and went off gawkily with the\ncollar and came back with a linen one.\n\nHer passion for him burned stronger than ever. She knew then that she\ndid not love him for his good qualities, but for something boyish and\nnaive that there was about him, an indescribable something that\noccasionally, when his face was close to hers, made her dizzy.\n\nThe chasm had disappeared. In such moments, when each must pretend not\nto have seen or even suspected the chasm, small-talk is essential.\n\n\"Wasn't that Mr. Yardley in the shop to-night?\" began Constance.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What did he want?\"\n\n\"I'd sent for him. He's going to paint us a signboard.\"\n\nUseless for Samuel to make-believe that nothing in this world is more\nordinary than a signboard.\n\n\"Oh!\" murmured Constance. She said no more, the episode of the paper\ncollar having weakened her self-confidence.\n\nBut a signboard!\n\nWhat with servants, chasms, and signboards, Constance considered that\nher life as a married woman would not be deficient in excitement. Long\nafterwards, she fell asleep, thinking of Sophia.\n\nIII\n\nA few days later Constance was arranging the more precious of her\nwedding presents in the parlour; some had to be wrapped in tissue and\nin brown paper and then tied with string and labelled; others had\nspecial cases of their own, leather without and velvet within. Among\nthe latter was the resplendent egg-stand holding twelve silver-gilt\negg-cups and twelve chased spoons to match, presented by Aunt Harriet.\nIn the Five Towns' phrase, 'it must have cost money.' Even if Mr. and\nMrs. Povey had ten guests or ten children, and all the twelve of them\nwere simultaneously gripped by a desire to eat eggs at breakfast or\ntea--even in this remote contingency Aunt Harriet would have been\npained to see the egg-stand in use; such treasures are not designed for\nuse. The presents, few in number, were mainly of this character,\nbecause, owing to her mother's heroic cession of the entire interior,\nConstance already possessed every necessary. The fewness of the\npresents was accounted for by the fact that the wedding had been\nstrictly private and had taken place at Axe. There is nothing like\nsecrecy in marriage for discouraging the generous impulses of one's\nfriends. It was Mrs. Baines, abetted by both the chief parties, who had\ndecided that the wedding should be private and secluded. Sophia's\nwedding had been altogether too private and secluded; but the casting\nof a veil over Constance's (whose union was irreproachable) somehow\njustified, after the event, the circumstances of Sophia's, indicating\nas it did that Mrs. Baines believed in secret weddings on principle. In\nsuch matters Mrs. Baines was capable of extraordinary subtlety.\n\nAnd while Constance was thus taking her wedding presents with due\nseriousness, Maggie was cleaning the steps that led from the pavement\nof King Street to the side-door, and the door was ajar. It was a fine\nJune morning.\n\nSuddenly, over the sound of scouring, Constance heard a dog's low growl\nand then the hoarse voice of a man:\n\n\"Mester in, wench?\"\n\n\"Happen he is, happen he isn't,\" came Maggie's answer. She had no fancy\nfor being called wench.\n\nConstance went to the door, not merely from curiosity, but from a\nfeeling that her authority and her responsibilities as house-mistress\nextended to the pavement surrounding the house.\n\nThe famous James Boon, of Buck Row, the greatest dog-fancier in the\nFive Towns, stood at the bottom of the steps: a tall, fat man, clad in\nstiff, stained brown and smoking a black clay pipe less than three\ninches long. Behind him attended two bull-dogs.\n\n\"Morning, missis!\" cried Boon, cheerfully. \"I've heerd tell as th'\nmister is looking out for a dog, as you might say.\"\n\n\"I don't stay here with them animals a-sniffing at me--no, that I\ndon't!\" observed Maggie, picking herself up.\n\n\"Is he?\" Constance hesitated. She knew that Samuel had vaguely referred\nto dogs; she had not, however, imagined that he regarded a dog as aught\nbut a beautiful dream. No dog had ever put paw into that house, and it\nseemed impossible that one should ever do so. As for those beasts of\nprey on the pavement...!\n\n\"Ay!\" said James Boon, calmly.\n\n\"I'll tell him you're here,\" said Constance. \"But I don't know if he's\nat liberty. He seldom is at this time of day. Maggie, you'd better come\nin.\"\n\nShe went slowly to the shop, full of fear for the future.\n\n\"Sam,\" she whispered to her husband, who was writing at his desk,\n\"here's a man come to see you about a dog.\"\n\nAssuredly he was taken aback. Still, he behaved with much presence of\nmind.\n\n\"Oh, about a dog! Who is it?\"\n\n\"It's that Jim Boon. He says he's heard you want one.\"\n\nThe renowned name of Jim Boon gave him pause; but he had to go through\nwith the affair, and he went through with it, though nervously.\nConstance followed his agitated footsteps to the side-door.\n\n\"Morning, Boon.\"\n\n\"Morning, master.\"\n\nThey began to talk dogs, Mr. Povey, for his part, with due caution.\n\n\"Now, there's a dog!\" said Boon, pointing to one of the bull-dogs, a\nmiracle of splendid ugliness.\n\n\"Yes,\" responded Mr. Povey, insincerely. \"He is a beauty. What's it\nworth now, at a venture?\"\n\n\"I'll tak' a hundred and twenty sovereigns for her,\" said Boon. \"Th'\nother's a bit cheaper--a hundred.\"\n\n\"Oh, Sam!\" gasped Constance.\n\nAnd even Mr. Povey nearly lost his nerve. \"That's more than I want to\ngive,\" said he timidly.\n\n\"But look at her!\" Boon persisted, roughly snatching up the more\nexpensive animal, and displaying her cannibal teeth.\n\nMr. Povey shook his head. Constance glanced away.\n\n\"That's not quite the sort of dog I want,\" said Mr. Povey.\n\n\"Fox-terrier?\"\n\n\"Yes, that's more like,\" Mr. Povey agreed eagerly.\n\n\"What'll ye run to?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Mr. Povey, largely, \"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Will ye run to a tenner?\"\n\n\"I thought of something cheaper.\"\n\n\"Well, hoo much? Out wi' it, mester.\"\n\n\"Not more than two pounds,\" said Mr. Povey. He would have said one\npound had he dared. The prices of dogs amazed him.\n\n\"I thowt it was a dog as ye wanted!\" said Boon. \"Look 'ere, mester.\nCome up to my yard and see what I've got.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Mr. Povey.\n\n\"And bring missis along too. Now, what about a cat for th' missis? Or a\ngold-fish?\"\n\nThe end of the episode was that a young lady aged some twelve months\nentered the Povey household on trial. Her exiguous legs twinkled all\nover the parlour, and she had the oddest appearance in the parlour. But\nshe was so confiding, so affectionate, so timorous, and her black nose\nwas so icy in that hot weather, that Constance loved her violently\nwithin an hour. Mr. Povey made rules for her. He explained to her that\nshe must never, never go into the shop. But she went, and he whipped\nher to the squealing point, and Constance cried an instant, while\nadmiring her husband's firmness.\n\nThe dog was not all.\n\nOn another day Constance, prying into the least details of the parlour,\ndiscovered a box of cigars inside the lid of the harmonium, on the\nkeyboard. She was so unaccustomed to cigars that at first she did not\nrealize what the object was. Her father had never smoked, nor drunk\nintoxicants; nor had Mr. Critchlow. Nobody had ever smoked in that\nhouse, where tobacco had always been regarded as equally licentious\nwith cards, 'the devil's playthings.' Certainly Samuel had never smoked\nin the house, though the sight of the cigar-box reminded Constance of\nan occasion when her mother had announced an incredulous suspicion that\nMr. Povey, fresh from an excursion into the world on a Thursday\nevening, 'smelt of smoke.'\n\nShe closed the harmonium and kept silence.\n\nThat very night, coming suddenly into the parlour, she caught Samuel at\nthe harmonium. The lid went down with a resonant bang that awoke\nsympathetic vibrations in every corner of the room.\n\n\"What is it?\" Constance inquired, jumping.\n\n\"Oh, nothing!\" replied Mr. Povey, carelessly. Each was deceiving the\nother: Mr. Povey hid his crime, and Constance hid her knowledge of his\ncrime. False, false! But this is what marriage is.\n\nAnd the next day Constance had a visit in the shop from a possible new\nservant, recommended to her by Mr. Holl, the grocer.\n\n\"Will you please step this way?\" said Constance, with affable primness,\nsteeped in the novel sense of what it is to be the sole responsible\nmistress of a vast household. She preceded the girl to the parlour, and\nas they passed the open door of Mr. Povey's cutting-out room, Constance\nhad the clear vision and titillating odour of her husband smoking a\ncigar. He was in his shirt-sleeves, calmly cutting out, and Fan (the\nlady companion), at watch on the bench, yapped at the possible new\nservant.\n\n\"I think I shall try that girl,\" said she to Samuel at tea. She said\nnothing as to the cigar; nor did he.\n\nOn the following evening, after supper, Mr. Povey burst out:\n\n\"I think I'll have a weed! You didn't know I smoked, did you?\"\n\nThus Mr. Povey came out in his true colours as a blood, a blade, and a\ngay spark.\n\nBut dogs and cigars, disconcerting enough in their degree, were to the\nsignboard, when the signboard at last came, as skim milk is to hot\nbrandy. It was the signboard that, more startlingly than anything else,\nmarked the dawn of a new era in St. Luke's Square. Four men spent a day\nand a half in fixing it; they had ladders, ropes, and pulleys, and two\nof them dined on the flat lead roof of the projecting shop-windows. The\nsignboard was thirty-five feet long and two feet in depth; over its\ncentre was a semicircle about three feet in radius; this semicircle\nbore the legend, judiciously disposed, \"S. Povey. Late.\" All the\nsign-board proper was devoted to the words, \"John Baines,\" in gold\nletters a foot and a half high, on a green ground.\n\nThe Square watched and wondered; and murmured: \"Well, bless us! What\nnext?\"\n\nIt was agreed that in giving paramount importance to the name of his\nlate father-in-law, Mr. Povey had displayed a very nice feeling.\n\nSome asked with glee: \"What'll the old lady have to say?\"\n\nConstance asked herself this, but not with glee. When Constance walked\ndown the Square homewards, she could scarcely bear to look at the sign;\nthe thought of what her mother might say frightened her. Her mother's\nfirst visit of state was imminent, and Aunt Harriet was to accompany\nher. Constance felt almost sick as the day approached. When she faintly\nhinted her apprehensions to Samuel, he demanded, as if surprised--\n\n\"Haven't you mentioned it in one of your letters?\"\n\n\"Oh NO!\"\n\n\"If that's all,\" said he, with bravado, \"I'll write and tell her\nmyself.\"\n\nIV\n\nSo that Mrs. Baines was duly apprised of the signboard before her\narrival. The letter written by her to Constance after receiving\nSamuel's letter, which was merely the amiable epistle of a son-in-law\nanxious to be a little more than correct, contained no reference to the\nsignboard. This silence, however, did not in the least allay\nConstance's apprehensions as to what might occur when her mother and\nSamuel met beneath the signboard itself. It was therefore with a\nfearful as well as an eager, loving heart that Constance opened her\nside-door and ran down the steps when the waggonette stopped in King\nStreet on the Thursday morning of the great visit of the sisters. But a\nsurprise awaited her. Aunt Harriet had not come. Mrs. Baines explained,\nas she soundly kissed her daughter, that at the last moment Aunt\nHarriet had not felt well enough to undertake the journey. She sent her\nfondest love, and cake. Her pains had recurred. It was these mysterious\npains which had prevented the sisters from coming to Bursley earlier.\nThe word \"cancer\"--the continual terror of stout women--had been on\ntheir lips, without having been actually uttered; then there was a\nsurcease, and each was glad that she had refrained from the dread\nsyllables. In view of the recurrence, it was not unnatural that Mrs.\nBaines's vigorous cheerfulness should be somewhat forced.\n\n\"What is it, do you think?\" Constance inquired.\n\nMrs. Baines pushed her lips out and raised her eyebrows--a gesture\nwhich meant that the pains might mean God knew what.\n\n\"I hope she'll be all right alone,\" observed Constance. \"Of course,\"\nsaid Mrs. Baines, quickly. \"But you don't suppose I was going to\ndisappoint you, do you?\" she added, looking round as if to defy the\nfates in general.\n\nThis speech, and its tone, gave intense pleasure to Constance; and,\nladen with parcels, they mounted the stairs together, very content with\neach other, very happy in the discovery that they were still mother and\ndaughter, very intimate in an inarticulate way.\n\nConstance had imagined long, detailed, absorbing, and highly novel\nconversations between herself and her mother upon this their first\nmeeting after her marriage. But alone in the bedroom, and with a clear\nhalf-hour to dinner, they neither of them seemed to have a great deal\nto impart.\n\nMrs. Baines slowly removed her light mantle and laid it with\nprecautions on the white damask counterpane. Then, fingering her weeds,\nshe glanced about the chamber. Nothing was changed. Though Constance\nhad, previous to her marriage, envisaged certain alterations, she had\ndetermined to postpone them, feeling that one revolutionist in a house\nwas enough.\n\n\"Well, my chick, you all right?\" said Mrs. Baines, with hearty and\ndirect energy, gazing straight into her daughter's eyes.\n\nConstance perceived that the question was universal in its\ncomprehensiveness, the one unique expression that the mother would give\nto her maternal concern and curiosity, and that it condensed into six\nwords as much interest as would have overflowed into a whole day of the\nchatter of some mothers. She met the candid glance, flushing.\n\n\"Oh YES!\" she answered with ecstatic fervour. \"Perfectly!\"\n\nAnd Mrs. Baines nodded, as if dismissing THAT. \"You're stouter,\" said\nshe, curtly. \"If you aren't careful you'll be as big as any of us.\"\n\n\"Oh, mother!\"\n\nThe interview fell to a lower plane of emotion. It even fell as far as\nMaggie. What chiefly preoccupied Constance was a subtle change in her\nmother. She found her mother fussy in trifles. Her manner of laying\ndown her mantle, of smoothing out her gloves, and her anxiety that her\nbonnet should not come to harm, were rather trying, were perhaps, in\nthe very slightest degree, pitiable. It was nothing; it was barely\nperceptible, and yet it was enough to alter Constance's mental attitude\nto her mother. \"Poor dear!\" thought Constance. \"I'm afraid she's not\nwhat she was.\" Incredible that her mother could have aged in less than\nsix weeks! Constance did not allow for the chemistry that had been\ngoing on in herself.\n\nThe encounter between Mrs. Baines and her son-in-law was of the most\nsatisfactory nature. He was waiting in the parlour for her to descend.\nHe made himself exceedingly agreeable, kissing her, and flattering her\nby his evidently sincere desire to please. He explained that he had\nkept an eye open for the waggonette, but had been called away. His\n\"Dear me!\" on learning about Aunt Harriet lacked nothing in conviction,\nthough both women knew that his affection for Aunt Harriet would never\nget the better of his reason. To Constance, her husband's behaviour was\nmarvellously perfect. She had not suspected him to be such a man of the\nworld. And her eyes said to her mother, quite unconsciously: \"You see,\nafter all, you didn't rate Sam as high as you ought to have done. Now\nyou see your mistake.\"\n\nAs they sat waiting for dinner, Constance and Mrs. Baines on the sofa,\nand Samuel on the edge of the nearest rocking-chair, a small scuffling\nnoise was heard outside the door which gave on the kitchen steps, the\ndoor yielded to pressure, and Fan rushed importantly in, deranging\nmats. Fan's nose had been hinting to her that she was behind the times,\nnot up-to-date in the affairs of the household, and she had hurried\nfrom the kitchen to make inquiries. It occurred to her en route that\nshe had been washed that morning. The spectacle of Mrs. Baines stopped\nher. She stood, with her legs slightly out-stretched, her nose lifted,\nher ears raking forward, her bright eyes blinking, and her tail\nundecided. \"I was sure I'd never smelt anything like that before,\" she\nwas saying to herself, as she stared at Mrs. Baines.\n\nAnd Mrs. Baines, staring at Fan, had a similar though not the same\nsentiment. The silence was terrible. Constance took on the mien of a\nculprit, and Sam had obviously lost his easy bearing of a man of the\nworld. Mrs. Baines was merely thunderstruck.\n\nA dog!\n\nSuddenly Fan's tail began to wag more quickly; and then, having looked\nin vain for encouragement to her master and mistress, she gave one\nmighty spring and alighted in Mrs. Baines's lap. It was an aim she\ncould not have missed. Constance emitted an \"Oh, FAN!\" of shocked\nterror, and Samuel betrayed his nervous tension by an involuntary\nmovement. But Fan had settled down into that titanic lap as into\nheaven. It was a greater flattery than Mr. Povey's.\n\n\"So your name's Fan!\" murmured Mrs. Baines, stroking the animal. \"You\nare a dear!\"\n\n\"Yes, isn't she?\" said Constance, with inconceivable rapidity.\n\nThe danger was past. Thus, without any explanation, Fan became an\naccepted fact.\n\nThe next moment Maggie served the Yorkshire pudding.\n\n\"Well, Maggie,\" said Mrs. Baines. \"So you are going to get married this\ntime? When is it?\"\n\n\"Sunday, ma'am.\"\n\n\"And you leave here on Saturday?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Well, I must have a talk with you before I go.\"\n\nDuring the dinner, not a word as to the signboard! Several times the\nconversation curved towards that signboard in the most alarming\nfashion, but invariably it curved away again, like a train from another\ntrain when two trains are simultaneously leaving a station. Constance\nhad frights, so serious as to destroy her anxiety about the cookery. In\nthe end she comprehended that her mother had adopted a silently\ndisapproving attitude. Fan was socially very useful throughout the\nrepast.\n\nAfter dinner Constance was on pins lest Samuel should light a cigar.\nShe had not requested him not to do so, for though she was entirely\nsure of his affection, she had already learned that a husband is\npossessed by a demon of contrariety which often forces him to violate\nhis higher feelings. However, Samuel did not light a cigar. He went off\nto superintend the shutting-up of the shop, while Mrs. Baines chatted\nwith Maggie and gave her L5 for a wedding present. Then Mr. Critchlow\ncalled to offer his salutations.\n\nA little before tea Mrs. Baines announced that she would go out for a\nshort walk by herself.\n\n\"Where has she gone to?\" smiled Samuel, superiorly, as with Constance\nat the window he watched her turn down King Street towards the church.\n\n\"I expect she has gone to look at father's grave,\" said Constance.\n\n\"Oh!\" muttered Samuel, apologetically.\n\nConstance was mistaken. Before reaching the church, Mrs. Baines\ndeviated to the right, got into Brougham Street and thence, by Acre\nLane, into Oldcastle Street, whose steep she climbed. Now, Oldcastle\nStreet ends at the top of St. Luke's Square, and from the corner Mrs.\nBaines had an excellent view of the signboard. It being Thursday\nafternoon, scarce a soul was about. She returned to her daughter's by\nthe same extraordinary route, and said not a word on entering. But she\nwas markedly cheerful.\n\nThe waggonette came after tea, and Mrs. Baines made her final\npreparations to depart. The visit had proved a wonderful success; it\nwould have been utterly perfect if Samuel had not marred it at the very\ndoor of the waggonette. Somehow, he contrived to be talking of\nChristmas. Only a person of Samuel's native clumsiness would have\nmentioned Christmas in July.\n\n\"You know you'll spend Christmas with us!\" said he into the waggonette.\n\n\"Indeed I shan't!\" replied Mrs. Baines. \"Aunt Harriet and I will expect\nyou at Axe. We've already settled that.\"\n\nMr. Povey bridled. \"Oh no!\" he protested, hurt by this summariness.\n\nHaving had no relatives, except his cousin the confectioner, for many\nyears, he had dreamt of at last establishing a family Christmas under\nhis own roof, and the dream was dear to him.\n\nMrs. Baines said nothing. \"We couldn't possibly leave the shop,\" said\nMr. Povey.\n\n\"Nonsense!\" Mrs. Baines retorted, putting her lips together. \"Christmas\nDay is on a Monday.\"\n\nThe waggonette in starting jerked her head towards the door and set all\nher curls shaking. No white in those curls yet, scarcely a touch of\ngrey!\n\n\"I shall take good care we don't go there anyway,\" Mr. Povey mumbled,\nin his heat, half to himself and half to Constance.\n\nHe had stained the brightness of the day.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nCHRISTMAS AND THE FUTURE\n\nI\n\n\nMr. Povey was playing a hymn tune on the harmonium, it having been\ndecided that no one should go to chapel. Constance, in mourning, with a\nwhite apron over her dress, sat on a hassock in front of the fire; and\nnear her, in a rocking-chair, Mrs. Baines swayed very gently to and\nfro. The weather was extremely cold. Mr. Povey's mittened hands were\nblue and red; but, like many shopkeepers, he had apparently grown\nalmost insensible to vagaries of temperature. Although the fire was\nimmense and furious, its influence, owing to the fact that the\nmediaeval grate was designed to heat the flue rather than the room,\nseemed to die away at the borders of the fender. Constance could not\nhave been much closer to it without being a salamander. The era of good\nold-fashioned Christmases, so agreeably picturesque for the poor, was\nnot yet at an end.\n\nYes, Samuel Povey had won the battle concerning the locus of the family\nChristmas. But he had received the help of a formidable ally, death.\nMrs. Harriet Maddack had passed away, after an operation, leaving her\nhouse and her money to her sister. The solemn rite of her interment had\ndeeply affected all the respectability of the town of Axe, where the\nlate Mr. Maddack had been a figure of consequence; it had even shut up\nthe shop in St. Luke's Square for a whole day. It was such a funeral as\nAunt Harriet herself would have approved, a tremendous ceremonial which\nleft on the crushed mind an ineffaceable, intricate impression of shiny\ncloth, crape, horses with arching necks and long manes, the drawl of\nparsons, cake, port, sighs, and Christian submission to the inscrutable\ndecrees of Providence. Mrs. Baines had borne herself with unnatural\ncalmness until the funeral was over: and then Constance perceived that\nthe remembered mother of her girlhood existed no longer. For the\nmajority of human souls it would have been easier to love a virtuous\nprinciple, or a mountain, than to love Aunt Harriet, who was assuredly\nless a woman than an institution. But Mrs. Baines had loved her, and\nshe had been the one person to whom Mrs. Baines looked for support and\nguidance. When she died, Mrs. Baines paid the tribute of respect with\nthe last hoarded remains of her proud fortitude, and weepingly\nconfessed that the unconquerable had been conquered, the inexhaustible\nexhausted; and became old with whitening hair.\n\nShe had persisted in her refusal to spend Christmas in Bursley, but\nboth Constance and Samuel knew that the resistance was only formal. She\nsoon yielded. When Constance's second new servant took it into her head\nto leave a week before Christmas, Mrs. Baines might have pointed out\nthe finger of Providence at work again, and this time in her favour.\nBut no! With amazing pliancy she suggested that she should bring one of\nher own servants to 'tide Constance over' Christmas. She was met with\nall the forms of loving solicitude, and she found that her daughter and\nson-in-law had 'turned out of' the state bedroom in her favour.\nIntensely flattered by this attention (which was Mr. Povey's\nmagnanimous idea), she nevertheless protested strongly. Indeed she\n'would not hear of it.'\n\n\"Now, mother, don't be silly,\" Constance had said firmly. \"You don't\nexpect us to be at all the trouble of moving back again, do you?\" And\nMrs. Baines had surrendered in tears.\n\nThus had come Christmas. Perhaps it was fortunate that, the Axe servant\nbeing not quite the ordinary servant, but a benefactor where a\nbenefactor was needed, both Constance and her mother thought it well to\noccupy themselves in household work, 'sparing' the benefactor as much\nas possible. Hence Constance's white apron.\n\n\"There he is!\" said Mr. Povey, still playing, but with his eye on the\nstreet.\n\nConstance sprang up eagerly. Then there was a knock on the door.\nConstance opened, and an icy blast swept into the room. The postman\nstood on the steps, his instrument for knocking (like a drumstick) in\none hand, a large bundle of letters in the other, and a yawning bag\nacross the pit of his stomach.\n\n\"Merry Christmas, ma'am!\" cried the postman, trying to keep warm by\ncheerfulness.\n\nConstance, taking the letters, responded, while Mr. Povey, playing the\nharmonium with his right hand, drew half a crown from his pocket with\nthe left.\n\n\"Here you are!\" he said, giving it to Constance, who gave it to the\npostman.\n\nFan, who had been keeping her muzzle warm with the extremity of her\ntail on the sofa, jumped down to superintend the transaction.\n\n\"Brrr!\" vibrated Mr. Povey as Constance shut the door.\n\n\"What lots!\" Constance exclaimed, rushing to the fire. \"Here, mother!\nHere, Sam!\"\n\nThe girl had resumed possession of the woman's body.\n\nThough the Baines family had few friends (sustained hospitality being\nlittle practised in those days) they had, of course, many\nacquaintances, and, like other families, they counted their Christmas\ncards as an Indian counts scalps. The tale was satisfactory. There were\nbetween thirty and forty envelopes. Constance extracted Christmas cards\nrapidly, reading their contents aloud, and then propping them up on the\nmantelpiece. Mrs. Baines assisted. Fan dealt with the envelopes on the\nfloor. Mr. Povey, to prove that his soul was above toys and gewgaws,\ncontinued to play the harmonium.\n\n\"Oh, mother!\" Constance murmured in a startled, hesitant voice, holding\nan envelope.\n\n\"What is it, my chuck?\"\n\n\"It's----\"\n\nThe envelope was addressed to \"Mrs. and Miss Baines\" in large,\nperpendicular, dashing characters which Constance instantly recognised\nas Sophia's. The stamps were strange, the postmark 'Paris.' Mrs. Baines\nleaned forward and looked.\n\n\"Open it, child,\" she said.\n\nThe envelope contained an English Christmas card of a common type, a\nspray of holly with greetings, and on it was written, \"I do hope this\nwill reach you on Christmas morning. Fondest love.\" No signature, nor\naddress.\n\nMrs. Baines took it with a trembling hand, and adjusted her spectacles.\nShe gazed at it a long time.\n\n\"And it has done!\" she said, and wept.\n\nShe tried to speak again, but not being able to command herself, held\nforth the card to Constance and jerked her head in the direction of Mr.\nPovey. Constance rose and put the card on the keyboard of the harmonium.\n\n\"Sophia!\" she whispered.\n\nMr. Povey stopped playing. \"Dear, dear!\" he muttered.\n\nFan, perceiving that nobody was interested in her feats, suddenly stood\nstill.\n\nMrs. Baines tried once more to speak, but could not. Then, her ringlets\nshaking beneath the band of her weeds, she found her feet, stepped to\nthe harmonium, and, with a movement almost convulsive, snatched the\ncard from Mr. Povey, and returned to her chair.\n\nMr. Povey abruptly left the room, followed by Fan. Both the women were\nin tears, and he was tremendously surprised to discover a dangerous\nlump in his own throat. The beautiful and imperious vision of Sophia,\nSophia as she had left them, innocent, wayward, had swiftly risen up\nbefore him and made even him a woman too! Yet he had never liked\nSophia. The awful secret wound in the family pride revealed itself to\nhim as never before, and he felt intensely the mother's tragedy, which\nshe carried in her breast as Aunt Harriet had carried a cancer.\n\nAt dinner he said suddenly to Mrs. Baines, who still wept: \"Now,\nmother, you must cheer up, you know.\"\n\n\"Yes, I must,\" she said quickly. And she did do.\n\nNeither Samuel nor Constance saw the card again. Little was said. There\nwas nothing to say. As Sophia had given no address she must be still\nashamed of her situation. But she had thought of her mother and sister.\nShe ... she did not even know that Constance was married ... What sort\nof a place was Paris? To Bursley, Paris was nothing but the site of a\ngreat exhibition which had recently closed.\n\nThrough the influence of Mrs. Baines a new servant was found for\nConstance in a village near Axe, a raw, comely girl who had never been\nin a 'place.' And through the post it was arranged that this innocent\nshould come to the cave on the thirty-first of December. In obedience\nto the safe rule that servants should never be allowed to meet for the\ninterchange of opinions, Mrs. Baines decided to leave with her own\nservant on the thirtieth. She would not be persuaded to spend the New\nYear in the Square. On the twenty-ninth poor Aunt Maria died all of a\nsudden in her cottage in Brougham Street. Everybody was duly\ndistressed, and in particular Mrs. Baines's demeanour under this\naffliction showed the perfection of correctness. But she caused it to\nbe understood that she should not remain for the funeral. Her nerves\nwould be unequal to the ordeal; and, moreover, her servant must not\nstay to corrupt the new girl, nor could Mrs. Baines think of sending\nher servant to Axe in advance, to spend several days in idle gossip\nwith her colleague.\n\nThis decision took the backbone out of Aunt Maria's funeral, which\ntouched the extreme of modesty: a hearse and a one-horse coach. Mr.\nPovey was glad, because he happened to be very busy. An hour before his\nmother-in-law's departure he came into the parlour with the proof of a\nposter.\n\n\"What is that, Samuel?\" asked Mrs. Baines, not dreaming of the blow\nthat awaited her.\n\n\"It's for my first Annual Sale,\" replied Mr. Povey with false\ntranquillity.\n\nMrs. Baines merely tossed her head. Constance, happily for Constance,\nwas not present at this final defeat of the old order. Had she been\nthere, she would certainly not have known where to look.\n\nII\n\n\"Forty next birthday!\" Mr. Povey exclaimed one day, with an expression\nand in a tone that were at once mock-serious and serious. This was on\nhis thirty-ninth birthday.\n\nConstance was startled. She had, of course, been aware that they were\ngetting older, but she had never realized the phenomenon. Though\ncustomers occasionally remarked that Mr. Povey was stouter, and though\nwhen she helped him to measure himself for a new suit of clothes the\ntape proved the fact, he had not changed for her. She knew that she too\nhad become somewhat stouter; but for herself, she remained exactly the\nsame Constance. Only by recalling dates and by calculations could she\nreally grasp that she had been married a little over six years and not\na little over six months. She had to admit that, if Samuel would be\nforty next birthday, she would be twenty-seven next birthday. But it\nwould not be a real twenty-seven; nor would Sam's forty be a real\nforty, like other people's twenty-sevens and forties. Not long since\nshe had been in the habit of regarding a man of forty as senile, as\npractically in his grave.\n\nShe reflected, and the more she reflected the more clearly she saw that\nafter all the almanacs had not lied. Look at Fan! Yes, it must be five\nyears since the memorable morning when doubt first crossed the minds of\nSamuel and Constance as to Fan's moral principles. Samuel's enthusiasm\nfor dogs was equalled by his ignorance of the dangers to which a young\nfemale of temperament may be exposed, and he was much disturbed as\ndoubt developed into certainty. Fan, indeed, was the one being who did\nnot suffer from shock and who had no fears as to the results. The\nanimal, having a pure mind, was bereft of modesty. Sundry enormities\nhad she committed, but none to rank with this one! The result was four\nquadrupeds recognizable as fox-terriers. Mr. Povey breathed again. Fan\nhad had more luck than she deserved, for the result might have been\nsimply anything. Her owners forgave her and disposed of these fruits of\niniquity, and then married her lawfully to a husband who was so high up\nin the world that he could demand a dowry. And now Fan was a\ngrandmother, with fixed ideas and habits, and a son in the house, and\nvarious grandchildren scattered over the town. Fan was a sedate and\ndisillusioned dog. She knew the world as it was, and in learning it she\nhad taught her owners above a bit.\n\nThen there was Maggie Hollins. Constance could still vividly recall the\nself-consciousness with which she had one day received Maggie and the\nheir of the Hollinses; but it was a long time ago. After staggering\nhalf the town by the production of this infant (of which she nearly\ndied) Maggie allowed the angels to waft it away to heaven, and\neverybody said that she ought to be very thankful--at her age. Old\nwomen dug up out of their minds forgotten histories of the\neccentricities of the goddess Lucina. Mrs. Baines was most curiously\ninterested; she talked freely to Constance, and Constance began to see\nwhat an incredible town Bursley had always been--and she never\nsuspected it! Maggie was now mother of other children, and the\ndraggled, lame mistress of a drunken home, and looked sixty. Despite\nher prophecy, her husband had conserved his 'habits.' The Poveys ate\nall the fish they could, and sometimes more than they enjoyed, because\non his sober days Hollins invariably started his round at the shop, and\nConstance had to buy for Maggie's sake. The worst of the worthless\nhusband was that he seldom failed to be cheery and polite. He never\nmissed asking after the health of Mrs. Baines. And when Constance\nreplied that her mother was 'pretty well considering,' but that she\nwould not come over to Bursley again until the Axe railway was opened,\nas she could not stand the drive, he would shake his grey head and be\nsympathetically gloomy for an instant.\n\nAll these changes in six years! The almanacs were in the right of it.\n\nBut nothing had happened to her. Gradually she had obtained a sure\nascendency over her mother, yet without seeking it, merely as the\noutcome of time's influences on her and on her mother respectively.\nGradually she had gained skill and use in the management of her\nhousehold and of her share of the shop, so that these machines ran\nsmoothly and effectively and a sudden contretemps no longer frightened\nher. Gradually she had constructed a chart of Samuel's individuality,\nwith the submerged rocks and perilous currents all carefully marked, so\nthat she could now voyage unalarmed in those seas. But nothing\nhappened. Unless their visits to Buxton could be called happenings!\nDecidedly the visit to Buxton was the one little hill that rose out of\nthe level plain of the year. They had formed the annual habit of going\nto Buxton for ten days. They had a way of saying: \"Yes, we always go to\nBuxton. We went there for our honeymoon, you know.\" They had become\nconfirmed Buxtonites, with views concerning St. Anne's Terrace, the\nBroad Walk and Peel's Cavern. They could not dream of deserting their\nBuxton. It was the sole possible resort. Was it not the highest town in\nEngland? Well, then! They always stayed at the same lodgings, and grew\nto be special favourites of the landlady, who whispered of them to all\nher other guests as having come to her house for their honeymoon, and\nas never missing a year, and as being most respectable, superior people\nin quite a large way of business. Each year they walked out of Buxton\nstation behind their luggage on a truck, full of joy and pride because\nthey knew all the landmarks, and the lie of all the streets, and which\nwere the best shops.\n\nAt the beginning, the notion of leaving the shop to hired custody had\nseemed almost fantastic, and the preparations for absence had been very\ncomplicated. Then it was that Miss Insull had detached herself from the\nother young lady assistants as a creature who could be absolutely\ntrusted. Miss Insull was older than Constance; she had a bad\ncomplexion, and she was not clever, but she was one of your reliable\nones. The six years had witnessed the slow, steady rise of Miss Insull.\nHer employers said 'Miss Insull' in a tone quite different from that in\nwhich they said 'Miss Hawkins,' or 'Miss Dadd.' 'Miss Insull' meant the\nend of a discussion. 'Better tell Miss Insull.' 'Miss Insull will see\nto that.' 'I shall ask Miss Insull.' Miss Insull slept in the house ten\nnights every year. Miss Insull had been called into consultation when\nit was decided to engage a fourth hand in the shape of an apprentice.\n\nTrade had improved in the point of excellence. It was now admitted to\nbe good--a rare honour for trade! The coal-mining boom was at its\nheight, and colliers, in addition to getting drunk, were buying\nAmerican organs and expensive bull-terriers. Often they would come to\nthe shop to purchase cloth for coats for their dogs. And they would\nhave good cloth. Mr. Povey did not like this. One day a butty chose for\nhis dog the best cloth of Mr. Povey's shop--at 12s. a yard. \"Will ye\nmake it up? I've gotten th' measurements,\" asked the collier. \"No, I\nwon't!\" said Mr. Povey, hotly. \"And what's more, I won't sell you the\ncloth either! Cloth at 12s. a yard on a dog's back indeed! I'll thank\nyou to get out of my shop!\" The incident became historic, in the\nSquare. It finally established that Mr. Povey was a worthy son-in-law\nand a solid and successful man. It vindicated the old pre-eminence of\n\"Baines's.\" Some surprise was expressed that Mr. Povey showed no desire\nnor tendency towards entering the public life of the town. But he never\nwould, though a keen satirical critic of the Local Board in private.\nAnd at the chapel he remained a simple private worshipper, refusing\nstewardships and trusteeships.\n\nIII\n\nWas Constance happy? Of course there was always something on her mind,\nsomething that had to be dealt with, either in the shop or in the\nhouse, something to employ all the skill and experience which she had\nacquired. Her life had much in it of laborious tedium--tedium\nnever-ending and monotonous. And both she and Samuel worked\nconsistently hard, rising early, 'pushing forward,' as the phrase ran,\nand going to bed early from sheer fatigue; week after week and month\nafter month as season changed imperceptibly into season. In June and\nJuly it would happen to them occasionally to retire before the last\nsilver of dusk was out of the sky. They would lie in bed and talk\nplacidly of their daily affairs. There would be a noise in the street\nbelow. \"Vaults closing!\" Samuel would say, and yawn. \"Yes, it's quite\nlate,\" Constance would say. And the Swiss clock would rapidly strike\neleven on its coil of resonant wire. And then, just before she went to\nsleep, Constance might reflect upon her destiny, as even the busiest\nand smoothest women do, and she would decide that it was kind. Her\nmother's gradual decline and lonely life at Axe saddened her. The cards\nwhich came now and then at extremely long intervals from Sophia had\nbeen the cause of more sorrow than joy. The naive ecstasies of her\ngirlhood had long since departed--the price paid for experience and\nself-possession and a true vision of things. The vast inherent\nmelancholy of the universe did not exempt her. But as she went to sleep\nshe would be conscious of a vague contentment. The basis of this\ncontentment was the fact that she and Samuel comprehended and esteemed\neach other, and made allowances for each other. Their characters had\nbeen tested and had stood the test. Affection, love, was not to them a\nsalient phenomenon in their relations. Habit had inevitably dulled its\nglitter. It was like a flavouring, scarce remarked; but had it been\nabsent, how they would have turned from that dish!\n\nSamuel never, or hardly ever, set himself to meditate upon the problem\nwhether or not life had come up to his expectations. But he had, at\ntimes, strange sensations which he did not analyze, and which\napproached nearer to ecstasy than any feeling of Constance's. Thus,\nwhen he was in one of his dark furies, molten within and black without,\nthe sudden thought of his wife's unalterable benignant calm, which\nnothing could overthrow, might strike him into a wondering cold. For\nhim she was astoundingly feminine. She would put flowers on the\nmantelpiece, and then, hours afterwards, in the middle of a meal, ask\nhim unexpectedly what he thought of her 'garden;' and he gradually\ndivined that a perfunctory reply left her unsatisfied; she wanted a\ngenuine opinion; a genuine opinion mattered to her. Fancy calling\nflowers on a mantelpiece a 'garden'! How charming, how childlike! Then\nshe had a way, on Sunday mornings, when she descended to the parlour\nall ready for chapel, of shutting the door at the foot of the stairs\nwith a little bang, shaking herself, and turning round swiftly as if\nfor his inspection, as if saying: \"Well, what about this? Will this\ndo?\" A phenomenon always associated in his mind with the smell of kid\ngloves! Invariably she asked him about the colours and cut of her\ndresses. Would he prefer this, or that? He could not take such\nquestions seriously until one day he happened to hint, merely hint,\nthat he was not a thorough-going admirer of a certain new dress--it was\nher first new dress after the definite abandonment of crinolines. She\nnever wore it again. He thought she was not serious at first, and\nremonstrated against a joke being carried too far. She said: \"It's not\na bit of use you talking, I shan't wear it again.\" And then he so far\nappreciated her seriousness as to refrain, by discretion, from any\ncomment. The incident affected him for days. It flattered him; it\nthrilled him; but it baffled him. Strange that a woman subject to such\ncaprices should be so sagacious, capable, and utterly reliable as\nConstance was! For the practical and commonsense side of her eternally\ncompelled his admiration. The very first example of it--her insistence\nthat the simultaneous absence of both of them from the shop for half an\nhour or an hour twice a day would not mean the immediate downfall of\nthe business--had remained in his mind ever since. Had she not been\nobstinate--in her benevolent way--against the old superstition which he\nhad acquired from his employers, they might have been eating separately\nto that day. Then her handling of her mother during the months of the\nsiege of Paris, when Mrs. Baines was convinced that her sinful daughter\nwas in hourly danger of death, had been extraordinarily fine, he\nconsidered. And the sequel, a card for Constance's birthday, had\ncompletely justified her attitude.\n\nSometimes some blundering fool would jovially exclaim to them:\n\n\"What about that baby?\"\n\nOr a woman would remark quietly: \"I often feel sorry you've no\nchildren.\"\n\nAnd they would answer that really they did not know what they would do\nif there was a baby. What with the shop and one thing or another...!\nAnd they were quite sincere.\n\nIV\n\nIt is remarkable what a little thing will draw even the most regular\nand serious people from the deep groove of their habits. One morning in\nMarch, a boneshaker, an affair on two equal wooden wheels joined by a\nbar of iron, in the middle of which was a wooden saddle, disturbed the\ngravity of St. Luke's Square. True, it was probably the first\nboneshaker that had ever attacked the gravity of St. Luke's Square. It\ncame out of the shop of Daniel Povey, the confectioner and baker, and\nSamuel Povey's celebrated cousin, in Boulton Terrace. Boulton Terrace\nformed nearly a right angle with the Baines premises, and at the corner\nof the angle Wedgwood Street and King Street left the Square. The\nboneshaker was brought forth by Dick Povey, the only son of Daniel, now\naged eleven years, under the superintendence of his father, and the\nSquare soon perceived that Dick had a natural talent for breaking-in an\nuntrained boneshaker. After a few attempts he could remain on the back\nof the machine for at least ten yards, and his feats had the effect of\nendowing St. Luke's Square with the attractiveness of a circus. Samuel\nPovey watched with candid interest from the ambush of his door, while\nthe unfortunate young lady assistants, though aware of the performance\nthat was going on, dared not stir from the stove. Samuel was\ntremendously tempted to sally out boldly, and chat with his cousin\nabout the toy; he had surely a better right to do so than any other\ntradesman in the Square, since he was of the family; but his diffidence\nprevented him from moving. Presently Daniel Povey and Dick went to the\ntop of the Square with the machine, opposite Holl's, and Dick, being\ncarefully installed in the saddle, essayed to descend the gentle paven\nslopes of the Square. He failed time after time; the machine had an\nastonishing way of turning round, running uphill, and then lying calmly\non its side. At this point of Dick's life-history every shop-door in\nthe Square was occupied by an audience. At last the boneshaker\ndisplayed less unwillingness to obey, and lo! in a moment Dick was\nriding down the Square, and the spectators held their breath as if he\nhad been Blondin crossing Niagara. Every second he ought to have fallen\noff, but he contrived to keep upright. Already he had accomplished\ntwenty yards--thirty yards! It was a miracle that he was performing!\nThe transit continued, and seemed to occupy hours. And then a faint\nhope rose in the breast of the watchers that the prodigy might arrive\nat the bottom of the Square. His speed was increasing with his 'nack.'\nBut the Square was enormous, boundless. Samuel Povey gazed at the\napproaching phenomenon, as a bird at a serpent, with bulging, beady\neyes. The child's speed went on increasing and his path grew\nstraighter. Yes, he would arrive; he would do it! Samuel Povey\ninvoluntarily lifted one leg in his nervous tension. And now the hope\nthat Dick would arrive became a fear, as his pace grew still more\nrapid. Everybody lifted one leg, and gaped. And the intrepid child\nsurged on, and, finally victorious, crashed into the pavement in front\nof Samuel at the rate of quite six miles an hour.\n\nSamuel picked him up, unscathed. And somehow this picking up of Dick\ninvested Samuel with importance, gave him a share in the glory of the\nfeat itself.\n\nDaniel Povey same running and joyous. \"Not so bad for a start, eh?\"\nexclaimed the great Daniel. Though by no means a simple man, his pride\nin his offspring sometimes made him a little naive.\n\nFather and son explained the machine to Samuel, Dick incessantly\nrepeating the exceedingly strange truth that if you felt you were\nfalling to your right you must turn to your right and vice versa.\nSamuel found himself suddenly admitted, as it were, to the inner\nfellowship of the boneshaker, exalted above the rest of the Square. In\nanother adventure more thrilling events occurred. The fair-haired Dick\nwas one of those dangerous, frenzied madcaps who are born without fear.\nThe secret of the machine had been revealed to him in his recent\ntransit, and he was silently determining to surpass himself.\nPrecariously balanced, he descended the Square again, frowning hard,\nhis teeth set, and actually managed to swerve into King Street.\nConstance, in the parlour, saw an incomprehensible winged thing fly\npast the window. The cousins Povey sounded an alarm and protest and ran\nin pursuit; for the gradient of King Street is, in the strict sense,\nsteep. Half-way down King Street Dick was travelling at twenty miles an\nhour, and heading straight for the church, as though he meant to\ndisestablish it and perish. The main gate of the churchyard was open,\nand that affrighting child, with a lunatic's luck, whizzed safely\nthrough the portals into God's acre. The cousins Povey discovered him\nlying on a green grave, clothed in pride. His first words were: \"Dad,\ndid you pick my cap up?\" The symbolism of the amazing ride did not\nescape the Square; indeed, it was much discussed.\n\nThis incident led to a friendship between the cousins. They formed a\nhabit of meeting in the Square for a chat. The meetings were the\nsubject of comment, for Samuel's relations with the greater Daniel had\nalways been of the most distant. It was understood that Samuel\ndisapproved of Mrs. Daniel Povey even, more than the majority of people\ndisapproved of her. Mrs. Daniel Povey, however, was away from home;\nprobably, had she not been, Samuel would not even have gone to the\nlength of joining Daniel on the neutral ground of the open Square. But\nhaving once broken the ice, Samuel was glad to be on terms of growing\nintimacy with his cousin. The friendship flattered him, for Daniel,\ndespite his wife, was a figure in a world larger than Samuel's;\nmoreover, it consecrated his position as the equal of no matter what\ntradesman (apprentice though he had been), and also he genuinely liked\nand admired Daniel, rather to his own astonishment.\n\nEvery one liked Daniel Povey; he was a favourite among all ranks. The\nleading confectioner, a member of the Local Board, and a sidesman at\nSt. Luke's, he was, and had been for twenty-five years, very prominent\nin the town. He was a tall, handsome man, with a trimmed, greying\nbeard, a jolly smile, and a flashing, dark eye. His good humour seemed\nto be permanent. He had dignity without the slightest stiffness; he was\nwelcomed by his equals and frankly adored by his inferiors. He ought to\nhave been Chief Bailiff, for he was rich enough; but there intervened a\nmysterious obstacle between Daniel Povey and the supreme honour, a\nscarcely tangible impediment which could not be definitely stated. He\nwas capable, honest, industrious, successful, and an excellent speaker;\nand if he did not belong to the austerer section of society, if, for\nexample, he thought nothing of dropping into the Tiger for a glass of\nbeer, or of using an oath occasionally, or of telling a facetious\nstory--well, in a busy, broad-minded town of thirty thousand\ninhabitants, such proclivities are no bar whatever to perfect esteem.\nBut--how is one to phrase it without wronging Daniel Povey? He was\nentirely moral; his views were unexceptionable. The truth is that, for\nthe ruling classes of Bursley, Daniel Povey was just a little too\nfanatical a worshipper of the god Pan. He was one of the remnant who\nhad kept alive the great Pan tradition from the days of the Regency\nthrough the vast, arid Victorian expanse of years. The flighty\ncharacter of his wife was regarded by many as a judgment upon him for\nthe robust Rabelaisianism of his more private conversation, for his\nfrank interest in, his eternal preoccupation with, aspects of life and\nhuman activity which, though essential to the divine purpose, are not\nopenly recognized as such--even by Daniel Poveys. It was not a question\nof his conduct; it was a question of the cast of his mind. If it did\nnot explain his friendship with the rector of St. Luke's, it explained\nhis departure from the Primitive Methodist connexion, to which the\nPoveys as a family had belonged since Primitive Methodism was created\nin Turnhill in 1807.\n\nDaniel Povey had a way of assuming that every male was boiling over\nwith interest in the sacred cult of Pan. The assumption, though\nsometimes causing inconvenience at first, usually conquered by virtue\nof its inherent truthfulness. Thus it fell out with Samuel. Samuel had\nnot suspected that Pan had silken cords to draw him. He had always\naverted his eyes from the god--that is to say, within reason. Yet now\nDaniel, on perhaps a couple of fine mornings a week, in full Square,\nwith Fan sitting behind on the cold stones, and Mr. Critchlow ironic at\nhis door in a long white apron, would entertain Samuel Povey for half\nan hour with Pan's most intimate lore, and Samuel Povey would not\nblench. He would, on the contrary, stand up to Daniel like a little\nman, and pretend with all his might to be, potentially, a perfect\narch-priest of the god. Daniel taught him a lot; turned over the page\nof life for him, as it were, and, showing the reverse side, seemed to\nsay: \"You were missing all that.\" Samuel gazed upwards at the handsome\nlong nose and rich lips of his elder cousin, so experienced, so\nagreeable, so renowned, so esteemed, so philosophic, and admitted to\nhimself that he had lived to the age of forty in a state of comparative\nboobyism. And then he would gaze downwards at the faint patch of flour\non Daniel's right leg, and conceive that life was, and must be, life.\n\nNot many weeks after his initiation into the cult he was startled by\nConstance's preoccupied face one evening. Now, a husband of six years'\nstanding, to whom it has not happened to become a father, is not easily\nstartled by such a face as Constance wore. Years ago he had frequently\nbeen startled, had frequently lived in suspense for a few days. But he\nhad long since grown impervious to these alarms. And now he was\nstartled again--but as a man may be startled who is not altogether\nsurprised at being startled. And seven endless days passed, and Samuel\nand Constance glanced at each other like guilty things, whose secret\nrefuses to be kept. Then three more days passed, and another three.\nThen Samuel Povey remarked in a firm, masculine, fact-fronting tone:\n\n\"Oh, there's no doubt about it!\"\n\nAnd they glanced at each other like conspirators who have lighted a\nfuse and cannot take refuge in flight. Their eyes said continually,\nwith a delicious, an enchanting mixture of ingenuous modesty and\nfearful joy:\n\n\"Well, we've gone and done it!\"\n\nThere it was, the incredible, incomprehensible future--coming!\n\nSamuel had never correctly imagined the manner of its heralding. He had\nimagined in his early simplicity that one day Constance, blushing,\nmight put her mouth to his ear and whisper--something positive. It had\nnot occurred in the least like that. But things are so obstinately, so\nincurably unsentimental.\n\n\"I think we ought to drive over and tell mother, on Sunday,\" said\nConstance.\n\nHis impulse was to reply, in his grand, offhand style: \"Oh, a letter\nwill do!\"\n\nBut he checked himself and said, with careful deference: \"You think\nthat will be better than writing?\"\n\nAll was changed. He braced every fibre to meet destiny, and to help\nConstance to meet it.\n\nThe weather threatened on Sunday. He went to Axe without Constance. His\ncousin drove him there in a dog-cart, and he announced that he should\nwalk home, as the exercise would do him good. During the drive Daniel,\nin whom he had not confided, chattered as usual, and Samuel pretended\nto listen with the same attitude as usual; but secretly he despised\nDaniel for a man who has got something not of the first importance on\nthe brain. His perspective was truer than Daniel's.\n\nHe walked home, as he had decided, over the wavy moorland of the county\ndreaming in the heart of England. Night fell on him in mid-career, and\nhe was tired. But the earth, as it whirled through naked space, whirled\nup the moon for him, and he pressed on at a good speed. A wind from\nArabia wandering cooled his face. And at last, over the brow of Toft\nEnd, he saw suddenly the Five Towns a-twinkle on their little hills\ndown in the vast amphitheatre. And one of those lamps was Constance's\nlamp--one, somewhere. He lived, then. He entered into the shadow of\nnature. The mysteries made him solemn. What! A boneshaker, his cousin,\nand then this!\n\n\"Well, I'm damned! Well, I'm damned!\" he kept repeating, he who never\nswore.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nCYRIL\n\nI\n\n\nConstance stood at the large, many-paned window in the parlour. She was\nstouter. Although always plump, her figure had been comely, with a\nneat, well-marked waist. But now the shapeliness had gone; the\nwaist-line no longer existed, and there were no more crinolines to\ncreate it artificially. An observer not under the charm of her face\nmight have been excused for calling her fat and lumpy. The face, grave,\nkind, and expectant, with its radiant, fresh cheeks, and the rounded\nsoftness of its curves, atoned for the figure. She was nearly\ntwenty-nine years of age.\n\nIt was late in October. In Wedgwood Street, next to Boulton Terrace,\nall the little brown houses had been pulled down to make room for a\npalatial covered market, whose foundations were then being dug. This\ndestruction exposed a vast area of sky to the north-east. A great dark\ncloud with an untidy edge rose massively out of the depths and\ncurtained off the tender blue of approaching dusk; while in the west,\nbehind Constance, the sun was setting in calm and gorgeous melancholy\non the Thursday hush of the town. It was one of those afternoons which\ngather up all the sadness of the moving earth and transform it into\nbeauty.\n\nSamuel Povey turned the corner from Wedgwood Street, and crossed King\nStreet obliquely to the front-door, which Constance opened. He seemed\ntired and anxious.\n\n\"Well?\" demanded Constance, as he entered.\n\n\"She's no better. There's no getting away from it, she's worse. I\nshould have stayed, only I knew you'd be worrying. So I caught the\nthree-fifty.\"\n\n\"How is that Mrs. Gilchrist shaping as a nurse?\"\n\n\"She's very good,\" said Samuel, with conviction. \"Very good!\"\n\n\"What a blessing! I suppose you didn't happen to see the doctor?\"\n\n\"Yes, I did.\"\n\n\"What did he say to you?\"\n\nSamuel gave a deprecating gesture. \"Didn't say anything particular.\nWith dropsy, at that stage, you know ...\"\n\nConstance had returned to the window, her expectancy apparently\nunappeased.\n\n\"I don't like the look of that cloud,\" she murmured.\n\n\"What! Are they out still?\" Samuel inquired, taking off his overcoat.\n\n\"Here they are!\" cried Constance. Her features suddenly transfigured,\nshe sprang to the door, pulled it open, and descended the steps.\n\nA perambulator was being rapidly pushed up the slope by a breathless\ngirl.\n\n\"Amy,\" Constance gently protested, \"I told you not to venture far.\"\n\n\"I hurried all I could, mum, soon as I seed that cloud,\" the girl\npuffed, with the air of one who is seriously thankful to have escaped a\ngreat disaster.\n\nConstance dived into the recesses of the perambulator and extricated\nfrom its cocoon the centre of the universe, and scrutinized him with\nquiet passion, and then rushed with him into the house, though not a\ndrop of rain had yet fallen.\n\n\"Precious!\" exclaimed Amy, in ecstasy, her young virginal eyes\nfollowing him till he disappeared. Then she wheeled away the\nperambulator, which now had no more value nor interest than an\negg-shell. It was necessary to take it right round to the Brougham\nStreet yard entrance, past the front of the closed shop.\n\nConstance sat down on the horsehair sofa and hugged and kissed her\nprize before removing his bonnet.\n\n\"Here's Daddy!\" she said to him, as if imparting strange and rapturous\ntidings. \"Here's Daddy come back from hanging up his coat in the\npassage! Daddy rubbing his hands!\" And then, with a swift transition of\nvoice and features: \"Do look at him, Sam!\"\n\nSamuel, preoccupied, stooped forward. \"Oh, you little scoundrel! Oh,\nyou little scoundrel!\" he greeted the baby, advancing his finger\ntowards the baby's nose.\n\nThe baby, who had hitherto maintained a passive indifference to\nexternal phenomena, lifted elbows and toes, blew bubbles from his tiny\nmouth, and stared at the finger with the most ravishing, roguish smile,\nas though saying: \"I know that great sticking-out limb, and there is a\njoke about it which no one but me can see, and which is my secret joy\nthat you shall never share.\"\n\n\"Tea ready?\" Samuel asked, resuming his gravity and his ordinary pose.\n\n\"You must give the girl time to take her things off,\" said Constance.\n\"We'll have the table drawn, away from the fire, and baby can lie on\nhis shawl on the hearthrug while we're having tea.\" Then to the baby,\nin rapture: \"And play with his toys; all his nice, nice toys!\"\n\n\"You know Miss Insull is staying for tea?\"\n\nConstance, her head bent over the baby, who formed a white patch on her\ncomfortable brown frock, nodded without speaking.\n\nSamuel Povey, walking to and fro, began to enter into details of his\nhasty journey to Axe. Old Mrs. Baines, having beheld her grandson, was\npreparing to quit this world. Never again would she exclaim, in her\nbrusque tone of genial ruthlessness: 'Fiddlesticks!' The situation was\nvery difficult and distressing, for Constance could not leave her baby,\nand she would not, until the last urgency, run the risks of a journey\nwith him to Axe. He was being weaned. In any case Constance could not\nhave undertaken the nursing of her mother. A nurse had to be found. Mr.\nPovey had discovered one in the person of Mrs. Gilchrist, the second\nwife of a farmer at Malpas in Cheshire, whose first wife had been a\nsister of the late John Baines. All the credit of Mrs. Gilchrist was\ndue to Samuel Povey. Mrs. Baines fretted seriously about Sophia, who\nhad given no sign of life for a very long time. Mr. Povey went to\nManchester and ascertained definitely from the relatives of Scales that\nnothing was known of the pair. He did not go to Manchester especially\non this errand. About once in three weeks, on Tuesdays, he had to visit\nthe Manchester warehouses; but the tracking of Scales's relative cost\nhim so much trouble and time that, curiously, he came to believe that\nhe had gone to Manchester one Tuesday for no other end. Although he was\nvery busy indeed in the shop, he flew over to Axe and back whenever he\npossibly could, to the neglect of his affairs. He was glad to do all\nthat was in his power; even if he had not done it graciously his\nsensitive, tyrannic conscience would have forced him to do it. But\nnevertheless he felt rather virtuous, and worry and fatigue and loss of\nsleep intensified this sense of virtue.\n\n\"So that if there is any sudden change they will telegraph,\" he\nfinished, to Constance.\n\nShe raised her head. The words, clinching what had led up to them, drew\nher from her dream and she saw, for a moment, her mother in an agony.\n\n\"But you don't surely mean--?\" she began, trying to disperse the\npainful vision as unjustified by the facts.\n\n\"My dear girl,\" said Samuel, with head singing, and hot eyes, and a\nconsciousness of high tension in every nerve of his body, \"I simply\nmean that if there's any sudden change they will telegraph.\"\n\nWhile they had tea, Samuel sitting opposite to his wife, and Miss\nInsull nearly against the wall (owing to the moving of the table), the\nbaby rolled about on the hearthrug, which had been covered with a large\nsoft woollen shawl, originally the property of his great-grandmother.\nHe had no cares, no responsibilities. The shawl was so vast that he\ncould not clearly distinguish objects beyond its confines. On it lay an\nindiarubber ball, an indiarubber doll, a rattle, and fan. He vaguely\nrecollected all four items, with their respective properties. The fire\nalso was an old friend. He had occasionally tried to touch it, but a\nhigh bright fence always came in between. For ten months he had never\nspent a day without making experiments on this shifting universe in\nwhich he alone remained firm and stationary. The experiments were\nchiefly conducted out of idle amusement, but he was serious on the\nsubject of food. Lately the behaviour of the universe in regard to his\nfood had somewhat perplexed him, had indeed annoyed him. However, he\nwas of a forgetful, happy disposition, and so long as the universe\ncontinued to fulfil its sole end as a machinery for the satisfaction,\nsomehow, of his imperious desires, he was not inclined to remonstrate.\nHe gazed at the flames and laughed, and laughed because he had laughed.\nHe pushed the ball away and wriggled after it, and captured it with the\nassurance of practice. He tried to swallow the doll, and it was not\nuntil he had tried several times to swallow it that he remembered the\nfailure of previous efforts and philosophically desisted. He rolled\nwith a fearful shock, arms and legs in air, against the mountainous\nflank of that mammoth Fan, and clutched at Fan's ear. The whole mass of\nFan upheaved and vanished from his view, and was instantly forgotten by\nhim. He seized the doll and tried to swallow it, and repeated the\nexhibition of his skill with the ball. Then he saw the fire again and\nlaughed. And so he existed for centuries: no responsibilities, no\nappetites; and the shawl was vast. Terrific operations went on over his\nhead. Giants moved to and fro. Great vessels were carried off and great\nbooks were brought and deep voices rumbled regularly in the spaces\nbeyond the shawl. But he remained oblivious. At last he became aware\nthat a face was looking down at his. He recognized it, and immediately\nan uncomfortable sensation in his stomach disturbed him; he tolerated\nit for fifty years or so, and then he gave a little cry. Life had\nresumed its seriousness.\n\n\"Black alpaca. B quality. Width 20, t.a. 22 yards,\" Miss Insull read\nout of a great book. She and Mr. Povey were checking stock.\n\nAnd Mr. Povey responded, \"Black alpaca B quality. Width 20, t.a. 22\nyards. It wants ten minutes yet.\" He had glanced at the clock.\n\n\"Does it?\" said Constance, well knowing that it wanted ten minutes.\n\nThe baby did not guess that a high invisible god named Samuel Povey,\nwhom nothing escaped, and who could do everything at once, was\ncontrolling his universe from an inconceivable distance. On the\ncontrary, the baby was crying to himself, There is no God.\n\nHis weaning had reached the stage at which a baby really does not know\nwhat will happen next. The annoyance had begun exactly three months\nafter his first tooth, such being the rule of the gods, and it had\ngrown more and more disconcerting. No sooner did he accustom himself to\na new phenomenon than it mysteriously ceased, and an old one took its\nplace which he had utterly forgotten. This afternoon his mother nursed\nhim, but not until she had foolishly attempted to divert him from the\nseriousness of life by means of gewgaws of which he was sick. Still;\nonce at her rich breast, he forgave and forgot all. He preferred her\nsimple natural breast to more modern inventions. And he had no shame,\nno modesty. Nor had his mother. It was an indecent carouse at which his\nfather and Miss Insull had to assist. But his father had shame. His\nfather would have preferred that, as Miss Insull had kindly offered to\nstop and work on Thursday afternoon, and as the shop was chilly, the\ndue rotation should have brought the bottle round at half-past five\no'clock, and not the mother's breast. He was a self-conscious parent,\nrather apologetic to the world, rather apt to stand off and pretend\nthat he had nothing to do with the affair; and he genuinely disliked\nthat anybody should witness the intimate scene of HIS wife feeding HIS\nbaby. Especially Miss Insull, that prim, dark, moustached spinster! He\nwould not have called it an outrage on Miss Insull, to force her to\nwitness the scene, but his idea approached within sight of the word.\n\nConstance blandly offered herself to the child, with the unconscious\nprimitive savagery of a young mother, and as the baby fed, thoughts of\nher own mother flitted to and fro ceaselessly like vague shapes over\nthe deep sea of content which filled her mind. This illness of her\nmother's was abnormal, and the baby was now, for the first time\nperhaps, entirely normal in her consciousness. The baby was something\nwhich could be disturbed, not something which did disturb. What a\nchange! What a change that had seemed impossible until its full\naccomplishment!\n\nFor months before the birth, she had glimpsed at nights and in other\nsilent hours the tremendous upset. She had not allowed herself to be\nsilly in advance; by temperament she was too sagacious, too well\nbalanced for that; but she had had fitful instants of terror, when\nsolid ground seemed to sink away from her, and imagination shook at\nwhat faced her. Instants only! Usually she could play the comedy of\nsensible calmness to almost perfection. Then the appointed time drew\nnigh. And still she smiled, and Samuel smiled. But the preparations,\nmeticulous, intricate, revolutionary, belied their smiles. The intense\nresolve to keep Mrs. Baines, by methods scrupulous or unscrupulous,\naway from Bursley until all was over, belied their smiles. And then the\nfirst pains, sharp, shocking, cruel, heralds of torture! But when they\nhad withdrawn, she smiled, again, palely. Then she was in bed, full of\nthe sensation that the whole house was inverted and disorganized,\nhopelessly. And the doctor came into the room. She smiled at the doctor\napologetically, foolishly, as if saying: \"We all come to it. Here I\nam.\" She was calm without. Oh, but what a prey of abject fear within!\n\"I am at the edge of the precipice,\" her thought ran; \"in a moment I\nshall be over.\" And then the pains--not the heralds but the shattering\narmy, endless, increasing in terror as they thundered across her. Yet\nshe could think, quite clearly: \"Now I'm in the middle of it. This is\nit, the horror that I have not dared to look at. My life's in the\nbalance. I may never get up again. All has at last come to pass. It\nseemed as if it would never come, as if this thing could not happen to\nme. But at last it has come to pass!\"\n\nAh! Some one put the twisted end of a towel into her hand again--she\nhad loosed it; and she pulled, pulled, enough to break cables. And then\nshe shrieked. It was for pity. It was for some one to help her, at any\nrate to take notice of her. She was dying. Her soul was leaving her.\nAnd she was alone, panic-stricken, in the midst of a cataclysm a\nthousand times surpassing all that she had imagined of sickening\nhorror. \"I cannot endure this,\" she thought passionately. \"It is\nimpossible that I should be asked to endure this!\" And then she wept;\nbeaten, terrorized, smashed and riven. No commonsense now! No wise\ncalmness now! No self-respect now! Why, not even a woman now! Nothing\nbut a kind of animalized victim! And then the supreme endless spasm,\nduring which she gave up the ghost and bade good-bye to her very self.\n\nShe was lying quite comfortable in the soft bed; idle, silly: happiness\nforming like a thin crust over the lava of her anguish and her fright.\nAnd by her side was the soul that had fought its way out of her,\nruthlessly; the secret disturber revealed to the light of morning.\nCurious to look at! Not like any baby that she had ever seen; red,\ncreased, brutish! But--for some reason that she did not examine--she\nfolded it in an immense tenderness.\n\nSam was by the bed, away from her eyes. She was so comfortable and\nsilly that she could not move her head nor even ask him to come round\nto her eyes. She had to wait till he came.\n\nIn the afternoon the doctor returned, and astounded her by saying that\nhers had been an ideal confinement. She was too weary to rebuke him for\na senseless, blind, callous old man. But she knew what she knew. \"No\none will ever guess,\" she thought, \"no one ever can guess, what I've\nbeen through! Talk as you like. I KNOW, now.\"\n\nGradually she had resumed cognizance of her household, perceiving that\nit was demoralized from top to bottom, and that when the time came to\nbegin upon it she would not be able to settle where to begin, even\nsupposing that the baby were not there to monopolize her attention. The\ntask appalled her. Then she wanted to get up. Then she got up. What a\nblow to self-confidence! She went back to bed like a little scared\nrabbit to its hole, glad, glad to be on the soft pillows again. She\nsaid: \"Yet the time must come when I shall be downstairs, and walking\nabout and meeting people, and cooking and superintending the\nmillinery.\" Well, it did come--except that she had to renounce the\nmillinery to Miss Insull--but it was not the same. No, different! The\nbaby pushed everything else on to another plane. He was a terrific\nintruder; not one minute of her old daily life was left; he made no\ncompromise whatever. If she turned away her gaze from him he might pop\noff into eternity and leave her.\n\nAnd now she was calmly and sensibly giving him suck in presence of Miss\nInsull. She was used to his importance, to the fragility of his\norganism, to waking twice every night, to being fat. She was strong\nagain. The convulsive twitching that for six months had worried her\nrepose, had quite disappeared. The state of being a mother was normal,\nand the baby was so normal that she could not conceive the house\nwithout him.\n\nAll in ten months!\n\nWhen the baby was installed in his cot for the night, she came\ndownstairs and found Miss Insull and Samuel still working, and Larder\nthan ever, but at addition sums now. She sat down, leaving the door\nopen at the foot of the stairs. She had embroidery in hand: a cap. And\nwhile Miss Insull and Samuel combined pounds, shillings, and pence,\nwhispering at great speed, she bent over the delicate, intimate,\nwasteful handiwork, drawing the needle with slow exactitude. Then she\nwould raise her head and listen.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" said Miss Insull, \"I think I hear baby crying.\"\n\n\"And two are eight and three are eleven. He must cry,\" said Mr. Povey,\nrapidly, without looking up.\n\nThe baby's parents did not make a practice of discussing their domestic\nexistence even with Miss Insull; but Constance had to justify herself\nas a mother.\n\n\"I've made perfectly sure he's comfortable,\" said Constance. \"He's only\ncrying because he fancies he's neglected. And we think he can't begin\ntoo early to learn.\"\n\n\"How right you are!\" said Miss Insull. \"Two and carry three.\"\n\nThat distant, feeble, querulous, pitiful cry continued obstinately. It\ncontinued for thirty minutes. Constance could not proceed with her\nwork. The cry disintegrated her will, dissolved her hard sagacity.\n\nWithout a word she crept upstairs, having carefully deposed the cap on\nher rocking-chair.\n\nMr. Povey hesitated a moment and then bounded up after her, startling\nFan. He shut the door on Miss Insull, but Fan was too quick for him. He\nsaw Constance with her hand on the bedroom door.\n\n\"My dear girl,\" he protested, holding himself in. \"Now what ARE you\ngoing to do?\"\n\n\"I'm just listening,\" said Constance.\n\n\"Do be reasonable and come downstairs.\"\n\nHe spoke in a low voice, scarcely masking his nervous irritation, and\ntiptoed along the corridor towards her and up the two steps past the\ngas-burner. Fan followed, wagging her tail expectant.\n\n\"Suppose he's not well?\" Constance suggested.\n\n\"Pshaw!\" Mr. Povey exclaimed contemptuously. \"You remember what\nhappened last night and what you said!\"\n\nThey argued, subduing their tones to the false semblance of good-will,\nthere in the closeness of the corridor. Fan, deceived, ceased to wag\nher tail and then trotted away. The baby's cry, behind the door, rose\nto a mysterious despairing howl, which had such an effect on\nConstance's heart that she could have walked through fire to reach the\nbaby. But Mr. Povey's will held her. And she rebelled, angry, hurt,\nresentful. Commonsense, the ideal of mutual forbearance, had winged\naway from that excited pair. It would have assuredly ended in a\nquarrel, with Samuel glaring at her in black fury from the other side\nof a bottomless chasm, had not Miss Insull most surprisingly burst up\nthe stairs.\n\nMr. Povey turned to face her, swallowing his emotion.\n\n\"A telegram!\" said Miss Insull. \"The postmaster brought it down\nhimself--\"\n\n\"What? Mr. Derry?\" asked Samuel, opening the telegram with an\naffectation of majesty.\n\n\"Yes. He said it was too late for delivery by rights. But as it seemed\nvery important ...\"\n\nSamuel scanned it and nodded gravely; then gave it to his wife. Tears\ncame into her eyes.\n\n\"I'll get Cousin Daniel to drive me over at once,\" said Samuel, master\nof himself and of the situation.\n\n\"Wouldn't it be better to hire?\" Constance suggested. She had a\nprejudice against Daniel.\n\nMr. Povey shook his head. \"He offered,\" he replied. \"I can't refuse his\noffer.\"\n\n\"Put your thick overcoat on, dear,\" said Constance, in a dream,\ndescending with him.\n\n\"I hope it isn't--\" Miss Insull stopped.\n\n\"Yes it is, Miss Insull,\" said Samuel, deliberately.\n\nIn less than a minute he was gone.\n\nConstance ran upstairs. But the cry had ceased. She turned the\ndoor-knob softly, slowly, and crept into the chamber. A night-light\nmade large shadows among the heavy mahogany and the crimson, tasselled\nrep in the close-curtained room. And between the bed and the ottoman\n(on which lay Samuel's newly-bought family Bible) the cot loomed in the\nshadows. She picked up the night-light and stole round the bed. Yes, he\nhad decided to fall asleep. The hazard of death afar off had just\ndefeated his devilish obstinacy. Fate had bested him. How marvellously\nsoft and delicate that tear-stained cheek! How frail that tiny, tiny\nclenched hand! In Constance grief and joy were mystically united.\n\nII\n\nThe drawing-room was full of visitors, in frocks of ceremony. The old\ndrawing-room, but newly and massively arranged with the finest\nVictorian furniture from dead Aunt Harriet's house at Axe; two\n\"Canterburys,\" a large bookcase, a splendid scintillant table solid\nbeyond lifting, intricately tortured chairs and armchairs! The original\nfurniture of the drawing-room was now down in the parlour, making it\ngrand. All the house breathed opulence; it was gorged with quiet,\nrestrained expensiveness; the least considerable objects, in the most\nmodest corners, were what Mrs. Baines would have termed 'good.'\nConstance and Samuel had half of all Aunt Harriet's money and half of\nMrs. Baines's; the other half was accumulating for a hypothetical\nSophia, Mr. Critchlow being the trustee. The business continued to\nflourish. People knew that Samuel Povey was buying houses. Yet Samuel\nand Constance had not made friends; they had not, in the Five Towns\nphrase, 'branched out socially,' though they had very meetly branched\nout on subscription lists. They kept themselves to themselves\n(emphasizing the preposition). These guests were not their guests; they\nwere the guests of Cyril.\n\nHe had been named Samuel because Constance would have him named after\nhis father, and Cyril because his father secretly despised the name of\nSamuel; and he was called Cyril; 'Master Cyril,' by Amy, definite\nsuccessor to Maggie. His mother's thoughts were on Cyril as long as she\nwas awake. His father, when not planning Cyril's welfare, was earning\nmoney whose unique object could be nothing but Cyril's welfare. Cyril\nwas the pivot of the house; every desire ended somewhere in Cyril. The\nshop existed now solely for him. And those houses that Samuel bought by\nprivate treaty, or with a shamefaced air at auctions--somehow they were\naimed at Cyril. Samuel and Constance had ceased to be self-justifying\nbeings; they never thought of themselves save as the parents of Cyril.\n\nThey realized this by no means fully. Had they been accused of\nmonomania they would have smiled the smile of people confident in their\ncommonsense and their mental balance. Nevertheless, they were\nmonomaniacs. Instinctively they concealed the fact as much as possible;\nThey never admitted it even to themselves. Samuel, indeed, would often\nsay: \"That child is not everybody. That child must be kept in his\nplace.\" Constance was always teaching him consideration for his father\nas the most important person in the household. Samuel was always\nteaching him consideration for his mother as the most important person\nin the household. Nothing was left undone to convince him that he was a\ncipher, a nonentity, who ought to be very glad to be alive. But he knew\nall about his importance. He knew that the entire town was his. He knew\nthat his parents were deceiving themselves. Even when he was punished\nhe well knew that it was because he was so important. He never imparted\nany portion of this knowledge to his parents; a primeval wisdom\nprompted him to retain it strictly in his own bosom.\n\nHe was four and a half years old, dark, like his father; handsome like\nhis aunt, and tall for his age; not one of his features resembled a\nfeature of his mother's, but sometimes he 'had her look.' From the\ncapricious production of inarticulate sounds, and then a few\nmonosyllables that described concrete things and obvious desires, he\nhad gradually acquired an astonishing idiomatic command over the most\ndifficult of Teutonic languages; there was nothing that he could not\nsay. He could walk and run, was full of exact knowledge about God, and\nentertained no doubt concerning the special partiality of a minor deity\ncalled Jesus towards himself.\n\nNow, this party was his mother's invention and scheme. His father,\nafter flouting it, had said that if it was to be done at all, it should\nbe done well, and had brought to the doing all his organizing skill.\nCyril had accepted it at first--merely accepted it; but, as the day\napproached and the preparations increased in magnitude, he had come to\nlook on it with favour, then with enthusiasm. His father having taken\nhim to Daniel Povey's opposite, to choose cakes, he had shown, by his\nsolemn and fastidious waverings, how seriously he regarded the affair.\n\nOf course it had to occur on a Thursday afternoon. The season was\nsummer, suitable for pale and fragile toilettes. And the eight children\nwho sat round Aunt Harriet's great table glittered like the sun. Not\nConstance's specially provided napkins could hide that wealth and\nprofusion of white lace and stitchery. Never in after-life are the\ngenteel children of the Five Towns so richly clad as at the age of four\nor five years. Weeks of labour, thousands of cubic feet of gas, whole\nnights stolen from repose, eyesight, and general health, will disappear\ninto the manufacture of a single frock that accidental jam may ruin in\nten seconds. Thus it was in those old days; and thus it is to-day.\nCyril's guests ranged in years from four to six; they were chiefly\nolder than their host; this was a pity, it impaired his importance; but\nup to four years a child's sense of propriety, even of common decency,\nis altogether too unreliable for a respectable party.\n\nRound about the outskirts of the table were the elders, ladies the\nmajority; they also in their best, for they had to meet each other.\nConstance displayed a new dress, of crimson silk; after having mourned\nfor her mother she had definitely abandoned the black which, by reason\nof her duties in the shop, she had constantly worn from the age of\nsixteen to within a few months of Cyril's birth; she never went into\nthe shop now, except casually, on brief visits of inspection. She was\nstill fat; the destroyer of her figure sat at the head of the table.\nSamuel kept close to her; he was the only male, until Mr. Critchlow\nastonishingly arrived; among the company Mr. Critchlow had a\ngrand-niece. Samuel, if not in his best, was certainly not in his\neveryday suit. With his large frilled shirt-front, and small black tie,\nand his little black beard and dark face over that, he looked very\nnervous and self-conscious. He had not the habit of entertaining. Nor\nhad Constance; but her benevolence ever bubbling up to the calm surface\nof her personality made self-consciousness impossible for her. Miss\nInsull was also present, in shop-black, 'to help.' Lastly there was\nAmy, now as the years passed slowly assuming the character of a\nfaithful retainer, though she was only twenty-three. An ugly, abrupt,\ndownright girl, with convenient notions of pleasure! For she would rise\nearly and retire late in order to contrive an hour to go out with\nMaster Cyril; and to be allowed to put Master Cyril to bed was, really,\nher highest bliss.\n\nAll these elders were continually inserting arms into the fringe of\nfluffy children that surrounded the heaped table; removing dangerous\nspoons out of cups into saucers, replacing plates, passing cakes,\nspreading jam, whispering consolations, explanations, and sage counsel.\nMr. Critchlow, snow-white now but unbent, remarked that there was 'a\npretty cackle,' and he sniffed. Although the window was slightly open,\nthe air was heavy with the natural human odour which young children\ntranspire. More than one mother, pressing her nose into a lacy mass, to\nwhisper, inhaled that pleasant perfume with a voluptuous thrill.\n\nCyril, while attending steadily to the demands of his body, was in a\nmood which approached the ideal. Proud and radiant, he combined\nurbanity with a certain fine condescension. His bright eyes, and his\nmanner of scraping up jam with a spoon, said: \"I am the king of this\nparty. This party is solely in my honour. I know that. We all know it.\nStill, I will pretend that we are equals, you and I.\" He talked about\nhis picture-books to a young woman on his right named Jennie, aged\nfour, pale, pretty, the belle in fact, and Mr. Critchlow's grand-niece.\nThe boy's attractiveness was indisputable; he could put on quite an\naristocratic air. It was the most delicious sight to see them, Cyril\nand Jennie, so soft and delicate, so infantile on their piles of\ncushions and books, with their white socks and black shoes dangling far\ndistant from the carpet; and yet so old, so self-contained! And they\nwere merely an epitome of the whole table. The whole table was bathed\nin the charm and mystery of young years, of helpless fragility, gentle\nforms, timid elegance, unshamed instincts, and waking souls. Constance\nand Samuel were very satisfied; full of praise for other people's\nchildren, but with the reserve that of course Cyril was hors concours.\nThey both really did believe, at that moment, that Cyril was, in some\nsubtle way which they felt but could not define, superior to all other\ninfants.\n\nSome one, some officious relative of a visitor, began to pass a certain\ncake which had brown walls, a roof of cocoa-nut icing, and a yellow\nbody studded with crimson globules. Not a conspicuously gorgeous cake,\nnot a cake to which a catholic child would be likely to attach\nparticular importance; a good, average cake! Who could have guessed\nthat it stood, in Cyril's esteem, as the cake of cakes? He had insisted\non his father buying it at Cousin Daniel's, and perhaps Samuel ought to\nhave divined that for Cyril that cake was the gleam that an ardent\nspirit would follow through the wilderness. Samuel, however, was not a\ncareful observer, and seriously lacked imagination. Constance knew only\nthat Cyril had mentioned the cake once or twice. Now by the hazard of\ndestiny that cake found much favour, helped into popularity as it was\nby the blundering officious relative who, not dreaming what volcano she\nwas treading on, urged its merits with simpering enthusiasm. One boy\ntook two slices, a slice in each hand; he happened to be the visitor of\nwhom the cake-distributor was a relative, and she protested; she\nexpressed the shock she suffered. Whereupon both Constance and Samuel\nsprang forward and swore with angelic smiles that nothing could be more\nperfect than the propriety of that dear little fellow taking two slices\nof that cake. It was this hullaballoo that drew Cyril's attention to\nthe evanescence of the cake of cakes. His face at once changed from\ncalm pride to a dreadful anxiety. His eyes bulged out. His tiny mouth\ngrew and grew, like a mouth in a nightmare. He was no longer human; he\nwas a cake-eating tiger being balked of his prey. Nobody noticed him.\nThe officious fool of a woman persuaded Jennie to take the last slice\nof the cake, which was quite a thin slice.\n\nThen every one simultaneously noticed Cyril, for he gave a yell. It was\nnot the cry of a despairing soul who sees his beautiful iridescent\ndream shattered at his feet; it was the cry of the strong, masterful\nspirit, furious. He turned upon Jennie, sobbing, and snatched at her\ncake. Unaccustomed to such behaviour from hosts, and being besides a\nhaughty put-you-in-your-place beauty of the future, Jennie defended her\ncake. After all, it was not she who had taken two slices at once. Cyril\nhit her in the eye, and then crammed most of the slice of cake into his\nenormous mouth. He could not swallow it, nor even masticate it, for his\nthroat was rigid and tight. So the cake projected from his red lips,\nand big tears watered it. The most awful mess you can conceive! Jennie\nwept loudly, and one or two others joined her in sympathy, but the rest\nwent on eating tranquilly, unmoved by the horror which transfixed their\nelders.\n\nA host to snatch food from a guest! A host to strike a guest! A\ngentleman to strike a lady!\n\nConstance whipped up Cyril from his chair and flew with him to his own\nroom (once Samuel's), where she smacked him on the arm and told him he\nwas a very, very naughty boy and that she didn't know what his father\nwould say. She took the food out of his disgusting mouth--or as much of\nit as she could get at--and then she left him, on the bed. Miss Jennie\nwas still in tears when, blushing scarlet and trying to smile,\nConstance returned to the drawing-room. Jennie would not be appeased.\nHappily Jennie's mother (being about to present Jennie with a little\nbrother--she hoped) was not present. Miss Insull had promised to see\nJennie home, and it was decided that she should go. Mr. Critchlow, in\nhigh sardonic spirits, said that he would go too; the three departed\ntogether, heavily charged with Constance's love and apologies. Then all\npretended, and said loudly, that what had happened was naught, that\nsuch things were always happening at children's parties. And visitors'\nrelatives asseverated that Cyril was a perfect darling and that really\nMrs. Povey must not ...\n\nBut the attempt to keep up appearance was a failure.\n\nThe Methuselah of visitors, a gaping girl of nearly eight years, walked\nacross the room to where Constance was standing, and said in a loud,\nconfidential, fatuous voice:\n\n\"Cyril HAS been a rude boy, hasn't he, Mrs. Povey?\"\n\nThe clumsiness of children is sometimes tragic.\n\nLater, there was a trickling stream of fluffy bundles down the crooked\nstairs and through the parlour and so out into King Street. And\nConstance received many compliments and sundry appeals that darling\nCyril should be forgiven.\n\n\"I thought you said that boy was in his bedroom,\" said Samuel to\nConstance, coming into the parlour when the last guest had gone. Each\navoided the other's eyes.\n\n\"Yes, isn't he?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"The little jockey!\" (\"Jockey,\" an essay in the playful, towards making\nlight of the jockey's sin!) \"I expect he's been in search of Amy.\"\n\nShe went to the top of the kitchen stairs and called out: \"Amy, is\nMaster Cyril down there?\"\n\n\"Master Cyril? No, mum. But he was in the parlour a bit ago, after the\nfirst and second lot had gone. I told him to go upstairs and be a good\nboy.\"\n\nNot for a few moments did the suspicion enter the minds of Samuel and\nConstance that Cyril might be missing, that the house might not contain\nCyril. But having once entered, the suspicion became a certainty. Amy,\ncross-examined, burst into sudden tears, admitting that the side-door\nmight have been open when, having sped 'the second lot,' she criminally\nleft Cyril alone in the parlour in order to descend for an instant to\nher kitchen. Dusk was gathering. Amy saw the defenceless innocent\nwandering about all night in the deserted streets of a great city. A\nsimilar vision with precise details of canals, tramcar-wheels, and\ncellar-flaps, disturbed Constance. Samuel said that anyhow he could not\nhave got far, that some one was bound to remark and recognize him, and\nrestore him. \"Yes, of course,\" thought sensible Constance. \"But\nsupposing--\"\n\nThey all three searched the entire house again. Then, in the\ndrawing-room (which was in a sad condition of anticlimax) Amy exclaimed:\n\n\"Eh, master! There's town-crier crossing the Square. Hadn't ye better\nhave him cried?\"\n\n\"Run out and stop him,\" Constance commanded.\n\nAnd Amy flew.\n\nSamuel and the aged town-crier parleyed at the side door, the women in\nthe background.\n\n\"I canna' cry him without my bell,\" drawled the crier, stroking his\nshabby uniform. \"My bell's at wum (home). I mun go and fetch my bell.\nYo' write it down on a bit o' paper for me so as I can read it, and\nI'll foot off for my bell. Folk wouldna' listen to me if I hadna'\ngotten my bell.\"\n\nThus was Cyril cried.\n\n\"Amy,\" said Constance, when she and the girl were alone, \"there's no\nuse in you standing blubbering there. Get to work and clear up that\ndrawing-room, do! The child is sure to be found soon. Your master's\ngone out, too.\"\n\nBrave words! Constance aided in the drawing-room and kitchen. Theirs\nwas the woman's lot in a great crisis. Plates have always to be washed.\n\nVery shortly afterwards, Samuel Povey came into the kitchen by the\nunderground passage which led past the two cellars to the yard and to\nBrougham Street. He was carrying in his arms an obscene black mass.\nThis mass was Cyril, once white.\n\nConstance screamed. She was at liberty to give way to her feelings,\nbecause Amy happened to be upstairs.\n\n\"Stand away!\" cried Mr. Povey. \"He isn't fit to touch.\"\n\nAnd Mr. Povey made as if to pass directly onward, ignoring the mother.\n\n\"Wherever did you find him?\"\n\n\"I found him in the far cellar,\" said Mr. Povey, compelled to stop,\nafter all. \"He was down there with me yesterday, and it just occurred\nto me that he might have gone there again.\"\n\n\"What! All in the dark?\"\n\n\"He'd lighted a candle, if you please! I'd left a candle-stick and a\nbox of matches handy because I hadn't finished that shelving.\"\n\n\"Well!\" Constance murmured. \"I can't think how ever he dared go there\nall alone!\"\n\n\"Can't you?\" said Mr. Povey, cynically. \"I can. He simply did it to\nfrighten us.\"\n\n\"Oh, Cyril!\" Constance admonished the child. \"Cyril!\"\n\nThe child showed no emotion. His face was an enigma. It might have\nhidden sullenness or mere callous indifference, or a perfect\nunconsciousness of sin.\n\n\"Give him to me,\" said Constance.\n\n\"I'll look after him this evening,\" said Samuel, grimly.\n\n\"But you can't wash him,\" said Constance, her relief yielding to\napprehension.\n\n\"Why not?\" demanded Mr. Povey. And he moved off.\n\n\"But Sam--\"\n\n\"I'll look after him, I tell you!\" Mr. Povey repeated, threateningly.\n\n\"But what are you going to do?\" Constance asked with fear.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Povey, \"has this sort of thing got to be dealt with,\nor hasn't it?\" He departed upstairs.\n\nConstance overtook him at the door of Cyril's bedroom.\n\nMr. Povey did not wait for her to speak. His eyes were blazing.\n\n\"See here!\" he admonished her cruelly. \"You get away downstairs,\nmother!\"\n\nAnd he disappeared into the bedroom with his vile and helpless victim.\n\nA moment later he popped his head out of the door. Constance was\ndisobeying him. He stepped into the passage and shut the door so that\nCyril should not hear.\n\n\"Now please do as I tell you,\" he hissed at his wife. \"Don't let's have\na scene, please.\"\n\nShe descended, slowly, weeping. And Mr. Povey retired again to the\nplace of execution.\n\nAmy nearly fell on the top of Constance with a final tray of things\nfrom the drawing-room. And Constance had to tell the girl that Cyril\nwas found. Somehow she could not resist the instinct to tell her also\nthat the master had the affair in hand. Amy then wept.\n\nAfter about an hour Mr. Povey at last reappeared. Constance was trying\nto count silver teaspoons in the parlour.\n\n\"He's in bed now,\" said Mr. Povey, with a magnificent attempt to be\nnonchalant. \"You mustn't go near him.\"\n\n\"But have you washed him?\" Constance whimpered.\n\n\"I've washed him,\" replied the astonishing Mr. Povey.\n\n\"What have you done to him?\"\n\n\"I've punished him, of course,\" said Mr. Povey, like a god who is above\nhuman weaknesses. \"What did you expect me to do? Someone had to do it.\"\n\nConstance wiped her eyes with the edge of the white apron which she was\nwearing over her new silk dress. She surrendered; she accepted the\nsituation; she made the best of it. And all the evening was spent in\ndismally and horribly pretending that their hearts were beating as one.\nMr. Povey's elaborate, cheery kindliness was extremely painful.\n\nThey went to bed, and in their bedroom Constance, as she stood close to\nSamuel, suddenly dropped the pretence, and with eyes and voice of\nanguish said:\n\n\"You must let me look at him.\"\n\nThey faced each other. For a brief instant Cyril did not exist for\nConstance. Samuel alone obsessed her, and yet Samuel seemed a strange,\nunknown man. It was in Constance's life one of those crises when the\nhuman soul seems to be on the very brink of mysterious and\ndisconcerting cognitions, and then, the wave recedes as inexplicably as\nit surged up.\n\n\"Why, of course!\" said Mr. Povey, turning away lightly, as though to\nimply that she was making tragedies out of nothing.\n\nShe gave an involuntary gesture of almost childish relief.\n\nCyril slept calmly. It was a triumph for Mr. Povey.\n\nConstance could not sleep. As she lay darkly awake by her husband, her\nsecret being seemed to be a-quiver with emotion. Not exactly sorrow;\nnot exactly joy; an emotion more elemental than these! A sensation of\nthe intensity of her life in that hour; troubling, anxious, yet not\nsad! She said that Samuel was quite right, quite right. And then she\nsaid that the poor little thing wasn't yet five years old, and that it\nwas monstrous. The two had to be reconciled. And they never could be\nreconciled. Always she would be between them, to reconcile them, and to\nbe crushed by their impact. Always she would have to bear the burden of\nboth of them. There could be no ease for her, no surcease from a\ntremendous preoccupation and responsibility. She could not change\nSamuel; besides, he was right! And though Cyril was not yet five, she\nfelt that she could not change Cyril either. He was just as\nunchangeable as a growing plant. The thought of her mother and Sophia\ndid not present itself to her; she felt, however, somewhat as Mrs.\nBaines had felt on historic occasions; but, being more softly kind,\nyounger, and less chafed by destiny, she was conscious of no\nbitterness, conscious rather of a solemn blessedness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nCRIME\n\nI\n\n\n\"Now, Master Cyril,\" Amy protested, \"will you leave that fire alone?\nIt's not you that can mend my fires.\"\n\nA boy of nine, great and heavy for his years, with a full face and very\nshort hair, bent over the smoking grate. It was about five minutes to\neight on a chilly morning after Easter. Amy, hastily clad in blue, with\na rough brown apron, was setting the breakfast table. The boy turned\nhis head, still bending.\n\n\"Shut up, Ame,\" he replied, smiling. Life being short, he usually\ncalled her Ame when they were alone together. \"Or I'll catch you one in\nthe eye with the poker.\"\n\n\"You ought to be ashamed of yourself,\" said Amy. \"And you know your\nmother told you to wash your feet this morning, and you haven't done.\nFine clothes is all very well, but--\"\n\n\"Who says I haven't washed my feet?\" asked Cyril, guiltily.\n\nAmy's mention of fine clothes referred to the fact that he was that\nmorning wearing his Sunday suit for the first time on a week-day.\n\n\"I say you haven't,\" said Amy.\n\nShe was more than three times his age still, but they had been treating\neach other as intellectual equals for years.\n\n\"And how do you know?\" asked Cyril, tired of the fire.\n\n\"I know,\" said Amy.\n\n\"Well, you just don't, then!\" said Cyril. \"And what about YOUR feet? I\nshould be sorry to see your feet, Ame.\"\n\nAmy was excusably annoyed. She tossed her head. \"My feet are as clean\nas yours any day,\" she said. \"And I shall tell your mother.\"\n\nBut he would not leave her feet alone, and there ensued one of those\nendless monotonous altercations on a single theme which occur so often\nbetween intellectual equals when one is a young son of the house and\nthe other an established servant who adores him. Refined minds would\nhave found the talk disgusting, but the sentiment of disgust seemed to\nbe unknown to either of the wranglers. At last, when Amy by superior\ntactics had cornered him, Cyril said suddenly:\n\n\"Oh, go to hell!\"\n\nAmy banged down the spoon for the bacon gravy. \"Now I shall tell your\nmother. Mark my words, this time I SHALL tell your mother.\"\n\nCyril felt that in truth he had gone rather far. He was perfectly sure\nthat Amy would not tell his mother. And yet, supposing that by some\nfreak of her nature she did! The consequences would be unutterable; the\nconsequences would more than extinguish his private glory in the use of\nsuch a dashing word. So he laughed, a rather silly, giggling laugh, to\nreassure himself.\n\n\"You daren't,\" he said.\n\n\"Daren't I?\" she said grimly. \"You'll see. _I_ don't know where you\nlearn! It fair beats me. But it isn't Amy Bates as is going to be sworn\nat. As soon as ever your mother comes into this room!\"\n\nThe door at the foot of the stairs creaked and Constance came into the\nroom. She was wearing a dress of majenta merino, and a gold chain\ndescended from her neck over her rich bosom. She had scarcely aged in\nfive years. It would have been surprising if she had altered much, for\nthe years had passed over her head at an incredible rate. To her it\nappeared only a few months since Cyril's first and last party.\n\n\"Are you all ready, my pet? Let me look at you.\" Constance greeted the\nboy with her usual bright, soft energy.\n\nCyril glanced at Amy, who averted her head, putting spoons into three\nsaucers.\n\n\"Yes, mother,\" he replied in a new voice.\n\n\"Did you do what I told you?\"\n\n\"Yes, mother,\" he said simply.\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\nAmy made a faint noise with her lips, and departed.\n\nHe was saved once more. He said to himself that never again would he\npermit his soul to be disturbed by any threat of old Ame's.\n\nConstance's hand descended into her pocket and drew out a hard paper\npacket, which she clapped on to her son's head.\n\n\"Oh, mother!\" He pretended that she had hurt him, and then he opened\nthe packet. It contained Congleton butterscotch, reputed a harmless\nsweetmeat.\n\n\"Good!\" he cried, \"good! Oh! Thanks, mother.\"\n\n\"Now don't begin eating them at once.\"\n\n\"Just one, mother.\"\n\n\"No! And how often have I told you to keep your feet off that fender.\nSee how it's bent. And it's nobody but you.\"\n\n\"Sorry.\"\n\n\"It's no use being sorry if you persist in doing it.\"\n\n\"Oh, mother, I had such a funny dream!\"\n\nThey chatted until Amy came up the stairs with tea and bacon. The fire\nhad developed from black to clear red.\n\n\"Run and tell father that breakfast is ready.\"\n\nAfter a little delay a spectacled man of fifty, short and stoutish,\nwith grey hair and a small beard half grey and half black, entered from\nthe shop. Samuel had certainly very much aged, especially in his\ngestures, which, however, were still quick. He sat down at once--his\nwife and son were already seated--and served the bacon with the rapid\nassurance of one who needs not to inquire about tastes and appetites.\nNot a word was said, except a brief grace by Samuel. But there was no\nrestraint. Samuel had a mild, benignant air. Constance's eyes were a\nfountain of cheerfulness. The boy sat between them and ate steadily.\n\nMysterious creature, this child, mysteriously growing and growing in\nthe house! To his mother he was a delicious joy at all times save when\nhe disobeyed his father. But now for quite a considerable period there\nhad been no serious collision. The boy seemed to be acquiring virtue as\nwell as sense. And really he was charming. So big, truly enormous\n(every one remarked on it), and yet graceful, lithe, with a smile that\ncould ravish. And he was distinguished in his bearing. Without\ndepreciating Samuel in her faithful heart, Constance saw plainly the\nsingular differences between Samuel and the boy. Save that he was dark,\nand that his father's 'dangerous look' came into those childish eyes\noccasionally, Cyril had now scarcely any obvious resemblance to his\nfather. He was a Baines. This naturally deepened Constance's family\npride. Yes, he was mysterious to Constance, though probably not more so\nthan any other boy to any other parent. He was equally mysterious to\nSamuel, but otherwise Mr. Povey had learned to regard him in the light\nof a parcel which he was always attempting to wrap up in a piece of\npaper imperceptibly too small. When he successfully covered the parcel\nat one corner it burst out at another, and this went on for ever, and\nhe could never get the string on. Nevertheless, Mr. Povey had unabated\nconfidence in his skill as a parcel-wrapper. The boy was strangely\nsubtle at times, but then at times he was astoundingly ingenuous, and\nthen his dodges would not deceive the dullest. Mr. Povey knew himself\nmore than a match for his son. He was proud of him because he regarded\nhim as not an ordinary boy; he took it as a matter of course that his\nboy should not be an ordinary boy. He never, or very rarely, praised\nCyril. Cyril thought of his father as a man who, in response to any\nrequest, always began by answering with a thoughtful, serious 'No, I'm\nafraid not.'\n\n\"So you haven't lost your appetite!\" his mother commented.\n\nCyril grinned. \"Did you expect me to, mother?\"\n\n\"Let me see,\" said Samuel, as if vaguely recalling an unimportant fact.\n\"It's to-day you begin to go to school, isn't it?\"\n\n\"I wish father wouldn't be such a chump!\" Cyril reflected. And,\nconsidering that this commencement of school (real school, not a girls'\nschool, as once) had been the chief topic in the house for days, weeks;\nconsidering that it now occupied and filled all hearts, Cyril's\nreflection was excusable.\n\n\"Now, there's one thing you must always remember, my boy,\" said Mr.\nPovey. \"Promptness. Never be late either in going to school or in\ncoming home. And in order that you may have no excuse\"--Mr. Povey\npressed on the word 'excuse' as though condemning Cyril in\nadvance--\"here's something for you!\" He said the last words quickly,\nwith a sort of modest shame.\n\nIt was a silver watch and chain.\n\nCyril was staggered. So also was Constance, for Mr. Povey could keep\nhis own counsel. At long intervals he would prove, thus, that he was a\nmighty soul, capable of sublime deeds. The watch was the unique\nflowering of Mr. Povey's profound but harsh affection. It lay on the\ntable like a miracle. This day was a great day, a supremely exciting\nday in Cyril's history, and not less so in the history of his parents.\n\nThe watch killed its owner's appetite dead.\n\nRoutine was ignored that morning. Father did not go back into the shop.\nAt length the moment came when father put on his hat and overcoat to\ntake Cyril, and Cyril's watch and satchel, to the Endowed School, which\nhad quarters in the Wedgwood Institution close by. A solemn departure,\nand Cyril could not pretend by his demeanour that it was not! Constance\ndesired to kiss him, but refrained. He would not have liked it. She\nwatched them from the window. Cyril was nearly as tall as his father;\nthat is to say, not nearly as tall, but creeping up his father's\nshoulder. She felt that the eyes of the town must be on the pair. She\nwas very happy, and nervous.\n\nAt dinner-time a triumph seemed probable, and at tea-time, when Cyril\ncame home under a mortar-board hat and with a satchel full of new books\nand a head full of new ideas, the triumph was actually and definitely\nachieved. He had been put into the third form, and he announced that he\nshould soon be at the top of it. He was enchanted with the life of\nschool; he liked the other boys, and it appeared that the other boys\nliked him. The fact was that, with a new silver watch and a packet of\nsweets, he had begun his new career in the most advantageous\ncircumstances. Moreover, he possessed qualities which ensure success at\nschool. He was big, and easy, with a captivating smile and a marked\naptitude to learn those things which boys insist on teaching to their\nnew comrades. He had muscle, a brave demeanour, and no conceit.\n\nDuring tea the parlour began, to accustom itself to a new vocabulary,\ncontaining such words as 'fellows,' 'kept in,'m' lines,' 'rot,'\n'recess,' 'jolly.' To some of these words the parents, especially Mr.\nPovey, had an instinct to object, but they could not object, somehow\nthey did not seem to get an opportunity to object; they were carried\naway on the torrent, and after all, their excitement and pleasure in\nthe exceeding romantic novelty of existence were just as intense and\nnearly as ingenuous as their son's.\n\nHe demonstrated that unless he was allowed to stay up later than\naforetime he would not be able to do his home-work, and hence would not\nkeep that place in the school to which his talents entitled him. Mr.\nPovey suggested, but only with half a heart, that he should get up\nearlier in the morning. The proposal fell flat. Everybody knew and\nadmitted that nothing save the scorpions of absolute necessity, or a\ntremendous occasion such as that particular morning's, would drive\nCyril from his bed until the smell of bacon rose to him from the\nkitchen. The parlour table was consecrated to his lessons. It became\ngenerally known that 'Cyril was doing his lessons.' His father scanned\nthe new text-books while Cyril condescendingly explained to him that\nall others were superseded and worthless. His father contrived to\nmaintain an air of preserving his mental equilibrium, but not his\nmother; she gave it up, she who till that day had under his father's\ndirection taught him nearly all that he knew, and Cyril passed above\nher into regions of knowledge where she made no pretence of being able\nto follow him.\n\nWhen the lessons were done, and Cyril had wiped his fingers on bits of\nblotting-paper, and his father had expressed qualified approval and had\ngone into the shop, Cyril said to his mother, with that delicious\nhesitation which overtook him sometimes:\n\n\"Mother.\"\n\n\"Well, my pet.\"\n\n\"I want you to do something for me.\"\n\n\"Well, what is it?\"\n\n\"No, you must promise.\"\n\n\"I'll do it if I can.\"\n\n\"But you CAN. It isn't doing. It's NOT doing.\"\n\n\"Come, Cyril, out with it.\"\n\n\"I don't want you to come in and look at me after I'm asleep any more.\"\n\n\"But, you silly boy, what difference can it make to you if you're\nasleep?\"\n\n\"I don't want you to. It's like as if I was a baby. You'll have to stop\ndoing it some day, and so you may as well stop now.\"\n\nIt was thus that he meant to turn his back on his youth.\n\nShe smiled. She was incomprehensibly happy. She continued to smile.\n\n\"Now you'll promise, won't you, mother?\"\n\nShe rapped him on the head with her thimble, lovingly. He took the\ngesture for consent.\n\n\"You are a baby,\" she murmured.\n\n\"Now I shall trust you,\" he said, ignoring this. \"Say 'honour bright.'\"\n\n\"Honour bright.\"\n\nWith what a long caress her eyes followed him, as he went up to bed on\nhis great sturdy legs! She was thankful that school had not\ncontaminated her adorable innocent. If she could have been Ame for\ntwenty-four hours, she perhaps would not have hesitated to put butter\ninto his mouth lest it should melt.\n\nMr. Povey and Constance talked late and low that night. They could\nneither of them sleep; they had little desire to sleep. Constance's\nface said to her husband: \"I've always stuck up for that boy, in spite\nof your severities, and you see how right I was!\" And Mr. Povey's face\nsaid: \"You see now the brilliant success of my system. You see how my\neducational theories have justified themselves. Never been to a school\nbefore, except that wretched little dame's school, and he goes\npractically straight to the top of the third form--at nine years of\nage!\" They discussed his future. There could be no sign of lunacy in\ndiscussing his future up to a certain point, but each felt that to\ndiscuss the ultimate career of a child nine years old would not be the\nact of a sensible parent; only foolish parents would be so fond. Yet\neach was dying to discuss his ultimate career. Constance yielded first\nto the temptation, as became her. Mr. Povey scoffed, and then, to\nhumour Constance, yielded also. The matter was soon fairly on the\ncarpet. Constance was relieved to find that Mr. Povey had no thought\nwhatever of putting Cyril in the shop. No; Mr. Povey did not desire to\nchop wood with a razor. Their son must and would ascend. Doctor!\nSolicitor! Barrister! Not barrister--barrister was fantastic. When they\nhad argued for about half an hour Mr. Povey intimated suddenly that the\nconversation was unworthy of their practical commonsense, and went to\nsleep.\n\nII\n\nNobody really thought that this almost ideal condition of things would\npersist: an enterprise commenced in such glory must surely traverse\nperiods of difficulty and even of temporary disaster. But no! Cyril\nseemed to be made specially for school. Before Mr. Povey and Constance\nhad quite accustomed themselves to being the parents of 'a great lad,'\nbefore Cyril had broken the glass of his miraculous watch more than\nonce, the summer term had come to an end and there arrived the\nexcitations of the prize-giving, as it was called; for at that epoch\nthe smaller schools had not found the effrontery to dub the breaking-up\nceremony a 'speech-day.' This prize-giving furnished a particular joy\nto Mr. and Mrs. Povey. Although the prizes were notoriously few in\nnumber--partly to add to their significance, and partly to diminish\ntheir cost (the foundation was poor)--Cyril won a prize, a box of\ngeometrical instruments of precision; also he reached the top of his\nform, and was marked for promotion to the formidable Fourth. Samuel and\nConstance were bidden to the large hall of the Wedgwood Institution of\na summer afternoon, and they saw the whole Board of Governors raised on\na rostrum, and in the middle, in front of what he referred to, in his\naristocratic London accent, as 'a beggarly array of rewards,' the aged\nand celebrated Sir Thomas Wilbraham Wilbraham, ex-M.P., last\nrespectable member of his ancient line. And Sir Thomas gave the box of\ninstruments to Cyril, and shook hands with him. And everybody was very\nwell dressed. Samuel, who had never attended anything but a National\nSchool, recalled the simple rigours of his own boyhood, and swelled.\nFor certainly, of all the parents present, he was among the richest.\nWhen, in the informal promiscuities which followed the prize\ndistribution, Cyril joined his father and mother, sheepishly, they duly\ndid their best to make light of his achievements, and failed. The walls\nof the hall were covered with specimens of the pupils' skill, and the\nheadmaster was observed to direct the attention of the mighty to a map\ndone by Cyril. Of course it was a map of Ireland, Ireland being the map\nchosen by every map-drawing schoolboy who is free to choose. For a\nthird-form boy it was considered a masterpiece. In the shading of\nmountains Cyril was already a prodigy. Never, it was said, had the\nMacgillycuddy Reeks been indicated by a member of that school with a\nmore amazing subtle refinement than by the young Povey. From a proper\npride in themselves, from a proper fear lest they should be secretly\naccused of ostentation by other parents, Samuel and Constance did not\ngo near that map. For the rest, they had lived with it for weeks, and\nSamuel (who, after all, was determined not to be dirt under his son's\nfeet) had scratched a blot from it with a completeness that defied\ninquisitive examination.\n\nThe fame of this map, added to the box of compasses and Cyril's own\ndesire, pointed to an artistic career. Cyril had always drawn and\ndaubed, and the drawing-master of the Endowed School, who was also\nheadmaster of the Art School, had suggested that the youth should\nattend the Art School one night a week. Samuel, however, would not\nlisten to the idea; Cyril was too young. It is true that Cyril was too\nyoung, but Samuel's real objection was to Cyril's going out alone in\nthe evening. On that he was adamant.\n\nThe Governors had recently made the discovery that a sports department\nwas necessary to a good school, and had rented a field for cricket,\nfootball, and rounders up at Bleakridge, an innovation which\ndemonstrated that the town was moving with the rapid times. In June\nthis field was open after school hours till eight p.m. as well as on\nSaturdays. The Squire learnt that Cyril had a talent for cricket, and\nCyril wished to practise in the evenings, and was quite ready to bind\nhimself with Bible oaths to rise at no matter what hour in the morning\nfor the purpose of home lessons. He scarcely expected his father to say\n'Yes' as his father never did say 'Yes,' but he was obliged to ask.\nSamuel nonplussed him by replying that on fine evenings, when he could\nspare time from the shop, he would go up to Bleakridge with his son.\nCyril did not like this in the least. Still, it might be tried. One\nevening they went, actually, in the new steam-car which had superseded\nthe old horse-cars, and which travelled all the way to Longshaw, a\nplace that Cyril had only heard of. Samuel talked of the games played\nin the Five Towns in his day, of the Titanic sport of prison-bars, when\nthe team of one 'bank' went forth to the challenge of another 'bank,'\npreceded by a drum-and-fife band, and when, in the heat of the chase, a\nman might jump into the canal to escape his pursuer; Samuel had never\nplayed at cricket.\n\nSamuel, with a very young grandson of Fan (deceased), sat in dignity on\nthe grass and watched his cricketer for an hour and a half (while\nConstance kept an eye on the shop and superintended its closing).\nSamuel then conducted Cyril home again. Two days later the father of\nhis own accord offered to repeat the experience. Cyril refused.\nDisagreeable insinuations that he was a baby in arms had been made at\nschool in the meantime.\n\nNevertheless, in other directions Cyril sometimes surprisingly\nconquered. For instance, he came home one day with the information that\na dog that was not a bull-terrier was not worth calling a dog. Fan's\ngrandson had been carried off in earliest prime by a chicken-bone that\nhad pierced his vitals, and Cyril did indeed persuade his father to buy\na bull-terrier. The animal was a superlative of forbidding ugliness,\nbut father and son vied with each other in stern critical praise of his\nsurpassing beauty, and Constance, from good nature, joined in the\npretence. He was called Lion, and the shop, after one or two untoward\nepisodes, was absolutely closed to him.\n\nBut the most striking of Cyril's successes had to do with the question\nof the annual holiday. He spoke of the sea soon after becoming a\nschoolboy. It appeared that his complete ignorance of the sea\nprejudicially affected him at school. Further, he had always loved the\nsea; he had drawn hundreds of three-masted ships with studding-sails\nset, and knew the difference between a brig and a brigantine. When he\nfirst said: \"I say, mother, why can't we go to Llandudno instead of\nBuxton this year?\" his mother thought he was out of his senses. For the\nidea of going to any place other than Buxton was inconceivable! Had\nthey not always been to Buxton? What would their landlady say? How\ncould they ever look her in the face again? Besides ... well...! They\nwent to Llandudno, rather scared, and hardly knowing how the change had\ncome about. But they went. And it was the force of Cyril's will, Cyril\nthe theoretic cypher, that took them.\n\nIII\n\nThe removal of the Endowed School to more commodious premises in the\nshape of Shawport Hall, an ancient mansion with fifty rooms and five\nacres of land round about it, was not a change that quite pleased\nSamuel or Constance. They admitted the hygienic advantages, but\nShawport Hall was three-quarters of a mile distant from St. Luke's\nSquare--in the hollow that separates Bursley from its suburb of\nHillport; whereas the Wedgwood Institution was scarcely a minute away.\nIt was as if Cyril, when he set off to Shawport Hall of a morning,\npassed out of their sphere of influence. He was leagues off, doing they\nknew not what. Further, his dinner-hour was cut short by the extra time\nneeded for the journey to and fro, and he arrived late for tea; it may\nbe said that he often arrived very late for tea; the whole machinery of\nthe meal was disturbed. These matters seemed to Samuel and Constance to\nbe of tremendous import, seemed to threaten the very foundations of\nexistence. Then they grew accustomed to the new order, and wondered\nsometimes, when they passed the Wedgwood Institution and the\ninsalubrious Cock Yard--once sole playground of the boys--that the\nschool could ever have 'managed' in the narrow quarters once allotted\nto it.\n\nCyril, though constantly successful at school, a rising man, an\ninfallible bringer-home of excellent reports, and a regular taker of\nprizes, became gradually less satisfactory in the house. He was 'kept\nin' occasionally, and although his father pretended to hold that to be\nkept in was to slur the honour of a spotless family, Cyril continued to\nbe kept in; a hardened sinner, lost to shame. But this was not the\nworst. The worst undoubtedly was that Cyril was 'getting rough.' No\ndefinite accusation could be laid against him; the offence was general,\nvague, everlasting; it was in all he did and said, in every gesture and\nmovement. He shouted, whistled, sang, stamped, stumbled, lunged. He\nomitted such empty rites as saying 'Yes' or 'Please,' and wiping his\nnose. He replied gruffly and nonchalantly to polite questions, or he\ndidn't reply until the questions were repeated, and even then with a\n'lost' air that was not genuine. His shoelaces were a sad sight, and\nhis finger-nails no sight at all for a decent woman; his hair was as\nrough as his conduct; hardly at the pistol's point could he be forced\nto put oil on it. In brief, he was no longer the nice boy that he used\nto be. He had unmistakably deteriorated. Grievous! But what can you\nexpect when YOUR boy is obliged, month after month and year after year,\nto associate with other boys? After all, he was a GOOD boy, said\nConstance, often to herself and now and then to Samuel. For Constance,\nhis charm was eternally renewed. His smile, his frequent ingenuousness,\nhis funny self-conscious gesture when he wanted to 'get round'\nher--these characteristics remained; and his pure heart remained; she\ncould read that in his eyes. Samuel was inimical to his tastes for\nsports and his triumphs therein. But Constance had pride in all that.\nShe liked to feel him and to gaze at him, and to smell that faint,\nuncleanly odour of sweat that hung in his clothes.\n\nIn this condition he reached the advanced age of thirteen. And his\nparents, who despite their notion of themselves as wide-awake parents\nwere a simple pair, never suspected that his heart, conceived to be\nstill pure, had become a crawling, horrible mass of corruption.\n\nOne day the head-master called at the shop. Now, to see a head-master\nwalking about the town during school-hours is a startling spectacle,\nand is apt to give you the same uncanny sensation as when, alone in a\nroom, you think you see something move which ought not to move. Mr.\nPovey was startled. Mr. Povey had a thumping within his breast as he\nrubbed his hands and drew the head-master to the private corner where\nhis desk was. \"What can I do for you to-day?\" he almost said to the\nhead-master. But he did not say it. The boot was emphatically not on\nthat leg. The head-master talked to Mr. Povey, in tones carefully low,\nfor about a quarter of an hour, and then he closed the interview. Mr.\nPovey escorted him across the shop, and the head-master said with\nordinary loudness: \"Of course it's nothing. But my experience is that\nit's just as well to be on the safe side, and I thought I'd tell you.\nForewarned is forearmed. I have other parents to see.\" They shook hands\nat the door. Then Mr. Povey stepped out on to the pavement and, in\nfront of the whole Square, detained an unwilling head-master for quite\nanother minute.\n\nHis face was deeply flushed as he returned into the shop. The\nassistants bent closer over their work. He did not instantly rush into\nthe parlour and communicate with Constance. He had dropped into a way\nof conducting many operations by his own unaided brain. His confidence\nin his skill had increased with years. Further, at the back of his\nmind, there had established itself a vision of Mr. Povey as the seat of\ngovernment and of Constance and Cyril as a sort of permanent\nopposition. He would not have admitted that he saw such a vision, for\nhe was utterly loyal to his wife; but it was there. This unconfessed\nvision was one of several causes which had contributed to intensify his\ninherent tendency towards Machiavellianism and secretiveness. He said\nnothing to Constance, nothing to Cyril; but, happening to encounter Amy\nin the showroom, he was inspired to interrogate her sharply. The result\nwas that they descended to the cellar together, Amy weeping. Amy was\ncommanded to hold her tongue. And as she went in mortal fear of Mr.\nPovey she did hold her tongue.\n\nNothing occurred for several days. And then one morning--it was\nConstance's birthday: children are nearly always horribly unlucky in\ntheir choice of days for sin--Mr. Povey, having executed mysterious\nmovements in the shop after Cyril's departure to school, jammed his hat\non his head and ran forth in pursuit of Cyril, whom he intercepted with\ntwo other boys, at the corner of Oldcastle Street and Acre Passage.\n\nCyril stood as if turned into salt. \"Come back home!\" said Mr. Povey,\ngrimly; and for the sake of the other boys: \"Please.\"\n\n\"But I shall be late for school, father,\" Cyril weakly urged.\n\n\"Never mind.\"\n\nThey passed through the shop together, causing a terrific concealed\nemotion, and then they did violence to Constance by appearing in the\nparlour. Constance was engaged in cutting straws and ribbons to make a\nstraw-frame for a water-colour drawing of a moss-rose which her\npure-hearted son had given her as a birthday present.\n\n\"Why--what--?\" she exclaimed. She said no more at the moment because\nshe was sure, from the faces of her men, that the time was big with\nfearful events.\n\n\"Take your satchel off,\" Mr. Povey ordered coldly. \"And your\nmortar-board,\" he added with a peculiar intonation, as if glad thus to\nprove that Cyril was one of those rude boys who have to be told to take\ntheir hats off in a room.\n\n\"Whatever's amiss?\" Constance murmured under her breath, as Cyril\nobeyed the command. \"Whatever's amiss?\"\n\nMr. Povey made no immediate answer. He was in charge of these\nproceedings, and was very anxious to conduct them with dignity and with\ncomplete effectiveness. Little fat man over fifty, with a wizened face,\ngrey-haired and grey-bearded, he was as nervous as a youth. His heart\nbeat furiously. And Constance, the portly matron who would never see\nforty again, was just as nervous as a girl. Cyril had gone very white.\nAll three felt physically sick.\n\n\"What money have you got in your pockets?\" Mr. Povey demanded, as a\ncommencement.\n\nCyril, who had had no opportunity to prepare his case, offered no reply.\n\n\"You heard what I said,\" Mr. Povey thundered.\n\n\"I've got three-halfpence,\" Cyril murmured glumly, looking down at the\nfloor. His lower lip seemed to hang precariously away from his gums.\n\n\"Where did you get that from?\"\n\n\"It's part of what mother gave me,\" said the boy.\n\n\"I did give him a threepenny bit last week,\" Constance put in guiltily.\n\"It was a long time since he had had any money.\"\n\n\"If you gave it him, that's enough,\" said Mr. Povey, quickly, and to\nthe boy: \"That's all you've got?\"\n\n\"Yes, father,\" said the boy.\n\n\"You're sure?\"\n\n\"Yes, father.\"\n\nCyril was playing a hazardous game for the highest stakes, and under\ngrave disadvantages; and he acted for the best. He guarded his own\ninterests as well as he could.\n\nMr. Povey found himself obliged to take a serious risk. \"Empty your\npockets, then.\"\n\nCyril, perceiving that he had lost that particular game, emptied his\npockets.\n\n\"Cyril,\" said Constance, \"how often have I told you to change your\nhandkerchiefs oftener! Just look at this!\"\n\nAstonishing creature! She was in the seventh hell of sick apprehension,\nand yet she said that!\n\nAfter the handkerchief emerged the common schoolboy stock of articles\nuseful and magic, and then, last, a silver florin!\n\nMr. Povey felt relief.\n\n\"Oh, Cyril!\" whimpered Constance.\n\n\"Give it your mother,\" said Mr. Povey.\n\nThe boy stepped forward awkwardly, and Constance, weeping, took the\ncoin.\n\n\"Please look at it, mother,\" said Mr. Povey. \"And tell me if there's a\ncross marked on it.\"\n\nConstance's tears blurred the coin. She had to wipe her eyes.\n\n\"Yes,\" she whispered faintly. \"There's something on it.\"\n\n\"I thought so,\" said Mr. Povey. \"Where did you steal it from?\" he\ndemanded.\n\n\"Out of the till,\" answered Cyril.\n\n\"Have you ever stolen anything out of the till before?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Yes, what.\"\n\n\"Yes, father.\"\n\n\"Take your hands out of your pockets and stand up straight, if you can.\nHow often?\"\n\n\"I--I don't know, father.\"\n\n\"I blame myself,\" said Mr. Povey, frankly. \"I blame myself. The till\nought always to be locked. All tills ought always to be locked. But we\nfelt we could trust the assistants. If anybody had told me that I ought\nnot to trust you, if anybody had told me that my own son would be the\nthief, I should have--well, I don't know what I should have said!\"\n\nMr. Povey was quite justified in blaming himself. The fact was that the\nfunctioning of that till was a patriarchal survival, which he ought to\nhave revolutionized, but which it had never occurred to him to\nrevolutionize, so accustomed to it was he. In the time of John Baines,\nthe till, with its three bowls, two for silver and one for copper (gold\nhad never been put into it), was invariably unlocked. The person in\ncharge of the shop took change from it for the assistants, or\ntemporarily authorized an assistant to do so. Gold was kept in a small\nlinen bag in a locked drawer of the desk. The contents of the till were\nnever checked by any system of book-keeping, as there was no system of\nbook-keeping; when all transactions, whether in payment or receipt, are\nin cash--the Baineses never owed a penny save the quarterly wholesale\naccounts, which were discharged instantly to the travellers--a system\nof book-keeping is not indispensable. The till was situate immediately\nat the entrance to the shop from the house; it was in the darkest part\nof the shop, and the unfortunate Cyril had to pass it every day on his\nway to school. The thing was a perfect device for the manufacture of\nyoung criminals.\n\n\"And how have you been spending this money?\" Mr. Povey inquired.\n\nCyril's hands slipped into his pockets again. Then, noticing the lapse,\nhe dragged them out.\n\n\"Sweets,\" said he.\n\n\"Anything else?\"\n\n\"Sweets and things.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Povey. \"Well, now you can go down into the cinder-cellar\nand bring up here all the things there are in that little box in the\ncorner. Off you go!\"\n\nAnd off went Cyril. He had to swagger through the kitchen.\n\n\"What did I tell you, Master Cyril?\" Amy unwisely asked of him. \"You've\ncopped it finely this time.\"\n\n'Copped' was a word which she had learned from Cyril.\n\n\"Go on, you old bitch!\" Cyril growled.\n\nAs he returned from the cellar, Amy said angrily:\n\n\"I told you I should tell your father the next time you called me that,\nand I shall. You mark my words.\"\n\n\"Cant! cant!\" he retorted. \"Do you think I don't know who's been\ncanting? Cant! cant!\"\n\nUpstairs in the parlour Samuel was explaining the matter to his wife.\nThere had been a perfect epidemic of smoking in the school. The\nhead-master had discovered it and, he hoped, stamped it out. What had\ndisturbed the head-master far more than the smoking was the fact that a\nfew boys had been found to possess somewhat costly pipes,\ncigar-holders, or cigarette-holders. The head-master, wily, had not\nconfiscated these articles; he had merely informed the parents\nconcerned. In his opinion the articles came from one single source, a\ngenerous thief; he left the parents to ascertain which of them had\nbrought a thief into the world.\n\nFurther information Mr. Povey had culled from Amy, and there could\nremain no doubt that Cyril had been providing his chums with the\nutensils of smoking, the till supplying the means. He had told Amy that\nthe things which he secreted in the cellar had been presented to him by\nblood-brothers. But Mr. Povey did not believe that. Anyhow, he had\nmarked every silver coin in the till for three nights, and had watched\nthe till in the mornings from behind the merino-pile; and the florin on\nthe parlour-table spoke of his success as a detective.\n\nConstance felt guilty on behalf of Cyril. As Mr. Povey outlined his\ncase she could not free herself from an entirely irrational sensation\nof sin; at any rate of special responsibility. Cyril seemed to be her\nboy and not Samuel's boy at all. She avoided her husband's glance. This\nwas very odd.\n\nThen Cyril returned, and his parents composed their faces and he\ndeposited, next to the florin, a sham meerschaum pipe in a case, a\ntobacco-pouch, a cigar of which one end had been charred but the other\nnot cut, and a half-empty packet of cigarettes without a label.\n\nNothing could be hid from Mr. Povey. The details were distressing.\n\n\"So Cyril is a liar and a thief, to say nothing of this smoking!\" Mr.\nPovey concluded.\n\nHe spoke as if Cyril had invented strange and monstrous sins. But deep\ndown in his heart a little voice was telling him, as regards the\nsmoking, that HE had set the example. Mr. Baines had never smoked. Mr.\nCritchlow never smoked. Only men like Daniel smoked.\n\nThus far Mr. Povey had conducted the proceedings to his own\nsatisfaction. He had proved the crime. He had made Cyril confess. The\nwhole affair lay revealed. Well--what next? Cyril ought to have\ndissolved in repentance; something dramatic ought to have occurred. But\nCyril simply stood with hanging, sulky head, and gave no sign of proper\nfeeling.\n\nMr. Povey considered that, until something did happen, he must improve\nthe occasion.\n\n\"Here we have trade getting worse every day,\" said he (it was true),\n\"and you are robbing your parents to make a beast of yourself, and\ncorrupting your companions! I wonder your mother never smelt you!\"\n\n\"I never dreamt of such a thing!\" said Constance, grievously.\n\nBesides, a young man clever enough to rob a till is usually clever\nenough to find out that the secret of safety in smoking is to use\ncachous and not to keep the stuff in your pockets a minute longer than\nyou can help.\n\n\"There's no knowing how much money you have stolen,\" said Mr. Povey. \"A\nthief!\"\n\nIf Cyril had stolen cakes, jam, string, cigars, Mr. Povey would never\nhave said 'thief' as he did say it. But money! Money was different. And\na till was not a cupboard or a larder. A till was a till. Cyril had\nstruck at the very basis of society.\n\n\"And on your mother's birthday!\" Mr. Povey said further.\n\n\"There's one thing I can do!\" he said. \"I can burn all this. Built on\nlies! How dared you?\"\n\nAnd he pitched into the fire--not the apparatus of crime, but the\nwater-colour drawing of a moss-rose and the straws and the blue ribbon\nfor bows at the corners.\n\n\"How dared you?\" he repeated.\n\n\"You never gave me any money,\" Cyril muttered.\n\nHe thought the marking of coins a mean trick, and the dragging-in of\nbad trade and his mother's birthday roused a familiar devil that\nusually slept quietly in his breast.\n\n\"What's that you say?\" Mr. Povey almost shouted.\n\n\"You never gave me any money,\" the devil repeated in a louder tone than\nCyril had employed.\n\n(It was true. But Cyril 'had only to ask' and he would have received\nall that was good for him.)\n\nMr. Povey sprang up. Mr. Povey also had a devil. The two devils gazed\nat each other for an instant; and then, noticing that Cyril's head was\nabove Mr. Povey's, the elder devil controlled itself. Mr. Povey had\nsuddenly had as much drama as he wanted.\n\n\"Get away to bed!\" said he with dignity.\n\nCyril went, defiantly.\n\n\"He's to have nothing but bread and water, mother,\" Mr. Povey finished.\nHe was, on the whole, pleased with himself.\n\nLater in the day Constance reported, tearfully, that she had been up to\nCyril and that Cyril had wept. Which was to Cyril's credit. But all\nfelt that life could never be the same again. During the remainder of\nexistence this unspeakable horror would lift its obscene form between\nthem. Constance had never been so unhappy. Occasionally, when by\nherself, she would rebel for a brief moment, as one rebels in secret\nagainst a mummery which one is obliged to treat seriously. \"After all,\"\nshe would whisper, \"suppose he HAS taken a few shillings out of the\ntill! What then? What does it matter?\" But these moods of moral\ninsurrection against society and Mr. Povey were very transitory. They\nwere come and gone in a flash.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nANOTHER CRIME\n\nI\n\n\nOne night--it was late in the afternoon of the same year, about six\nmonths after the tragedy of the florin--Samuel Povey was wakened up by\na hand on his shoulder and a voice that whispered: \"Father!\"\n\nThe thief and the liar was standing in his night-shirt by the bed.\nSamuel's sleepy eyes could just descry him in the thick gloom.\n\n\"What--what?\" questioned the father, gradually coming to consciousness.\n\"What are you doing there?\"\n\n\"I didn't want to wake mother up,\" the boy whispered. \"There's someone\nbeen throwing dirt or something at our windows, and has been for a long\ntime.\"\n\n\"Eh, what?\"\n\nSamuel stared at the dim form of the thief and liar. The boy was tall,\nnot in the least like a little boy; and yet, then, he seemed to his\nfather as quite a little boy, a little 'thing' in a night-shirt, with\nchildish gestures and childish inflections, and a childish, delicious,\nquaint anxiety not to disturb his mother, who had lately been deprived\nof sleep owing to an illness of Amy's which had demanded nursing. His\nfather had not so perceived him for years. In that instant the\nconviction that Cyril was permanently unfit for human society finally\nexpired in the father's mind. Time had already weakened it very\nconsiderably. The decision that, be Cyril what he might, the summer\nholiday must be taken as usual, had dealt it a fearful blow. And yet,\nthough Samuel and Constance had grown so accustomed to the\ncompanionship of a criminal that they frequently lost memory of his\nguilt for long periods, nevertheless the convention of his leprosy had\nmore or less persisted with Samuel until that moment: when it vanished\nwith strange suddenness, to Samuel's conscious relief.\n\nThere was a rain of pellets on the window.\n\n\"Hear that?\" demanded Cyril, whispering dramatically. \"And it's been\nlike that on my window too.\"\n\nSamuel arose. \"Go back to your room!\" he ordered in the same dramatic\nwhisper; but not as father to son--rather as conspirator to conspirator.\n\nConstance slept. They could hear her regular breathing.\n\nBarefooted, the elderly gowned figure followed the younger, and one\nafter the other they creaked down the two steps which separated Cyril's\nroom from his parents'.\n\n\"Shut the door quietly!\" said Samuel.\n\nCyril obeyed.\n\nAnd then, having lighted Cyril's gas, Samuel drew the blind, unfastened\nthe catch of the window, and began to open it with many precautions of\nsilence. All the sashes in that house were difficult to manage. Cyril\nstood close to his father, shivering without knowing that he shivered,\nastonished only that his father had not told him to get back into bed\nat once. It was, beyond doubt, the proudest hour of Cyril's career. In\naddition to the mysterious circumstances of the night, there was in the\nsituation that thrill which always communicates itself to a father and\nson when they are afoot together upon an enterprise unsuspected by the\nwoman from whom their lives have no secrets.\n\nSamuel put his head out of the window.\n\nA man was standing there.\n\n\"That you, Samuel?\" The voice came low.\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Samuel, cautiously. \"It's not Cousin Daniel, is it?\"\n\n\"I want ye,\" said Daniel Povey, curtly.\n\nSamuel paused. \"I'll be down in a minute,\" he said.\n\nCyril at length received the command to get back into bed at once.\n\n\"Whatever's up, father?\" he asked joyously.\n\n\"I don't know. I must put some things on and go and see.\"\n\nHe shut down the window on all the breezes that were pouring into the\nroom.\n\n\"Now quick, before I turn the gas out!\" he admonished, his hand on the\ngas-tap.\n\n\"You'll tell me in the morning, won't you, father?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Povey, conquering his habitual impulse to say 'No.'\n\nHe crept back to the large bedroom to grope for clothes.\n\nWhen, having descended to the parlour and lighted the gas there, he\nopened the side-door, expecting to let Cousin Daniel in, there was no\nsign of Cousin Daniel. Presently he saw a figure standing at the corner\nof the Square. He whistled--Samuel had a singular faculty of whistling,\nthe envy of his son--and Daniel beckoned to him. He nearly extinguished\nthe gas and then ran out, hatless. He was wearing most of his clothes,\nexcept his linen collar and necktie, and the collar of his coat was\nturned up.\n\nDaniel advanced before him, without waiting, into the confectioner's\nshop opposite. Being part of the most modern building in the Square,\nDaniel's shop was provided with the new roll-down iron shutter, by\nmeans of which you closed your establishment with a motion similar to\nthe winding of a large clock, instead of putting up twenty separate\nshutters one by one as in the sixteenth century. The little portal in\nthe vast sheet of armour was ajar, and Daniel had passed into the gloom\nbeyond. At the same moment a policeman came along on his beat, cutting\noff Mr. Povey from Daniel.\n\n\"Good-night, officer! Brrr!\" said Mr. Povey, gathering his dignity\nabout him and holding himself as though it was part of his normal habit\nto take exercise bareheaded and collarless in St. Luke's Square on cold\nNovember nights. He behaved so because, if Daniel had desired the\nservices of a policeman, Daniel would of course have spoken to this one.\n\n\"Goo' night, sir,\" said the policeman, after recognizing him.\n\n\"What time is it?\" asked Samuel, bold.\n\n\"A quarter-past one, sir.\"\n\nThe policeman, leaving Samuel at the little open door, went forward\nacross the lamplit Square, and Samuel entered his cousin's shop.\n\nDaniel Povey was standing behind the door, and as Samuel came in he\nshut the door with a startling sudden movement. Save for the twinkle of\ngas, the shop was in darkness. It had the empty appearance which a\nwell-managed confectioner's and baker's always has at night. The large\nbrass scales near the flour-bins glinted; and the glass cake-stands,\nwith scarce a tart among them, also caught the faint flare of the gas.\n\n\"What's the matter, Daniel? Anything wrong?\" Samuel asked, feeling\nboyish as he usually did in the presence of Daniel.\n\nThe well-favoured white-haired man seized him with one hand by the\nshoulder in a grip that convicted Samuel of frailty.\n\n\"Look here, Sam'l,\" said he in his low, pleasant voice, somewhat\naltered by excitement. \"You know as my wife drinks?\"\n\nHe stared defiantly at Samuel.\n\n\"N--no,\" said Samuel. \"That is--no one's ever SAID----\"\n\nThis was true. He did not know that Mrs. Daniel Povey, at the age of\nfifty, had definitely taken to drink. There had been rumours that she\nenjoyed a glass with too much gusto; but 'drinks' meant more than that.\n\n\"She drinks,\" Daniel Povey continued. \"And has done this last two year!\"\n\n\"I'm very sorry to hear it,\" said Samuel, tremendously shocked by this\nbrutal rending of the cloak of decency.\n\nAlways, everybody had feigned to Daniel, and Daniel had feigned to\neverybody, that his wife was as other wives. And now the man himself\nhad torn to pieces in a moment the veil of thirty years' weaving.\n\n\"And if that was the worst!\" Daniel murmured reflectively, loosening\nhis grip.\n\nSamuel was excessively disturbed. His cousin was hinting at matters\nwhich he himself, at any rate, had never hinted at even to Constance,\nso abhorrent were they; matters unutterable, which hung like clouds in\nthe social atmosphere of the town, and of which at rare intervals one\nconveyed one's cognizance, not by words, but by something scarce\nperceptible in a glance, an accent. Not often is a town such as Bursley\nstarred with such a woman as Mrs. Daniel Povey.\n\n\"But what's wrong?\" Samuel asked, trying to be firm.\n\nAnd, \"What is wrong?\" he asked himself. \"What does all this mean, at\nafter one o'clock in the morning?\"\n\n\"Look here, Sam'l,\" Daniel recommenced, seizing his shoulder again. \"I\nwent to Liverpool corn market to-day, and missed the last train, so I\ncame by mail from Crewe. And what do I find? I find Dick sitting on the\nstairs in the dark pretty high naked.\"\n\n\"Sitting on the stairs? Dick?\"\n\n\"Ay! This is what I come home to!\"\n\n\"But--\"\n\n\"Hold on! He's been in bed a couple of days with a feverish cold,\ncaught through lying in damp sheets as his mother had forgot to air.\nShe brings him no supper to-night. He calls out. No answer. Then he\ngets up to go down-stairs and see what's happened, and he slips on th'\nstairs and breaks his knee, or puts it out or summat. Sat there hours,\nseemingly! Couldn't walk neither up nor down.\"\n\n\"And was your--wife--was Mrs.--?\"\n\n\"Dead drunk in the parlour, Sam'l.\"\n\n\"But the servant?\"\n\n\"Servant!\" Daniel Povey laughed. \"We can't keep our servants. They\nwon't stay. YOU know that.\"\n\nHe did. Mrs. Daniel Povey's domestic methods and idiosyncrasies could\nat any rate be freely discussed, and they were.\n\n\"And what have you done?\"\n\n\"Done? Why, I picked him up in my arms and carried him upstairs again.\nAnd a fine job I had too! Here! Come here!\"\n\nDaniel strode impulsively across the shop--the counterflap was up--and\nopened a door at the back. Samuel followed. Never before had he\npenetrated so far into his cousin's secrets. On the left, within the\ndoorway, were the stairs, dark; on the right a shut door; and in front\nan open door giving on to a yard. At the extremity of the yard he\ndiscerned a building, vaguely lit, and naked figures strangely moving\nin it.\n\n\"What's that? Who's there?\" he asked sharply.\n\n\"That's the bakehouse,\" Daniel replied, as if surprised at such a\nquestion. \"It's one of their long nights.\"\n\nNever, during the brief remainder of his life, did Samuel eat a\nmouthful of common bread without recalling that midnight apparition. He\nhad lived for half a century, and thoughtlessly eaten bread as though\nloaves grew ready-made on trees.\n\n\"Listen!\" Daniel commanded him.\n\nHe cocked his ear, and caught a feeble, complaining wail from an upper\nfloor.\n\n\"That's Dick! That is!\" said Daniel Povey.\n\nIt sounded more like the distress of a child than of an adventurous\nyoung man of twenty-four or so.\n\n\"But is he in pain? Haven't you fetched the doctor?\"\n\n\"Not yet,\" answered Daniel, with a vacant stare.\n\nSamuel gazed at him closely for a second. And Daniel seemed to him very\nold and helpless and pathetic, a man unequal to the situation in which\nhe found himself; and yet, despite the dignified snow of his age,\nwistfully boyish. Samuel thought swiftly: \"This has been too much for\nhim. He's almost out of his mind. That's the explanation. Some one's\ngot to take charge, and I must.\" And all the courageous resolution of\nhis character braced itself to the crisis. Being without a collar,\nbeing in slippers, and his suspenders imperfectly fastened\nanyhow,--these things seemed to be a part of the crisis.\n\n\"I'll just run upstairs and have a look at him,\" said Samuel, in a\nmatter-of-fact tone.\n\nDaniel did not reply.\n\nThere was a glimmer at the top of the stairs. Samuel mounted, found the\ngas-jet, and turned it on full. A dingy, dirty, untidy passage was\nrevealed, the very antechamber of discomfort. Guided by the moans,\nSamuel entered a bedroom, which was in a shameful condition of neglect,\nand lighted only by a nearly expired candle. Was it possible that a\nhouse-mistress could so lose her self-respect? Samuel thought of his\nown abode, meticulously and impeccably 'kept,' and a hard bitterness\nagainst Mrs. Daniel surged up in his soul.\n\n\"Is that you, doctor?\" said a voice from the bed; the moans ceased.\n\nSamuel raised the candle.\n\nDick lay there, his face, on which was a beard of several days' growth,\ndistorted by anguish, sweating; his tousled brown hair was limp with\nsweat.\n\n\"Where the hell's the doctor?\" the young man demanded brusquely.\nEvidently he had no curiosity about Samuel's presence; the one thing\nthat struck him was that Samuel was not the doctor.\n\n\"He's coming, he's coming,\" said Samuel, soothingly.\n\n\"Well, if he isn't here soon I shall be damn well dead,\" said Dick, in\nfeeble resentful anger. \"I can tell you that.\"\n\nSamuel deposited the candle and ran downstairs. \"I say, Daniel,\" he\nsaid, roused and hot, \"this is really ridiculous. Why on earth didn't\nyou fetch the doctor while you were waiting for me? Where's the missis?\"\n\nDaniel Povey was slowly emptying grains of Indian corn out of his\njacket-pocket into one of the big receptacles behind the counter on the\nbaker's side of the shop. He had provisioned himself with Indian corn\nas ammunition for Samuel's bedroom window; he was now returning the\nsurplus.\n\n\"Are ye going for Harrop?\" he questioned hesitatingly.\n\n\"Why, of course!\" Samuel exclaimed. \"Where's the missis?\"\n\n\"Happen you'd better go and have a look at her,\" said Daniel Povey.\n\"She's in th' parlour.\"\n\nHe preceded Samuel to the shut door on the right. When he opened it the\nparlour appeared in full illumination.\n\n\"Here! Go in!\" said Daniel.\n\nSamuel went in, afraid. In a room as dishevelled and filthy as the\nbedroom, Mrs. Daniel Povey lay stretched awkwardly on a worn horse-hair\nsofa, her head thrown back, her face discoloured, her eyes bulging, her\nmouth wet and yawning: a sight horribly offensive. Samuel was\nfrightened; he was struck with fear and with disgust. The singing gas\nbeat down ruthlessly on that dreadful figure. A wife and mother! The\nlady of a house! The centre of order! The fount of healing! The balm\nfor worry, and the refuge of distress! She was vile. Her scanty\nyellow-grey hair was dirty, her hollowed neck all grime, her hands\nabominable, her black dress in decay. She was the dishonour of her sex,\nher situation, and her years. She was a fouler obscenity than the\ninexperienced Samuel had ever conceived. And by the door stood her\nhusband, neat, spotless, almost stately, the man who for thirty years\nhad marshalled all his immense pride to suffer this woman, the jolly\nman who had laughed through thick and thin! Samuel remembered when they\nwere married. And he remembered when, years after their marriage, she\nwas still as pretty, artificial, coquettish, and adamantine in her\ncaprices as a young harlot with a fool at her feet. Time and the slow\nwrath of God had changed her.\n\nHe remained master of himself and approached her; then stopped.\n\n\"But--\" he stammered.\n\n\"Ay, Sam'l, lad!\" said the old man from the door. \"I doubt I've killed\nher! I doubt I've killed her! I took and shook her. I got her by the\nneck. And before I knew where I was, I'd done it. She'll never drink\nbrandy again. This is what it's come to!\"\n\nHe moved away.\n\nAll Samuel's flesh tingled as a heavy wave of emotion rolled through\nhis being. It was just as if some one had dealt him a blow unimaginably\ntremendous. His heart shivered, as a ship shivers at the mountainous\ncrash of the waters. He was numbed. He wanted to weep, to vomit, to\ndie, to sink away. But a voice was whispering to him: \"You will have to\ngo through with this. You are in charge of this.\" He thought of HIS\nwife and child, innocently asleep in the cleanly pureness of HIS home.\nAnd he felt the roughness of his coat-collar round his neck and the\ninsecurity of his trousers. He passed out of the room, shutting the\ndoor. And across the yard he had a momentary glimpse of those nude\nnocturnal forms, unconsciously attitudinizing in the bakehouse. And\ndown the stairs came the protests of Dick, driven by pain into a\nmonotonous silly blasphemy.\n\n\"I'll fetch Harrop,\" he said, melancholily, to his cousin.\n\nThe doctor's house was less than fifty yards off, and the doctor had a\nnight-bell, which, though he was a much older man than his father had\nbeen at his age, he still answered promptly. No need to bombard the\ndoctor's premises with Indian corn! While Samuel was parleying with the\ndoctor through a window, the question ran incessantly through his mind:\n\"What about telling the police?\"\n\nBut when, in advance of old Harrop, he returned to Daniel's shop, lo!\nthe policeman previously encountered had returned upon his beat, and\nDaniel was talking to him in the little doorway. No other soul was\nabout. Down King Street, along Wedgwood Street, up the Square, towards\nBrougham Street, nothing but gaslamps burning with their everlasting\npatience, and the blind facades of shops. Only in the second storey of\nthe Bank Building at the top of the Square a light showed mysteriously\nthrough a blind. Somebody ill there!\n\nThe policeman was in a high state of nervous excitement. That had\nhappened to him which had never happened to him before. Of the sixty\npolicemen in Bursley, just he had been chosen by fate to fit the socket\nof destiny. He was startled.\n\n\"What's this, what's this, Mr. Povey?\" he turned hastily to Samuel.\n\"What's this as Mr. Councillor Povey is a-telling me?\"\n\n\"You come in, sergeant,\" said Daniel.\n\n\"If I come in,\" said the policeman to Samuel, \"you mun' go along\nWedgwood Street, Mr. Povey, and bring my mate. He should be on Duck\nBank, by rights.\"\n\nIt was astonishing, when once the stone had begun to roll, how quickly\nit ran. In half an hour Samuel had actually parted from Daniel at the\npolice-office behind the Shambles, and was hurrying to rouse his wife\nso that she could look after Dick Povey until he might be taken off to\nPirehill Infirmary, as old Harrop had instantly, on seeing him, decreed.\n\n\"Ah!\" he reflected in the turmoil of his soul: \"God is not mocked!\"\nThat was his basic idea: God is not mocked! Daniel was a good fellow,\nhonourable, brilliant; a figure in the world. But what of his\nlicentious tongue? What of his frequenting of bars? (How had he come to\nmiss that train from Liverpool? How?) For many years he, Samuel, had\nseen in Daniel a living refutation of the authenticity of the old\nHebrew menaces. But he had been wrong, after all! God is not mocked!\nAnd Samuel was aware of a revulsion in himself towards that strict\ncodified godliness from which, in thought, he had perhaps been slipping\naway.\n\nAnd with it all he felt, too, a certain officious self-importance, as\nhe woke his wife and essayed to break the news to her in a manner\ntactfully calm. He had assisted at the most overwhelming event ever\nknown in the history of the town.\n\nII\n\n\"Your muffler--I'll get it,\" said Constance. \"Cyril, run upstairs and\nget father's muffler. You know the drawer.\"\n\nCyril ran. It behoved everybody, that morning, to be prompt and\nefficient.\n\n\"I don't need any muffler, thank you,\" said Samuel, coughing and\nsmothering the cough.\n\n\"Oh! But, Sam--\" Constance protested.\n\n\"Now please don't worry me!\" said Samuel with frigid finality. \"I've\ngot quite enough--!\" He did not finish.\n\nConstance sighed as her husband stepped, nervous and self-important,\nout of the side-door into the street. It was early, not yet eight\no'clock, and the shop still unopened.\n\n\"Your father couldn't wait,\" Constance said to Cyril when he had\nthundered down the stairs in his heavy schoolboy boots. \"Give it to\nme.\" She went to restore the muffler to its place.\n\nThe whole house was upset, and Amy still an invalid! Existence was\ndisturbed; there vaguely seemed to be a thousand novel things to be\ndone, and yet she could think of nothing whatever that she needed to do\nat that moment; so she occupied herself with the muffler. Before she\nreappeared Cyril had gone to school, he who was usually a laggard. The\ntruth was that he could no longer contain within himself a recital of\nthe night, and in particular of the fact that he had been the first to\nhear the summons of the murderer on the window-pane. This imperious\nnews had to be imparted to somebody, as a preliminary to the thrilling\nof the whole school; and Cyril had issued forth in search of an\nappreciative and worthy confidant. He was scarcely five minutes after\nhis father.\n\nIn St. Luke's Square was a crowd of quite two hundred persons, standing\nmoveless in the November mud. The body of Mrs. Daniel Povey had already\nbeen taken to the Tiger Hotel, and young Dick Povey was on his way in a\ncovered wagonette to Pirehill Infirmary on the other side of Knype. The\nshop of the crime was closed, and the blinds drawn at the upper windows\nof the house. There was absolutely nothing to be seen, not even a\npoliceman. Nevertheless the crowd stared with an extraordinary\nobstinate attentiveness at the fatal building in Boulton Terrace.\nHypnotized by this face of bricks and mortar, it had apparently\nforgotten all earthly ties, and, regardless of breakfast and a\nlivelihood, was determined to stare at it till the house fell down or\notherwise rendered up its secret. Most of its component individuals\nwore neither overcoats nor collars, but were kept warm by a scarf round\nthe neck and by dint of forcing their fingers into the furthest inch of\ntheir pockets. Then they would slowly lift one leg after the other.\nStarers of infirm purpose would occasionally detach themselves from the\nthrong and sidle away, ashamed of their fickleness. But reinforcements\nwere continually arriving. And to these new-comers all that had been\nsaid in gossip had to be repeated and repeated: the same questions, the\nsame answers, the same exclamations, the same proverbial philosophy,\nthe same prophecies recurred in all parts of the Square with an uncanny\niterance. Well-dressed men spoke to mere professional loiterers; for\nthis unparalleled and glorious sensation, whose uniqueness grew every\ninstant more impressive, brought out the essential brotherhood of\nmankind. All had a peculiar feeling that the day was neither Sunday nor\nweek-day, but some eighth day of the week. Yet in the St. Luke's\nCovered Market close by, the stall-keepers were preparing their stalls\njust as though it were Saturday, just as though a Town Councillor had\nnot murdered his wife--at last! It was stated, and restated infinitely,\nthat the Povey baking had been taken over by Brindley, the second-best\nbaker and confectioner, who had a stall in the market. And it was\nasserted, as a philosophical truth, and reasserted infinitely, that\nthere would have been no sense in wasting good food.\n\nSamuel's emergence stirred the multitude. But Samuel passed up the\nSquare with a rapt expression; he might have been under an illusion,\ncaused by the extreme gravity of his preoccupations, that he was\ncrossing a deserted Square. He hurried past the Bank and down the\nTurnhill Road, to the private residence of 'Young Lawton,' son of the\ndeceased 'Lawyer Lawton.' Young Lawton followed his father's\nprofession; he was, as his father had been, the most successful\nsolicitor in the town (though reputed by his learned rivals to be a\nfool), but the custom of calling men by their occupations had died out\nwith horse-cars. Samuel caught young Lawton at his breakfast, and\npresently drove with him, in the Lawton buggy, to the police-station,\nwhere their arrival electrified a crowd as large as that in St. Luke's\nSquare. Later, they drove together to Hanbridge, informally to brief a\nbarrister; and Samuel, not permitted to be present at the first part of\nthe interview between the solicitor and the barrister, was humbled\nbefore the pomposity of legal etiquette.\n\nIt seemed to Samuel a game. The whole rigmarole of police and\npolice-cells and formalities seemed insincere. His cousin's case was\nnot like any other case, and, though formalities might be necessary, it\nwas rather absurd to pretend that it was like any other case. In what\nmanner it differed from other cases Samuel did not analytically\ninquire. He thought young Lawton was self-important, and Daniel too\nhumble, in the colloquy of these two, and he endeavoured to indicate,\nby the dignity of his own demeanour, that in his opinion the proper\nrelative tones had not been set. He could not understand Daniel's\nattitude, for he lacked imagination to realize what Daniel had been\nthrough. After all, Daniel was not a murderer; his wife's death was due\nto accident, was simply a mishap.\n\nBut in the crowded and stinking court-room of the Town Hall, Samuel\nbegan to feel qualms. It occurred that the Stipendiary Magistrate was\nsitting that morning at Bursley. He sat alone, as not one of the\nBorough Justices cared to occupy the Bench while a Town Councillor was\nin the dock. The Stipendiary, recently appointed, was a young man, from\nthe southern part of the county; and a Town Councillor of Bursley was\nno more to him than a petty tradesman to a man of fashion. He was\nyouthfully enthusiastic for the majesty and the impartiality of English\njustice, and behaved as though the entire responsibility for the safety\nof that vast fabric rested on his shoulders. He and the barrister from\nHanbridge had had a historic quarrel at Cambridge, and their behaviour\nto each other was a lesson to the vulgar in the art of chill and\nconsummate politeness. Young Lawton, having been to Oxford, secretly\nscorned the pair of them, but, as he had engaged counsel, he of course\nwas precluded from adding to the eloquence, which chagrined him. These\nthree were the aristocracy of the court-room; they knew it; Samuel\nPovey knew it; everybody knew it, and felt it. The barrister brought an\nunexceptionable zeal to the performance of his duties; he referred in\nsuitable terms to Daniel's character and high position in the town, but\nnothing could hide the fact that for him too his client was a petty\ntradesman accused of simple murder. Naturally the Stipendiary was bound\nto show that before the law all men are equal--the Town Councillor and\nthe common tippler; he succeeded. The policeman gave his evidence, and\nthe Inspector swore to what Daniel Povey had said when charged. The\nhearing proceeded so smoothly and quickly that it seemed naught but an\nempty rite, with Daniel as a lay figure in it. The Stipendiary achieved\nmarvellously the illusion that to him a murder by a Town Councillor in\nSt. Luke's Square was quite an everyday matter. Bail was inconceivable,\nand the barrister, being unable to suggest any reason why the\nStipendiary should grant a remand--indeed, there was no reason--Daniel\nPovey was committed to the Stafford Assizes for trial. The Stipendiary\ninstantly turned to the consideration of an alleged offence against the\nFactory Acts by a large local firm of potters. The young magistrate had\nmistaken his vocation. With his steely calm, with his imperturbable\ndetachment from weak humanity, he ought to have been a General of the\nOrder of Jesuits.\n\nDaniel was removed--he did not go: he was removed, by two bare-headed\nconstables. Samuel wanted to have speech with him, and could not. And\nlater, Samuel stood in the porch of the Town Hall, and Daniel appeared\nout of a corridor, still in the keeping of two policemen, helmeted now.\nAnd down below at the bottom of the broad flight of steps, up which\npassed dancers on the nights of subscription balls, was a dense crowd,\nheld at bay by other policemen; and beyond the crowd a black van. And\nDaniel--to his cousin a sort of Christ between thieves--was hurried\npast the privileged loafers in the corridor, and down the broad steps.\nA murmuring wave agitated the crowd. Unkempt idlers and ne'er-do-wells\nin corduroy leaped up like tigers in the air, and the policemen fought\nthem back furiously. And Daniel and his guardians shot through the\nlittle living lane. Quick! Quick! For the captive is more sacred even\nthan a messiah. The law has him in charge! And like a feat of\nprestidigitation Daniel disappeared into the blackness of the van. A\ndoor slammed loudly, triumphantly, and a whip cracked. The crowd had\nbeen balked. It was as though the crowd had yelled for Daniel's blood\nand bones, and the faithful constables had saved him from their lust.\n\nYes, Samuel had qualms. He had a sickness in the stomach.\n\nThe aged Superintendent of Police walked by, with the aged Rector. The\nRector was Daniel's friend. Never before had the Rector spoken to the\nNonconformist Samuel, but now he spoke to him; he squeezed his hand.\n\n\"Ah, Mr. Povey!\" he ejaculated grievously.\n\n\"I--I'm afraid it's serious!\" Samuel stammered. He hated to admit that\nit was serious, but the words came out of his mouth.\n\nHe looked at the Superintendent of Police, expecting the Superintendent\nto assure him that it was not serious; but the Superintendent only\nraised his small white-bearded chin, saying nothing. The Rector shook\nhis head, and shook a senile tear out of his eye.\n\nAfter another chat with young Lawton, Samuel, on behalf of Daniel,\ndropped his pose of the righteous man to whom a mere mishap has\noccurred, and who is determined, with the lofty pride of innocence, to\nindulge all the whims of the law, to be more royalist than the king. He\nperceived that the law must be fought with its own weapons, that no\nadvantage must be surrendered, and every possible advantage seized. He\nwas truly astonished at himself that such a pose had ever been adopted.\nHis eyes were opened; he saw things as they were.\n\nHe returned home through a Square that was more interested than ever in\nthe facade of his cousin's house. People were beginning to come from\nHanbridge, Knype, Longshaw, Turnhill, and villages such as Moorthorne,\nto gaze at that facade. And the fourth edition of the Signal,\ncontaining a full report of what the Stipendiary and the barrister had\nsaid to each other, was being cried.\n\nIn his shop he found customers, as absorbed in the trivialities of\npurchase as though nothing whatever had happened. He was shocked; he\nresented their callousness.\n\n\"I'm too busy now,\" he said curtly to one who accosted him.\n\n\"Sam!\" his wife called him in a low voice. She was standing behind the\ntill.\n\n\"What is it?\" He was ready to crush, and especially to crush indiscreet\nbabble in the shop. He thought she was going to vent her womanly\ncuriosity at once.\n\n\"Mr. Huntbach is waiting for you in the parlour,\" said Constance.\n\n\"Mr. Huntbach?\"\n\n\"Yes, from Longshaw.\" She whispered, \"It's Mrs. Povey's cousin. He's\ncome to see about the funeral and so on, the--the inquest, I suppose.\"\n\nSamuel paused. \"Oh, has he!\" said he defiantly. \"Well, I'll see him. If\nhe WANTS to see me, I'll see him.\"\n\nThat evening Constance learned all that was in his mind of bitterness\nagainst the memory of the dead woman whose failings had brought Daniel\nPovey to Stafford gaol and Dick to the Pirehill Infirmary. Again and\nagain, in the ensuing days, he referred to the state of foul discomfort\nwhich he had discovered in Daniel's house. He nursed a feud against all\nher relatives, and when, after the inquest, at which he gave evidence\nfull of resentment, she was buried, he vented an angry sigh of relief,\nand said: \"Well, SHE'S out of the way!\" Thenceforward he had a mission,\nreligious in its solemn intensity, to defend and save Daniel. He took\nthe enterprise upon himself, spending the whole of himself upon it, to\nthe neglect of his business and the scorn of his health. He lived\nsolely for Daniel's trial, pouring out money in preparation for it. He\nthought and spoke of nothing else. The affair was his one\npreoccupation. And as the weeks passed, he became more and more sure of\nsuccess, more and more sure that he would return with Daniel to Bursley\nin triumph after the assize. He was convinced of the impossibility that\n'anything should happen' to Daniel; the circumstances were too clear,\ntoo overwhelmingly in Daniel's favour.\n\nWhen Brindley, the second-best baker and confectioner, made an offer\nfor Daniel's business as a going concern, he was indignant at first.\nThen Constance, and the lawyer, and Daniel (whom he saw on every\npermitted occasion) between them persuaded him that if some arrangement\nwas not made, and made quickly, the business would lose all its value,\nand he consented, on Daniel's behalf, to a temporary agreement under\nwhich Brindley should reopen the shop and manage it on certain terms\nuntil Daniel regained his freedom towards the end of January. He would\nnot listen to Daniel's plaintive insistence that he would never care to\nbe seen in Bursley again. He pooh-poohed it. He protested furiously\nthat the whole town was seething with sympathy for Daniel; and this was\ntrue. He became Daniel's defending angel, rescuing Daniel from Daniel's\nown weakness and apathy. He became, indeed, Daniel.\n\nOne morning the shop-shutter was wound up, and Brindley, inflated with\nthe importance of controlling two establishments, strutted in and out\nunder the sign of Daniel Povey. And traffic in bread and cakes and\nflour was resumed. Apparently the sea of time had risen and covered\nDaniel and all that was his; for his wife was under earth, and Dick\nlingered at Pirehill, unable to stand, and Daniel was locked away.\nApparently, in the regular flow of the life of the Square, Daniel was\nforgotten. But not in Samuel Povey's heart was he forgotten! There,\nbefore an altar erected to the martyr, the sacred flame of a new faith\nburned with fierce consistency. Samuel, in his greying middle-age, had\ninherited the eternal youth of the apostle.\n\nIII\n\nOn the dark winter morning when Samuel set off to the grand assize,\nConstance did not ask his views as to what protection he would adopt\nagainst the weather. She silently ranged special underclothing, and by\nthe warmth of the fire, which for days she had kept ablaze in the\nbedroom, Samuel silently donned the special underclothing. Over that,\nwith particular fastidious care, he put his best suit. Not a word was\nspoken. Constance and he were not estranged, but the relations between\nthem were in a state of feverish excitation. Samuel had had a cold on\nhis flat chest for weeks, and nothing that Constance could invent would\nmove it. A few days in bed or even in one room at a uniform temperature\nwould have surely worked the cure. Samuel, however, would not stay in\none room: he would not stay in the house, nor yet in Bursley. He would\ntake his lacerating cough on chilly trains to Stafford. He had no ears\nfor reason; he simply could not listen; he was in a dream. After\nChristmas a crisis came. Constance grew desperate. It was a battle\nbetween her will and his that occurred one night when Constance,\nmarshalling all her forces, suddenly insisted that he must go out no\nmore until he was cured. In the fight Constance was scarcely\nrecognizable. She deliberately gave way to hysteria; she was no longer\nsoft and gentle; she flung bitterness at him like vitriol; she shrieked\nlike a common shrew. It seems almost incredible that Constance should\nhave gone so far; but she did. She accused him, amid sobs, of putting\nhis cousin before his wife and son, of not caring whether or not she\nwas left a widow as the result of this obstinacy. And she ended by\ncrying passionately that she might as well talk to a post. She might\njust as well have talked to a post. Samuel answered quietly and coldly.\nHe told her that it was useless for her to put herself about, as he\nshould act as he thought fit. It was a most extraordinary scene, and\nquite unique in their annals. Constance was beaten. She accepted the\ndefeat, gradually controlling her sobs and changing her tone to the\ntone of the vanquished. She kissed him in bed, kissing the rod. And he\ngravely kissed her.\n\nHenceforward she knew, in practice, what the inevitable, when you have\nto live with it, may contain of anguish wretched and humiliating. Her\nhusband was risking his life, so she was absolutely convinced, and she\ncould do nothing; she had come to the bed-rock of Samuel's character.\nShe felt that, for the time being, she had a madman in the house, who\ncould not be treated according to ordinary principles. The continual\nstrain aged her. Her one source of relief was to talk with Cyril. She\ntalked to him without reserve, and the words 'your father,' 'your\nfather,' were everlastingly on her complaining tongue. Yes, she was\nutterly changed. Often she would weep when alone.\n\nNevertheless she frequently forgot that she had been beaten. She had no\nnotion of honourable warfare. She was always beginning again, always\nfiring under a flag of truce; and thus she constituted a very\ninconvenient opponent. Samuel was obliged, while hardening on the main\npoint, to compromise on lesser questions. She too could be formidable,\nand when her lips took a certain pose, and her eyes glowed, he would\nhave put on forty mufflers had she commanded. Thus it was she who\narranged all the details of the supreme journey to Stafford. Samuel was\nto drive to Knype, so as to avoid the rigours of the Loop Line train\nfrom Bursley and the waiting on cold platforms. At Knype he was to take\nthe express, and to travel first-class.\n\nAfter he was dressed on that gas-lit morning, he learnt bit by bit the\nextent of her elaborate preparations. The breakfast was a special\nbreakfast, and he had to eat it all. Then the cab came, and he saw Amy\nput hot bricks into it. Constance herself put goloshes over his boots,\nnot because it was damp, but because indiarubber keeps the feet warm.\nConstance herself bandaged his neck, and unbuttoned his waistcoat and\nstuck an extra flannel under his dickey. Constance herself warmed his\nwoollen gloves, and enveloped him in his largest overcoat.\n\nSamuel then saw Cyril getting ready to go out. \"Where are you off?\" he\ndemanded.\n\n\"He's going with you as far as Knype,\" said Constance grimly. \"He'll\nsee you into the train and then come back here in the cab.\"\n\nShe had sprung this indignity upon him. She glared. Cyril glanced with\ntimid bravado from one to the other. Samuel had to yield.\n\nThus in the winter darkness--for it was not yet dawn--Samuel set forth\nto the trial, escorted by his son. The reverberation of his appalling\ncough from the cab was the last thing that Constance heard.\n\nDuring most of the day Constance sat in 'Miss Insull's corner' in the\nshop. Twenty years ago this very corner had been hers. But now, instead\nof large millinery-boxes enwrapped in brown paper, it was shut off from\nthe rest of the counter by a rich screen of mahogany and ground-glass,\nand within the enclosed space all the apparatus necessary to the\nactivity of Miss Insull had been provided for. However, it remained the\ncoldest part of the whole shop, as Miss Insull's fingers testified.\nConstance established herself there more from a desire to do something,\nto interfere in something, than from a necessity of supervising the\nshop, though she had said to Samuel that she would keep an eye on the\nshop. Miss Insull, whose throne was usurped, had to sit by the stove\nwith less important creatures; she did not like it, and her underlings\nsuffered accordingly.\n\nIt was a long day. Towards tea-time, just before Cyril was due from\nschool, Mr. Critchlow came surprisingly in. That is to say, his arrival\nwas less of a surprise to Miss Insull and the rest of the staff than to\nConstance. For he had lately formed an irregular habit of popping in at\ntea-time, to chat with Miss Insull. Mr. Critchlow was still defying\ntime. He kept his long, thin figure perfectly erect. His features had\nnot altered. His hair and beard could not have been whiter than they\nhad been for years past. He wore his long white apron, and over that a\nthick reefer jacket. In his long, knotty fingers he carried a copy of\nthe Signal.\n\nEvidently he had not expected to find the corner occupied by Constance.\nShe was sewing.\n\n\"So it's you!\" he said, in his unpleasant, grating voice, not even\nglancing at Miss Insull. He had gained the reputation of being the\nrudest old man in Bursley. But his general demeanour expressed\nindifference rather than rudeness. It was a manner that said: \"You've\ngot to take me as I am. I may be an egotist, hard, mean, and convinced;\nbut those who don't like it can lump it. I'm indifferent.\"\n\nHe put one elbow on the top of the screen, showing the Signal.\n\n\"Mr. Critchlow!\" said Constance, primly; she had acquired Samuel's\ndislike of him.\n\n\"It's begun!\" he observed with mysterious glee.\n\n\"Has it?\" Constance said eagerly. \"Is it in the paper already?\"\n\nShe had been far more disturbed about her husband's health than about\nthe trial of Daniel Povey for murder, but her interest in the trial was\nof course tremendous. And this news, that it had actually begun,\nthrilled her.\n\n\"Ay!\" said Mr. Critchlow. \"Didn't ye hear the Signal boy hollering just\nnow all over the Square?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Constance. For her, newspapers did not exist. She never had\nthe idea of opening one, never felt any curiosity which she could not\nsatisfy, if she could satisfy it at all, without the powerful aid of\nthe press. And even on this day it had not occurred to her that the\nSignal might be worth opening.\n\n\"Ay!\" repeated Mr. Critchlow. \"Seemingly it began at two o'clock--or\nthereabouts.\" He gave a moment of his attention to a noisy gas-jet,\nwhich he carefully lowered.\n\n\"What does it say?\"\n\n\"Nothing yet!\" said Mr. Critchlow; and they read the few brief\nsentences, under their big heading, which described the formal\ncommencement of the trial of Daniel Povey for the murder of his wife.\n\"There was some as said,\" he remarked, pushing up his spectacles, \"that\ngrand jury would alter the charge, or summat!\" He laughed, grimly\ntolerant of the extreme absurdity. \"Ah!\" he added contemplatively,\nturning his head to see if the assistants were listening. They were. It\nwould have been too much, on such a day, to expect a strict adherence\nto the etiquette of the shop.\n\nConstance had been hearing a good deal lately of grand juries, but she\nhad understood nothing, nor had she sought to understand.\n\n\"I'm very glad it's come on so soon,\" she said. \"In a sense, that is! I\nwas afraid Sam might be kept at Stafford for days. Do you think it will\nlast long?\"\n\n\"Not it!\" said Mr. Critchlow, positively. \"There's naught in it to spin\nout.\"\n\nThen a silence, punctuated by the sound of stitching.\n\nConstance would really have preferred not to converse with the old man;\nbut the desire for reassurance, for the calming of her own fears,\nforced her to speak, though she knew well that Mr. Critchlow was\nprecisely the last man in the town to give moral assistance if he\nthought it was wanted.\n\n\"I do hope everything will be all right!\" she murmured.\n\n\"Everything'll be all right!\" he said gaily. \"Everything'll be all\nright. Only it'll be all wrong for Dan.\"\n\n\"Whatever do you mean, Mr. Critchlow?\" she protested.\n\nNothing, she reflected, could rouse pity in that heart, not even a\ntragedy like Daniel's. She bit her lip for having spoken.\n\n\"Well,\" he said in loud tones, frankly addressing the girls round the\nstove as much as Constance. \"I've met with some rare good arguments\nthis new year, no mistake! There's been some as say that Dan never\nmeant to do it. That's as may be. But if it's a good reason for not\nhanging, there's an end to capital punishment in this country. 'Never\nmeant'! There's a lot of 'em as 'never meant'! Then I'm told as she was\na gallivanting woman and no housekeeper, and as often drunk as sober.\nI'd no call to be told that. If strangling is a right punishment for a\nwife as spends her time in drinking brandy instead of sweeping floors\nand airing sheets, then Dan's safe. But I don't seem to see Judge\nLindley telling the jury as it is. I've been a juryman under Judge\nLindley myself--and more than once--and I don't seem to see him, like!\"\nHe paused with his mouth open. \"As for all them nobs,\" he continued,\n\"including th' rector, as have gone to Stafford to kiss the book and\nswear that Dan's reputation is second to none--if they could ha' sworn\nas Dan wasn't in th' house at all that night, if they could ha' sworn\nhe was in Jericho, there'd ha' been some sense in their going. But as\nit is, they'd ha' done better to stop at home and mind their business.\nBless us! Sam wanted ME to go!\"\n\nHe laughed again, in the faces of the horrified and angry women.\n\n\"I'm surprised at you, Mr. Critchlow! I really am!\" Constance exclaimed.\n\nAnd the assistants inarticulately supported her with vague sounds. Miss\nInsull got up and poked the stove. Every soul in the establishment was\nloyally convinced that Daniel Povey would be acquitted, and to breathe\na doubt on the brightness of this certainty was a hideous crime. The\nconviction was not within the domain of reason; it was an act of faith;\nand arguments merely fretted, without in the slightest degree\ndisturbing it.\n\n\"Ye may be!\" Mr. Critchlow gaily concurred. He was very content.\n\nJust as he shuffled round to leave the shop, Cyril entered.\n\n\"Good afternoon, Mr. Critchlow,\" said Cyril, sheepishly polite.\n\nMr. Critchlow gazed hard at the boy, then nodded his head several times\nrapidly, as though to say: \"Here's another fool in the making! So the\ngenerations follow one another!\" He made no answer to the salutation,\nand departed.\n\nCyril ran round to his mother's corner, pitching his bag on to the\nshowroom stairs as he passed them. Taking off his hat, he kissed her,\nand she unbuttoned his overcoat with her cold hands.\n\n\"What's old Methuselah after?\" he demanded.\n\n\"Hush!\" Constance softly corrected him. \"He came in to tell me the\ntrial had started.\"\n\n\"Oh, I knew that! A boy bought a paper and I saw it. I say, mother,\nwill father be in the paper?\" And then in a different tone: \"I say,\nmother, what is there for tea?\"\n\nWhen his stomach had learnt exactly what there was for tea, the boy\nbegan to show an immense and talkative curiosity in the trial. He would\nnot set himself to his home-lessons. \"It's no use, mother,\" he said, \"I\ncan't.\" They returned to the shop together, and Cyril would go every\nmoment to the door to listen for the cry of a newsboy. Presently he hit\nupon the idea that perhaps newsboys might be crying the special edition\nof the Signal in the market-place, in front of the Town Hall, to the\nneglect of St. Luke's Square. And nothing would satisfy him but he must\ngo forth and see. He went, without his overcoat, promising to run. The\nshop waited with a strange anxiety. Cyril had created, by his restless\nmovements to and fro, an atmosphere of strained expectancy. It seemed\nnow as if the whole town stood with beating heart, fearful of tidings\nand yet burning to get them. Constance pictured Stafford, which she had\nnever seen, and a court of justice, which she had never seen, and her\nhusband and Daniel in it. And she waited.\n\nCyril ran in. \"No!\" he announced breathlessly. \"Nothing yet.\"\n\n\"Don't take cold, now you're hot,\" Constance advised.\n\nBut he would keep near the door. Soon he ran off again.\n\nAnd perhaps fifteen seconds after he had gone, the strident cry of a\nSignal boy was heard in the distance, faint and indistinct at first,\nthen clearer and louder.\n\n\"There's a paper!\" said the apprentice.\n\n\"Sh!\" said Constance, listening.\n\n\"Sh!\" echoed Miss Insull.\n\n\"Yes, it is!\" said Constance. \"Miss Insull, just step out and get a\npaper. Here's a halfpenny.\"\n\nThe halfpenny passed quickly from one thimbled hand to another. Miss\nInsull scurried.\n\nShe came in triumphantly with the sheet, which Constance tremblingly\ntook. Constance could not find the report at first. Miss Insull pointed\nto it, and read--\n\n\"'Summing up!' Lower down, lower down! 'After an absence of thirty-five\nminutes the jury found the prisoner guilty of murder, with a\nrecommendation to mercy. The judge assumed the black cap and pronounced\nsentence of death, saying that he would forward the recommendation to\nthe proper quarter.'\"\n\nCyril returned. \"Not yet!\" he was saying--when he saw the paper lying\non the counter. His crest fell.\n\nLong after the shop was shut, Constance and Cyril waited in the parlour\nfor the arrival of the master of the house. Constance was in the\nblackest despair. She saw nothing but death around her. She thought:\nmisfortunes never come singly. Why did not Samuel come? All was ready\nfor him, everything that her imagination could suggest, in the way of\nfood, remedies, and the means of warmth. Amy was not allowed to go to\nbed, lest she might be needed. Constance did not even hint that Cyril\nshould go to bed. The dark, dreadful minutes ticked themselves off on\nthe mantelpiece until only five minutes separated Constance from the\nmoment when she would not know what to do next. It was twenty-five\nminutes past eleven. If at half-past Samuel did not appear, then he\ncould not come that night, unless the last train from Stafford was\ninconceivably late.\n\nThe sound of a carriage! It ceased at the door. Mother and son sprang\nup.\n\nYes, it was Samuel! She beheld him once more. And the sight of his\ncondition, moral and physical, terrified her. His great strapping son\nand Amy helped him upstairs. \"Will he ever come down those stairs\nagain?\" This thought lanced Constance's heart. The pain was come and\ngone in a moment, but it had surprised her tranquil commonsense, which\nwas naturally opposed to, and gently scornful of, hysterical fears. As\nshe puffed, with her stoutness, up the stairs, that bland cheerfulness\nof hers cost her an immense effort of will. She was profoundly\ntroubled; great disasters seemed to be slowly approaching her from all\nquarters.\n\nShould she send for the doctor? No. To do so would only be a concession\nto the panic instinct. She knew exactly what was the matter with\nSamuel: a severe cough persistently neglected, no more. As she had\nexpressed herself many times to inquirers, \"He's never been what you\nmay call ill.\" Nevertheless, as she laid him in bed and possetted him,\nhow frail and fragile he looked! And he was so exhausted that he would\nnot even talk about the trial.\n\n\"If he's not better to-morrow I shall send for the doctor!\" she said to\nherself. As for his getting up, she swore she would keep him in bed by\nforce if necessary.\n\nIV\n\nThe next morning she was glad and proud that she had not yielded to a\nscare. For he was most strangely and obviously better. He had slept\nheavily, and she had slept a little. True that Daniel was condemned to\ndeath! Leaving Daniel to his fate, she was conscious of joy springing\nin her heart. How absurd to have asked herself: \"Will he ever come down\nthose stairs again?\"!\n\nA message reached her from the forgotten shop during the morning, that\nMr. Lawton had called to see Mr. Povey. Already Samuel had wanted to\narise, but she had forbidden it in the tone of a woman who is\ndangerous, and Samuel had been very reasonable. He now said that Mr.\nLawton must be asked up. She glanced round the bedroom. It was 'done';\nit was faultlessly correct as a sick chamber. She agreed to the\nintroduction into it of the man from another sphere, and after a\npreliminary minute she left the two to talk together. This visit of\nyoung Lawton's was a dramatic proof of Samuel's importance, and of the\nimportance of the matter in hand. The august occasion demanded\netiquette, and etiquette said that a wife should depart from her\nhusband when he had to transact affairs beyond the grasp of a wife.\n\nThe idea of a petition to the Home Secretary took shape at this\ninterview, and before the day was out it had spread over the town and\nover the Five Towns, and it was in the Signal. The Signal spoke of\nDaniel Povey as 'the condemned man.' And the phrase startled the whole\ndistrict into an indignant agitation for his reprieve. The district\nwoke up to the fact that a Town Councillor, a figure in the world, an\nhonest tradesman of unspotted character, was cooped solitary in a\nlittle cell at Stafford, waiting to be hanged by the neck till he was\ndead. The district determined that this must not and should not be.\nWhy! Dan Povey had actually once been Chairman of the Bursley Society\nfor the Prosecution of Felons, that association for annual eating and\ndrinking, whose members humorously called each other 'felons'!\nImpossible, monstrous, that an ex-chairman of the 'Felons' should be a\nsentenced criminal!\n\nHowever, there was nothing to fear. No Home Secretary would dare to run\ncounter to the jury's recommendation and the expressed wish of the\nwhole district. Besides, the Home Secretary's nephew was M.P. for the\nKnype division. Of course a verdict of guilty had been inevitable.\nEverybody recognized that now. Even Samuel and all the hottest\npartisans of Daniel Povey recognized it. They talked as if they had\nalways foreseen it, directly contradicting all that they had said on\nonly the previous day. Without any sense of any inconsistency or of\nshame, they took up an absolutely new position. The structure of blind\nfaith had once again crumbled at the assault of realities, and\nunhealthy, un-English truths, the statement of which would have meant\nostracism twenty-four hours earlier, became suddenly the platitudes of\nthe Square and the market-place.\n\nDespatch was necessary in the affair of the petition, for the condemned\nman had but three Sundays. But there was delay at the beginning,\nbecause neither young Lawton nor any of his colleagues was acquainted\nwith the proper formula of a petition to the Home Secretary for the\nreprieve of a criminal condemned to death. No such petition had been\nmade in the district within living memory. And at first, young Lawton\ncould not get sight or copy of any such petition anywhere, in the Five\nTowns or out of them. Of course there must exist a proper formula, and\nof course that formula and no other could be employed. Nobody was bold\nenough to suggest that young Lawton should commence the petition, \"To\nthe Most Noble the Marquis of Welwyn, K.C.B., May it please your\nLordship,\" and end it, \"And your petitioners will ever pray!\" and\ninsert between those phrases a simple appeal for the reprieve, with a\nstatement of reasons. No! the formula consecrated by tradition must be\nfound. And, after Daniel had arrived a day and a half nearer death, it\nwas found. A lawyer at Alnwick had the draft of a petition which had\nsecured for a murderer in Northumberland twenty years' penal servitude\ninstead of sudden death, and on request he lent it to young Lawton. The\nprime movers in the petition felt that Daniel Povey was now as good as\nsaved. Hundreds of forms were printed to receive signatures, and these\nforms, together with copies of the petition, were laid on the counters\nof all the principal shops, not merely in Bursley, but in the other\ntowns. They were also to be found at the offices of the Signal, in\nrailway waiting-rooms, and in the various reading-rooms; and on the\nsecond of Daniel's three Sundays they were exposed in the porches of\nchurches and chapels. Chapel-keepers and vergers would come to Samuel\nand ask with the heavy inertia of their stupidity: \"About pens and ink,\nsir?\" These officials had the air of audaciously disturbing the\nsacrosanct routine of centuries in order to confer a favour.\n\nSamuel continued to improve. His cough shook him less, and his appetite\nincreased. Constance allowed him to establish himself in the\ndrawing-room, which was next to the bedroom, and of which the grate was\nparticularly efficient. Here, in an old winter overcoat, he directed\nthe vast affair of the petition, which grew daily to vaster\nproportions. Samuel dreamed of twenty thousand signatures. Each sheet\nheld twenty signatures, and several times a day he counted the sheets;\nthe supply of forms actually failed once, and Constance herself had to\nhurry to the printers to order more. Samuel was put into a passion by\nthis carelessness of the printers. He offered Cyril sixpence for every\nsheet of signatures which the boy would obtain. At first Cyril was too\nshy to canvass, but his father made him blush, and in a few hours Cyril\nhad developed into an eager canvasser. One whole day he stayed away\nfrom school to canvas. Altogether he earned over fifteen shillings,\nquite honestly except that he got a companion to forge a couple of\nsignatures with addresses lacking at the end of a last sheet,\ngenerously rewarding him with sixpence, the value of the entire sheet.\n\nWhen Samuel had received a thousand sheets with twenty thousand\nsignatures, he set his heart on twenty-five thousand signatures. And he\nalso announced his firm intention of accompanying young Lawton to\nLondon with the petition. The petition had, in fact, become one of the\nmost remarkable petitions of modern times. So the Signal said. The\nSignal gave a daily account of its progress, and its progress was\nastonishing. In certain streets every householder had signed it. The\nfirst sheets had been reserved for the signatures of members of\nParliament, ministers of religion, civic dignitaries, justices of the\npeace, etc. These sheets were nobly filled. The aged Rector of Bursley\nsigned first of all; after him the Mayor of Bursley, as was right; then\nsundry M.P.'s.\n\nSamuel emerged from the drawing-room. He went into the parlour, and,\nlater, into the shop; and no evil consequence followed. His cough was\nnearly, but not quite, cured. The weather was extraordinarily mild for\nthe season. He repeated that he should go with the petition to London;\nand he went; Constance could not validly oppose the journey. She, too,\nwas a little intoxicated by the petition. It weighed considerably over\na hundredweight. The crowning signature, that of the M.P. for Knype,\nwas duly obtained in London, and Samuel's one disappointment was that\nhis hope of twenty-five thousand signatures had fallen short of\nrealization--by only a few score. The few score could have been got had\nnot time urgently pressed. He returned from London a man of mark, full\nof confidence; but his cough was worse again.\n\nHis confidence in the power of public opinion and the inherent virtue\nof justice might have proved to be well placed, had not the Home\nSecretary happened to be one of your humane officials. The Marquis of\nWelwyn was celebrated through every stratum of the governing classes\nfor his humane instincts, which were continually fighting against his\nsense of duty. Unfortunately his sense of duty, which he had inherited\nfrom several centuries of ancestors, made havoc among his humane\ninstincts on nearly every occasion of conflict. It was reported that he\nsuffered horribly in consequence. Others also suffered, for he was\nnever known to advise a remission of a sentence of flogging. Certain\ncapital sentences he had commuted, but he did not commute Daniel\nPovey's. He could not permit himself to be influenced by a wave of\npopular sentiment, and assuredly not by his own nephew's signature. He\ngave to the case the patient, remorseless examination which he gave to\nevery case. He spent a sleepless night in trying to discover a reason\nfor yielding to his humane instincts, but without success. As Judge\nLindley remarked in his confidential report, the sole arguments in\nfavour of Daniel were provocation and his previous high character; and\nthese were no sort of an argument. The provocation was utterly\ninadequate, and the previous high character was quite too ludicrously\nbeside the point. So once more the Marquis's humane instincts were\nrouted and he suffered horribly.\n\nOn the Sunday morning after the day on which the Signal had printed the\nmenu of Daniel Povey's supreme breakfast, and the exact length of the\n'drop' which the executioner had administered to him, Constance and\nCyril stood together at the window of the large bedroom. The boy was in\nhis best clothes; but Constance's garments gave no sign of the Sabbath.\nShe wore a large apron over an old dress that was rather tight for her.\nShe was pale and looked ill.\n\n\"Oh, mother!\" Cyril exclaimed suddenly. \"Listen! I'm sure I can hear\nthe band.\"\n\nShe checked him with a soundless movement of her lips; and they both\nglanced anxiously at the silent bed, Cyril with a gesture of apology\nfor having forgotten that he must make no noise.\n\nThe strains of the band came from down King Street, in the direction of\nSt. Luke's Church. The music appeared to linger a long time in the\ndistance, and then it approached, growing louder, and the Bursley Town\nSilver Prize Band passed under the window at the solemn pace of\nHandel's \"Dead March.\" The effect of that requiem, heavy with its own\ninherent beauty and with the vast weight of harrowing tradition, was to\nwring the tears from Constance's eyes; they fell on her aproned bosom,\nand she sank into a chair. And though, the cheeks of the trumpeters\nwere puffed out, and though the drummer had to protrude his stomach and\narch his spine backwards lest he should tumble over his drum, there was\nmajesty in the passage of the band. The boom of the drum, desolating\nthe interruptions of the melody, made sick the heart, but with a lofty\ngrief; and the dirge seemed to be weaving a purple pall that covered\nevery meanness.\n\nThe bandsmen were not all in black, but they all wore crape on their\nsleeves and their instruments were knotted with crape. They carried in\ntheir hats a black-edged card. Cyril held one of these cards in his\nhands. It ran thus:\n\nSACRED TO THE MEMORY OF DANIEL POVEY A TOWN COUNCILLOR OF THIS TOWN\nJUDICIALLY MURDERED AT 8 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING 8TH FEBRUARY 1888 \"HE\nWAS MORE SINNED AGAINST THAN SINNING.\"\n\nIn the wake of the band came the aged Rector, bare-headed, and wearing\na surplice over his overcoat; his thin white hair was disarranged by\nthe breeze that played in the chilly sunshine; his hands were folded on\na gilt-edged book. A curate, churchwardens, and sidesmen followed. And\nafter these, tramping through the dark mud in a procession that had\napparently no end, wound the unofficial male multitude, nearly all in\nmourning, and all, save the more aristocratic, carrying the memorial\ncard in their hats. Loafers, women, and children had collected on the\ndrying pavements, and a window just opposite Constance was ornamented\nwith the entire family of the landlord of the Sun Vaults. In the great\nbar of the Vaults a barman was craning over the pitchpine screen that\nsecured privacy to drinkers. The procession continued without break,\neternally rising over the verge of King Street 'bank,' and eternally\nvanishing round the corner into St. Luke's Square; at intervals it was\npunctuated by a clergyman, a Nonconformist minister, a town crier, a\ngroup of foremen, or a few Rifle Volunteers. The watching crowd grew as\nthe procession lengthened. Then another band was heard, also playing\nthe march from Saul. The first band had now reached the top of the\nSquare, and was scarcely audible from King Street. The reiterated\nglitter in the sun of memorial cards in hats gave the fanciful illusion\nof an impossible whitish snake that was straggling across the town.\nThree-quarters of an hour elapsed before the tail of the snake came\ninto view, and a rabble of unkempt boys closed in upon it, filling the\nstreet.\n\n\"I shall go to the drawing-room window, mother,\" said Cyril.\n\nShe nodded. He crept out of the bedroom.\n\nSt. Luke's Square was a sea of hats and memorial cards. Most of the\noccupiers of the Square had hung out flags at half-mast, and a flag at\nhalf-mast was flying over the Town Hall in the distance. Sightseers\nwere at every window. The two bands had united at the top of the\nSquare; and behind them, on a North Staffordshire Railway lorry, stood\nthe white-clad Rector and several black figures. The Rector was\nspeaking; but only those close to the lorry could hear his feeble\ntreble voice.\n\nSuch was the massive protest of Bursley against what Bursley regarded\nas a callous injustice. The execution of Daniel Povey had most\ngenuinely excited the indignation of the town. That execution was not\nonly an injustice; it was an insult, a humiliating snub. And the worst\nwas that the rest of the country had really discovered no sympathetic\ninterest in the affair. Certain London papers, indeed, in commenting\ncasually on the execution, had slurred the morals and manners of the\nFive Towns, professing to regard the district as notoriously beyond the\nrealm of the Ten Commandments. This had helped to render furious the\ntownsmen. This, as much as anything, had encouraged the spontaneous\noutburst of feeling which had culminated in a St. Luke's Square full of\npeople with memorial cards in their hats. The demonstration had\nscarcely been organized; it had somehow organized itself, employing the\nplaces of worship and a few clubs as centres of gathering. And it\nproved an immense success. There were seven or eight thousand people in\nthe Square, and the pity was that England as a whole could not have had\na glimpse of the spectacle. Since the execution of the elephant,\nnothing had so profoundly agitated Bursley. Constance, who left the\nbedroom momentarily for the drawing-room, reflected that the death and\nburial of Cyril's honoured grandfather, though a resounding event, had\nnot caused one-tenth of the stir which she beheld. But then John Baines\nhad killed nobody.\n\nThe Rector spoke too long; every one felt that. But at length he\nfinished. The bands performed the Doxology, and the immense multitudes\nbegan to disperse by the eight streets that radiate from the Square. At\nthe same time one o'clock struck, and the public-houses opened with\ntheir customary admirable promptitude. Respectable persons, of course,\nignored the public-houses and hastened homewards to a delayed dinner.\nBut in a town of over thirty thousand souls there are sufficient dregs\nto fill all the public-houses on an occasion of ceremonial excitement.\nConstance saw the bar of the Vaults crammed with individuals whose\nsense of decent fitness was imperfect. The barman and the landlord and\nthe principal members of the landlord's family were hard put to it to\nquench that funereal thirst. Constance, as she ate a little meal in the\nbedroom, could not but witness the orgy. A bandsman with his silver\ninstrument was prominent at the counter. At five minutes to three the\nVaults spewed forth a squirt of roysterers who walked on the pavement\nas on a tight-rope; among them was the bandsman, his silver instrument\nonly half enveloped in its bag of green serge. He established an\nequilibrium in the gutter. It would not have mattered so seriously if\nhe had not been a bandsman. The barman and the landlord pushed the\nultimate sot by force into the street and bolted the door (till six\no'clock) just as a policeman strolled along, the first policeman of the\nday. It became known that similar scenes were enacting at the\nthresholds of other inns. And the judicious were sad.\n\nVI\n\nWhen the altercation between the policeman and the musician in the\ngutter was at its height, Samuel Povey became restless; but since he\nhad scarcely stirred through the performances of the bands, it was\nprobably not the cries of the drunkard that had aroused him.\n\nHe had shown very little interest in the preliminaries of the great\ndemonstration. The flame of his passion for the case of Daniel Povey\nseemed to have shot up on the day before the execution, and then to\nhave expired. On that day he went to Stafford in order, by permit of\nthe prison governor, to see his cousin for the last time. His condition\nthen was undoubtedly not far removed from monomania. 'Unhinged' was the\nconventional expression which frequently rose in Constance's mind as a\ndescription of the mind of her husband; but she fought it down; she\nwould not have it; it was too crude--with its associations. She would\nonly admit that the case had 'got on' his mind. A startling proof of\nthis was that he actually suggested taking Cyril with him to see the\ncondemned man. He wished Cyril to see Daniel; he said gravely that he\nthought Cyril ought to see him. The proposal was monstrous,\ninexplicable--or explicable only by the assumption that his mind, while\nnot unhinged, had temporarily lost its balance. Constance opposed an\nabsolute negative, and Samuel being in every way enfeebled, she\novercame. As for Cyril, he was divided between fear and curiosity. On\nthe whole, perhaps Cyril regretted that he would not be able to say at\nschool that he had had speech with the most celebrated killer of the\nage on the day before his execution.\n\nSamuel returned hysterical from Stafford. His account of the scene,\nwhich he gave in a very loud voice, was a most absurd and yet pathetic\nrecital, obviously distorted by memory. When he came to the point of\nthe entrance of Dick Povey, who was still at the hospital, and who had\nbeen specially driven to Stafford and carried into the prison, he wept\nwithout restraint. His hysteria was painful in a very high degree.\n\nHe went to bed--of his own accord, for his cough had improved again.\nAnd on the following day, the day of the execution, he remained in bed\ntill the afternoon. In the evening the Rector sent for him to the\nRectory to discuss the proposed demonstration. On the next day,\nSaturday, he said he should not get up. Icy showers were sweeping the\ntown, and his cough was worse after the evening visit to the Rector.\nConstance had no apprehensions about him. The most dangerous part of\nthe winter was over, and there was nothing now to force him into\nindiscretions. She said to herself calmly that he should stay in bed as\nlong as he liked, that he could not have too much repose after the\ncruel fatigues, physical and spiritual, which he had suffered. His\ncough was short, but not as troublesome as in the past; his face\nflushed, dusky, and settled in gloom; and he was slightly feverish,\nwith quick pulse and quick breathing--the symptoms of a renewed cold.\nHe passed a wakeful night, broken by brief dreams in which he talked.\nAt dawn he had some hot food, asked what day it was, frowned, and\nseemed to doze off at once. At eleven o'clock he had refused food. And\nhe had intermittently dozed during the progress of the demonstration\nand its orgiastic sequel.\n\nConstance had food ready for his waking, and she approached the bed and\nleaned over him. The fever had increased somewhat, the breathing was\nmore rapid, and his lips were covered with tiny purple pimples. He\nfeebly shook his head, with a disgusted air, at her mention of food. It\nwas this obstinate refusal of food which first alarmed her. A little\nuncomfortable suspicion shot up in her: Surely there's nothing the\nMATTER with him?\n\nSomething--impossible to say what--caused her to bend still lower, and\nput her ear to his chest. She heard within that mysterious box a rapid\nsuccession of thin, dry, crackling sounds: sounds such as she would\nhave produced by rubbing her hair between her fingers close to her ear.\nThe crepitation ceased, then recommenced, and she perceived that it\ncoincided with the intake of his breath. He coughed; the sounds were\nintensified; a spasm of pain ran over his face; and he put his damp\nhand to his side.\n\n\"Pain in my side!\" he whispered with difficulty.\n\nConstance stepped into the drawing-room, where Cyril was sketching by\nthe fire.\n\n\"Cyril,\" she said, \"go across and ask Dr. Harrop to come round at once.\nAnd if he isn't in, then his new partner.\"\n\n\"Is it for father?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What's the matter?\"\n\n\"Now do as I say, please,\" said Constance, sharply, adding: \"I don't\nknow what's the matter. Perhaps nothing. But I'm not satisfied.\"\n\nThe venerable Harrop pronounced the word 'pneumonia.' It was acute\ndouble pneumonia that Samuel had got. During the three worst months of\nthe year, he had escaped the fatal perils which await a man with a flat\nchest and a chronic cough, who ignores his condition and defies the\nweather. But a journey of five hundred yards to the Rectory had been\none journey too many. The Rectory was so close to the shop that he had\nnot troubled to wrap himself up as for an excursion to Stafford. He\nsurvived the crisis of the disease and then died of toxsemia, caused by\na heart that would not do its duty by the blood. A casual death, scarce\nnoticed in the reaction after the great febrile demonstration! Besides,\nSamuel Povey never could impose himself on the burgesses. He lacked\nindividuality. He was little. I have often laughed at Samuel Povey. But\nI liked and respected him. He was a very honest man. I have always been\nglad to think that, at the end of his life, destiny took hold of him\nand displayed, to the observant, the vein of greatness which runs\nthrough every soul without exception. He embraced a cause, lost it, and\ndied of it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE WIDOW\n\nI\n\n\nConstance, alone in the parlour, stood expectant by the set tea-table.\nShe was not wearing weeds; her mother and she, on the death of her\nfather, had talked of the various disadvantages of weeds; her mother\nhad worn them unwillingly, and only because a public opinion not\nsufficiently advanced had intimidated her. Constance had said: \"If ever\nI'm a widow I won't wear them,\" positively, in the tone of youth; and\nMrs. Baines had replied: \"I hope you won't, my dear.\" That was over\ntwenty years ago, but Constance perfectly remembered. And now, she was\na widow! How strange and how impressive was life! And she had kept her\nword; not positively, not without hesitations; for though times were\nchanged, Bursley was still Bursley; but she had kept it.\n\nThis was the first Monday after Samuel's funeral. Existence in the\nhouse had been resumed on the plane which would henceforth be the\nnormal plane. Constance had put on for tea a dress of black silk with a\njet brooch of her mother's. Her hands, just meticulously washed, had\nthat feeling of being dirty which comes from roughening of the\nepidermis caused by a day spent in fingering stuffs. She had been\n'going through' Samuel's things, and her own, and ranging all anew. It\nwas astonishing how little the man had collected, of 'things,' in the\ncourse of over half a century. All his clothes were contained in two\nlong drawers and a short one. He had the least possible quantity of\nhaberdashery and linen, for he invariably took from the shop such\narticles as he required, when he required them, and he would never\npreserve what was done with. He possessed no jewellery save a set of\ngold studs, a scarf-ring, and a wedding-ring; the wedding-ring was\nburied with him. Once, when Constance had offered him her father's gold\nwatch and chain, he had politely refused it, saying that he preferred\nhis own--a silver watch (with a black cord) which kept excellent time;\nhe had said later that she might save the gold watch and chain for\nCyril when he was twenty-one. Beyond these trifles and a half-empty box\nof cigars and a pair of spectacles, he left nothing personal to\nhimself. Some men leave behind them a litter which takes months to sift\nand distribute. But Samuel had not the mania for owning. Constance put\nhis clothes in a box to be given away gradually (all except an overcoat\nand handkerchiefs which might do for Cyril); she locked up the watch\nand its black cord, the spectacles and the scarf-ring; she gave the\ngold studs to Cyril; she climbed on a chair and hid the cigar-box on\nthe top of her wardrobe; and scarce a trace of Samuel remained!\n\nBy his own wish the funeral had been as simple and private as possible.\nOne or two distant relations, whom Constance scarcely knew and who\nwould probably not visit her again until she too was dead, came--and\nwent. And lo! the affair was over. The simple celerity of the funeral\nwould have satisfied even Samuel, whose tremendous self-esteem hid\nitself so effectually behind such externals that nobody had ever fully\nperceived it. Not even Constance quite knew Samuel's secret opinion of\nSamuel. Constance was aware that he had a ridiculous side, that his\ngreatest lack had been a lack of spectacular dignity. Even in the\ncoffin, where nevertheless most people are finally effective, he had\nnot been imposing--with his finicky little grey beard persistently\nsticking up.\n\nThe vision of him in his coffin--there in the churchyard, just at the\nend of King Street!--with the lid screwed down on that unimportant\nbeard, recurred frequently in the mind of the widow, as something\nuntrue and misleading. She had to say to herself: \"Yes, he is really\nthere! And that is why I have this particular feeling in my heart.\" She\nsaw him as an object pathetic and wistful, not majestic. And yet she\ngenuinely thought that there could not exist another husband quite so\nhonest, quite so just, quite so reliable, quite so good, as Samuel had\nbeen. What a conscience he had! How he would try, and try, to be fair\nwith her! Twenty years she could remember, of ceaseless, constant\nendeavour on his part to behave rightly to her! She could recall many\nan occasion when he had obviously checked himself, striving against his\ntendency to cold abruptness and to sullenness, in order to give her the\nrespect due to a wife. What loyalty was his! How she could depend on\nhim! How much better he was than herself (she thought with modesty)!\n\nHis death was an amputation for her. But she faced it with calmness.\nShe was not bowed with sorrow. She did not nurse the idea that her life\nwas at an end; on the contrary, she obstinately put it away from her,\ndwelling on Cyril. She did not indulge in the enervating voluptuousness\nof grief. She had begun in the first hours of bereavement by picturing\nherself as one marked out for the blows of fate. She had lost her\nfather and her mother, and now her husband. Her career seemed to be\npunctuated by interments. But after a while her gentle commonsense came\nto insist that most human beings lose their parents, and that every\nmarriage must end in either a widower or a widow, and that all careers\nare punctuated by interments. Had she not had nearly twenty-one years\nof happy married life? (Twenty-one years--rolled up! The sudden thought\nof their naive ignorance of life, hers and his, when they were first\nmarried, brought tears into her eyes. How wise and experienced she was\nnow!) And had she not Cyril? Compared to many women, she was indeed\nvery fortunate.\n\nThe one visitation which had been specially hers was the disappearance\nof Sophia. And yet even that was not worse than the death outright of\nSophia, was perhaps not so bad. For Sophia might return out of the\ndarkness. The blow of Sophia's flight had seemed unique when it was\nfresh, and long afterwards; had seemed to separate the Baines family\nfrom all other families in a particular shame. But at the age of\nforty-three Constance had learnt that such events are not uncommon in\nfamilies, and strange sequels to them not unknown. Thinking often of\nSophia, she hoped wildly and frequently.\n\nShe looked at the clock; she had a little spasm of nervousness lest\nCyril might fail to keep his word on that first day of their new\nregular life together. And at the instant he burst into the room,\ninvading it like an armed force, having previously laid waste the shop\nin his passage.\n\n\"I'm not late, mother! I'm not late!\" he cried proudly.\n\nShe smiled warmly, happy in him, drawing out of him balm and solace. He\ndid not know that in that stout familiar body before him was a\nsensitive, trembling soul that clutched at him ecstatically as the one\nreality in the universe. He did not know that that evening meal,\npartaken of without hurry after school had released him to her, was to\nbe the ceremonial sign of their intimate unity and their\ninterdependence, a tender and delicious proof that they were 'all in\nall to each other': he saw only his tea, for which he was hungry--just\nas hungry as though his father were not scarcely yet cold in the grave.\n\nBut he saw obscurely that the occasion demanded something not quite\nordinary, and so exerted himself to be boyishly charming to his mother.\nShe said to herself 'how good he was.' He felt at ease and confident in\nthe future, because he detected beneath her customary judicial,\nimpartial mask a clear desire to spoil him.\n\nAfter tea, she regretfully left him, at his home-lessons, in order to\ngo into the shop. The shop was the great unsolved question. What was\nshe to do with the shop? Was she to continue the business or to sell\nit? With the fortunes of her father and her aunt, and the economies of\ntwenty years, she had more than sufficient means. She was indeed rich,\naccording to the standards of the Square; nay, wealthy! Therefore she\nwas under no material compulsion to keep the shop. Moreover, to keep it\nwould mean personal superintendence and the burden of responsibility,\nfrom which her calm lethargy shrank. On the other hand, to dispose of\nthe business would mean the breaking of ties and leaving the premises:\nand from this also she shrank. Young Lawton, without being asked, had\nadvised her to sell. But she did not want to sell. She wanted the\nimpossible: that matters should proceed in the future as in the past,\nthat Samuel's death should change nothing save in her heart.\n\nIn the meantime Miss Insull was priceless. Constance thoroughly\nunderstood one side of the shop; but Miss Insull understood both, and\nthe finance of it also. Miss Insull could have directed the\nestablishment with credit, if not with brilliance. She was indeed\ndirecting it at that moment. Constance, however, felt jealous of Miss\nInsull; she was conscious of a slight antipathy towards the faithful\none. She did not care to be in the hands of Miss Insull.\n\nThere were one or two customers at the millinery counter. They greeted\nher with a deplorable copiousness of tact. Most tactfully they avoided\nany reference to Constance's loss; but by their tone, their glances, at\nConstance and at each other, and their heroically restrained sighs,\nthey spread desolation as though they had been spreading ashes instead\nof butter on bread. The assistants, too, had a special demeanour for\nthe poor lone widow which was excessively trying to her. She wished to\nbe natural, and she would have succeeded, had they not all of them\napparently conspired together to make her task impossible.\n\nShe moved away to the other side of the shop, to Samuel's desk, at\nwhich he used to stand, staring absently out of the little window into\nKing Street while murmurously casting figures. She lighted the gas-jet\nthere, arranged the light exactly to suit her, and then lifted the\nlarge flap of the desk and drew forth some account books.\n\n\"Miss Insull!\" she called, in a low, clear voice, with a touch of\nhaughtiness and a touch of command in it. The pose, a comical\ncontradiction of Constance's benevolent character, was deliberately\nadopted; it illustrated the effects of jealousy on even the softest\ndisposition.\n\nMiss Insull responded. She had no alternative but to respond. And she\ngave no sign of resenting her employer's attitude. But then Miss Insull\nseldom did give any sign of being human.\n\nThe customers departed, one after another, obsequiously sped by the\nassistants, who thereupon lowered the gases somewhat, according to\nsecular rule; and in the dim eclipse, as they restored boxes to\nshelves, they could hear the tranquil, regular, half-whispered\nconversation of the two women at the desk, discussing accounts; and\nthen the chink of gold.\n\nSuddenly there was an irruption. One of the assistants sprang\ninstinctively to the gas; but on perceiving that the disturber of peace\nwas only a slatternly girl, hatless and imperfectly clean, she decided\nto leave the gas as it was, and put on a condescending, suspicious\ndemeanour.\n\n\"If you please, can I speak to the missis?\" said the girl, breathlessly.\n\nShe seemed to be about eighteen years of age, fat and plain. Her blue\nfrock was torn, and over it she wore a rough brown apron, caught up at\none corner to the waist. Her bare forearms were of brick-red colour.\n\n\"What is it?\" demanded the assistant.\n\nMiss Insull looked over her shoulder across the shop. \"It must be\nMaggie's--Mrs. Hollins's daughter!\" said Miss Insull under her breath.\n\n\"What can she want?\" said Constance, leaving the desk instantly; and to\nthe girl, who stood sturdily holding her own against the group of\nassistants: \"You are Mrs. Hollins's daughter, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, mum.\"\n\n\"What's your name?\"\n\n\"Maggie, mum. And, if you please, mother's sent me to ask if you'll\nkindly give her a funeral card.\"\n\n\"A funeral card?\"\n\n\"Yes. Of Mr. Povey. She's been expecting of one, and she thought as how\nperhaps you'd forgotten it, especially as she wasn't asked to the\nfuneral.\"\n\nThe girl stopped.\n\nConstance perceived that by mere negligence she had seriously wounded\nthe feelings of Maggie, senior. The truth was, she had never thought of\nMaggie. She ought to have remembered that funeral cards were almost the\nsole ornamentation of Maggie's abominable cottage.\n\n\"Certainly,\" she replied after a pause. \"Miss Insull, there are a few\ncards left in the desk, aren't there? Please put me one in an envelope\nfor Mrs. Hollins.\"\n\nShe gave the heavily bordered envelope to the ruddy wench, who enfolded\nit in her apron, and with hurried, shy thanks ran off.\n\n\"Tell your mother I send her a card with pleasure,\" Constance called\nafter the girl.\n\nThe strangeness of the hazards of life made her thoughtful. She, to\nwhom Maggie had always seemed an old woman, was a widow, but Maggie's\nhusband survived as a lusty invalid. And she guessed that Maggie,\nvilely struggling in squalor and poverty, was somehow happy in her\nfrowsy, careless way.\n\nShe went back to the accounts, dreaming.\n\nII\n\nWhen the shop had been closed, under her own critical and precise\nsuperintendence, she extinguished the last gas in it and returned to\nthe parlour, wondering where she might discover some entirely reliable\nman or boy to deal with the shutters night and morning. Samuel had\nordinarily dealt with the shutters himself, and on extraordinary\noccasions and during holidays Miss Insull and one of her subordinates\nhad struggled with their unwieldiness. But the extraordinary occasion\nhad now become ordinary, and Miss Insull could not be expected to\ncontinue indefinitely in the functions of a male. Constance had a mind\nto engage an errand-boy, a luxury against which Samuel had always set\nhis face. She did not dream of asking the herculean Cyril to open and\nshut shop.\n\nHe had apparently finished his home-lessons. The books were pushed\naside, and he was sketching in lead-pencil on a drawing-block. To the\nright of the fireplace, over the sofa, there hung an engraving after\nLandseer, showing a lonely stag paddling into a lake. The stag at eve\nhad drunk or was about to drink his fill, and Cyril was copying him. He\nhad already indicated a flight of birds in the middle distance; vague\nbirds on the wing being easier than detailed stags, he had begun with\nthe birds.\n\nConstance put a hand on his shoulder. \"Finished your lessons?\" she\nmurmured caressingly.\n\nBefore speaking, Cyril gazed up at the picture with a frowning, busy\nexpression, and then replied in an absent-minded voice:\n\n\"Yes.\" And after a pause: \"Except my arithmetic. I shall do that in the\nmorning before breakfast.\"\n\n\"Oh, Cyril!\" she protested.\n\nIt had been a positive ordinance, for a long time past, that there\nshould be no sketching until lessons were done. In his father's\nlifetime Cyril had never dared to break it.\n\nHe bent over his block, feigning an intense absorption. Constance's\nhand slipped from his shoulder. She wanted to command him formally to\nresume his lessons. But she could not. She feared an argument; she\nmistrusted herself. And, moreover, it was so soon after his father's\ndeath!\n\n\"You know you won't have time to-morrow morning!\" she said weakly.\n\n\"Oh, mother!\" he retorted superiorly. \"Don't worry.\" And then, in a\ncajoling tone: \"I've wanted to do that stag for ages.\"\n\nShe sighed and sat down in her rocking-chair. He went on sketching,\nrubbing out, and making queer expostulatory noises against his pencil,\nor against the difficulties needlessly invented by Sir Edwin Landseer.\nOnce he rose and changed the position of the gas-bracket, staring\nfiercely at the engraving as though it had committed a sin.\n\nAmy came to lay the supper. He did not acknowledge that she existed.\n\n\"Now, Master Cyril, after you with that table, if you please!\" She\nannounced herself brusquely, with the privilege of an old servant and a\nwoman who would never see thirty again.\n\n\"What a nuisance you are, Amy!\" he gruffly answered. \"Look here,\nmother, can't Amy lay the cloth on that half of the table? I'm right in\nthe middle of my drawing. There's plenty of room there for two.\"\n\nHe seemed not to be aware that, in the phrase 'plenty of room for two,'\nhe had made a callous reference to their loss. The fact was, there WAS\nplenty of room for two.\n\nConstance said quickly: \"Very well, Amy. For this once.\"\n\nAmy grunted, but obeyed.\n\nConstance had to summon him twice from art to nourishment. He ate with\nrapidity, frequently regarding the picture with half-shut, searching\neyes. When he had finished, he refilled his glass with water, and put\nit next to his sketching-block.\n\n\"You surely aren't thinking of beginning to paint at this time of\nnight!\" Constance exclaimed, astonished.\n\n\"Oh YES, mother!\" he fretfully appealed. \"It's not late.\"\n\nAnother positive ordinance of his father's had been that there should\nbe nothing after supper except bed. Nine o'clock was the latest\npermissible moment for going to bed. It was now less than a quarter to.\n\n\"It only wants twelve minutes to nine,\" Constance pointed out.\n\n\"Well, what if it does?\"\n\n\"Now, Cyril,\" she said, \"I do hope you are going to be a good boy, and\nnot cause your mother anxiety.\"\n\nBut she said it too kindly.\n\nHe said sullenly: \"I do think you might let me finish it. I've begun\nit. It won't take me long.\"\n\nShe made the mistake of leaving the main point. \"How can you possibly\nchoose your colours properly by gas-light?\" she said.\n\n\"I'm going to do it in sepia,\" he replied in triumph.\n\n\"It mustn't occur again,\" she said.\n\nHe thanked God for a good supper, and sprang to the harmonium, where\nhis paint-box was. Amy cleared away. Constance did crochet-work. There\nwas silence. The clock struck nine, and it also struck half-past nine.\nShe warned him repeatedly. At ten minutes to ten she said persuasively:\n\n\"Now, Cyril, when the clock strikes ten I shall really put the gas out.\"\n\nThe clock struck ten.\n\n\"Half a mo, half a mo!\" he cried. \"I've done! I've done!\"\n\nHer hand was arrested.\n\nAnother four minutes elapsed, and then he jumped up. \"There you are!\"\nhe said proudly, showing her the block. And all his gestures were full\nof grace and cajolery.\n\n\"Yes, it's very good,\" Constance said, rather indifferently.\n\n\"I don't believe you care for it!\" he accused her, but with a bright\nsmile.\n\n\"I care for your health,\" she said. \"Just look at that clock!\"\n\nHe sat down in the other rocking-chair, deliberately.\n\n\"Now, Cyril!\"\n\n\"Well, mother, I suppose you'll let me take my boots off!\" He said it\nwith teasing good-humour.\n\nWhen he kissed her good night, she wanted to cling to him, so\naffectionate was his kiss; but she could not throw off the habits of\nrestraint which she had been originally taught and had all her life\npractised. She keenly regretted the inability.\n\nIn her bedroom, alone, she listened to his movements as he undressed.\nThe door between the two rooms was unlatched. She had to control a\ndesire to open it ever so little and peep at him. He would not have\nliked that. He could have enriched her heart beyond all hope, and at no\ncost to himself; but he did not know his power. As she could not cling\nto him with her hands, she clung to him with that heart of hers, while\nmoving sedately up and down the room, alone. And her eyes saw him\nthrough the solid wood of the door. At last she got heavily into bed.\nShe thought with placid anxiety, in the dark: \"I shall have to be firm\nwith Cyril.\" And she thought also, simultaneously: \"He really must be a\ngood boy. He MUST.\" And clung to him passionately, without shame! Lying\nalone there in the dark, she could be as unrestrained and girlish as\nher heart chose. When she loosed her hold she instantly saw the boy's\nfather arranged in his coffin, or flitting about the room. Then she\nwould hug that vision too, for the pleasure of the pain it gave her.\n\nIII\n\nShe was reassured as to Cyril during the next few days. He did not\nattempt to repeat his ingenious naughtiness of the Monday evening, and\nhe came directly home for tea; moreover he had, as a kind of miracle\nperformed to dazzle her, actually arisen early on the Tuesday morning\nand done his arithmetic. To express her satisfaction she had\nmanufactured a specially elaborate straw-frame for the sketch after Sir\nEdwin Landseer, and had hung it in her bedroom: an honour which Cyril\nappreciated. She was as happy as a woman suffering from a recent\namputation can be; and compared with the long nightmare created by\nSamuel's monomania and illness, her existence seemed to be now a\nbeneficent calm.\n\nCyril, she thought, had realized the importance in her eyes of tea, of\nthat evening hour and that companionship which were for her the\nflowering of the day. And she had such confidence in his goodness that\nshe would pour the boiling water on the Horniman tea-leaves even before\nhe arrived: certainty could not be more sure. And then, on the Friday\nof the first week, he was late! He bounded in, after dark, and the\nstate of his clothes indicated too clearly that he had been playing\nfootball in the mud that was a grassy field in summer.\n\n\"Have you been kept in, my boy?\" she asked, for the sake of form.\n\n\"No, mother,\" he said casually. \"We were just kicking the ball about a\nbit. Am I late?\"\n\n\"Better go and tidy yourself,\" she said, not replying to his question.\n\"You can't sit down in that state. And I'll have some fresh tea made.\nThis is spoilt.\"\n\n\"Oh, very well!\"\n\nHer sacred tea--the institution which she wanted to hallow by long\nhabit, and which was to count before everything with both of them--had\nbeen carelessly sacrificed to the kicking of a football in mud! And his\nfather buried not ten days! She was wounded: a deep, clean, dangerous\nwound that would not bleed. She tried to be glad that he had not lied;\nhe might easily have lied, saying that he had been detained for a fault\nand could not help being late. No! He was not given to lying; he would\nlie, like any human being, when a great occasion demanded such\nprudence, but he was not a liar; he might fairly be called a truthful\nboy. She tried to be glad, and did not succeed. She would have\npreferred him to have lied.\n\nAmy, grumbling, had to boil more water.\n\nWhen he returned to the parlour, superficially cleaned, Constance\nexpected him to apologize in his roundabout boyish way; at any rate to\nwoo and wheedle her, to show by some gesture that he was conscious of\nhaving put an affront on her. But his attitude was quite otherwise. His\nattitude was rather brusque and overbearing and noisy. He ate a very\nconsiderable amount of jam, far too quickly, and then asked for more,\nin a tone of a monarch who calls for his own. And ere tea was finished\nhe said boldly, apropos of nothing:\n\n\"I say, mother, you'll just have to let me go to the School of Art\nafter Easter.\"\n\nAnd stared at her with a fixed challenge in his eyes.\n\nHe meant, by the School of Art, the evening classes at the School of\nArt. His father had decided absolutely against the project. His father\nhad said that it would interfere with his lessons, would keep him up\ntoo late at night, and involve absence from home in the evening. The\nlast had always been the real objection. His father had not been able\nto believe that Cyril's desire to study art sprang purely from his love\nof art; he could not avoid suspecting that it was a plan to obtain\nfreedom in the evenings--that freedom which Samuel had invariably\nforbidden. In all Cyril's suggestions Samuel had been ready to detect\nthe same scheme lurking. He had finally said that when Cyril left\nschool and took to a vocation, then he could study art at night if he\nchose, but not before.\n\n\"You know what your father said!\" Constance replied.\n\n\"But, mother! That's all very well! I'm sure father would have agreed.\nIf I'm going to take up drawing I ought to do it at once. That's what\nthe drawing-master says, and I suppose he ought to know.\" He finished\non a tone of insolence.\n\n\"I can't allow you to do it yet,\" said Constance, quietly. \"It's quite\nout of the question. Quite!\"\n\nHe pouted and then he sulked. It was war between them. At times he was\nthe image of his Aunt Sophia. He would not leave the subject alone; but\nhe would not listen to Constance's reasoning. He openly accused her of\nharshness. He asked her how she could expect him to get on if she\nthwarted him in his most earnest desires. He pointed to other boys\nwhose parents were wiser.\n\n\"It's all very fine of you to put it on father!\" he observed\nsarcastically.\n\nHe gave up his drawing entirely.\n\nWhen she hinted that if he attended the School of Art she would be\ncondemned to solitary evenings, he looked at her as though saying:\n\"Well, and if you are--?\" He seemed to have no heart.\n\nAfter several weeks of intense unhappiness she said: \"How many evenings\ndo you want to go?\"\n\nThe war was over.\n\nHe was charming again. When she was alone she could cling to him again.\nAnd she said to herself: \"If we can be happy together only when I give\nway to him, I must give way to him.\" And there was ecstasy in her\nyielding. \"After all,\" she said to herself, \"perhaps it's very\nimportant that he should go to the School of Art.\" She solaced herself\nwith such thoughts on three solitary evenings a week, waiting for him\nto come home.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nBRICKS AND MORTAR\n\nI\n\n\nIn the summer of that year the occurrence of a white rash of posters on\nhoardings and on certain houses and shops, was symptomatic of organic\nchange in the town. The posters were iterations of a mysterious\nannouncement and summons, which began with the august words: \"By Order\nof the Trustees of the late William Clews Mericarp, Esq.\" Mericarp had\nbeen a considerable owner of property in Bursley. After a prolonged\nresidence at Southport, he had died, at the age of eighty-two, leaving\nhis property behind. For sixty years he had been a name, not a figure;\nand the news of his death, which was assuredly an event, incited the\nburgesses to gossip, for they had come to regard him as one of the\ninvisible immortals. Constance was shocked, though she had never seen\nMericarp. (\"Everybody dies nowadays!\" she thought.) He owned the\nBaines-Povey shop, and also Mr. Critchlow's shop. Constance knew not\nhow often her father and, later, her husband, had renewed the lease of\nthose premises that were now hers; but from her earliest recollections\nrose a vague memory of her father talking to her mother about\n'Mericarp's rent,' which was and always had been a hundred a year.\nMericarp had earned the reputation of being 'a good landlord.'\nConstance said sadly: \"We shall never have another as good!\" When a\nlawyer's clerk called and asked her to permit the exhibition of a\nposter in each of her shop-windows, she had misgivings for the future;\nshe was worried; she decided that she would determine the lease next\nyear, so as to be on the safe side; but immediately afterwards she\ndecided that she could decide nothing.\n\nThe posters continued: \"To be sold by auction, at the Tiger Hotel at\nsix-thirty for seven o'clock precisely.\" What six-thirty had to do with\nseven o'clock precisely no one knew. Then, after stating the name and\ncredentials of the auctioneer, the posters at length arrived at the\nobjects to be sold: \"All those freehold messuages and shops and\ncopyhold tenements namely.\" Houses were never sold by auction in\nBursley. At moments of auction burgesses were reminded that the\nerections they lived in were not houses, as they had falsely supposed,\nbut messuages. Having got as far as 'namely' the posters ruled a line\nand began afresh: \"Lot I. All that extensive and commodious shop and\nmessuage with the offices and appurtenances thereto belonging situate\nand being No. 4 St. Luke's Square in the parish of Bursley in the\nCounty of Stafford and at present in the occupation of Mrs. Constance\nPovey widow under a lease expiring in September 1889.\" Thus clearly\nasserting that all Constance's shop was for sale, its whole entirety,\nand not a fraction or slice of it merely, the posters proceeded: \"Lot\n2. All that extensive and commodious shop and messuage with the offices\nand appurtenances thereto belonging situate and being No. 3 St. Luke's\nSquare in the parish of Bursley in the County of Stafford and at\npresent in the occupation of Charles Critchlow chemist under an\nagreement for a yearly tenancy.\" The catalogue ran to fourteen lots.\nThe posters, lest any one should foolishly imagine that a non-legal\nintellect could have achieved such explicit and comprehensive clarity\nof statement, were signed by a powerful firm of solicitors in\nHanbridge. Happily in the Five Towns there were no metaphysicians;\notherwise the firm might have been expected to explain, in the 'further\nparticulars and conditions' which the posters promised, how even a\nmessuage could 'be' the thing at which it was 'situate.'\n\nWithin a few hours of the outbreak of the rash, Mr. Critchlow abruptly\npresented himself before Constance at the millinery counter; he was\nwaving a poster.\n\n\"Well!\" he exclaimed grimly. \"What next, eh?\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed!\" Constance responded.\n\n\"Are ye thinking o' buying?\" he asked. All the assistants, including\nMiss Insull, were in hearing, but he ignored their presence.\n\n\"Buying!\" repeated Constance. \"Not me! I've got quite enough house\nproperty as it is.\"\n\nLike all owners of real property, she usually adopted towards her\npossessions an attitude implying that she would be willing to pay\nsomebody to take them from her.\n\n\"Shall you?\" she added, with Mr. Critchlow's own brusqueness.\n\n\"Me! Buy property in St. Luke's Square!\" Mr. Critchlow sneered. And\nthen left the shop as suddenly as he had entered it.\n\nThe sneer at St. Luke's Square was his characteristic expression of an\nopinion which had been slowly forming for some years. The Square was no\nlonger what it had been, though individual businesses might be as good\nas ever. For nearly twelve months two shops had been to let in it. And\nonce, bankruptcy had stained its annals. The tradesmen had naturally\nsearched for a cause in every direction save the right one, the obvious\none; and naturally they had found a cause. According to the tradesmen,\nthe cause was 'this football.' The Bursley Football Club had recently\nswollen into a genuine rival of the ancient supremacy of the celebrated\nKnype Club. It had transformed itself into a limited company, and\nrented a ground up the Moorthorne Road, and built a grand stand. The\nBursley F.C. had 'tied' with the Knype F.C. on the Knype ground--a\nprodigious achievement, an achievement which occupied a column of the\nAthletic News one Monday morning! But were the tradesmen civically\nproud of this glory? No! They said that 'this football' drew people out\nof the town on Saturday afternoons, to the complete abolition of\nshopping. They said also that people thought of nothing but 'this\nfootball;' and, nearly in the same breath, that only roughs and\ngood-for-nothings could possibly be interested in such a barbarous\ngame. And they spoke of gate-money, gambling, and professionalism, and\nthe end of all true sport in England. In brief, something new had come\nto the front and was submitting to the ordeal of the curse.\n\nThe sale of the Mericarp estate had a particular interest for\nrespectable stake-in-the-town persons. It would indicate to what\nextent, if at all, 'this football' was ruining Bursley. Constance\nmentioned to Cyril that she fancied she might like to go to the sale,\nand as it was dated for one of Cyril's off-nights Cyril said that he\nfancied he might like to go too. So they went together; Samuel used to\nattend property sales, but he had never taken his wife to one.\nConstance and Cyril arrived at the Tiger shortly after seven o'clock,\nand were directed to a room furnished and arranged as for a small\npublic meeting of philanthropists. A few gentlemen were already\npresent, but not the instigating trustees, solicitors, and auctioneers.\nIt appeared that 'six-thirty for seven o'clock precisely' meant\nseven-fifteen. Constance took a Windsor chair in the corner nearest the\ndoor, and motioned Cyril to the next chair; they dared not speak; they\nmoved on tiptoe; Cyril inadvertently dragged his chair along the floor,\nand produced a scrunching sound; he blushed, as though he had\ndesecrated a church, and his mother made a gesture of horror. The\nremainder of the company glanced at the corner, apparently pained by\nthis negligence. Some of them greeted Constance, but self-consciously,\nwith a sort of shamed air; it might have been that they had all\nnefariously gathered together there for the committing of a crime.\nFortunately Constance's widowhood had already lost its touching\nnovelty, so that the greetings, if self-conscious, were at any rate\ngiven without unendurable commiseration and did not cause awkwardness.\n\nWhen the official world arrived, fussy, bustling, bearing documents and\na hammer, the general feeling of guilty shame was intensified. Useless\nfor the auctioneer to try to dissipate the gloom by means of bright\ngestures and quick, cheerful remarks to his supporters! Cyril had an\nidea that the meeting would open with a hymn, until the apparition of a\ntapster with wine showed him his error. The auctioneer very\nparticularly enjoined the tapster to see to it that no one lacked for\nhis thirst, and the tapster became self-consciously energetic. He began\nby choosing Constance for service. In refusing wine, she blushed; then\nthe fellow offered a glass to Cyril, who went scarlet, and mumbled 'No'\nwith a lump in his throat; when the tapster's back was turned, he\nsmiled sheepishly at his mother. The majority of the company accepted\nand sipped. The auctioneer sipped and loudly smacked, and said: \"Ah!\"\n\nMr. Critchlow came in.\n\nAnd the auctioneer said again: \"Ah! I'm always glad when the tenants\ncome. That's always a good sign.\"\n\nHe glanced round for approval of this sentiment. But everybody seemed\ntoo stiff to move. Even the auctioneer was self-conscious.\n\n\"Waiter! Offer wine to Mr. Critchlow!\" he exclaimed bullyingly, as if\nsaying: \"Man! what on earth are you thinking of, to neglect Mr.\nCritchlow?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; yes, sir,\" said the waiter, who was dispensing wine as fast\nas a waiter can.\n\nThe auction commenced.\n\nSeizing the hammer, the auctioneer gave a short biography of William\nClews Mericarp, and, this pious duty accomplished, called upon a\nsolicitor to read the conditions of sale. The solicitor complied and\nmade a distressing exhibition of self-consciousness. The conditions of\nsale were very lengthy, and apparently composed in a foreign tongue;\nand the audience listened to this elocution with a stoical pretence of\nbreathless interest.\n\nThen the auctioneer put up all that extensive and commodious messuage\nand shop situate and being No. 4, St. Luke's Square. Constance and\nCyril moved their limbs surreptitiously, as though being at last found\nout. The auctioneer referred to John Baines and to Samuel Povey, with a\nsense of personal loss, and then expressed his pleasure in the presence\nof 'the ladies;' he meant Constance, who once more had to blush.\n\n\"Now, gentlemen,\" said the auctioneer, \"what do you say for these\nfamous premises? I think I do not exaggerate when I use the word\n'famous.'\"\n\nSome one said a thousand pounds, in the terrorized voice of a\ndelinquent.\n\n\"A thousand pounds,\" repeated the auctioneer, paused, sipped, and\nsmacked.\n\n\"Guineas,\" said another voice self-accused of iniquity.\n\n\"A thousand and fifty,\" said the auctioneer.\n\nThen there was a long interval, an interval that tightened the nerves\nof the assembly.\n\n\"Now, ladies and gentlemen,\" the auctioneer adjured.\n\nThe first voice said sulkily: \"Eleven hundred.\"\n\nAnd thus the bids rose to fifteen hundred, lifted bit by bit, as it\nwere, by the magnetic force of the auctioneer's personality. The man\nwas now standing up, in domination. He bent down to the solicitor's\nhead; they whispered together.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" said the auctioneer, \"I am happy to inform you that the\nsale is now open.\" His tone translated better than words his calm\nprofessional beatitude. Suddenly in a voice of wrath he hissed at the\nwaiter: \"Waiter, why don't you serve these gentlemen?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; yes, sir.\"\n\nThe auctioneer sat down and sipped at leisure, chatting with his clerk\nand the solicitor and the solicitor's clerk.\n\nWhen he rose it was as a conqueror. \"Gentlemen, fifteen hundred is bid.\nNow, Mr. Critchlow.\"\n\nMr. Critchlow shook his head. The auctioneer threw a courteous glance\nat Constance, who avoided it.\n\nAfter many adjurations, he reluctantly raised his hammer, pretended to\nlet it fall, and saved it several times.\n\nAnd then Mr. Critchlow said: \"And fifty.\"\n\n\"Fifteen hundred and fifty is bid,\" the auctioneer informed the\ncompany, electrifying the waiter once more. And when he had sipped he\nsaid, with feigned sadness: \"Come, gentlemen, you surely don't mean to\nlet this magnificent lot go for fifteen hundred and fifty pounds?\"\n\nBut they did mean that.\n\nThe hammer fell, and the auctioneer's clerk and the solicitor's clerk\ntook Mr. Critchlow aside and wrote with him.\n\nNobody was surprised when Mr. Critchlow bought Lot No. 2, his own shop.\n\nConstance whispered then to Cyril that she wished to leave. They left,\nwith unnatural precautions, but instantly regained their natural\ndemeanour in the dark street.\n\n\"Well, I never! Well, I never!\" she murmured outside, astonished and\ndisturbed.\n\nShe hated the prospect of Mr. Critchlow as a landlord. And yet she\ncould not persuade herself to leave the place, in spite of decisions.\n\nThe sale demonstrated that football had not entirely undermined the\ncommercial basis of society in Bursley; only two Lots had to be\nwithdrawn.\n\nII\n\nOn Thursday afternoon of the same week the youth whom Constance had\nended by hiring for the manipulation of shutters and other jobs\nunsuitable for fragile women, was closing the shop. The clock had\nstruck two. All the shutters were up except the last one, in the midst\nof the doorway. Miss Insull and her mistress were walking about the\ndarkened interior, putting dust-sheets well over the edges of exposed\ngoods; the other assistants had just left. The bull-terrier had\nwandered into the shop as he almost invariably did at closing time--for\nhe slept there, an efficient guard--and had lain down by the dying\nstove; though not venerable, he was stiffening into age.\n\n\"You can shut,\" said Miss Insull to the youth.\n\nBut as the final shutter was ascending to its position, Mr. Critchlow\nappeared on the pavement.\n\n\"Hold on, young fellow!\" Mr. Critchlow commanded, and stepped slowly,\nlifting up his long apron, over the horizontal shutter on which the\nperpendicular shutters rested in the doorway.\n\n\"Shall you be long, Mr. Critchlow?\" the youth asked, posing the\nshutter. \"Or am I to shut?\"\n\n\"Shut, lad,\" said Mr. Critchlow, briefly. \"I'll go out by th' side\ndoor.\"\n\n\"Here's Mr. Critchlow!\" Miss Insull called out to Constance, in a\npeculiar tone. And a flush, scarcely perceptible, crept very slowly\nover her dark features. In the twilight of the shop, lit only by a few\nstarry holes in the shutters, and by the small side-window, not the\nkeenest eye could have detected that flush.\n\n\"Mr. Critchlow!\" Constance murmured the exclamation. She resented his\nfuture ownership of her shop. She thought he was come to play the\nlandlord, and she determined to let him see that her mood was\nindependent and free, that she would as lief give up the business as\nkeep it. In particular she meant to accuse him of having deliberately\ndeceived her as to his intentions on his previous visit.\n\n\"Well, missis!\" the aged man greeted her. \"We've made it up between us.\nHappen some folk'll think we've taken our time, but I don't know as\nthat's their affair.\"\n\nHis little blinking eyes had a red border. The skin of his pale small\nface was wrinkled in millions of minute creases. His arms and legs were\nmarvellously thin and sharply angular. The corners of his heliotrope\nlips were turned down, as usual, in a mysterious comment on the world;\nand his smile, as he fronted Constance with his excessive height,\ncrowned the mystery.\n\nConstance stared, at a loss. It surely could not after all be true, the\nsubstance of the rumours that had floated like vapours in the Square\nfor eight years and more!\n\n\"What...?\" she began.\n\n\"Me, and her!\" He jerked his head in the direction of Miss Insull.\n\nThe dog had leisurely strolled forward to inspect the edges of the\nfiance's trousers. Miss Insull summoned the animal with a noise of\nfingers, and then bent down and caressed it. A strange gesture proving\nthe validity of Charles Critchlow's discovery that in Maria Insull a\nhuman being was buried!\n\nMiss Insull was, as near as any one could guess, forty years of age.\nFor twenty-five years she had served in the shop, passing about twelve\nhours a day in the shop; attending regularly at least three religious\nservices at the Wesleyan Chapel or School on Sundays, and sleeping with\nher mother, whom she kept. She had never earned more than thirty\nshillings a week, and yet her situation was considered to be\nexceptionally good. In the eternal fusty dusk of the shop she had\ngradually lost such sexual characteristics and charms as she had once\npossessed. She was as thin and flat as Charles Critchlow himself. It\nwas as though her bosom had suffered from a prolonged drought at a\nsusceptible period of development, and had never recovered. The one\nproof that blood ran in her veins was the pimply quality of her ruined\ncomplexion, and the pimples of that brickish expanse proved that the\nblood was thin and bad. Her hands and feet were large and ungainly; the\nskin of the fingers was roughened by coarse contacts to the texture of\nemery-paper. On six days a week she wore black; on the seventh a kind\nof discreet half-mourning. She was honest, capable, and industrious;\nand beyond the confines of her occupation she had no curiosity, no\nintelligence, no ideas. Superstitions and prejudices, deep and violent,\nserved her for ideas; but she could incomparably sell silks and\nbonnets, braces and oilcloth; in widths, lengths, and prices she never\nerred; she never annoyed a customer, nor foolishly promised what could\nnot be performed, nor was late nor negligent, nor disrespectful. No one\nknew anything about her, because there was nothing to know. Subtract\nthe shop-assistant from her, and naught remained. Benighted and\nspiritually dead, she existed by habit.\n\nBut for Charles Critchlow she happened to be an illusion. He had cast\neyes on her and had seen youth, innocence, virginity. During eight\nyears the moth Charles had flitted round the lamp of her brilliance,\nand was now singed past escape. He might treat her with what casualness\nhe chose; he might ignore her in public; he might talk brutally about\nwomen; he might leave her to wonder dully what he meant, for months at\na stretch: but there emerged indisputable from the sum of his conduct\nthe fact that he wanted her. He desired her; she charmed him; she was\nsomething ornamental and luxurious for which he was ready to pay--and\nto commit follies. He had been a widower since before she was born; to\nhim she was a slip of a girl. All is relative in this world. As for\nher, she was too indifferent to refuse him. Why refuse him? Oysters do\nnot refuse.\n\n\"I'm sure I congratulate you both,\" Constance breathed, realizing the\nimport of Mr. Critchlow's laconic words. \"I'm sure I hope you'll be\nhappy.\"\n\n\"That'll be all right,\" said Mr. Critchlow.\n\n\"Thank you, Mrs. Povey,\" said Maria Insull.\n\nNobody seemed to know what to say next. \"It's rather sudden,\" was on\nConstance's tongue, but did not achieve utterance, being patently\nabsurd.\n\n\"Ah!\" exclaimed Mr. Critchlow, as though himself contemplating anew the\nsituation.\n\nMiss Insull gave the dog a final pat.\n\n\"So that's settled,\" said Mr. Critchlow. \"Now, missis, ye want to give\nup this shop, don't ye?\"\n\n\"I'm not so sure about that,\" Constance answered uneasily.\n\n\"Don't tell me!\" he protested. \"Of course ye want to give up the shop.\"\n\n\"I've lived here all my life,\" said Constance.\n\n\"Ye've not lived in th' shop all ye're life. I said th' shop. Listen\nhere!\" he continued. \"I've got a proposal to make to you. You can keep\non the house, and I'll take the shop off ye're hands. Now?\" He looked\nat her inquiringly.\n\nConstance was taken aback by the brusqueness of the suggestion, which,\nmoreover, she did not understand.\n\n\"But how--\" she faltered.\n\n\"Come here,\" said Mr. Critchlow, impatiently, and he moved towards the\nhouse-door of the shop, behind the till.\n\n\"Come where? What do you want?\" Constance demanded in a maze.\n\n\"Here!\" said Mr. Critchlow, with increasing impatience. \"Follow me,\nwill ye?\"\n\nConstance obeyed. Miss Insull sidled after Constance, and the dog after\nMiss Insull. Mr. Critchlow went through the doorway and down the\ncorridor, past the cutting-out room to his right. The corridor then\nturned at a right-angle to the left and ended at the parlour door, the\nkitchen steps being to the left.\n\nMr. Critchlow stopped short of the kitchen steps, and extended his\narms, touching the walls on either side.\n\n\"Here!\" he said, tapping the walls with his bony knuckles. \"Here!\nSuppose I brick ye this up, and th' same upstairs between th' showroom\nand th' bedroom passage, ye've got your house to yourself. Ye say ye've\nlived here all your life. Well, what's to prevent ye finishing up here?\nThe fact is,\" he added, \"it would only be making into two houses again\nwhat was two houses to start with, afore your time, missis.\"\n\n\"And what about the shop?\" cried Constance.\n\n\"Ye can sell us th' stock at a valuation.\"\n\nConstance suddenly comprehended the scheme. Mr. Critchlow would remain\nthe chemist, while Mrs. Critchlow became the head of the chief drapery\nbusiness in the town. Doubtless they would knock a hole through the\nseparating wall on the other side, to balance the bricking-up on this\nside. They must have thought it all out in detail. Constance revolted.\n\n\"Yes!\" she said, a little disdainfully. \"And my goodwill? Shall you\ntake that at a valuation too?\"\n\nMr. Critchlow glanced at the creature for whom he was ready to scatter\nthousands of pounds. She might have been a Phryne and he the infatuated\nfool. He glanced at her as if to say: \"We expected this, and this is\nwhere we agreed it was to stop.\"\n\n\"Ay!\" he said to Constance. \"Show me your goodwill. Lap it up in a bit\nof paper and hand it over, and I'll take it at a valuation. But not\nafore, missis! Not afore! I'm making ye a very good offer. Twenty pound\na year, I'll let ye th' house for. And take th' stock at a valuation.\nThink it over, my lass.\"\n\nHaving said what he had to say, Charles Critchlow departed, according\nto his custom. He unceremoniously let himself out by the side door, and\npassed with wavy apron round the corner of King Street into the Square\nand so to his own shop, which ignored the Thursday half-holiday. Miss\nInsull left soon afterwards.\n\nIII\n\nConstance's pride urged her to refuse the offer. But in truth her sole\nobjection to it was that she had not thought of the scheme herself. For\nthe scheme really reconciled her wish to remain where she was with her\nwish to be free of the shop.\n\n\"I shall make him put me in a new window in the parlour--one that will\nopen!\" she said positively to Cyril, who accepted Mr. Critchlow's idea\nwith fatalistic indifference.\n\nAfter stipulating for the new window, she closed with the offer. Then\nthere was the stock-taking, which endured for weeks. And then a\ncarpenter came and measured for the window. And a builder and a mason\ncame and inspected doorways, and Constance felt that the end was upon\nher. She took up the carpet in the parlour and protected the furniture\nby dustsheets. She and Cyril lived between bare boards and dustsheets\nfor twenty days, and neither carpenter nor mason reappeared. Then one\nsurprising day the old window was removed by the carpenter's two\njourneymen, and late in the afternoon the carpenter brought the new\nwindow, and the three men worked till ten o'clock at night, fixing it.\nCyril wore his cap and went to bed in his cap, and Constance wore a\nPaisley shawl. A painter had bound himself beyond all possibility of\nfailure to paint the window on the morrow. He was to begin at six a.m.;\nand Amy's alarm-clock was altered so that she might be up and dressed\nto admit him. He came a week later, administered one coat, and vanished\nfor another ten days. Then two masons suddenly came with heavy tools,\nand were shocked to find that all was not prepared for them. (After\nthree carpetless weeks Constance had relaid her floors.) They tore off\nwall-paper, sent cascades of plaster down the kitchen steps, withdrew\nalternate courses of bricks from the walls, and, sated with\ndestruction, hastened away. After four days new red bricks began to\narrive, carried by a quite guiltless hodman who had not visited the\nhouse before. The hodman met the full storm of Constance's wrath. It\nwas not a vicious wrath, rather a good-humoured wrath; but it impressed\nthe hodman. \"My house hasn't been fit to live in for a month,\" she said\nin fine. \"If these walls aren't built to-morrow, upstairs AND\ndown--to-morrow, mind!--don't let any of you dare to show your noses\nhere again, for I won't have you. Now you've brought your bricks. Off\nwith you, and tell your master what I say!\"\n\nIt was effective. The next day subdued and plausible workmen of all\nsorts awoke the house with knocking at six-thirty precisely, and the\ntwo doorways were slowly bricked up. The curious thing was that, when\nthe barrier was already a foot high on the ground-floor Constance\nremembered small possessions of her own which she had omitted to remove\nfrom the cutting-out room. Picking up her skirts, she stepped over into\nthe region that was no more hers, and stepped back with the goods. She\nhad a bandanna round her head to keep the thick dust out of her hair.\nShe was very busy, very preoccupied with nothings. She had no time for\nsentimentalities. Yet when the men arrived at the topmost course and\nwere at last hidden behind their own erection, and she could see only\nrough bricks and mortar, she was disconcertingly overtaken by a misty\nblindness and could not even see bricks and mortar. Cyril found her,\nwith her absurd bandanna, weeping in a sheet-covered rocking-chair in\nthe sacked parlour. He whistled uneasily, remarked: \"I say, mother,\nwhat about tea?\" and then, hearing the heavy voices of workmen above,\nran with relief upstairs. Tea had been set in the drawing-room, he was\nglad to learn that from Amy, who informed him also that she should\n'never get used to them there new walls,' not as long as she lived.\n\nHe went to the School of Art that night. Constance, alone, could find\nnothing to do. She had willed that the walls should be built, and they\nhad been built; but days must elapse before they could be plastered,\nand after the plaster still more days before the papering. Not for\nanother month, perhaps, would her house be free of workmen and ripe for\nher own labours. She could only sit in the dust-drifts and contemplate\nthe havoc of change, and keep her eyes as dry as she could. The legal\ntransactions were all but complete; little bills announcing the\ntransfer of the business lay on the counters in the shop at the\ndisposal of customers. In two days Charles Critchlow would pay the\nprice of a desire realized. The sign was painted out and new letters\nsketched thereon in chalk. In future she would be compelled, if she\nwished to enter the shop, to enter it as a customer and from the front.\nYes, she saw that, though the house remained hers, the root of her life\nhad been wrenched up.\n\nAnd the mess! It seemed inconceivable that the material mess could ever\nbe straightened away!\n\nYet, ere the fields of the county were first covered with snow that\nseason, only one sign survived of the devastating revolution, and that\nwas a loose sheet of wall-paper that had been too soon pasted on to new\nplaster and would not stick. Maria Insull was Maria Critchlow.\nConstance had been out into the Square and seen the altered sign, and\nseen Mrs. Critchlow's taste in window-curtains, and seen--most\nimpressive sight of all--that the grimy window of the abandoned room at\nthe top of the abandoned staircase next to the bedroom of her girlhood,\nhad been cleaned and a table put in front of it. She knew that the\nchamber, which she herself had never entered, was to be employed as a\nstoreroom, but the visible proof of its conversion so strangely\naffected her that she had not felt able to go boldly into the shop, as\nshe had meant to do, and make a few purchases in the way of\nfriendliness. \"I'm a silly woman!\" she muttered. Later, she did\nventure, timidly abrupt, into the shop, and was received with fitting\nstate by Mrs. Critchlow (as desiccated as ever), who insisted on\nallowing her the special trade discount. And she carried her little\nfriendly purchases round to her own door in King Street. Trivial,\ntrivial event! Constance, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, did\nboth. She accused herself of developing a hysterical faculty in tears,\nand strove sagely against it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE PROUDEST MOTHER\n\nI\n\n\nIn the year 1893 there was a new and strange man living at No. 4, St.\nLuke's Square. Many people remarked on the phenomenon. Very few of his\nlike had ever been seen in Bursley before. One of the striking things\nabout him was the complex way in which he secured himself by means of\nglittering chains. A chain stretched across his waistcoat, passing\nthrough a special button-hole, without a button, in the middle. To this\ncable were firmly linked a watch at one end and a pencil-case at the\nother; the chain also served as a protection against a thief who might\nattempt to snatch the fancy waistcoat entire. Then there were longer\nchains, beneath the waistcoat, partly designed, no doubt, to deflect\nbullets, but serving mainly to enable the owner to haul up penknives,\ncigarette-cases, match-boxes, and key-rings from the profundities of\nhip-pockets. An essential portion of the man's braces, visible\nsometimes when he played at tennis, consisted of chain, and the upper\nand nether halves of his cuff-links were connected by chains.\nOccasionally he was to be seen chained to a dog.\n\nA reversion, conceivably, to a mediaeval type! Yes, but also the\nexemplar of the excessively modern! Externally he was a consequence of\nthe fact that, years previously, the leading tailor in Bursley had\npermitted his son to be apprenticed in London. The father died; the son\nhad the wit to return and make a fortune while creating a new type in\nthe town, a type of which multiple chains were but one feature, and\nthat the least expensive if the most salient. For instance, up to the\nhistoric year in which the young tailor created the type, any cap was a\ncap in Bursley, and any collar was a collar. But thenceforward no cap\nwas a cap, and no collar was a collar, which did not exactly conform in\nshape and material to certain sacred caps and collars guarded by the\nyoung tailor in his back shop. None knew why these sacred caps and\ncollars were sacred, but they were; their sacredness endured for about\nsix months, and then suddenly--again none knew why--they fell from\ntheir estate and became lower than offal for dogs, and were supplanted\non the altar. The type brought into existence by the young tailor was\nto be recognized by its caps and collars, and in a similar manner by\nevery other article of attire, except its boots. Unfortunately the\ntailor did not sell boots, and so imposed on his creatures no mystical\ncreed as to boots. This was a pity, for the boot-makers of the town\nhappened not to be inflamed by the type-creating passion as the tailor\nwas, and thus the new type finished abruptly at the edges of the\ntailor's trousers.\n\nThe man at No. 4, St. Luke's Square had comparatively small and narrow\nfeet, which gave him an advantage; and as he was endowed with a certain\nvague general physical distinction he managed, despite the eternal\nuntidiness of his hair, to be eminent among the type. Assuredly the\nfrequent sight of him in her house flattered the pride of Constance's\neye, which rested on him almost always with pleasure. He had come into\nthe house with startling abruptness soon after Cyril left school and\nwas indentured to the head-designer at \"Peel's,\" that classic\nearthenware manufactory. The presence of a man in her abode\ndisconcerted Constance at the beginning; but she soon grew accustomed\nto it, perceiving that a man would behave as a man, and must be\nexpected to do so. This man, in truth, did what he liked in all things.\nCyril having always been regarded by both his parents as enormous, one\nwould have anticipated a giant in the new man; but, queerly, he was\nslim, and little above the average height. Neither in enormity nor in\nmany other particulars did he resemble the Cyril whom he had\nsupplanted. His gestures were lighter and quicker; he had nothing of\nCyril's ungainliness; he had not Cyril's limitless taste for sweets,\nnor Cyril's terrific hatred of gloves, barbers, and soap. He was much\nmore dreamy than Cyril, and much busier. In fact, Constance only saw\nhim at meal-times. He was at Peel's in the day and at the School of Art\nevery night. He would dream during a meal, even; and, without actually\nsaying so, he gave the impression that he was the busiest man in\nBursley, wrapped in occupations and preoccupations as in a blanket--a\nblanket which Constance had difficulty in penetrating.\n\nConstance wanted to please him; she lived for nothing but to please\nhim; he was, however, exceedingly difficult to please, not in the least\nbecause he was hypercritical and exacting, but because he was\nindifferent. Constance, in order to satisfy her desire of pleasing, had\nto make fifty efforts, in the hope that he might chance to notice one.\nHe was a good man, amazingly industrious--when once Constance had got\nhim out of bed in the morning; with no vices; kind, save when Constance\nmistakenly tried to thwart him; charming, with a curious strain of\nhumour that Constance only half understood. Constance was\nunquestionably vain about him, and she could honestly find in him\nlittle to blame. But whereas he was the whole of her universe, she was\nmerely a dim figure in the background of his. Every now and then, with\nhis gentle, elegant raillery, he would apparently rediscover her, as\nthough saying: \"Ah! You're still there, are you?\" Constance could not\nmeet him on the plane where his interests lay, and he never knew the\npassionate intensity of her absorption in that minor part of his life\nwhich moved on her plane. He never worried about her solitude, or\nguessed that in throwing her a smile and a word at supper he was paying\nher meagrely for three hours of lone rocking in a rocking-chair.\n\nThe worst of it was that she was quite incurable. No experience would\nsuffice to cure her trick of continually expecting him to notice things\nwhich he never did notice. One day he said, in the midst of a silence:\n\"By the way, didn't father leave any boxes of cigars?\" She had the\nsteps up into her bedroom and reached down from the dusty top of the\nwardrobe the box which she had put there after Samuel's funeral. In\nhanding him the box she was doing a great deed. His age was nineteen\nand she was ratifying his precocious habit of smoking by this solemn\ngift. He entirely ignored the box for several days. She said timidly:\n\"Have you tried those cigars?\" \"Not yet,\" he replied. \"I'll try 'em one\nof these days.\" Ten days later, on a Sunday when he chanced not to have\ngone out with his aristocratic friend Matthew Peel-Swynnerton, he did\nat length open the box and take out a cigar. \"Now,\" he observed\nroguishly, cutting the cigar, \"we shall see, Mrs. Plover!\" He often\ncalled her Mrs. Plover, for fun. Though she liked him to be\nsufficiently interested in her to tease her, she did not like being\ncalled Mrs. Plover, and she never failed to say: \"I'm not Mrs. Plover.\"\nHe smoked the cigar slowly, in the rocking-chair, throwing his head\nback and sending clouds to the ceiling. And afterwards he remarked:\n\"The old man's cigars weren't so bad.\" \"Indeed!\" she answered tartly,\nas if maternally resenting this easy patronage. But in secret she was\ndelighted. There was something in her son's favourable verdict on her\nhusband's cigars that thrilled her.\n\nAnd she looked at him. Impossible to see in him any resemblance to his\nfather! Oh! He was a far more brilliant, more advanced, more\ncomplicated, more seductive being than his homely father! She wondered\nwhere he had come from. And yet...! If his father had lived, what would\nhave occurred between them? Would the boy have been openly smoking\ncigars in the house at nineteen?\n\nShe laboriously interested herself, so far as he would allow, in his\nartistic studies and productions. A back attic on the second floor was\nnow transformed into a studio--a naked apartment which smelt of oil and\nof damp clay. Often there were traces of clay on the stairs. For\nworking in clay he demanded of his mother a smock, and she made a\nsmock, on the model of a genuine smock which she obtained from a\ncountry-woman who sold eggs and butter in the Covered Market. Into the\nshoulders of the smock she put a week's fancy-stitching, taking the\npattern from an old book of embroidery. One day when he had seen her\nstitching morn, noon, and afternoon, at the smock, he said, as she\nrocked idly after supper: \"I suppose you haven't forgotten all about\nthe smock I asked you for, have you, mater?\" She knew that he was\nteasing her; but, while perfectly realizing how foolish she was, she\nnearly always acted as though his teasing was serious; she picked up\nthe smock again from the sofa. When the smock was finished he examined\nit intently; then exclaimed with an air of surprise: \"By Jove! That's\nbeautiful! Where did you get this pattern?\" He continued to stare at\nit, smiling in pleasure. He turned over the tattered leaves of the\nembroidery-book with the same naive, charmed astonishment, and carried\nthe book away to the studio. \"I must show that to Swynnerton,\" he said.\nAs for her, the epithet 'beautiful' seemed a strange epithet to apply\nto a mere piece of honest stitchery done in a pattern, and a stitch\nwith which she had been familiar all her life. The fact was she\nunderstood his 'art' less and less. The sole wall decoration of his\nstudio was a Japanese print, which struck her as being entirely\npreposterous, considered as a picture. She much preferred his own early\ndrawings of moss-roses and picturesque castles--things that he now\nmercilessly contemned. Later, he discovered her cutting out another\nsmock. \"What's that for?\" he inquired. \"Well,\" she said, \"you can't\nmanage with one smock. What shall you do when that one has to go to the\nwash?\" \"Wash!\" he repeated vaguely. \"There's no need for it to go to\nthe wash.\" \"Cyril,\" she replied, \"don't try my patience! I was thinking\nof making you half-a-dozen.\" He whistled. \"With all that stitching?\" he\nquestioned, amazed at the undertaking. \"Why not?\" she said. In her\nyoung days, no seamstress ever made fewer than half-a-dozen of\nanything, and it was usually a dozen; it was sometimes half-a-dozen\ndozen. \"Well,\" he murmured, \"you have got a nerve! I'll say that.\"\nSimilar things happened whenever he showed that he was pleased. If he\nsaid of a dish, in the local tongue: \"I could do a bit of that!\" or if\nhe simply smacked his lips over it, she would surfeit him with that\ndish.\n\nII\n\nOn a hot day in August, just before they were to leave Bursley for a\nmonth in the Isle of Man, Cyril came home, pale and perspiring, and\ndropped on to the sofa. He wore a grey alpaca suit, and, except his\nhair, which in addition to being very untidy was damp with sweat, he\nwas a masterpiece of slim elegance, despite the heat. He blew out great\nsighs, and rested his head on the antimacassared arm of the sofa.\n\n\"Well, mater,\" he said, in a voice of factitious calm, \"I've got it.\"\nHe was looking up at the ceiling.\n\n\"Got what?\"\n\n\"The National Scholarship. Swynnerton says it's a sheer fluke. But I've\ngot it. Great glory for the Bursley School of Art!\"\n\n\"National Scholarship?\" she said. \"What's that? What is it?\"\n\n\"Now, mother!\" he admonished her, not without testiness. \"Don't go and\nsay I've never breathed a word about it!\"\n\nHe lit a cigarette, to cover his self-consciousness, for he perceived\nthat she was moved far beyond the ordinary.\n\nNever, in fact, not even by the death of her husband, had she received\nsuch a frightful blow as that which the dreamy Cyril had just dealt her.\n\nIt was not a complete surprise, but it was nearly a complete surprise.\nA few months previously he certainly had mentioned, in his incidental\nway, the subject of a National Scholarship. Apropos of a drinking-cup\nwhich he had designed, he had said that the director of the School of\nArt had suggested that it was good enough to compete for the National,\nand that as he was otherwise qualified for the competition he might as\nwell send the cup to South Kensington. He had added that\nPeel-Swynnerton had laughed at the notion as absurd. On that occasion\nshe had comprehended that a National Scholarship involved residence in\nLondon. She ought to have begun to live in fear, for Cyril had a most\ndisturbing habit of making a mere momentary reference to matters which\nhe deemed very important and which occupied a large share of his\nattention. He was secretive by nature, and the rigidity of his father's\nrule had developed this trait in his character. But really he had\nspoken of the competition with such an extreme casualness that with\nlittle effort she had dismissed it from her anxieties as involving a\ncontingency so remote as to be negligible. She had, genuinely, almost\nforgotten it. Only at rare intervals had it wakened in her a dull\ntransitory pain--like the herald of a fatal malady. And, as a woman in\nthe opening stage of disease, she had hastily reassured herself: \"How\nsilly of me! This can't possibly be anything serious!\"\n\nAnd now she was condemned. She knew it. She knew there could be no\nappeal. She knew that she might as usefully have besought mercy from a\ntiger as from her good, industrious, dreamy son.\n\n\"It means a pound a week,\" said Cyril, his self-consciousness\nintensified by her silence and by the dreadful look on her face. \"And\nof course free tuition.\"\n\n\"For how long?\" she managed to say.\n\n\"Well,\" said he, \"that depends. Nominally for a year. But if you behave\nyourself it's always continued for three years.\" If he stayed for three\nyears he would never come back: that was a certainty.\n\nHow she rebelled, furious and despairing, against the fortuitous\ncruelty of things! She was sure that he had not, till then, thought\nseriously of going to London. But the fact that the Government would\nadmit him free to its classrooms and give him a pound a week besides,\nsomehow forced him to go to London. It was not the lack of means that\nwould have prevented him from going. Why, then, should the presence of\nmeans induce him to go? There was no logical reason. The whole affair\nwas disastrously absurd. The art-master at the Wedgwood Institution had\nchanced, merely chanced, to suggest that the drinking-cup should be\nsent to South Kensington. And the result of this caprice was that she\nwas sentenced to solitude for life! It was too monstrously, too\nincredibly wicked!\n\nWith what futile and bitter execration she murmured in her heart the\nword 'If.' If Cyril's childish predilections had not been encouraged!\nIf he had only been content to follow his father's trade! If she had\nflatly refused to sign his indenture at Peel's and pay the premium! If\nhe had not turned from, colour to clay! If the art-master had not had\nthat fatal 'idea'! If the judges for the competition had decided\notherwise! If only she had brought Cyril up in habits of obedience,\nsacrificing temporary peace to permanent security!\n\nFor after all he could not abandon her without her consent. He was not\nof age. And he would want a lot more money, which he could obtain from\nnone but her. She could refuse....\n\nNo! She could not refuse. He was the master, the tyrant. For the sake\nof daily pleasantness she had weakly yielded to him at the start! She\nhad behaved badly to herself and to him. He was spoiled. She had\nspoiled him. And he was about to repay her with lifelong misery, and\nnothing would deflect him from his course. The usual conduct of the\nspoilt child! Had she not witnessed it, and moralized upon it, in other\nfamilies?\n\n\"You don't seem very chirpy over it, mater!\" he said.\n\nShe went out of the room. His joy in the prospect of departure from the\nFive Towns, from her, though he masked it, was more manifest than she\ncould bear.\n\nThe Signal, the next day, made a special item of the news. It appeared\nthat no National Scholarship had been won in the Five Towns for eleven\nyears. The citizens were exhorted to remember that Mr. Povey had gained\nhis success in open competition with the cleverest young students of\nthe entire kingdom--and in a branch of art which he had but recently\ntaken up; and further, that the Government offered only eight\nscholarships each year. The name of Cyril Povey passed from lip to lip.\nAnd nobody who met Constance, in street or shop, could refrain from\ninforming her that she ought to be a proud mother, to have such a son,\nbut that truly they were not surprised ... and how proud his poor\nfather would have been! A few sympathetically hinted that maternal\npride was one of those luxuries that may cost too dear.\n\nIII\n\nThe holiday in the Isle of Man was of course ruined for her. She could\nscarcely walk because of the weight of a lump of lead that she carried\nin her bosom. On the brightest days the lump of lead was always there.\nBesides, she was so obese. In ordinary circumstances they might have\nstayed beyond the month. An indentured pupil is not strapped to the\nwheel like a common apprentice. Moreover, the indentures were to be\ncancelled. But Constance did not care to stay. She had to prepare for\nhis departure to London. She had to lay the faggots for her own\nmartyrdom.\n\nIn this business of preparation she showed as much silliness, she\nbetrayed as perfect a lack of perspective, as the most superior son\ncould desire for a topic of affectionate irony. Her preoccupation with\npetty things of no importance whatever was worthy of the finest\ntraditions of fond motherhood. However, Cyril's careless satire had no\neffect on her, save that once she got angry, thereby startling him; he\nquite correctly and sagely laid this unprecedented outburst to the\naccount of her wrought nerves, and forgave it. Happily for the\nsmoothness of Cyril's translation to London, young Peel-Swynnerton was\nacquainted with the capital, had a brother in Chelsea, knew of\nreputable lodgings, was, indeed, an encyclopaedia of the town, and\nwould himself spend a portion of the autumn there. Otherwise, the\npreliminaries which his mother would have insisted on by means of tears\nand hysteria might have proved fatiguing to Cyril.\n\nThe day came when on that day week Cyril would be gone. Constance\nsteadily fabricated cheerfulness against the prospect. She said:\n\n\"Suppose I come with you?\"\n\nHe smiled in toleration of this joke as being a passable quality of\njoke. And then she smiled in the same sense, hastening to agree with\nhim that as a joke it was not a bad joke.\n\nIn the last week he was very loyal to his tailor. Many a young man\nwould have commanded new clothes after, not before, his arrival in\nLondon. But Cyril had faith in his creator.\n\nOn the day of departure the household, the very house itself, was in a\nstate of excitation. He was to leave early. He would not listen to the\nproject of her accompanying him as far as Knype, where the Loop Line\njoined the main. She might go to Bursley Station and no further. When\nshe rebelled he disclosed the merest hint of his sullen-churlish side,\nand she at once yielded. During breakfast she did not cry, but the\naspect of her face made him protest.\n\n\"Now, look here, mater! Just try to remember that I shall be back for\nChristmas. It's barely three months.\" And he lit a cigarette.\n\nShe made no reply.\n\nAmy lugged a Gladstone bag down the crooked stairs. A trunk was already\nclose to the door; it had wrinkled the carpet and deranged the mat.\n\n\"You didn't forget to put the hair-brush in, did you, Amy?\" he asked.\n\n\"N--no, Mr. Cyril,\" she blubbered.\n\n\"Amy!\" Constance sharply corrected her, as Cyril ran upstairs, \"I\nwonder you can't control yourself better than that.\"\n\nAmy weakly apologized. Although treated almost as one of the family,\nshe ought not to have forgotten that she was a servant. What right had\nshe to weep over Cyril's luggage? This question was put to her in\nConstance's tone.\n\nThe cab came. Cyril tumbled downstairs with exaggerated carelessness,\nand with exaggerated carelessness he joked at the cabman.\n\n\"Now, mother!\" he cried, when the luggage was stowed. \"Do you want me\nto miss this train?\" But he knew that the margin of time was ample. It\nwas his fun!\n\n\"Nay, I can't be hurried!\" she said, fixing her bonnet. \"Amy, as soon\nas we are gone you can clear this table.\"\n\nShe climbed heavily into the cab.\n\n\"That's it! Smash the springs!\" Cyril teased her.\n\nThe horse got a stinging cut to recall him to the seriousness of life.\nIt was a fine, bracing autumn morning, and the driver felt the need of\ncommunicating his abundant energy to some one or something. They drove\noff, Amy staring after them from the door. Matters had been so\nmarvellously well arranged that they arrived at the station twenty\nminutes before the train was due.\n\n\"Never mind!\" Cyril mockingly comforted his mother. \"You'd rather be\ntwenty minutes too soon than one minute too late, wouldn't you?\"\n\nHis high spirits had to come out somehow.\n\nGradually the minutes passed, and the empty slate-tinted platform\nbecame dotted with people to whom that train was nothing but a Loop\nLine train, people who took that train every week-day of their lives\nand knew all its eccentricities.\n\nAnd they heard the train whistle as it started from Turnhill. And Cyril\nhad a final word with the porter who was in charge of the luggage. He\nmade a handsome figure, and he had twenty pounds in his pocket. When he\nreturned to Constance she was sniffing, and through her veil he could\nsee that her eyes were circled with red. But through her veil she could\nsee nothing. The train rolled in, rattling to a standstill. Constance\nlifted her veil and kissed him; and kissed her life out. He smelt the\nodour of her crape. He was, for an instant, close to her, close; and he\nseemed to have an overwhelmingly intimate glimpse into her secrets; he\nseemed to be choked in the sudden strong emotion of that crape. He felt\nqueer.\n\n\"Here you are, sir! Second smoker!\" called the porter.\n\nThe daily frequenters of the train boarded it with their customary\ndisgust.\n\n\"I'll write as soon as ever I get there!\" said Cyril, of his own\naccord. It was the best he could muster.\n\nWith what grace he raised his hat!\n\nA sliding-away; clouds of steam; and she shared the dead platform with\nmilk-cans, two porters, and Smith's noisy boy!\n\nShe walked home, very slowly and painfully. The lump of lead was\nheavier than ever before. And the townspeople saw the proudest mother\nin Bursley walking home.\n\n\"After all,\" she argued with her soul angrily, petulantly, \"could you\nexpect the boy to do anything else? He is a serious student, he has had\na brilliant success, and is he to be tied to your apron-strings? The\nidea is preposterous. It isn't as if he was an idler, or a bad son. No\nmother could have a better son. A nice thing, that he should stay all\nhis life in Bursley simply because you don't like being left alone!\"\n\nUnfortunately one might as well argue with a mule as with one's soul.\nHer soul only kept on saying monotonously: \"I'm a lonely old woman now.\nI've nothing to live for any more, and I'm no use to anybody. Once I\nwas young and proud. And this is what my life has come to! This is the\nend!\"\n\nWhen she reached home, Amy had not touched the breakfast things; the\ncarpet was still wrinkled, and the mat still out of place. And, through\nthe desolating atmosphere of reaction after a terrific crisis, she\nmarched directly upstairs, entered his plundered room, and beheld the\ndisorder of the bed in which he had slept.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III\n\nSOPHIA\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE ELOPEMENT\n\nI\n\n\nHer soberly rich dress had a countrified air, as she waited, ready for\nthe streets, in the bedroom of the London hotel on the afternoon of the\nfirst of July, 1866; but there was nothing of the provincial in that\nbeautiful face, nor in that bearing at once shy and haughty; and her\neager heart soared beyond geographical boundaries.\n\nIt was the Hatfield Hotel, in Salisbury Street, between the Strand and\nthe river. Both street and hotel are now gone, lost in the vast\nfoundations of the Savoy and the Cecil; but the type of the Hatfield\nlingers with ever-increasing shabbiness in Jermyn Street. In 1866, with\nits dark passages and crooked stairs, its candles, its carpets and\nstuffs which had outlived their patterns, its narrow dining-room where\na thousand busy flies ate together at one long table, its acrid\nstagnant atmosphere, and its disturbing sensation of dirt everywhere\nconcealing itself, it stood forth in rectitude as a good average modern\nhotel. The patched and senile drabness of the bedroom made an\nenvironment that emphasized Sophia's flashing youth. She alone in it\nwas unsullied.\n\nThere was a knock at the door, apparently gay and jaunty. But she\nthought, truly: \"He's nearly as nervous as I am!\" And in her sick\nnervousness she coughed, and then tried to take full possession of\nherself. The moment had at last come which would divide her life as a\nbattle divides the history of a nation. Her mind in an instant swept\nbackwards through an incredible three months.\n\nThe schemings to obtain and to hide Gerald's letters at the shop, and\nto reply to them! The far more complex and dangerous duplicity\npractised upon her majestic aunt at Axe! The visits to the Axe\npost-office! The three divine meetings with Gerald at early morning by\nthe canal-feeder, when he had told her of his inheritance and of the\nharshness of his uncle Boldero, and with a rush of words had spread\nbefore her the prospect of eternal bliss! The nights of fear! The\nsudden, dizzy acquiescence in his plan, and the feeling of universal\nunreality which obsessed her! The audacious departure from her aunt's,\nshowering a cascade of appalling lies! Her dismay at Knype Station! Her\nblush as she asked for a ticket to London! The ironic, sympathetic\nglance of the porter, who took charge of her trunk! And then the\nthunder of the incoming train! Her renewed dismay when she found that\nit was very full, and her distracted plunge into a compartment with six\npeople already in it! And the abrupt reopening of the carriage-door and\nthat curt inquisition from an inspector: \"Where for, please? Where for?\nWhere for?\" Until her turn was reached: \"Where for, miss?\" and her weak\nlittle reply: \"Euston\"! And more violent blushes! And then the long,\nsteady beating of the train over the rails, keeping time to the rhythm\nof the unanswerable voice within her breast: \"Why are you here? Why are\nyou here?\" And then Rugby; and the awful ordeal of meeting Gerald, his\nentry into the compartment, the rearrangement of seats, and their\nexcruciatingly painful attempts at commonplace conversation in the\npublicity of the carriage! (She had felt that that part of the\nenterprise had not been very well devised by Gerald.) And at last\nLondon; the thousands of cabs, the fabulous streets, the general roar,\nall dream-surpassing, intensifying to an extraordinary degree the\nobsession of unreality, the illusion that she could not really have\ndone what she had done, that she was not really doing what she was\ndoing!\n\nSupremely and finally, the delicious torture of the clutch of terror at\nher heart as she moved by Gerald's side through the impossible\nadventure! Who was this rash, mad Sophia? Surely not herself!\n\nThe knock at the door was impatiently repeated.\n\n\"Come in,\" she said timidly.\n\nGerald Scales came in. Yes, beneath that mien of a commercial traveller\nwho has been everywhere and through everything, he was very nervous. It\nwas her privacy that, with her consent, he had invaded. He had engaged\nthe bedroom only with the intention of using it as a retreat for Sophia\nuntil the evening, when they were to resume their travels. It ought not\nto have had any disturbing significance. But the mere disorder on the\nwashstand, a towel lying on one of the cane chairs, made him feel that\nhe was affronting decency, and so increased his jaunty nervousness. The\nmoment was painful; the moment was difficult beyond his skill to handle\nit naturally.\n\nApproaching her with factitious ease, he kissed her through her veil,\nwhich she then lifted with an impulsive movement, and he kissed her\nagain, more ardently, perceiving that her ardour was exceeding his.\nThis was the first time they had been alone together since her flight\nfrom Axe. And yet, with his worldly experience, he was naive enough to\nbe surprised that he could not put all the heat of passion into his\nembrace, and he wondered why he was not thrilled at the contact with\nher! However, the powerful clinging of her lips somewhat startled his\nsenses, and also delighted him by its silent promise. He could smell\nthe stuff of her veil, the sarsenet of her bodice, and, as it were\nwrapped in these odours as her body was wrapped in its clothes, the\nfaint fleshly perfume of her body itself. Her face, viewed so close\nthat he could see the almost imperceptible down on those fruit-like\ncheeks, was astonishingly beautiful; the dark eyes were exquisitely\nmisted; and he could feel the secret loyalty of her soul ascending to\nhim. She was very slightly taller than her lover; but somehow she hung\nfrom him, her body curved backwards, and her bosom pressed against his,\nso that instead of looking up at her gaze he looked down at it. He\npreferred that; perfectly proportioned though he was, his stature was a\ndelicate point with him. His spirits rose by the uplift of his senses.\nHis fears slipped away; he began to be very satisfied with himself. He\nwas the inheritor of twelve thousand pounds, and he had won this unique\ncreature. She was his capture; he held her close, permittedly scanning\nthe minutiae of her skin, permittedly crushing her flimsy silks.\nSomething in him had forced her to lay her modesty on the altar of his\ndesire. And the sun brightly shone. So he kissed her yet more ardently,\nand with the slightest touch of a victor's condescension; and her\nburning response more than restored the self-confidence which he had\nbeen losing.\n\n\"I've got no one but you now,\" she murmured in a melting voice.\n\nShe fancied in her ignorance that the expression of this sentiment\nwould please him. She was not aware that a man is usually rather\nchilled by it, because it proves to him that the other is thinking\nabout his responsibilities and not about his privileges. Certainly it\ncalmed Gerald, though without imparting to him her sense of his\nresponsibilities. He smiled vaguely. To Sophia his smile was a miracle\ncontinually renewed; it mingled dashing gaiety with a hint of wistful\nappeal in a manner that never failed to bewitch her. A less innocent\ngirl than Sophia might have divined from that adorable half-feminine\nsmile that she could do anything with Gerald except rely on him. But\nSophia had to learn.\n\n\"Are you ready?\" he asked, placing his hands on her shoulders and\nholding her away from him.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, nerving herself. Their faces were still very near\ntogether.\n\n\"Well, would you like to go and see the Dore pictures?\"\n\nA simple enough question! A proposal felicitous enough! Dore was\nbecoming known even in the Five Towns, not, assuredly, by his\nillustrations to the Contes Drolatiques of Balzac--but by his\nshuddering Biblical conceits. In pious circles Dore was saving art from\nthe reproach of futility and frivolity. It was indubitably a tasteful\nidea on Gerald's part to take his love of a summer's afternoon to gaze\nat the originals of those prints which had so deeply impressed the Five\nTowns. It was an idea that sanctified the profane adventure.\n\nYet Sophia showed signs of affliction. Her colour went and came; her\nthroat made the motion of swallowing; there was a muscular contraction\nover her whole body. And she drew herself from him. Her glance,\nhowever, did not leave him, and his eyes fell before hers.\n\n\"But what about the--wedding?\" she breathed.\n\nThat sentence seemed to cost all her pride; but she was obliged to\nutter it, and to pay for it.\n\n\"Oh,\" he said lightly and quickly, just as though she had reminded him\nof a detail that might have been forgotten, \"I was just going to tell\nyou. It can't be done here. There's been some change in the rules. I\nonly found out for certain late last night. But I've ascertained that\nit'll be as simple as ABC before the English Consul at Paris; and as\nI've got the tickets for us to go over to-night, as we arranged ...\" He\nstopped.\n\nShe sat down on the towel-covered chair, staggered. She believed what\nhe said. She did not suspect that he was using the classic device of\nthe seducer. It was his casualness that staggered her. Had it really\nbeen his intention to set off on an excursion and remark as an\nafterthought: \"BY THE WAY, we can't be married as I told you at\nhalf-past two to-day\"? Despite her extreme ignorance and innocence,\nSophia held a high opinion of her own commonsense and capacity for\nlooking after herself, and she could scarcely believe that he was\nexpecting her to go to Paris, and at night, without being married. She\nlooked pitiably young, virgin, raw, unsophisticated; helpless in the\nmidst of dreadful dangers. Yet her head was full of a blank\nastonishment at being mistaken for a simpleton! The sole explanation\ncould be that Gerald, in some matters, must himself be a confiding\nsimpleton. He had not reflected. He had not sufficiently realized the\nimmensity of her sacrifice in flying with him even to London. She felt\nsorry for him. She had the woman's first glimpse of the necessity for\nsome adjustment of outlook as an essential preliminary to uninterrupted\nhappiness.\n\n\"It'll be all right!\" Gerald persuasively continued.\n\nHe looked at her, as she was not looking at him. She was nineteen. But\nshe seemed to him utterly mature and mysterious. Her face baffled him;\nher mind was a foreign land. Helpless in one sense she might be; yet\nshe, and not he, stood for destiny; the future lay in the secret and\ncapricious workings of that mind.\n\n\"Oh no!\" she exclaimed curtly. \"Oh no!\"\n\n\"Oh no what?\"\n\n\"We can't possibly go like that,\" she said.\n\n\"But don't I tell you it'll be all right?\" he protested. \"If we stay\nhere and they come after you...! Besides, I've got the tickets and all.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you tell me sooner?\" she demanded.\n\n\"But how could I?\" he grumbled. \"Have we had a single minute alone?\"\n\nThis was nearly true. They could not have discussed the formalities of\nmarriage in the crowded train, nor during the hurried lunch with a\ndozen cocked ears at the same table. He saw himself on sure ground here.\n\n\"Now, could we?\" he pressed.\n\n\"And you talk about going to see pictures!\" was her reply.\n\nUndoubtedly this had been a grave error of tact. He recognized that it\nwas a stupidity. And so he resented it, as though she had committed it\nand not he.\n\n\"My dear girl,\" he said, hurt, \"I acted for the best. It isn't my fault\nif rules are altered and officials silly.\"\n\n\"You ought to have told me before,\" she persisted sullenly.\n\n\"But how could I?\"\n\nHe almost believed in that moment that he had really intended to marry\nher, and that the ineptitudes of red-tape had prevented him from\nachieving his honourable purpose. Whereas he had done nothing whatever\ntowards the marriage.\n\n\"Oh no! Oh no!\" she repeated, with heavy lip and liquid eye. \"Oh no!\"\n\nHe gathered that she was flouting his suggestion of Paris.\n\nSlowly and nervously he approached her. She did not stir nor look up.\nHer glance was fixed on the washstand. He bent down and murmured:\n\n\"Come, now. It'll be all right. You'll travel in the ladies' saloon on\nthe steam-packet.\"\n\nShe did not stir. He bent lower and touched the back of her neck with\nhis lips. And she sprang up, sobbing and angry. Because she was mad for\nhim she hated him furiously. All tenderness had vanished.\n\n\"I'll thank you not to touch me!\" she said fiercely. She had given him\nher lips a moment ago, but now to graze her neck was an insult.\n\nHe smiled sheepishly. \"But really you must be reasonable,\" he argued.\n\"What have I done?\"\n\n\"It's what you haven't done, I think!\" she cried. \"Why didn't you tell\nme while we were in the cab?\"\n\n\"I didn't care to begin worrying you just then,\" he replied: which was\nexactly true.\n\nThe fact was, he had of course shirked telling her that no marriage\nwould occur that day. Not being a professional seducer of young girls,\nhe lacked skill to do a difficult thing simply.\n\n\"Now come along, little girl,\" he went on, with just a trifle of\nimpatience. \"Let's go out and enjoy ourselves. I assure you that\neverything will be all right in Paris.\"\n\n\"That's what you said about coming to London,\" she retorted\nsarcastically through her sobs. \"And look at you!\"\n\nDid he imagine for a single instant that she would have come to London\nwith him save on the understanding that she was to be married\nimmediately upon arrival? This attitude of an indignant question was\nnot to be reconciled with her belief that his excuses for himself were\ntruthful. But she did not remark the discrepancy.\n\nHer sarcasm wounded his vanity.\n\n\"Oh, very well!\" he muttered. \"If you don't choose to believe what I\nsay!\" He shrugged his shoulders.\n\nShe said nothing; but the sobs swept at intervals through her frame,\nshaking it.\n\nReading hesitation in her face, he tried again. \"Come along, little\ngirl. And wipe your eyes.\" And he approached her. She stepped back.\n\n\"No, no!\" she denied him, passionately. He had esteemed her too\ncheaply. And she did not care to be called 'little girl.'\n\n\"Then what shall you do?\" he inquired, in a tone which blended mockery\nand bullying. She was making a fool of him.\n\n\"I can tell you what I shan't do,\" she said. \"I shan't go to Paris.\"\nHer sobs were less frequent.\n\n\"That's not my question,\" he said icily. \"I want to know what you will\ndo.\"\n\nThere was now no pretence of affectionateness either on her part or on\nhis. They might, to judge from their attitudes, have been nourished\nfrom infancy on mutual hatred.\n\n\"What's that got to do with you?\" she demanded.\n\n\"It's got everything to do with me,\" he said.\n\n\"Well, you can go and find out!\" she said.\n\nIt was girlish; it was childish; it was scarcely according to the\ncanons for conducting a final rupture; but it was not the less\ntragically serious. Indeed, the spectacle of this young girl absurdly\nbehaving like one, in a serious crisis, increased the tragicalness of\nthe situation even if it did not heighten it. The idea that ran through\nGerald's brain was the ridiculous folly of having anything to do with\nyoung girls. He was quite blind to her beauty.\n\n\"'Go'?\" he repeated her word. \"You mean that?\"\n\n\"Of course I mean it,\" she answered promptly.\n\nThe coward in him urged him to take advantage of her ignorant, helpless\npride, and leave her at her word. He remembered the scene she had made\nat the pit shaft, and he said to himself that her charm was not worth\nher temper, and that he was a fool ever to have dreamed that it was,\nand that he would be doubly a fool now not to seize the opportunity of\nwithdrawing from an insane enterprise.\n\n\"I am to go?\" he asked, with a sneer.\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"Of course if you order me to leave you, I must. Can I do anything for\nyou?\"\n\nShe signified that he could not,\n\n\"Nothing? You're sure?\"\n\nShe frowned.\n\n\"Well, then, good-bye.\" He turned towards the door.\n\n\"I suppose you'd leave me here without money or anything?\" she said in\na cold, cutting voice. And her sneer was far more destructive than his.\nIt destroyed in him the last trace of compassion for her.\n\n\"Oh, I beg pardon!\" he said, and swaggeringly counted out five\nsovereigns on to a chest of drawers.\n\nShe rushed at them. \"Do you think I'll take your odious money?\" she\nsnarled, gathering the coins in her gloved hand.\n\nHer first impulse was to throw them in his face; but she paused and\nthen flung them into a corner of the room.\n\n\"Pick them up!\" she commanded him.\n\n\"No, thanks,\" he said briefly; and left, shutting the door.\n\nOnly a very little while, and they had been lovers, exuding tenderness\nwith every gesture, like a perfume! Only a very little while, and she\nhad been deciding to telegraph condescendingly to her mother that she\nwas 'all right'! And now the dream was utterly dissolved. And the voice\nof that hard commonsense which spake to her in her wildest moods grew\nloud in asserting that the enterprise could never have come to any\ngood, that it was from its inception an impossible enterprise,\nunredeemed by the slightest justification. An enormous folly! Yes, an\nelopement; but not like a real elopement; always unreal! She had always\nknown that it was only an imitation of an elopement, and must end in\nsome awful disappointment. She had never truly wanted to run away; but\nsomething within her had pricked her forward in spite of her protests.\nThe strict notions of her elderly relatives were right after all. It\nwas she who had been wrong. And it was she who would have to pay.\n\n\"I've been a wicked girl,\" she said to herself grimly, in the midst of\nher ruin.\n\nShe faced the fact. But she would not repent; at any rate she would\nnever sit on that stool. She would not exchange the remains of her\npride for the means of escape from the worst misery that life could\noffer. On that point she knew herself. And she set to work to repair\nand renew her pride.\n\nWhatever happened she would not return to the Five Towns. She could\nnot, because she had stolen money from her Aunt Harriet. As much as she\nhad thrown back at Gerald, she had filched from her aunt, but in the\nform of a note. A prudent, mysterious instinct had moved her to take\nthis precaution. And she was glad. She would never have been able to\ndart that sneer at Gerald about money if she had really needed money.\nSo she rejoiced in her crime; though, since Aunt Harriet would\nassuredly discover the loss at once, the crime eternally prevented her\nfrom going back to her family. Never, never would she look at her\nmother with the eyes of a thief!\n\n(In truth Aunt Harriet did discover the loss, and very creditably said\nnaught about it to anybody. The knowledge of it would have twisted the\nknife in the maternal heart.)\n\nSophia was also glad that she had refused to proceed to Paris. The\nrecollection of her firmness in refusing flattered her vanity as a girl\nconvinced that she could take care of herself. To go to Paris unmarried\nwould have been an inconceivable madness. The mere thought of the\nenormity did outrage to her moral susceptibilities. No, Gerald had most\nperfectly mistaken her for another sort of girl; as, for instance, a\nshop-assistant or a barmaid!\n\nWith this the catalogue of her satisfactions ended. She had no idea at\nall as to what she ought to do, or could do. The mere prospect of\nventuring out of the room intimidated her. Had Gerald left her trunk in\nthe hall? Of course he had. What a question! But what would happen to\nher? London ... London had merely dazed her. She could do nothing for\nherself. She was as helpless as a rabbit in London. She drew aside the\nwindow-curtain and had a glimpse of the river. It was inevitable that\nshe should think of suicide; for she could not suppose that any girl\nhad ever got herself into a plight more desperate than hers. \"I could\nslip out at night and drown myself,\" she thought seriously. \"A nice\nthing that would be for Gerald!\"\n\nThen loneliness, like a black midnight, overwhelmed her, swiftly\nwasting her strength, disintegrating her pride in its horrid flood. She\nglanced about for support, as a woman in the open street who feels she\nis going to faint, and went blindly to the bed, falling on it with the\nupper part of her body, in an attitude of abandonment. She wept, but\nwithout sobbing.\n\nII\n\nGerald Scales walked about the Strand, staring up at its high narrow\nhouses, crushed one against another as though they had been packed,\nunsorted, by a packer who thought of nothing but economy of space.\nExcept by Somerset House, King's College, and one or two theatres and\nbanks, the monotony of mean shops, with several storeys unevenly\nperched over them, was unbroken, Then Gerald encountered Exeter Hall,\nand examined its prominent facade with a provincial's eye; for despite\nhis travels he was not very familiar with London. Exeter Hall naturally\ntook his mind back to his Uncle Boldero, that great and ardent\nNonconformist, and his own godly youth. It was laughable to muse upon\nwhat his uncle would say and think, did the old man know that his\nnephew had run away with a girl, meaning to seduce her in Paris. It was\nenormously funny!\n\nHowever, he had done with all that. He was well out of it. She had told\nhim to go, and he had gone. She had money to get home; she had nothing\nto do but use the tongue in her head. The rest was her affair. He would\ngo to Paris alone, and find another amusement. It was absurd to have\nsupposed that Sophia would ever have suited him. Not in such a family\nas the Baineses could one reasonably expect to discover an ideal\nmistress. No! there had been a mistake. The whole business was wrong.\nShe had nearly made a fool of him. But he was not the man to be made a\nfool of. He had kept his dignity intact.\n\nSo he said to himself. Yet all the time his dignity, and his pride\nalso, were bleeding, dropping invisible blood along the length of the\nStrand pavements.\n\nHe was at Salisbury Street again. He pictured her in the bedroom. Damn\nher! He wanted her. He wanted her with an excessive desire. He hated to\nthink that he had been baulked. He hated to think that she would remain\nimmaculate. And he continued to picture her in the exciting privacy of\nthat cursed bedroom.\n\nNow he was walking down Salisbury Street. He did not wish to be walking\ndown Salisbury Street; but there he was!\n\n\"Oh, hell!\" he murmured. \"I suppose I must go through with it.\"\n\nHe felt desperate. He was ready to pay any price in order to be able to\nsay to himself that he had accomplished what he had set his heart on.\n\n\"My wife hasn't gone out, has she?\" he asked of the hall-porter.\n\n\"I'm not sure, sir; I think not,\" said the hall-porter.\n\nThe fear that Sophia had already departed made him sick. When he\nnoticed her trunk still there, he took hope and ran upstairs.\n\nHe saw her, a dark crumpled, sinuous piece of humanity, half on and\nhalf off the bed, silhouetted against the bluish-white counterpane; her\nhat was on the floor, with the spotted veil trailing away from it. This\nsight seemed to him to be the most touching that he had ever seen,\nthough her face was hidden. He forgot everything except the deep and\nstrange emotion which affected him. He approached the bed. She did not\nstir.\n\nHaving heard the entry and knowing that it must be Gerald who had\nentered, Sophia forced herself to remain still. A wild, splendid hope\nshot up in her. Constrained by all the power of her will not to move,\nshe could not stifle a sob that had lain in ambush in her throat.\n\nThe sound of the sob fetched tears to the eyes of Gerald.\n\n\"Sophia!\" he appealed to her.\n\nBut she did not stir. Another sob shook her.\n\n\"Very well, then,\" said Gerald. \"We'll stay in London till we can be\nmarried. I'll arrange it. I'll find a nice boarding-house for you, and\nI'll tell the people you're my cousin. I shall stay on at this hotel,\nand I'll come and see you every day.\"\n\nA silence.\n\n\"Thank you!\" she blubbered. \"Thank you!\"\n\nHe saw that her little gloved hand was stretching out towards him, like\na feeler; and he seized it, and knelt down and took her clumsily by the\nwaist. Somehow he dared not kiss her yet.\n\nAn immense relief surged very slowly through them both.\n\n\"I--I--really--\" She began to say something, but the articulation was\nlost in her sobs.\n\n\"What? What do you say, dearest?\" he questioned eagerly.\n\nAnd she made another effort. \"I really couldn't have gone to Paris with\nyou without being married,\" she succeeded at last. \"I really couldn't.\"\n\n\"No, no!\" he soothed her. \"Of course you couldn't. It was I who was\nwrong. But you didn't know how I felt.... Sophia, it's all right now,\nisn't it?\"\n\nShe sat up and kissed him fairly.\n\nIt was so wonderful and startling that he burst openly into tears. She\nsaw in the facile intensity of his emotion a guarantee of their future\nhappiness. And as he had soothed her, so now she soothed him. They\nclung together, equally surprised at the sweet, exquisite, blissful\nmelancholy which drenched them through and through. It was remorse for\nhaving quarrelled, for having lacked faith in the supreme rightness of\nthe high adventure. Everything was right, and would be right; and they\nhad been criminally absurd. It was remorse; but it was pure bliss, and\nworth the quarrel! Gerald resumed his perfection again in her eyes! He\nwas the soul of goodness and honour! And for him she was again the\nideal mistress, who would, however, be also a wife. As in his mind he\nrapidly ran over the steps necessary to their marriage, he kept saying\nto himself, far off in some remote cavern of the brain: \"I shall have\nher! I shall have her!\" He did not reflect that this fragile slip of\nthe Baines stock, unconsciously drawing upon the accumulated strength\nof generations of honest living, had put a defeat upon him.\n\nAfter tea, Gerald, utterly content with the universe, redeemed his word\nand found an irreproachable boarding-house for Sophia in Westminster,\nnear the Abbey. She was astonished at the glibness of his lies to the\nlandlady about her, and about their circumstances generally. He also\nfound a church and a parson, close by, and in half an hour the\nformalities preliminary to a marriage were begun. He explained to her\nthat as she was now resident in London, it would be simpler to\nrecommence the business entirely. She sagaciously agreed. As she by no\nmeans wished to wound him again, she made no inquiry about those other\nformalities which, owing to red-tape, had so unexpectedly proved\nabortive! She knew she was going to be married, and that sufficed. The\nnext day she carried out her filial idea of telegraphing to her mother.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nSUPPER\n\nI\n\n\nThey had been to Versailles and had dined there. A tram had sufficed to\ntake them out; but for the return, Gerald, who had been drinking\nchampagne, would not be content with less than a carriage. Further, he\ninsisted on entering Paris by way of the Bois and the Arc de Triomphe.\nThoroughly to appease his conceit, it would have been necessary to\nswing open the gates of honour in the Arc and allow his fiacre to pass\nthrough; to be forced to drive round the monument instead of under it\nhurt the sense of fitness which champagne engenders. Gerald was in all\nhis pride that day. He had been displaying the wonders to Sophia, and\nhe could not escape the cicerone's secret feeling: that he himself was\nsomehow responsible for the wonders. Moreover, he was exceedingly\nsatisfied with the effect produced by Sophia.\n\nSophia, on arriving in Paris with the ring on her triumphant finger,\nhad timidly mentioned the subject of frocks. None would have guessed\nfrom her tone that she was possessed by the desire for French clothes\nas by a devil. She had been surprised and delighted by the eagerness of\nGerald's response. Gerald, too, was possessed by a devil. He thirsted\nto see her in French clothes. He knew some of the shops and ateliers in\nthe Rue de la Paix, the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, and the Palais\nRoyal. He was much more skilled in the lore of frocks than she, for his\nprevious business in Paris had brought him into relations with the\ngreat firms; and Sophia suffered a brief humiliation in the discovery\nthat his private opinion of her dresses was that they were not dresses\nat all. She had been aware that they were not Parisian, nor even of\nLondon; but she had thought them pretty good. It healed her wound,\nhowever, to reflect that Gerald had so marvellously kept his own\ncounsel in order to spare her self-love. Gerald had taken her to an\nestablishment in the Chaussee d'Antin. It was not one of what Gerald\ncalled les grandes maisons, but it was on the very fringe of them, and\nthe real haute couture was practised therein; and Gerald was remembered\nthere by name.\n\nSophia had gone in trembling and ashamed, yet in her heart courageously\ndetermined to emerge uncompromisingly French. But the models frightened\nher. They surpassed even the most fantastic things that she had seen in\nthe streets. She recoiled before them and seemed to hide for refuge in\nGerald, as it were appealing to him for moral protection, and answering\nto him instead of to the saleswoman when the saleswoman offered remarks\nin stiff English. The prices also frightened her. The simplest trifle\nhere cost sixteen pounds; and her mother's historic 'silk,' whose\nelaborateness had cost twelve pounds, was supposed to have approached\nthe inexpressible! Gerald said that she was not to think about prices.\nShe was, however, forced by some instinct to think about prices--she\nwho at home had scorned the narrowness of life in the Square. In the\nSquare she was understood to be quite without commonsense, hopelessly\nimprudent; yet here, a spring of sagacity seemed to be welling up in\nher all the time, a continual antidote against the general madness in\nwhich she found herself. With extraordinary rapidity she had formed a\nhabit of preaching moderation to Gerald. She hated to 'see money thrown\naway,' and her notion of the boundary line between throwing money away\nand judiciously spending it was still the notion of the Square.\n\nGerald would laugh. But she would say, piqued and blushing, but\nself-sure: \"You can laugh!\" It was all deliciously agreeable.\n\nOn this evening she wore the first of the new costumes. She had worn it\nall day. Characteristically she had chosen something which was not too\nspecial for either afternoon or evening, for either warm or cold\nweather. It was of pale blue taffetas striped in a darker blue, with\nthe corsage cut in basques, and the underskirt of a similar taffetas,\nbut unstriped. The effect of the ornate overskirt falling on the plain\nunderskirt with its small double volant was, she thought, and Gerald\ntoo, adorable. The waist was higher than any she had had before, and\nthe crinoline expansive. Tied round her head with a large bow and\nflying blue ribbons under the chin, was a fragile flat capote like a\nbaby's bonnet, which allowed her hair to escape in front and her great\nchignon behind. A large spotted veil flew out from the capote over the\nchignon. Her double skirts waved amply over Gerald's knees in the\ncarriage, and she leaned back against the hard cushions and put an\narrogant look into her face, and thought of nothing but the intense\nthrobbing joy of life, longing with painful ardour for more and more\npleasure, then and for ever.\n\nAs the carriage slipped downwards through the wide, empty gloom of the\nChamps Elysees into the brilliant Paris that was waiting for them,\nanother carriage drawn by two white horses flashed upwards and was gone\nin dust. Its only occupant, except the coachman and footman, was a\nwoman. Gerald stared after it.\n\n\"By Jove!\" he exclaimed. \"That's Hortense!\"\n\nIt might have been Hortense, or it might not. But he instantly\nconvinced himself that it was. Not every evening did one meet Hortense\ndriving alone in the Champs Elysees, and in August too!\n\n\"Hortense?\" Sophia asked simply.\n\n\"Yes. Hortense Schneider.\"\n\n\"Who is she?\"\n\n\"You've never heard of Hortense Schneider?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Well! Have you ever heard of Offenbach?\"\n\n\"I--I don't know. I don't think so.\"\n\nHe had the mien of utter incredulity. \"You don't mean to say you've\nnever heard of Bluebeard?\"\n\n\"I've heard of Bluebeard, of course,\" said she. \"Who hasn't?\"\n\n\"I mean the opera--Offenbach's.\"\n\nShe shook her head, scarce knowing even what an opera was.\n\n\"Well, well! What next?\"\n\nHe implied that such ignorance stood alone in his experience. Really he\nwas delighted at the cleanness of the slate on which he had to write.\nAnd Sophia was not a bit alarmed. She relished instruction from his\nlips. It was a pleasure to her to learn from that exhaustless store of\nworldly knowledge. To the world she would do her best to assume\nomniscience in its ways, but to him, in her present mood, she liked to\nplay the ignorant, uninitiated little thing.\n\n\"Why,\" he said, \"the Schneider has been the rage since last year but\none. Absolutely the rage.\"\n\n\"I do wish I'd noticed her!\" said Sophia.\n\n\"As soon as the Varietes reopens we'll go and see her,\" he replied, and\nthen gave his detailed version of the career of Hortense Schneider.\n\nMore joys for her in the near future! She had yet scarcely penetrated\nthe crust of her bliss. She exulted in the dazzling destiny which\ncomprised freedom, fortune, eternal gaiety, and the exquisite Gerald.\n\nAs they crossed the Place de la Concorde, she inquired, \"Are we going\nback to the hotel?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"I thought we'd go and have supper somewhere, if it\nisn't too early.\"\n\n\"After all that dinner?\"\n\n\"All what dinner? You ate about five times as much as me, anyhow!\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm ready!\" she said.\n\nShe was. This day, because it was the first day of her French frock,\nshe regarded as her debut in the dizzy life of capitals. She existed in\na rapture of bliss, an ecstasy which could feel no fatigue, either of\nbody or spirit.\n\nII\n\nIt was after midnight when they went into the Restaurant Sylvain;\nGerald, having decided not to go to the hotel, had changed his mind and\ncalled there, and having called there, had remained a long time: this\nof course! Sophia was already accustoming herself to the idea that,\nwith Gerald, it was impossible to predict accurately more than five\nminutes of the future.\n\nAs the chasseur held open the door for them to enter, and Sophia passed\nmodestly into the glowing yellow interior of the restaurant, followed\nby Gerald in his character of man-of-the-world, they drew the attention\nof Sylvain's numerous and glittering guests. No face could have made a\nmore provocative contrast to the women's faces in those screened rooms\nthan the face of Sophia, so childlike between the baby's bonnet and the\nhuge bow of ribbon, so candid, so charmingly conscious of its own pure\nbeauty and of the fact that she was no longer a virgin, but the equal\nin knowledge of any woman alive. She saw around her, clustered about\nthe white tables, multitudes of violently red lips, powdered cheeks,\ncold, hard eyes, self-possessed arrogant faces, and insolent bosoms.\nWhat had impressed her more than anything else in Paris, more even than\nthe three-horsed omnibuses, was the extraordinary self-assurance of all\nthe women, their unashamed posing, their calm acceptance of the public\ngaze. They seemed to say: \"We are the renowned Parisiennes.\" They\nfrightened her: they appeared to her so corrupt and so proud in their\ncorruption. She had already seen a dozen women in various situations of\nconspicuousness apply powder to their complexions with no more ado than\nif they had been giving a pat to their hair. She could not understand\nsuch boldness. As for them, they marvelled at the phenomena presented\nin Sophia's person; they admired; they admitted the style of the gown;\nbut they envied neither her innocence nor her beauty; they envied\nnothing but her youth and the fresh tint of her cheeks.\n\n\"Encore des Anglais!\" said some of them, as if that explained all.\n\nGerald had a very curt way with waiters; and the more obsequious they\nwere, the haughtier he became; and a head-waiter was no more to him\nthan a scullion. He gave loud-voiced orders in French of which both he\nand Sophia were proud, and a table was laid for them in a corner near\none of the large windows. Sophia settled herself on the bench of green\nvelvet, and began to ply the ivory fan which Gerald had given her. It\nwas very hot; all the windows were wide open, and the sounds of the\nstreet mingled clearly with the tinkle of the supper-room. Outside,\nagainst a sky of deepest purple, Sophia could discern the black\nskeleton of a gigantic building; it was the new opera house.\n\n\"All sorts here!\" said Gerald, contentedly, after he had ordered iced\nsoup and sparkling Moselle. Sophia did not know what Moselle was, but\nshe imagined that anything would be better than champagne.\n\nSylvain's was then typical of the Second Empire, and particularly\nfamous as a supper-room. Expensive and gay, it provided, with its\ndiscreet decorations, a sumptuous scene where lorettes, actresses,\nrespectable women, and an occasional grisette in luck, could satisfy\ntheir curiosity as to each other. In its catholicity it was highly\ncorrect as a resort; not many other restaurants in the centre could\nhave successfully fought against the rival attractions of the Bois and\nthe dim groves of the Champs Elysees on a night in August. The\ncomplicated richness of the dresses, the yards and yards of fine\nstitchery, the endless ruching, the hints, more or less incautious, of\nnether treasures of embroidered linen; and, leaping over all this to\nthe eye, the vivid colourings of silks and muslins, veils, plumes and\nflowers, piled as it were pell-mell in heaps on the universal green\ncushions to the furthest vista of the restaurant, and all multiplied in\ngilt mirrors--the spectacle intoxicated Sophia. Her eyes gleamed. She\ndrank the soup with eagerness, and tasted the wine, though no desire on\nher part to like wine could make her like it; and then, seeing\npineapples on a large table covered with fruits, she told Gerald that\nshe should like some pineapple, and Gerald ordered one.\n\nShe gathered her self-esteem and her wits together, and began to give\nGerald her views on the costumes. She could do so with impunity,\nbecause her own was indubitably beyond criticism. Some she wholly\ncondemned, and there was not one which earned her unreserved approval.\nAll the absurd fastidiousness of her schoolgirlish provinciality\nemerged in that eager, affected torrent of remarks. However, she was\nclever enough to read, after a time, in Gerald's tone and features,\nthat she was making a tedious fool of herself. And she adroitly shifted\nher criticism from the taste to the WORK--she put a strong accent on\nthe word--and pronounced that to be miraculous beyond description. She\nreckoned that she knew what dressmaking and millinery were, and her\nlittle fund of expert knowledge caused her to picture a whole necessary\ncityful of girls stitching, stitching, and stitching day and night. She\nhad wondered, during the few odd days that they had spent in Paris,\nbetween visits to Chantilly and other places, at the massed luxury of\nthe shops; she had wondered, starting with St. Luke's Square as a\nstandard, how they could all thrive. But now in her first real glimpse\nof the banal and licentious profusion of one among a hundred\nrestaurants, she wondered that the shops were so few. She thought how\nsplendid was all this expensiveness for trade. Indeed, the notions\nchasing each other within that lovely and foolish head were a\nsurprising medley.\n\n\"Well, what do you think of Sylvain's?\" Gerald asked, impatient to be\nassured that his Sylvain's had duly overwhelmed her.\n\n\"Oh, Gerald!\" she murmured, indicating that speech was inadequate. And\nshe just furtively touched his hand with hers.\n\nThe ennui due to her critical disquisition on the shortcomings of\nParisian costume cleared away from Gerald's face.\n\n\"What do you suppose those people there are talking about?\" he said\nwith a jerk of the head towards a chattering group of three gorgeous\nlorettes and two middle-aged men at the next table but one.\n\n\"What are they talking about?\"\n\n\"They're talking about the execution of the murderer Rivain that takes\nplace at Auxerre the day after to-morrow. They're arranging to make up\na party and go and see it.\"\n\n\"Oh, what a horrid idea!\" said Sophia.\n\n\"Guillotine, you know!\" said Gerald.\n\n\"But can people see it?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course.\"\n\n\"Well, I think it's horrible.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's why people like to go and see it. Besides, the man isn't\nan ordinary sort of criminal at all. He's very young and good-looking,\nand well connected. And he killed the celebrated Claudine....\"\n\n\"Claudine?\"\n\n\"Claudine Jacquinot. Of course you wouldn't know. She was a\ntremendous--er--wrong 'un here in the forties. Made a lot of money, and\nretired to her native town.\"\n\nSophia, in spite of her efforts to maintain the role of a woman who has\nnothing to learn, blushed.\n\n\"Then she was older than he is.\"\n\n\"Thirty-five years older, if a day.\"\n\n\"What did he kill her for?\"\n\n\"She wouldn't give him enough money. She was his mistress--or rather\none of 'em. He wanted money for a young lady friend, you see. He killed\nher and took all the jewels she was wearing. Whenever he went to see\nher she always wore all her best jewels--and you may bet a woman like\nthat had a few. It seems she had been afraid for a long time that he\nmeant to do for her.\"\n\n\"Then why did she see him? And why did she wear her jewels?\"\n\n\"Because she liked being afraid, goose! Some women only enjoy\nthemselves when they're terrified. Queer, isn't it?\"\n\nGerald insisted on meeting his wife's gaze as he finished these\nrevelations. He pretended that such stories were the commonest things\non earth, and that to be scandalized by them was infantile. Sophia,\nthrust suddenly into a strange civilization perfectly frank in its\nsensuality and its sensuousness, under the guidance of a young man to\nwhom her half-formed intelligence was a most diverting toy--Sophia felt\nmysteriously uncomfortable, disturbed by sinister, flitting phantoms of\nideas which she only dimly apprehended. Her eyes fell. Gerald laughed\nself-consciously. She would not eat any more pineapple.\n\nImmediately afterwards there came into the restaurant an apparition\nwhich momentarily stopped every conversation in the room. It was a tall\nand mature woman who wore over a dress of purplish-black silk a vast\nflowing sortie de bal of vermilion velvet, looped and tasselled with\ngold. No other costume could live by the side of that garment, Arab in\nshape, Russian in colour, and Parisian in style. It blazed. The woman's\nheavy coiffure was bound with fillets of gold braid and crimson\nrosettes. She was followed by a young Englishman in evening dress and\nwhiskers of the most exact correctness. The woman sailed, a little\nbreathlessly, to a table next to Gerald's, and took possession of it\nwith an air of use, almost of tedium. She sat down, threw the cloak\nfrom her majestic bosom, and expanded her chest. Seeming to ignore the\nEnglishman, who superciliously assumed the seat opposite to her, she\nlet her large scornful eyes travel round the restaurant, slowly and\nimperiously meeting the curiosity which she had evoked. Her beauty had\nundoubtedly been dazzling, it was still effulgent; but the blossom was\nabout to fall. She was admirably rouged and powdered; her arms were\nglorious; her lashes were long. There was little fault, save the\nexcessive ripeness of a blonde who fights in vain against obesity. And\nher clothes combined audacity with the propriety of fashion. She\ncarelessly deposed costly trinkets on the table, and then, having\nintimidated the whole company, she accepted the menu from the\nhead-waiter and began to study it.\n\n\"That's one of 'em!\" Gerald whispered to Sophia.\n\n\"One of what?\" Sophia whispered.\n\nGerald raised his eyebrows warningly, and winked. The Englishman had\noverheard; and a look of frigid displeasure passed across his proud\nface. Evidently he belonged to a rank much higher than Gerald's; and\nGerald, though he could always comfort himself by the thought that he\nhad been to a university with the best, felt his own inferiority and\ncould not hide that he felt it. Gerald was wealthy; he came of a\nwealthy family; but he had not the habit of wealth. When he spent money\nfuriously, he did it with bravado, too conscious of grandeur and too\nconscious of the difficulties of acquiring that which he threw away.\nFor Gerald had earned money. This whiskered Englishman had never earned\nmoney, never known the value of it, never imagined himself without as\nmuch of it as he might happen to want. He had the face of one\naccustomed to give orders and to look down upon inferiors. He was\nabsolutely sure of himself. That his companion chiefly ignored him did\nnot appear to incommode him in the least. She spoke to him in French.\nHe replied in English, very briefly; and then, in English, he commanded\nthe supper. As soon as the champagne was served he began to drink; in\nthe intervals of drinking he gently stroked his whiskers. The woman\nspoke no more.\n\nGerald talked more loudly. With that aristocratic Englishman observing\nhim, he could not remain at ease. And not only did he talk more loudly;\nhe brought into his conversation references to money, travels, and\nworldly experiences. While seeking to impress the Englishman, he was\nmerely becoming ridiculous to the Englishman; and obscurely he was\naware of this. Sophia noticed and regretted it. Still, feeling very\nunimportant herself, she was reconciled to the superiority of the\nwhiskered Englishman as to a natural fact. Gerald's behaviour slightly\nlowered him in her esteem. Then she looked at him--at his well-shaped\nneatness, his vivacious face, his excellent clothes, and decided that\nhe was much to be preferred to any heavy-jawed, long-nosed aristocrat\nalive.\n\nThe woman whose vermilion cloak lay around her like a fortification\nspoke to her escort. He did not understand. He tried to express himself\nin French, and failed. Then the woman recommenced, talking at length.\nWhen she had done he shook his head. His acquaintance with French was\nlimited to the vocabulary of food.\n\n\"Guillotine!\" he murmured, the sole word of her discourse that he had\nunderstood.\n\n\"Oui, oui! Guillotine. Enfin...!\" cried the woman excitedly. Encouraged\nby her success in conveying even one word of her remarks, she began a\nthird time.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" said Gerald. \"Madame is talking about the execution at\nAuxerre the day after to-morrow. N'est-ce-pas, madame, que vous parliez\nde Rivain?\"\n\nThe Englishman glared angrily at Gerald's officious interruption. But\nthe woman smiled benevolently on Gerald, and insisted on talking to her\nfriend through him. And the Englishman had to make the best of the\nsituation.\n\n\"There isn't a restaurant in Paris to-night where they aren't talking\nabout that execution,\" said Gerald on his own account.\n\n\"Indeed!\" observed the Englishman.\n\nWine affected them in different ways.\n\nNow a fragile, short young Frenchman, with an extremely pale face\nending in a thin black imperial, appeared at the entrance. He looked\nabout, and, recognizing the woman of the scarlet cloak, very discreetly\nsaluted her. Then he saw Gerald, and his worn, fatigued features showed\na sudden, startled smile. He came rapidly forward, hat in hand, seized\nGerald's palm and greeted him effusively.\n\n\"My wife,\" said Gerald, with the solemn care of a man who is determined\nto prove that he is entirely sober.\n\nThe young man became grave and excessively ceremonious. He bowed low\nover Sophia's hand and kissed it. Her impulse was to laugh, but the\ngravity of the young man's deference stopped her. She glanced at\nGerald, blushing, as if to say: \"This comedy is not my fault.\" Gerald\nsaid something, the young man turned to him and his face resumed its\nwelcoming smile.\n\n\"This is Monsieur Chirac,\" Gerald at length completed the introduction,\n\"a friend of mine when I lived in Paris.\"\n\nHe was proud to have met by accident an acquaintance in a restaurant.\nIt demonstrated that he was a Parisian, and improved his standing with\nthe whiskered Englishman and the vermilion cloak.\n\n\"It is the first time you come Paris, madame?\" Chirac addressed himself\nto Sophia, in limping, timorous English.\n\n\"Yes,\" she giggled. He bowed again.\n\nChirac, with his best compliments, felicitated Gerald upon his marriage.\n\n\"Don't mention it!\" said the humorous Gerald in English, amused at his\nown wit; and then: \"What about this execution?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" replied Chirac, breathing out a long breath, and smiling at\nSophia. \"Rivain! Rivain!\" He made a large, important gesture with his\nhand.\n\nIt was at once to be seen that Gerald had touched the topic which\nsecretly ravaged the supper-world as a subterranean fire ravages a mine.\n\n\"I go!\" said Chirac, with pride, glancing at Sophia, who smiled\nself-consciously.\n\nChirac entered upon a conversation with Gerald in French. Sophia\ncomprehended that Gerald was surprised and impressed by what Chirac\ntold him and that Chirac in turn was surprised. Then Gerald laboriously\nfound his pocket-book, and after some fumbling with it handed it to\nChirac so that the latter might write in it.\n\n\"Madame!\" murmured Chirac, resuming his ceremonious stiffness in order\nto take leave. \"Alors, c'est entendu, mon cher ami!\" he said to Gerald,\nwho nodded phlegmatically. And Chirac went away to the next table but\none, where were the three lorettes and the two middle-aged men. He was\nreceived there with enthusiasm.\n\nSophia began to be teased by a little fear that Gerald was not quite\nhis usual self. She did not think of him as tipsy. The idea of his\nbeing tipsy would have shocked her. She did not think clearly at all.\nShe was lost and dazed in the labyrinth of new and vivid impressions\ninto which Gerald had led her. But her prudence was awake.\n\n\"I think I'm tired,\" she said in a low voice.\n\n\"You don't want to go, do you?\" he asked, hurt.\n\n\"Well--\"\n\n\"Oh, wait a bit!\"\n\nThe owner of the vermilion cloak spoke again to Gerald, who showed that\nhe was flattered. While talking to her he ordered a brandy-and-soda.\nAnd then he could not refrain from displaying to her his familiarity\nwith Parisian life, and he related how he had met Hortense Schneider\nbehind a pair of white horses. The vermilion cloak grew even more\nsociable at the mention of this resounding name, and chattered with the\nmost agreeable vivacity. Her friend stared inimically.\n\n\"Do you hear that?\" Gerald explained to Sophia, who was sitting silent.\n\"About Hortense Schneider--you know, we met her to-night. It seems she\nmade a bet of a louis with some fellow, and when he lost he sent her\nthe louis set in diamonds worth a hundred thousand francs. That's how\nthey go on here.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" cried Sophia, further than ever in the labyrinth.\n\n\"'Scuse me,\" the Englishman put in heavily. He had heard the words\n'Hortense Schneider,' 'Hortense Schneider,' repeating themselves in the\nconversation, and at last it had occurred to him that the conversation\nwas about Hortense Schneider. \"'Scuse me,\" he began again. \"Are you--do\nyou mean Hortense Schneider?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Gerald. \"We met her to-night.\"\n\n\"She's in Trouville,\" said the Englishman, flatly.\n\nGerald shook his head positively.\n\n\"I gave a supper to her in Trouville last night,\" said the Englishman.\n\"And she plays at the Casino Theatre to-night.\"\n\nGerald was repulsed but not defeated. \"What is she playing in to-night?\nTell me that!\" he sneered.\n\n\"I don't see why I sh'd tell you.\"\n\n\"Hm!\" Gerald retorted. \"If what you say is true, it's a very strange\nthing I should have seen her in the Champs Elysees to-night, isn't it?\"\n\nThe Englishman drank more wine. \"If you want to insult me, sir--\" he\nbegan coldly.\n\n\"Gerald!\" Sophia urged in a whisper.\n\n\"Be quiet!\" Gerald snapped.\n\nA fiddler in fancy costume plunged into the restaurant at that moment\nand began to play wildly. The shock of his strange advent momentarily\nsilenced the quarrel; but soon it leaped up again, under the shelter of\nthe noisy music,--the common, tedious, tippler's quarrel. It rose\nhigher and higher. The fiddler looked askance at it over his fiddle.\nChirac cautiously observed it. Instead of attending to the music, the\nfestal company attended to the quarrel. Three waiters in a group\nwatched it with an impartial sporting interest. The English voices grew\nmore menacing.\n\nThen suddenly the whiskered Englishman, jerking his head towards the\ndoor, said more quietly:\n\n\"Hadn't we better settle thish outside?\"\n\n\"At your service!\" said Gerald, rising.\n\nThe owner of the vermilion cloak lifted her eyebrows to Chirac in\nfatigued disgust, but she said nothing. Nor did Sophia say anything.\nSophia was overcome by terror.\n\nThe swain of the cloak, dragging his coat after him across the floor,\nleft the restaurant without offering any apology or explanation to his\nlady.\n\n\"Wait here for me,\" said Gerald defiantly to Sophia. \"I shall be back\nin a minute.\"\n\n\"But, Gerald!\" She put her hand on his sleeve.\n\nHe snatched his arm away. \"Wait here for me, I tell you,\" he repeated.\n\nThe doorkeeper obsequiously opened the door to the two unsteady\ncarousers, for whom the fiddler drew back, still playing.\n\nThus Sophia was left side by side with the vermilion cloak. She was\nquite helpless. All the pride of a married woman had abandoned her. She\nstood transfixed by intense shame, staring painfully at a pillar, to\navoid the universal assault of eyes. She felt like an indiscreet little\ngirl, and she looked like one. No youthful radiant beauty of features,\nno grace and style of a Parisian dress, no certificate of a ring, no\npremature initiation into the mysteries, could save her from the\nappearance of a raw fool whose foolishness had been her undoing. Her\nface changed to its reddest, and remained at that, and all the\nfundamental innocence of her nature, which had been overlaid by the\nviolent experiences of her brief companionship with Gerald, rose again\nto the surface with that blush. Her situation drew pity from a few\nhearts and a careless contempt from the rest. But since once more it\nwas a question of ces Anglais, nobody could be astonished.\n\nWithout moving her head, she twisted her eyes to the clock: half-past\ntwo. The fiddler ceased his dance and made a collection in his\ntasselled cap. The vermilion cloak threw a coin into the cap. Sophia\nstared at it moveless, until the fiddler, tired of waiting, passed to\nthe next table and relieved her agony. She had no money at all. She set\nherself to watch the clock; but its fingers would not stir.\n\nWith an exclamation the lady of the cloak got up and peered out of the\nwindow, chatted with waiters, and then removed herself and her cloak to\nthe next table, where she was received with amiable sympathy by the\nthree lorettes, Chirac, and the other two men. The party\nsurreptitiously examined Sophia from time to time. Then Chirac went\noutside with the head-waiter, returned, consulted with his friends, and\nfinally approached Sophia. It was twenty minutes past three.\n\nHe renewed his magnificent bow. \"Madame,\" he said carefully, \"will you\nallow me to bring you to your hotel?\"\n\nHe made no reference to Gerald, partly, doubtless, because his English\nwas treacherous on difficult ground.\n\nSophia had not sufficient presence of mind to thank her saviour.\n\n\"But the bill?\" she stammered. \"The bill isn't paid.\"\n\nHe did not instantly understand her. But one of the waiters had caught\nthe sound of a familiar word, and sprang forward with a slip of paper\non a plate.\n\n\"I have no money,\" said Sophia, with a feeble smile.\n\n\"Je vous arrangerai ca,\" he said. \"What name of the hotel? Meurice, is\nit not?\"\n\n\"Hotel Meurice,\" said Sophia. \"Yes.\"\n\nHe spoke to the head-waiter about the bill, which was carried away like\nsomething obscene; and on his arm, which he punctiliously offered and\nshe could not refuse, Sophia left the scene of her ignominy. She was so\ndistraught that she could not manage her crinoline in the doorway. No\nsign anywhere outside of Gerald or his foe!\n\nHe put her into an open carriage, and in five minutes they had\nclattered down the brilliant silence of the Rue de la Paix, through the\nPlace Vendome into the Rue de Rivoli; and the night-porter of the hotel\nwas at the carriage-step.\n\n\"I tell them at the restaurant where you gone,\" said Chirac,\nbare-headed under the long colonnade of the street. \"If your husband is\nthere, I tell him. Till to-morrow...!\"\n\nHis manners were more wonderful than any that Sophia had ever imagined.\nHe might have been in the dark Tuileries on the opposite side of the\nstreet, saluting an empress, instead of taking leave of a raw little\ngirl, who was still too disturbed even to thank him.\n\nShe fled candle in hand up the wide, many-cornered stairs; Gerald might\nbe already in the bedroom, ... drunk! There was a chance. But the\ngilt-fringed bedroom was empty. She sat down at the velvet-covered\ntable amid the shadows cast by the candle that wavered in the draught\nfrom the open window. And she set her teeth and a cold fury possessed\nher in the hot and languorous night. Gerald was an imbecile. That he\nshould have allowed himself to get tipsy was bad enough, but that he\nshould have exposed her to the horrible situation from which Chirac had\nextricated her, was unspeakably disgraceful. He was an imbecile. He had\nno common sense. With all his captivating charm, he could not be relied\nupon not to make himself and her ridiculous, tragically ridiculous.\nCompare him with Mr. Chirac! She leaned despairingly on the table. She\nwould not undress. She would not move. She had to realize her position;\nshe had to see it.\n\nFolly! Folly! Fancy a commercial traveller throwing a compromising\npiece of paper to the daughter of his customer in the shop itself: that\nwas the incredible folly with which their relations had begun! And his\nmad gesture at the pit-shaft! And his scheme for bringing her to Paris\nunmarried! And then to-night! Monstrous folly! Alone in the bedroom she\nwas a wise and a disillusioned woman, wiser than any of those dolls in\nthe restaurant.\n\nAnd had she not gone to Gerald, as it were, over the dead body of her\nfather, through lies and lies and again lies? That was how she phrased\nit to herself.... Over the dead body of her father! How could such a\nventure succeed? How could she ever have hoped that it would succeed?\nIn that moment she saw her acts with the terrible vision of a Hebrew\nprophet.\n\nShe thought of the Square and of her life there with her mother and\nSophia. Never would her pride allow her to return to that life, not\neven if the worst happened to her that could happen. She was one of\nthose who are prepared to pay without grumbling for what they have had.\n\nThere was a sound outside. She noticed that the dawn had begun. The\ndoor opened and disclosed Gerald.\n\nThey exchanged a searching glance, and Gerald shut the door. Gerald\ninfected the air, but she perceived at once that he was sobered. His\nlip was bleeding.\n\n\"Mr. Chirac brought me home,\" she said.\n\n\"So it seems,\" said Gerald, curtly. \"I asked you to wait for me. Didn't\nI say I should come back?\"\n\nHe was adopting the injured magisterial tone of the man who is\nridiculously trying to conceal from himself and others that he has\nrecently behaved like an ass.\n\nShe resented the injustice. \"I don't think you need talk like that,\"\nshe said.\n\n\"Like what?\" he bullied her, determined that she should be in the wrong.\n\nAnd what a hard look on his pretty face!\n\nHer prudence bade her accept the injustice. She was his. Rapt away from\nher own world, she was utterly dependent on his good nature.\n\n\"I knocked my chin against the damned balustrade, coming upstairs,\"\nsaid Gerald, gloomily.\n\nShe knew that was a lie. \"Did you?\" she replied kindly. \"Let me bathe\nit.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nAN AMBITION SATISFIED\n\nI\n\n\nShe went to sleep in misery. All the glory of her new life had been\neclipsed. But when she woke up, a few hours later, in the large,\nvelvety stateliness of the bedroom for which Gerald was paying so\nfantastic a price per day, she was in a brighter mood, and very willing\nto reconsider her verdicts. Her pride induced her to put Gerald in the\nright and herself in the wrong, for she was too proud to admit that she\nhad married a charming and irresponsible fool. And, indeed, ought she\nnot to put herself in the wrong? Gerald had told her to wait, and she\nhad not waited. He had said that he should return to the restaurant,\nand he had returned. Why had she not waited? She had not waited because\nshe had behaved like a simpleton. She had been terrified about nothing.\nHad she not been frequenting restaurants now for a month past? Ought\nnot a married woman to be capable of waiting an hour in a restaurant\nfor her lawful husband without looking a ninny? And as for Gerald's\nbehaviour, how could he have acted differently? The other Englishman\nwas obviously a brute and had sought a quarrel. His contradiction of\nGerald's statements was extremely offensive. On being invited by the\nbrute to go outside, what could Gerald do but comply? Not to have\ncomplied might have meant a fight in the restaurant, as the brute was\ncertainly drunk. Compared to the brute, Gerald was not at all drunk,\nmerely a little gay and talkative. Then Gerald's fib about his chin was\nnatural; he simply wished to minimize the fuss and to spare her\nfeelings. It was, in fact, just like Gerald to keep perfect silence as\nto what had passed between himself and the brute. However, she was\nconvinced that Gerald, so lithe and quick, had given that great brute\nwith his supercilious ways as good as he received, if not better.\n\nAnd if she were a man and had asked her wife to wait in a restaurant,\nand the wife had gone home under the escort of another man, she would\nmost assuredly be much more angry than Gerald had been. She was very\nglad that she had controlled herself and exercised a meek diplomacy. A\nquarrel had thus been avoided. Yes, the finish of the evening could not\nbe called a quarrel; after her nursing of his chin, nothing but a\nslight coolness on his part had persisted.\n\nShe arose silently and began to dress, full of a determination to treat\nGerald as a good wife ought to treat a husband. Gerald did not stir; he\nwas an excellent sleeper: one of those organisms that never want to go\nto bed and never want to get up. When her toilet was complete save for\nher bodice, there was a knock at the door. She started.\n\n\"Gerald!\" She approached the bed, and leaned her nude bosom over her\nhusband, and put her arms round his neck. This method of being brought\nback to consciousness did not displease him.\n\nThe knock was repeated. He gave a grunt.\n\n\"Some one's knocking at the door,\" she whispered.\n\n\"Then why don't you open it?\" he asked dreamily.\n\n\"I'm not dressed, darling.\"\n\nHe looked at her. \"Stick something on your shoulders, girl!\" said he.\n\"What does it matter?\"\n\nThere she was, being a simpleton again, despite her resolution!\n\nShe obeyed, and cautiously opened the door, standing behind it.\n\nA middle-aged whiskered servant, in a long white apron, announced\nmatters in French which passed her understanding. But Gerald had heard\nfrom the bed, and he replied.\n\n\"Bien, monsieur!\" The servant departed, with a bow, down the obscure\ncorridor.\n\n\"It's Chirac,\" Gerald explained when she had shut the door. \"I was\nforgetting I asked him to come and have lunch with us, early. He's\nwaiting in the drawing-room. Just put your bodice on, and go and talk\nto him till I come.\"\n\nHe jumped out of bed, and then, standing in his night-garb, stretched\nhimself and terrifically yawned.\n\n\"Me?\" Sophia questioned.\n\n\"Who else?\" said Gerald, with that curious satiric dryness which he\nwould sometimes import into his tone.\n\n\"But I can't speak French!\" she protested.\n\n\"I didn't suppose you could,\" said Gerald, with an increase of dryness;\n\"but you know as well as I do that he can speak English.\"\n\n\"Oh, very well, then!\" she murmured with agreeable alacrity.\n\nEvidently Gerald had not yet quite recovered from his legitimate\ndispleasure of the night. He minutely examined his mouth in the glass\nof the Louis Philippe wardrobe. It showed scarcely a trace of battle.\n\n\"I say!\" he stopped her, as, nervous at the prospect before her, she\nwas leaving the room. \"I was thinking of going to Auxerre to-day.\"\n\n\"Auxerre?\" she repeated, wondering under what circumstances she had\nrecently heard that name. Then she remembered: it was the place of\nexecution of the murderer Rivain.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"Chirac has to go. He's on a newspaper now. He was an\narchitect when I knew him. He's got to go and he thinks himself jolly\nlucky. So I thought I'd go with him.\"\n\nThe truth was that he had definitely arranged to go.\n\n\"Not to see the execution?\" she stammered.\n\n\"Why not? I've always wanted to see an execution, especially with the\nguillotine. And executions are public in France. It's quite the proper\nthing to go to them.\"\n\n\"But why do you want to see an execution?\"\n\n\"It just happens that I do want to see an execution. It's a fancy of\nmine, that's all. I don't know that any reason is necessary,\" he said,\npouring out water into the diminutive ewer.\n\nShe was aghast. \"And shall you leave me here alone?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said he, \"I don't see why my being married should prevent me\nfrom doing something that I've always wanted to do. Do you?\"\n\n\"Oh NO!\" she eagerly concurred.\n\n\"That's all right,\" he said. \"You can do exactly as you like. Either\nstay here, or come with me. If you go to Auxerre there's no need at all\nfor you to see the execution. It's an interesting old town--cathedral\nand so on. But of course if you can't bear to be in the same town as a\nguillotine, I'll go alone. I shall come back to-morrow.\"\n\nIt was plain where his wish lay. She stopped the phrases that came to\nher lips, and did her best to dismiss the thoughts which prompted them.\n\n\"Of course I'll go,\" she said quietly. She hesitated, and then went up\nto the washstand and kissed a part of his cheek that was not soapy.\nThat kiss, which comforted and somehow reassured her, was the\nexpression of a surrender whose monstrousness she would not admit to\nherself.\n\nIn the rich and dusty drawing-room, Chirac and Chirac's exquisite\nformalities awaited her. Nobody else was there.\n\n\"My husband ...\" she began, smiling and blushing. She liked Chirac.\n\nIt was the first time she had had the opportunity of using that word to\nother than a servant. It soothed her and gave her confidence. She\nperceived after a few moments that Chirac did genuinely admire her;\nmore, that she inspired him with something that resembled awe. Speaking\nvery slowly and distinctly she said that she should travel with her\nhusband to Auxerre; as he saw no objection to that course; implying\nthat if he saw no objection she was perfectly satisfied. Chirac was\nconcurrence itself. In five minutes it seemed to be the most natural\nand proper thing in the world that, on her honeymoon, she should be\ngoing with her husband to a particular town because a notorious\nmurderer was about to be decapitated there in public.\n\n\"My husband has always wanted to see an execution,\" she said, later.\n\"It would be a pity to ...\"\n\n\"As psychological experience,\" replied Chirac, pronouncing the p of the\nadjective, \"it will be very interessant.... To observe one's self, in\nsuch circumstances ...\" He smiled enthusiastically.\n\nShe thought how strange even nice Frenchmen were. Imagine going to an\nexecution in order to observe yourself!\n\nII\n\nWhat continually impressed Sophia as strange, in the behaviour not only\nof Gerald but of Chirac and other people with whom she came into\ncontact, was its quality of casualness. She had all her life been\naccustomed to see enterprises, even minor ones, well pondered and then\ncarefully schemed beforehand. In St. Luke's Square there was always, in\nevery head, a sort of time-table of existence prepared at least one\nweek in advance. But in Gerald's world nothing was prearranged.\nElaborate affairs were decided in a moment and undertaken with\nextraordinary lightness. Thus the excursion to Auxerre! During lunch\nscarcely a word was said as to it; the conversation, in English for\nSophia's advantage, turning, as usual under such circumstances, upon\nthe difficulty of languages and the differences between countries.\nNobody would have guessed that any member of the party had any\npreoccupation whatever for the rest of the day. The meal was delightful\nto Sophia; not merely did she find Chirac comfortingly kind and\nsincere, but Gerald was restored to the perfection of his charm and his\ngood humour. Then suddenly, in the midst of coffee, the question of\ntrains loomed up like a swift crisis. In five minutes Chirac had\ndeparted--whether to his office or his home Sophia did not understand,\nand within a quarter of an hour she and Gerald were driving rapidly to\nthe Gare de Lyon, Gerald stuffing into his pocket a large envelope full\nof papers which he had received by registered post. They caught the\ntrain by about a minute, and Chirac by a few seconds. Yet neither he\nnor Gerald seemed to envisage the risk of inconvenience and annoyance\nwhich they had incurred and escaped. Chirac chattered through the\nwindow with another journalist in the next compartment. When she had\nleisure to examine him, Sophia saw that he must have called at his home\nto put on old clothes. Everybody except herself and Gerald seemed to\ntravel in his oldest clothes.\n\nThe train was hot, noisy, and dusty. But, one after another, all three\nof them fell asleep and slept heavily, calmly, like healthy and\nexhausted young animals. Nothing could disturb them for more than a\nmoment. To Sophia it appeared to be by simple chance that Chirac\naroused himself and them at Laroche and sleepily seized her valise and\ngot them all out on the platform, where they yawned and smiled, full of\nthe deep, half-realized satisfaction of repose. They drank nectar from\na wheeled buffet, drank it eagerly, in thirsty gulps, and sighed with\npleasure and relief, and Gerald threw down a coin, refusing change with\na lord's gesture. The local train to Auxerre was full, and with a\nvaried and sinister cargo. At length they were in the zone of the\nwaiting guillotine. The rumour ran that the executioner was on the\ntrain. No one had seen him; no one was sure of recognizing him, but\neveryone hugged the belief that he was on the train. Although the sun\nwas sinking the heat seemed not to abate. Attitudes grew more limp,\nmore abandoned. Soot and prickly dust flew in unceasingly at the open\nwindows. The train stopped at Bonnard, Chemilly, and Moneteau, each\ntime before a waiting crowd that invaded it. And at last, in the great\nstation at Auxerre, it poured out an incredible mass of befouled\nhumanity that spread over everything like an inundation. Sophia was\nfrightened. Gerald left the initiative to Chirac, and Chirac took her\narm and led her forward, looking behind him to see that Gerald followed\nwith the valise. Frenzy seemed to reign in Auxerre.\n\nThe driver of a cab demanded ten francs for transporting them to the\nHotel de l'Epee.\n\n\"Bah!\" scornfully exclaimed Chirac, in his quality of experienced\nParisian who is not to be exploited by heavy-witted provincials.\n\nBut the driver of the next cab demanded twelve francs.\n\n\"Jump in,\" said Gerald to Sophia. Chirac lifted his eyebrows.\n\nAt the same moment a tall, stout man with the hard face of a\nflourishing scoundrel, and a young, pallid girl on his arm, pushed\naside both Gerald and Chirac and got into the cab with his companion.\n\nChirac protested, telling him that the cab was already engaged.\n\nThe usurper scowled and swore, and the young girl laughed boldly.\n\nSophia, shrinking, expected her escort to execute justice heroic and\nfinal; but she was disappointed.\n\n\"Brute!\" murmured Chirac, and shrugged his shoulders, as the carriage\ndrove off, leaving them foolish on the kerb.\n\nBy this time all the other cabs had been seized. They walked to the\nHotel de l'Epee, jostled by the crowd, Sophia and Chirac in front, and\nGerald following with the valise, whose weight caused him to lean over\nto the right and his left arm to rise. The avenue was long, straight,\nand misty with a floating dust. Sophia had a vivid sense of the\nromantic. They saw towers and spires, and Chirac talked to her slowly\nand carefully of the cathedral and the famous churches. He said that\nthe stained glass was marvellous, and with much care he catalogued for\nher all the things she must visit. They crossed a river. She felt as\nthough she was stepping into the middle age. At intervals Gerald\nchanged the valise from hand to hand; obstinately, he would not let\nChirac touch it. They struggled upwards, through narrow curving streets.\n\n\"Voila!\" said Chirac.\n\nThey were in front of the Hotel de l'Epee. Across the street was a cafe\ncrammed with people. Several carriages stood in front. The Hotel de\nl'Epee had a reassuring air of mellow respectability, such as Chirac\nhad claimed for it. He had suggested this hotel for Madame Scales\nbecause it was not near the place of execution. Gerald had said, \"Of\ncourse! Of course!\" Chirac, who did not mean to go to bed, required no\nroom for himself.\n\nThe Hotel de l'Epee had one room to offer, at the price of twenty-five\nfrancs.\n\nGerald revolted at the attempted imposition. \"A nice thing!\" he\ngrumbled, \"that ordinary travellers can't get a decent room at a decent\nprice just because some one's going to be guillotined to-morrow! We'll\ntry elsewhere!\"\n\nHis features expressed disgust, but Sophia fancied that he was secretly\npleased.\n\nThey swaggered out of the busy stir of the hotel, as those must who,\nhaving declined to be swindled, wish to preserve their importance in\nthe face of the world. In the street a cabman solicited them, and\nfilled them with hope by saying that he knew of a hotel that might suit\nthem and would drive them there for five francs. He furiously lashed\nhis horse. The mere fact of being in a swiftly moving carriage which\nwayfarers had to avoid nimbly, maintained their spirits. They had a\nnear glimpse of the cathedral. The cab halted with a bump, in a small\nsquare, in front of a repellent building which bore the sign, 'Hotel de\nVezelay.' The horse was bleeding. Gerald instructed Sophia to remain\nwhere she was, and he and Chirac went up four stone steps into the\nhotel. Sophia, stared at by loose crowds that were promenading, gazed\nabout her, and saw that all the windows of the square were open and\nmost of them occupied by people who laughed and chattered. Then there\nwas a shout: Gerald's voice. He had appeared at a window on the second\nfloor of the hotel with Chirac and a very fat woman. Chirac saluted,\nand Gerald laughed carelessly, and nodded.\n\n\"It's all right,\" said Gerald, having descended.\n\n\"How much do they ask?\" Sophia inquired indiscreetly.\n\nGerald hesitated, and looked self-conscious. \"Thirty-five francs,\" he\nsaid. \"But I've had enough of driving about. It seems we're lucky to\nget it even at that.\"\n\nAnd Chirac shrugged his shoulders as if to indicate that the situation\nand the price ought to be accepted philosophically. Gerald gave the\ndriver five francs. He examined the piece and demanded a pourboire.\n\n\"Oh! Damn!\" said Gerald, and, because he had no smaller change, parted\nwith another two francs.\n\n\"Is any one coming out for this damned valise?\" Gerald demanded, like a\ntyrant whose wrath would presently fall if the populace did not\ninstantly set about minding their p's and q's.\n\nBut nobody emerged, and he was compelled to carry the bag himself.\n\nThe hotel was dark and malodorous, and every room seemed to be crowded\nwith giggling groups of drinkers.\n\n\"We can't both sleep in this bed, surely,\" said Sophia when, Chirac\nhaving remained downstairs, she faced Gerald in a small, mean bedroom.\n\n\"You don't suppose I shall go to bed, do you?\" said Gerald, rather\nbrusquely. \"It's for you. We're going to eat now. Look sharp.\"\n\nIII\n\nIt was night. She lay in the narrow, crimson-draped bed. The heavy\ncrimson curtains had been drawn across the dirty lace curtains of the\nwindow, but the lights of the little square faintly penetrated through\nchinks into the room. The sounds of the square also penetrated,\nextraordinarily loud and clear, for the unabated heat had compelled her\nto leave the window open. She could not sleep. Exhausted though she\nwas, there was no hope of her being able to sleep.\n\nOnce again she was profoundly depressed. She remembered the dinner with\nhorror. The long, crowded table, with semi-circular ends, in the\noppressive and reeking dining-room lighted by oil-lamps! There must\nhave been at least forty people at that table. Most of them ate\ndisgustingly, as noisily as pigs, with the ends of the large coarse\nnapkins tucked in at their necks. All the service was done by the fat\nwoman whom she had seen at the window with Gerald, and a young girl\nwhose demeanour was candidly brazen. Both these creatures were\nslatterns. Everything was dirty. But the food was good. Chirac and\nGerald were agreed that the food was good, as well as the wine.\n\"Remarquable!\" Chirac had said, of the wine. Sophia, however, could\nneither eat nor drink with relish. She was afraid. The company shocked\nher by its gestures alone. It was very heterogeneous in appearance,\nsome of the diners being well dressed, approaching elegance, and others\nshabby. But all the faces, to the youngest, were brutalized, corrupt,\nand shameless. The juxtaposition of old men and young women was odious\nto her, especially when those pairs kissed, as they did frequently\ntowards the end of the meal. Happily she was placed between Chirac and\nGerald. That situation seemed to shelter her even from the\nconversation. She would have comprehended nothing of the conversation,\nhad it not been for the presence of a middle-aged Englishman who sat at\nthe opposite end of the table with a youngish, stylish Frenchwoman whom\nshe had seen at Sylvain's on the previous night. The Englishman was\nevidently under a promise to teach English to the Frenchwoman. He kept\ntranslating for her into English, slowly and distinctly, and she would\nrepeat the phrases after him, with strange contortions of the mouth.\n\nThus Sophia gathered that the talk was exclusively about\nassassinations, executions, criminals, and executioners. Some of the\npeople there made a practice of attending every execution. They were\nfountains of interesting gossip, and the lions of the meal. There was a\nwoman who could recall the dying words of all the victims of justice\nfor twenty years past. The table roared with hysteric laughter at one\nof this woman's anecdotes. Sophia learned that she had related how a\ncriminal had said to the priest who was good-naturedly trying to screen\nthe sight of the guillotine from him with his body: \"Stand away now,\nparson. Haven't I paid to see it?\" Such was the Englishman's rendering.\nThe wages of the executioners and their assistants were discussed, and\ndifferences of opinions led to ferocious arguments. A young and\ndandiacal fellow told, as a fact which he was ready to vouch for with a\npistol, how Cora Pearl, the renowned English courtesan, had through her\ninfluence over a prefect of police succeeded in visiting a criminal\nalone in his cell during the night preceding his execution, and had\nonly quitted him an hour before the final summons. The tale won the\nhonours of the dinner. It was regarded as truly impressive, and\ninevitably it led to the general inquiry: what could the highest\npersonages in the empire see to admire in that red-haired Englishwoman?\nAnd of course Rivain himself, the handsome homicide, the centre and\nhero of the fete, was never long out of the conversation. Several of\nthe diners had seen him; one or two knew him and could give amazing\ndetails of his prowess as a man of pleasure. Despite his crime, he\nseemed to be the object of sincere idolatry. It was said positively\nthat a niece of his victim had been promised a front place at the\nexecution.\n\nApropos of this, Sophia gathered, to her intense astonishment and\nalarm, that the prison was close by and that the execution would take\nplace at the corner of the square itself in which the hotel was\nsituated. Gerald must have known; he had hidden it from her. She\nregarded him sideways, with distrust. As the dinner finished, Gerald's\npose of a calm, disinterested, scientific observer of humanity\ngradually broke down. He could not maintain it in front of the\nincreasing license of the scene round the table. He was at length\nsomewhat ashamed of having exposed his wife to the view of such an\norgy; his restless glance carefully avoided both Sophia and Chirac. The\nlatter, whose unaffected simplicity of interest in the affair had more\nthan anything helped to keep Sophia in countenance, observed the change\nin Gerald and Sophia's excessive discomfort, and suggested that they\nshould leave the table without waiting for the coffee. Gerald agreed\nquickly. Thus had Sophia been released from the horror of the dinner.\nShe did not understand how a man so thoughtful and kindly as Chirac--he\nhad bidden her good night with the most distinguished courtesy--could\ntolerate, much less pleasurably savour, the gluttonous, drunken, and\nsalacious debauchery of the Hotel de Vezelay; but his theory was, so\nfar as she could judge from his imperfect English, that whatever\nexisted might be admitted and examined by serious persons interested in\nthe study of human nature. His face seemed to say: \"Why not?\" His face\nseemed to say to Gerald and to herself: \"If this incommodes you, what\ndid you come for?\"\n\nGerald had left her at the bedroom door with a self-conscious nod. She\nhad partly undressed and lain down, and instantly the hotel had\ntransformed itself into a kind of sounding-box. It was as if, beneath\nand within all the noises of the square, every movement in the hotel\nreached her ears through cardboard walls: distant shoutings and\nlaughter below; rattlings of crockery below; stampings up and down\nstairs; stealthy creepings up and down stairs; brusque calls; fragments\nof song, whisperings; long sighs suddenly stifled; mysterious groans as\nof torture, broken by a giggle; quarrels and bickering,--she was spared\nnothing in the strangely resonant darkness.\n\nThen there came out of the little square a great uproar and commotion,\nwith shrieks, and under the shrieks a confused din. In vain she pressed\nher face into the pillow and listened to the irregular, prodigious\nnoise of her eyelashes as they scraped the rough linen. The thought had\nsomehow introduced itself into her head that she must arise and go to\nthe window and see all that was to be seen. She resisted. She said to\nherself that the idea was absurd, that she did not wish to go to the\nwindow. Nevertheless, while arguing with herself, she well knew that\nresistance to the thought was useless and that ultimately her legs\nwould obey its command.\n\nWhen ultimately she yielded to the fascination and went to the window\nand pulled aside one of the curtains, she had a feeling of relief. The\ncool, grey beginnings of dawn were in the sky, and every detail of the\nsquare was visible. Without exception all the windows were wide open\nand filled with sightseers. In the background of many windows were\nburning candles or lamps that the far distant approach of the sun was\nalready killing. In front of these, on the frontier of two mingling\nlights, the attentive figures of the watchers were curiously\nsilhouetted. On the red-tiled roofs, too, was a squatted population.\nBelow, a troop of gendarmes, mounted on caracoling horses stretched in\nline across the square, was gradually sweeping the entire square of a\npacked, gesticulating, cursing crowd. The operation of this immense\nbesom was very slow. As the spaces of the square were cleared they\nbegan to be dotted by privileged persons, journalists or law officers\nor their friends, who walked to and fro in conscious pride; among them\nSophia descried Gerald and Chirac, strolling arm-in-arm and talking to\ntwo elaborately clad girls, who were also arm-in-arm.\n\nThen she saw a red reflection coming from one of the side streets of\nwhich she had a vista; it was the swinging lantern of a waggon drawn by\na gaunt grey horse. The vehicle stopped at the end of the square from\nwhich the besom had started, and it was immediately surrounded by the\nprivileged, who, however, were soon persuaded to stand away. The crowd\namassed now at the principal inlets of the square, gave a formidable\ncry and burst into the refrain--\n\n\"Le voila! Nicolas! Ah! Ah! Ah!\"\n\nThe clamour became furious as a group of workmen in blue blouses drew\npiece by piece all the components of the guillotine from the waggon and\nlaid them carefully on the ground, under the superintendence of a man\nin a black frock-coat and a silk hat with broad flat brims; a little\nfussy man of nervous gestures. And presently the red columns had risen\nupright from the ground and were joined at the top by an acrobatic\nclimber. As each part was bolted and screwed to the growing machine the\nman in the high hat carefully tested it. In a short time that seemed\nvery long, the guillotine was finished save for the triangular steel\nblade which lay shining on the ground, a cynosure. The executioner\npointed to it, and two men picked it up and slipped it into its groove,\nand hoisted it to the summit of the machine. The executioner peered at\nit interminably amid a universal silence. Then he actuated the\nmechanism, and the mass of metal fell with a muffled, reverberating\nthud. There were a few faint shrieks, blended together, and then an\noverpowering racket of cheers, shouts, hootings, and fragments of song.\nThe blade was again lifted, instantly reproducing silence, and again it\nfell, liberating a new bedlam. The executioner made a movement of\nsatisfaction. Many women at the windows clapped enthusiastically, and\nthe gendarmes had to fight brutally against the fierce pressure of the\ncrowd. The workmen doffed their blouses and put on coats, and Sophia\nwas disturbed to see them coming in single file towards the hotel,\nfollowed by the executioner in the silk hat.\n\nIV\n\nThere was a tremendous opening of doors in the Hotel de Vezelay, and\nmuch whispering on thresholds, as the executioner and his band entered\nsolemnly. Sophia heard them tramp upstairs; they seemed to hesitate,\nand then apparently went into a room on the same landing as hers. A\ndoor banged. But Sophia could hear the regular sound of new voices\ntalking, and then the rattling of glasses on a tray. The conversation\nwhich came to her from the windows of the hotel now showed a great\nincrease of excitement. She could not see the people at these\nneighbouring windows without showing her own head, and this she would\nnot do. The boom of a heavy bell striking the hour vibrated over the\nroofs of the square; she supposed that it might be the cathedral clock.\nIn a corner of the square she saw Gerald talking vivaciously alone with\none of the two girls who had been together. She wondered vaguely how\nsuch a girl had been brought up, and what her parents thought--or knew!\nAnd she was conscious of an intense pride in herself, of a measureless\nhaughty feeling of superiority.\n\nHer eye caught the guillotine again, and was held by it. Guarded by\ngendarmes, that tall and simple object did most menacingly dominate the\nsquare with its crude red columns. Tools and a large open box lay on\nthe ground beside it. The enfeebled horse in the waggon had an air of\ndozing on his twisted legs. Then the first rays of the sun shot\nlengthwise across the square at the level of the chimneys; and Sophia\nnoticed that nearly all the lamps and candles had been extinguished.\nMany people at the windows were yawning; they laughed foolishly after\nthey had yawned. Some were eating and drinking. Some were shouting\nconversations from one house to another. The mounted gendarmes were\nstill pressing back the feverish crowds that growled at all the inlets\nto the square. She saw Chirac walking to and fro alone. But she could\nnot find Gerald. He could not have left the square. Perhaps he had\nreturned to the hotel and would come up to see if she was comfortable\nor if she needed anything. Guiltily she sprang back into bed. When last\nshe had surveyed the room it had been dark; now it was bright and every\ndetail stood clear. Yet she had the sensation of having been at the\nwindow only a few minutes.\n\nShe waited. But Gerald did not come. She could hear chiefly the steady\nhum of the voices of the executioner and his aids. She reflected that\nthe room in which they were must be at the back. The other sounds in\nthe hotel grew less noticeable. Then, after an age, she heard a door\nopen, and a low voice say something commandingly in French, and then a\n'Oui, monsieur,' and a general descent of the stairs. The executioner\nand his aids were leaving. \"You,\" cried a drunken English voice from an\nupper floor--it was the middle-aged Englishman translating what the\nexecutioner had said--\"you, you will take the head.\" Then a rough\nlaugh, and the repeating voice of the Englishman's girl, still pursuing\nher studies in English: \"You will take ze 'ead. Yess, sair.\" And\nanother laugh. At length quiet reigned in the hotel. Sophia said to\nherself: \"I won't stir from this bed till it's all over and Gerald\ncomes back!\"\n\nShe dozed, under the sheet, and was awakened by a tremendous shrieking,\ngrowling, and yelling: a phenomenon of human bestiality that far\nsurpassed Sophia's narrow experiences. Shut up though she was in a\nroom, perfectly secure, the mad fury of that crowd, balked at the\ninlets to the square, thrilled and intimidated her. It sounded as if\nthey would be capable of tearing the very horses to pieces. \"I must\nstay where I am,\" she murmured. And even while saying it she rose and\nwent to the window again and peeped out. The torture involved was\nextreme, but she had not sufficient force within her to resist the\nfascination. She stared greedily into the bright square. The first\nthing she saw was Gerald coming out of a house opposite, followed after\na few seconds by the girl with whom he had previously been talking.\nGerald glanced hastily up at the facade of the hotel, and then\napproached as near as he could to the red columns, in front of which\nwere now drawn a line of gendarmes with naked swords. A second and\nlarger waggon, with two horses, waited by the side of the other one.\nThe racket beyond the square continued and even grew louder. But the\ncouple of hundred persons within the cordons, and all the inhabitants\nof the windows, drunk and sober, gazed in a fixed and sinister\nenchantment at the region of the guillotine, as Sophia gazed. \"I cannot\nstand this!\" she told herself in horror, but she could not move; she\ncould not move even her eyes.\n\nAt intervals the crowd would burst out in a violent staccato--\n\n\"Le voila! Nicholas! Ah! Ah! Ah!\"\n\nAnd the final 'Ah' was devilish.\n\nThen a gigantic passionate roar, the culmination of the mob's fierce\nsavagery, crashed against the skies. The line of maddened horses\nswerved and reared, and seemed to fall on the furious multitude while\nthe statue-like gendarmes rocked over them. It was a last effort to\nbreak the cordon, and it failed.\n\nFrom the little street at the rear of the guillotine appeared a priest,\nwalking backwards, and holding a crucifix high in his right hand, and\nbehind him came the handsome hero, his body all crossed with cords,\nbetween two warders, who pressed against him and supported him on\neither side. He was certainly very young. He lifted his chin gallantly,\nbut his face was incredibly white. Sophia discerned that the priest was\ntrying to hide the sight of the guillotine from the prisoner with his\nbody, just as in the story which she had heard at dinner.\n\nExcept the voice of the priest, indistinctly rising and falling in the\nprayer for the dying, there was no sound in the square or its environs.\nThe windows were now occupied by groups turned to stone with distended\neyes fixed on the little procession. Sophia had a tightening of the\nthroat, and the hand trembled by which she held the curtain. The\ncentral figure did not seem to her to be alive; but rather a doll, a\nmarionette wound up to imitate the action of a tragedy. She saw the\npriest offer the crucifix to the mouth of the marionette, which with a\nclumsy unhuman shoving of its corded shoulders butted the thing away.\nAnd as the procession turned and stopped she could plainly see that the\nmarionette's nape and shoulders were bare, his shirt having been slit.\nIt was horrible. \"Why do I stay here?\" she asked herself hysterically.\nBut she did not stir. The victim had disappeared now in the midst of a\ngroup of men. Then she perceived him prone under the red column,\nbetween the grooves. The silence was now broken only by the tinkling of\nthe horses' bits in the corners of the square. The line of gendarmes in\nfront of the scaffold held their swords tightly and looked over their\nnoses, ignoring the privileged groups that peered almost between their\nshoulders.\n\nAnd Sophia waited, horror-struck. She saw nothing but the gleaming\ntriangle of metal that was suspended high above the prone, attendant\nvictim. She felt like a lost soul, torn too soon from shelter, and\nexposed for ever to the worst hazards of destiny. Why was she in this\nstrange, incomprehensible town, foreign and inimical to her, watching\nwith agonized glance this cruel, obscene spectacle? Her sensibilities\nwere all a bleeding mass of wounds. Why? Only yesterday, and she had\nbeen, an innocent, timid creature in Bursley, in Axe, a foolish\ncreature who deemed the concealment of letters a supreme excitement.\nEither that day or this day was not real. Why was she imprisoned alone\nin that odious, indescribably odious hotel, with no one to soothe and\ncomfort her, and carry her away?\n\nThe distant bell boomed once. Then a monosyllabic voice sounded, sharp,\nlow, nervous; she recognized the voice of the executioner, whose name\nshe had heard but could not remember. There was a clicking noise.\n\nShe shrank down to the floor in terror and loathing, and hid her face,\nand shuddered. Shriek after shriek, from various windows, rang on her\nears in a fusillade; and then the mad yell of the penned crowd, which,\nlike herself, had not seen but had heard, extinguished all other noise.\nJustice was done. The great ambition of Gerald's life was at last\nsatisfied.\n\nLater, amid the stir of the hotel, there came a knock at her door,\nimpatient and nervous. Forgetting, in her tribulation, that she was\nwithout her bodice, she got up from the floor in a kind of miserable\ndream, and opened. Chirac stood on the landing, and he had Gerald by\nthe arm. Chirac looked worn out, curiously fragile and pathetic; but\nGerald was the very image of death. The attainment of ambition had\nutterly destroyed his equilibrium; his curiosity had proved itself\nstronger than his stomach. Sophia would have pitied him had she in that\nmoment been capable of pity. Gerald staggered past her into the room,\nand sank with a groan on to the bed. Not long since he had been proudly\nconversing with impudent women. Now, in swift collapse, he was as\nflaccid as a sick hound and as disgusting as an aged drunkard.\n\n\"He is some little souffrant,\" said Chirac, weakly.\n\nSophia perceived in Chirac's tone the assumption that of course her\npresent duty was to devote herself to the task of restoring her shamed\nhusband to his manly pride.\n\n\"And what about me?\" she thought bitterly.\n\nThe fat woman ascended the stairs like a tottering blancmange, and\nbegan to gabble to Sophia, who understood nothing whatever.\n\n\"She wants sixty francs,\" Chirac said, and in answer to Sophia's\nstartled question, he explained that Gerald had agreed to pay a hundred\nfrancs for the room, which was the landlady's own--fifty francs in\nadvance and the fifty after the execution. The other ten was for the\ndinner. The landlady, distrusting the whole of her clientele, was\ncollecting her accounts instantly on the completion of the spectacle.\n\nSophia made no remark as to Gerald's lie to her. Indeed, Chirac had\nheard it. She knew Gerald for a glib liar to others, but she was\nnaively surprised when he practised upon herself.\n\n\"Gerald! Do you hear?\" she said coldly.\n\nThe amateur of severed heads only groaned.\n\nWith a movement of irritation she went to him and felt in his pockets\nfor his purse; he acquiesced, still groaning. Chirac helped her to\nchoose and count the coins.\n\nThe fat woman, appeased, pursued her way.\n\n\"Good-bye, madame!\" said Chirac, with his customary courtliness,\ntransforming the landing of the hideous hotel into some imperial\nantechamber.\n\n\"Are you going away?\" she asked, in surprise. Her distress was so\nobvious that it tremendously flattered him. He would have stayed if he\ncould. But he had to return to Paris to write and deliver his article.\n\n\"To-morrow, I hope!\" he murmured sympathetically, kissing her hand. The\ngesture atoned somewhat for the sordidness of her situation, and even\ncorrected the faults of her attire. Always afterwards it seemed to her\nthat Chirac was an old and intimate friend; he had successfully passed\nthrough the ordeal of seeing 'the wrong side' of the stuff of her life.\n\nShe shut the door on him with a lingering glance, and reconciled\nherself to her predicament.\n\nGerald slept. Just as he was, he slept heavily.\n\nThis was what he had brought her to, then! The horrors of the night, of\nthe dawn, and of the morning! Ineffable suffering and humiliation;\nanguish and torture that could never be forgotten! And after a fatuous\nvigil of unguessed license, he had tottered back, an offensive beast,\nto sleep the day away in that filthy chamber! He did not possess even\nenough spirit to play the role of roysterer to the end. And she was\nbound to him; far, far from any other human aid; cut off irrevocably by\nher pride from those who perhaps would have protected her from his\ndangerous folly. The deep conviction henceforward formed a permanent\npart of her general consciousness that he was simply an irresponsible\nand thoughtless fool! He was without sense. Such was her brilliant and\ngodlike husband, the man who had given her the right to call herself a\nmarried woman! He was a fool. With all her ignorance of the world she\ncould see that nobody but an arrant imbecile could have brought her to\nthe present pass. Her native sagacity revolted. Gusts of feeling came\nover her in which she could have thrashed him into the realization of\nhis responsibilities.\n\nSticking out of the breast-pocket of his soiled coat was the packet\nwhich he had received on the previous day. If he had not already lost\nit, he could only thank his luck. She took it. There were English\nbank-notes in it for two hundred pounds, a letter from a banker, and\nother papers. With precautions against noise she tore the envelope and\nthe letter and papers into small pieces, and then looked about for a\nplace to hide them. A cupboard suggested itself. She got on a chair,\nand pushed the fragments out of sight on the topmost shelf, where they\nmay well be to this day. She finished dressing, and then sewed the\nnotes into the lining of her skirt. She had no silly, delicate notions\nabout stealing. She obscurely felt that, in the care of a man like\nGerald, she might find herself in the most monstrous, the most\nimpossible dilemmas. Those notes, safe and secret in her skirt, gave\nher confidence, reassured her against the perils of the future, and\nendowed her with independence. The act was characteristic of her\nenterprise and of her fundamental prudence. It approached the heroic.\nAnd her conscience hotly defended its righteousness.\n\nShe decided that when he discovered his loss, she would merely deny all\nknowledge of the envelope, for he had not spoken a word to her about\nit. He never mentioned the details of money; he had a fortune. However,\nthe necessity for this untruth did not occur. He made no reference\nwhatever to his loss. The fact was, he thought he had been careless\nenough to let the envelope be filched from him during the excesses of\nthe night.\n\nAll day till evening Sophia sat on a dirty chair, without food, while\nGerald slept. She kept repeating to herself, in amazed resentment: \"A\nhundred francs for this room! A hundred francs! And he hadn't the pluck\nto tell me!\" She could not have expressed her contempt.\n\nLong before sheer ennui forced her to look out of the window again,\nevery sign of justice had been removed from the square. Nothing\nwhatever remained in the heavy August sunshine save gathered heaps of\nfilth where the horses had reared and caracoled.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nA CRISIS FOR GERALD\n\nI\n\n\nFor a time there existed in the minds of both Gerald and Sophia the\nremarkable notion that twelve thousand pounds represented the infinity\nof wealth, that this sum possessed special magical properties which\nrendered it insensible to the process of subtraction. It seemed\nimpossible that twelve thousand pounds, while continually getting less,\ncould ultimately quite disappear. The notion lived longer in the mind\nof Gerald than in that of Sophia; for Gerald would never look at a\ndisturbing fact, whereas Sophia's gaze was morbidly fascinated by such\nphenomena. In a life devoted to travel and pleasure Gerald meant not to\nspend more than six hundred a year, the interest on his fortune. Six\nhundred a year is less than two pounds a day, yet Gerald never paid\nless than two pounds a day in hotel bills alone. He hoped that he was\nliving on a thousand a year, had a secret fear that he might be\nspending fifteen hundred, and was really spending about two thousand\nfive hundred. Still, the remarkable notion of the inexhaustibility of\ntwelve thousand pounds always reassured him. The faster the money went,\nthe more vigorously this notion flourished in Gerald's mind. When\ntwelve had unaccountably dwindled to three, Gerald suddenly decided\nthat he must act, and in a few months he lost two thousand on the Paris\nBourse. The adventure frightened him, and in his panic he scattered a\ncouple of hundred in a frenzy of high living.\n\nBut even with only twenty thousand francs left out of three hundred\nthousand, he held closely to the belief that natural laws would in his\ncase somehow be suspended. He had heard of men who were once rich\nbegging bread and sweeping crossings, but he felt quite secure against\nsuch risks, by simple virtue of the axiom that he was he. However, he\nmeant to assist the axiom by efforts to earn money. When these\ncontinued to fail, he tried to assist the axiom by borrowing money; but\nhe found that his uncle had definitely done with him. He would have\nassisted the axiom by stealing money, but he had neither the nerve nor\nthe knowledge to be a swindler; he was not even sufficiently expert to\ncheat at cards.\n\nHe had thought in thousands. Now he began to think in hundreds, in\ntens, daily and hourly. He paid two hundred francs in railway fares in\norder to live economically in a village, and shortly afterwards another\ntwo hundred francs in railway fares in order to live economically in\nParis. And to celebrate the arrival in Paris and the definite\ncommencement of an era of strict economy and serious search for a\nlivelihood, he spent a hundred francs on a dinner at the Maison Doree\nand two balcony stalls at the Gymnase. In brief, he omitted nothing--no\nact, no resolve, no self-deception--of the typical fool in his\nsituation; always convinced that his difficulties and his wisdom were\nquite exceptional.\n\nIn May, 1870, on an afternoon, he was ranging nervously to and fro in a\nthree-cornered bedroom of a little hotel at the angle of the Rue\nFontaine and the Rue Laval (now the Rue Victor Masse), within half a\nminute of the Boulevard de Clichy. It had come to that--an exchange of\nthe 'grand boulevard' for the 'boulevard exterieur'! Sophia sat on a\nchair at the grimy window, glancing down in idle disgust of life at the\nClichy-Odeon omnibus which was casting off its tip-horse at the corner\nof the Rue Chaptal. The noise of petty, hurried traffic over the bossy\npaving stones was deafening. The locality was not one to correspond\nwith an ideal. There was too much humanity crowded into those narrow\nhilly streets; humanity seemed to be bulging out at the windows of the\nhigh houses. Gerald healed his pride by saying that this was, after\nall, the real Paris, and that the cookery was as good as could be got\nanywhere, pay what you would. He seldom ate a meal in the little salons\non the first floor without becoming ecstatic upon the cookery. To hear\nhim, he might have chosen the hotel on its superlative merits, without\nregard to expense. And with his air of use and custom, he did indeed\nlook like a connoisseur of Paris who knew better than to herd with\nvulgar tourists in the pens of the Madeleine quarter. He was dressed\nwith some distinction; good clothes, when put to the test, survive a\nchange of fortune, as a Roman arch survives the luxury of departed\nempire. Only his collar, large V-shaped front, and wristbands, which\nbore the ineffaceable signs of cheap laundering, reflected the shadow\nof impending disaster.\n\nHe glanced sideways, stealthily, at Sophia. She, too, was still dressed\nwith distinction; in the robe of black faille, the cashmere shawl, and\nthe little black hat with its falling veil, there was no apparent\nsymptom of beggary. She would have been judged as one of those women\nwho content themselves with few clothes but good, and, greatly aided by\nnature, make a little go a long way. Good black will last for eternity;\nit discloses no secrets of modification and mending, and it is not\ntransparent.\n\nAt last Gerald, resuming a suspended conversation, said as it were\ndoggedly:\n\n\"I tell you I haven't got five francs altogether! and you can feel my\npockets if you like,\" added the habitual liar in him, fearing\nincredulity.\n\n\"Well, and what do you expect me to do?\" Sophia inquired.\n\nThe accent, at once ironic and listless, in which she put this\nquestion, showed that strange and vital things had happened to Sophia\nin the four years which had elapsed since her marriage. It did really\nseem to her, indeed, that the Sophia whom Gerald had espoused was dead\nand gone, and that another Sophia had come into her body: so intensely\nconscious was she of a fundamental change in herself under the stress\nof continuous experience. And though this was but a seeming, though she\nwas still the same Sophia more fully disclosed, it was a true seeming.\nIndisputably more beautiful than when Gerald had unwillingly made her\nhis legal wife, she was now nearly twenty-four, and looked perhaps\nsomewhat older than her age. Her frame was firmly set, her waist\nthicker, neither slim nor stout. The lips were rather hard, and she had\na habit of tightening her mouth, on the same provocation as sends a\nsnail into its shell. No trace was left of immature gawkiness in her\ngestures or of simplicity in her intonations. She was a woman of\ncommanding and slightly arrogant charm, not in the least degree the\ncharm of innocence and ingenuousness. Her eyes were the eyes of one who\nhas lost her illusions too violently and too completely. Her gaze,\ncoldly comprehending, implied familiarity with the abjectness of human\nnature. Gerald had begun and had finished her education. He had not\nruined her, as a bad professor may ruin a fine voice, because her moral\nforce immeasurably exceeded his; he had unwittingly produced a\nmasterpiece, but it was a tragic masterpiece. Sophia was such a woman\nas, by a mere glance as she utters an opinion, will make a man say to\nhimself, half in desire and half in alarm lest she reads him too: \"By\nJove! she must have been through a thing or two. She knows what people\nare!\"\n\nThe marriage was, of course, a calamitous folly. From the very first,\nfrom the moment when the commercial traveller had with incomparable\nrash fatuity thrown the paper pellet over the counter, Sophia's\nawakening commonsense had told her that in yielding to her instinct she\nwas sowing misery and shame for herself; but she had gone on, as if\nunder a spell. It had needed the irretrievableness of flight from home\nto begin the breaking of the trance. Once fully awakened out of the\ntrance, she had recognized her marriage for what it was. She had made\nneither the best nor the worst of it. She had accepted Gerald as one\naccepts a climate. She saw again and again that he was irreclaimably a\nfool and a prodigy of irresponsibleness. She tolerated him, now with\nsweetness, now bitterly; accepting always his caprices, and not\npermitting herself to have wishes of her own. She was ready to pay the\nprice of pride and of a moment's imbecility with a lifetime of\nself-repression. It was high, but it was the price. She had acquired\nnothing but an exceptionally good knowledge of the French language (she\nsoon learnt to scorn Gerald's glib maltreatment of the tongue), and she\nhad conserved nothing but her dignity. She knew that Gerald was sick of\nher, that he would have danced for joy to be rid of her; that he was\nconstantly unfaithful; that he had long since ceased to be excited by\nher beauty. She knew also that at bottom he was a little afraid of her;\nhere was her sole moral consolation. The thing that sometimes struck\nher as surprising was that he had not abandoned her, simply and crudely\nwalked off one day and forgotten to take her with him.\n\nThey hated each other, but in different ways. She loathed him, and he\nresented her.\n\n\"What do I expect you to do?\" he repeated after her. \"Why don't you\nwrite home to your people and get some money out of them?\"\n\nNow that he had said what was in his mind, he faced her with a bullying\nswagger. Had he been a bigger man he might have tried the effect of\nphysical bullying on her. One of his numerous reasons for resenting her\nwas that she was the taller of the two.\n\nShe made no reply.\n\n\"Now you needn't turn pale and begin all that fuss over again. What I'm\nsuggesting is a perfectly reasonable thing. If I haven't got money I\nhaven't got it. I can't invent it.\"\n\nShe perceived that he was ready for one of their periodical tempestuous\nquarrels. But that day she felt too tired and unwell to quarrel. His\nwarning against a repetition of 'fuss' had reference to the gastric\ndizziness from which she had been suffering for two years. It would\ntake her usually after a meal. She did not swoon, but her head swam and\nshe could not stand. She would sink down wherever she happened to be,\nand, her face alarmingly white, murmur faintly: \"My salts.\" Within five\nminutes the attack had gone and left no trace. She had been through one\njust after lunch. He resented this affection. He detested being\ncompelled to hand the smelling-bottle to her, and he would have avoided\ndoing so if her pallor did not always alarm him. Nothing but this\npallor convinced him that the attacks were not a deep ruse to impress\nhim. His attitude invariably implied that she could cure the malady if\nshe chose, but that through obstinacy she did not choose.\n\n\"Are you going to have the decency to answer my question, or aren't\nyou?\"\n\n\"What question?\" Her vibrating voice was low and restrained.\n\n\"Will you write to your people?\"\n\n\"For money?\"\n\nThe sarcasm of her tone was diabolic. She could not have kept the\nsarcasm out of her tone; she did not attempt to keep it out. She cared\nlittle if it whipped him to fury. Did he imagine, seriously, that she\nwould be capable of going on her knees to her family? She? Was he\nunaware that his wife was the proudest and the most obstinate woman on\nearth; that all her behaviour to him was the expression of her pride\nand her obstinacy? Ill and weak though she felt, she marshalled\ntogether all the forces of her character to defend her resolve never,\nnever to eat the bread of humiliation. She was absolutely determined to\nbe dead to her family. Certainly, one December, several years\npreviously, she had seen English Christmas cards in an English shop in\nthe Rue de Rivoli, and in a sudden gush of tenderness towards\nConstance, she had despatched a coloured greeting to Constance and her\nmother. And having initiated the custom, she had continued it. That was\nnot like asking a kindness; it was bestowing a kindness. But except for\nthe annual card, she was dead to St. Luke's Square. She was one of\nthose daughters who disappear and are not discussed in the family\ncircle. The thought of her immense foolishness, the little tender\nthoughts of Constance, some flitting souvenir, full of unwilling\nadmiration, of a regal gesture of her mother,--these things only\nsteeled her against any sort of resurrection after death.\n\nAnd he was urging her to write home for money! Why, she would not even\nhave paid a visit in splendour to St. Luke's Square. Never should they\nknow what she had suffered! And especially her Aunt Harriet, from whom\nshe had stolen!\n\n\"Will you write to your people?\" he demanded yet again, emphasizing and\nseparating each word.\n\n\"No,\" she said shortly, with terrible disdain.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because I won't.\" The curling line of her lips, as they closed on each\nother, said all the rest; all the cruel truths about his unspeakable,\ninane, coarse follies, his laziness, his excesses, his lies, his\ndeceptions, his bad faith, his truculence, his improvidence, his\nshameful waste and ruin of his life and hers. She doubted whether he\nrealized his baseness and her wrongs, but if he could not read them in\nher silent contumely, she was too proud to recite them to him. She had\nnever complained, save in uncontrolled moments of anger.\n\n\"If that's the way you're going to talk--all right!\" he snapped,\nfurious. Evidently he was baffled.\n\nShe kept silence. She was determined to see what he would do in the\nface of her inaction.\n\n\"You know, I'm not joking,\" he pursued. \"We shall starve.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" she agreed. \"We shall starve.\"\n\nShe watched him surreptitiously, and she was almost sure that he really\nhad come to the end of his tether. His voice, which never alone\nconvinced, carried a sort of conviction now. He was penniless. In four\nyears he had squandered twelve thousand pounds, and had nothing to show\nfor it except an enfeebled digestion and a tragic figure of a wife. One\nsmall point of satisfaction there was--and all the Baines in her\nclutched at it and tried to suck satisfaction from it--their manner of\ntravelling about from hotel to hotel had made it impossible for Gerald\nto run up debts. A few debts he might have, unknown to her, but they\ncould not be serious.\n\nSo they looked at one another, in hatred and despair. The inevitable\nhad arrived. For months she had fronted it in bravado, not concealing\nfrom herself that it lay in waiting. For years he had been sure that\nthough the inevitable might happen to others it could not happen to\nhim. There it was! He was conscious of a heavy weight in his stomach,\nand she of a general numbness, enwrapping her fatigue. Even then he\ncould not believe that it was true, this disaster. As for Sophia she\nwas reconciling herself with bitter philosophy to the eccentricities of\nfate. Who would have dreamed that she, a young girl brought up, etc?\nHer mother could not have improved the occasion more uncompromisingly\nthan Sophia did--behind that disdainful mask.\n\n\"Well--if that's it...!\" Gerald exploded at length, puffing. And he\npuffed out of the room and was gone in a second.\n\nII\n\nShe languidly picked up a book, the moment Gerald had departed, and\ntried to prove to herself that she was sufficiently in command of her\nnerves to read. For a long time reading had been her chief solace. But\nshe could not read. She glanced round the inhospitable chamber, and\nthought of the hundreds of rooms--some splendid and some vile, but all\narid in their unwelcoming aspect--through which she had passed in her\nprogress from mad exultation to calm and cold disgust. The ceaseless\ndin of the street annoyed her jaded ears. And a great wave of desire\nfor peace, peace of no matter what kind, swept through her. And then\nher deep distrust of Gerald reawakened; in spite of his seriously\ndesperate air, which had a quality of sincerity quite new in her\nexperience of him, she could not be entirely sure that, in asserting\nutter penury, he was not after all merely using a trick to get rid of\nher.\n\nShe sprang up, threw the book on the bed, and seized her gloves. She\nwould follow him, if she could. She would do what she had never done\nbefore--she would spy on him. Fighting against her lassitude, she\ndescended the long winding stairs, and peeped forth from the doorway\ninto the street. The ground floor of the hotel was a wine-shop; the\nstout landlord was lightly flicking one of the three little yellow\ntables that stood on the pavement. He smiled with his customary\nbenevolence, and silently pointed in the direction of the Rue Notre\nDame de Lorette. She saw Gerald down there in the distance. He was\nsmoking a cigar.\n\nHe seemed to be a little man without a care. The smoke of the cigar\ncame first round his left cheek and then round his right, sailing away\ninto nothing. He walked with a gay spring, but not quickly, flourishing\nhis cane as freely as the traffic of the pavement would permit,\nglancing into all the shop windows and into the eyes of all the women\nunder forty. This was not at all the same man as had a moment ago been\nspitting angry menaces at her in the bedroom of the hotel. It was a\nfellow of blithe charm, ripe for any adventurous joys that destiny had\nto offer.\n\nSupposing he turned round and saw her?\n\nIf he turned round and saw her and asked her what she was doing there\nin the street, she would tell him plainly: \"I'm following you, to find\nout what you do.\"\n\nBut he did not turn. He went straight forward, deviating at the church,\nwhere the crowd became thicker, into the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre,\nand so to the boulevard, which he crossed. The whole city seemed\nexcited and vivacious. Cannons boomed in slow succession, and flags\nwere flying. Sophia had no conception of the significance of those\nguns, for, though she read a great deal, she never read a newspaper;\nthe idea of opening a newspaper never occurred to her. But she was\naccustomed to the feverish atmosphere of Paris. She had lately seen\nregiments of cavalry flashing and prancing in the Luxembourg Gardens,\nand had much admired the fine picture. She accepted the booming as\nanother expression of the high spirits that had to find vent somehow in\nthis feverish empire. She so accepted it and forgot it, using all the\npanorama of the capital as a dim background for her exacerbated egoism.\n\nShe was obliged to walk slowly, because Gerald walked slowly. A\nbeautiful woman, or any woman not positively hag-like or venerable, who\nwalks slowly in the streets of Paris becomes at once the cause of\ninconvenient desires, as representing the main objective on earth,\nalways transcending in importance politics and affairs. Just as a true\npatriotic Englishman cannot be too busy to run after a fox, so a\nFrenchman is always ready to forsake all in order to follow a woman\nwhom he has never before set eyes on. Many men thought twice about her,\nwith her romantic Saxon mystery of temperament, and her Parisian\nclothes; but all refrained from affronting her, not in the least out of\nrespect for the gloom in her face, but from an expert conviction that\nthose rapt eyes were fixed immovably on another male. She walked\nunscathed amid the frothing hounds as though protected by a spell.\n\nOn the south side of the boulevard, Gerald proceeded down the Rue\nMontmartre, and then turned suddenly into the Rue Croissant. Sophia\nstopped and asked the price of some combs which were exposed outside a\nlittle shop. Then she went on, boldly passing the end of the Rue\nCroissant. No shadow of Gerald! She saw the signs of newspapers all\nalong the street, Le Bien Public, La Presse Libre, La Patrie. There was\na creamery at the corner. She entered it, asked for a cup of chocolate\nand sat down. She wanted to drink coffee, but every doctor had\nforbidden coffee to her, on account of her attacks of dizziness. Then,\nhaving ordered chocolate, she felt that, on this occasion, when she had\nneed of strength in her great fatigue, only coffee could suffice her,\nand she changed the order. She was close to the door, and Gerald could\nnot escape her vigilance if he emerged at that end of the street. She\ndrank the coffee with greedy satisfaction, and waited in the creamery\ntill she began to feel conspicuous there. And then Gerald went by the\ndoor, within six feet of her. He turned the corner and continued his\ndescent of the Rue Montmartre. She paid for her coffee and followed the\nchase. Her blood seemed to be up. Her lips were tightened, and her\nthought was: \"Wherever he goes, I'll go, and I don't care what\nhappens.\" She despised him. She felt herself above him. She felt that\nsomehow, since quitting the hotel, he had been gradually growing more\nand more vile and meet to be exterminated. She imagined infamies as to\nthe Rue Croissant. There was no obvious ground for this intensifying of\nher attitude towards him; it was merely the result of the chase. All\nthat could be definitely charged against him was the smoking of a cigar.\n\nHe stepped into a tobacco-shop, and came out with a longer cigar than\nthe first one, a more expensive article, stripped off its collar and\nlighted it as a millionaire might have lighted it. This was the man who\nswore that he did not possess five francs.\n\nShe tracked him as far as the Rue de Rivoli, and then lost him. There\nwere vast surging crowds in the Rue de Rivoli, and much bunting, and\nsoldiers and gesticulatory policemen. The general effect of the street\nwas that all things were brightly waving in the breeze. She was caught\nin the crowd as in the current of a stream, and when she tried to sidle\nout of it into a square, a row of smiling policemen barred her passage;\nshe was a part of the traffic that they had to regulate. She drifted\ntill the Louvre came into view. After all, Gerald had only strolled\nforth to see the sight of the day, whatever it might be! She knew not\nwhat it was. She had no curiosity about it. In the middle of all that\nthickening mass of humanity, staring with one accord at the vast\nmonument of royal and imperial vanities, she thought, with her\ncharacteristic grimness, of the sacrifice of her whole career as a\nschool-teacher for the chance of seeing Gerald once a quarter in the\nshop. She gloated over that, as a sick appetite will gloat over tainted\nfood. And she saw the shop, and the curve of the stairs up to the\nshowroom, and the pier-glass in the showroom.\n\nThen the guns began to boom again, and splendid carriages swept one\nafter another from under a majestic archway and glittered westward down\na lane of spotless splendid uniforms. The carriages were laden with\nstill more splendid uniforms, and with enchanting toilets. Sophia, in\nher modestly stylish black, mechanically noticed how much easier it was\nfor attired women to sit in a carriage now that crinolines had gone.\nThat was the sole impression made upon her by this glimpse of the last\nfete of the Napoleonic Empire. She knew not that the supreme pillars of\nimperialism were exhibiting themselves before her; and that the eyes of\nthose uniforms and those toilettes were full of the legendary beauty of\nEugenie, and their ears echoing to the long phrases of Napoleon the\nThird about his gratitude to his people for their confidence in him as\nshown by the plebiscite, and about the ratification of constitutional\nreforms guaranteeing order, and about the empire having been\nstrengthened at its base, and about showing force by moderation and\nenvisaging the future without fear, and about the bosom of peace and\nliberty, and the eternal continuance of his dynasty.\n\nShe just wondered vaguely what was afoot.\n\nWhen the last carriage had rolled away, and the guns and acclamations\nhad ceased, the crowd at length began to scatter. She was carried by it\ninto the Place du Palais Royal, and in a few moments she managed to\nwithdraw into the Rue des Bons Enfants and was free.\n\nThe coins in her purse amounted to three sous, and therefore, though\nshe felt exhausted to the point of illness, she had to return to the\nhotel on foot. Very slowly she crawled upwards in the direction of the\nBoulevard, through the expiring gaiety of the city. Near the Bourse a\nfiacre overtook her, and in the fiacre were Gerald and a woman. Gerald\nhad not seen her; he was talking eagerly to his ornate companion. All\nhis body was alive. The fiacre was out of sight in a moment, but Sophia\njudged instantly the grade of the woman, who was evidently of the\ndiscreet class that frequented the big shops of an afternoon with\nsomething of their own to sell.\n\nSophia's grimness increased. The pace of the fiacre, her fatigued body,\nGerald's delightful, careless vivacity, the attractive streaming veil\nof the nice, modest courtesan--everything conspired to increase it.\n\nIII\n\nGerald returned to the bedroom which contained his wife and all else\nthat he owned in the world at about nine o'clock that evening. Sophia\nwas in bed. She had been driven to bed by weariness. She would have\npreferred to sit up to receive her husband, even if it had meant\nsitting up all night, but her body was too heavy for her spirit. She\nlay in the dark. She had eaten nothing. Gerald came straight into the\nroom. He struck a match, which burned blue, with a stench, for several\nseconds, and then gave a clear, yellow flame. He lit a candle; and saw\nhis wife.\n\n\"Oh!\" he said; \"you're there, are you?\"\n\nShe offered no reply.\n\n\"Won't speak, eh?\" he said. \"Agreeable sort of wife! Well, have you\nmade up your mind to do what I told you? I've come back especially to\nknow.\"\n\nShe still did not speak.\n\nHe sat down, with his hat on, and stuck out his feet, wagging them to\nand fro on the heels.\n\n\"I'm quite without money,\" he went on. \"And I'm sure your people will\nbe glad to lend us a bit till I get some. Especially as it's a question\nof you starving as well as me. If I had enough to pay your fares to\nBursley I'd pack you off. But I haven't.\"\n\nShe could only hear his exasperating voice. The end of the bed was\nbetween her eyes and his.\n\n\"Liar!\" she said, with uncompromising distinctness. The word reached\nhim barbed with all the poison of her contempt and disgust.\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n\"Oh! I'm a liar, am I? Thanks. I lied enough to get you, I'll admit.\nBut you never complained of that. I remember be-ginning the New Year\nwell with a thumping lie just to have a sight of you, my vixen. But you\ndidn't complain then. I took you with only the clothes on your back.\nAnd I've spent every cent I had on you. And now I'm spun, you call me a\nliar.\"\n\nShe said nothing.\n\n\"However,\" he went on, \"this is going to come to an end, this is!\"\n\nHe rose, changed the position of the candle, putting it on a chest of\ndrawers, and then drew his trunk from the wall, and knelt in front of\nit.\n\nShe gathered that he was packing his clothes. At first she did not\ncomprehend his reference to beginning the New Year. Then his meaning\nrevealed itself. That story to her mother about having been attacked by\nruffians at the bottom of King Street had been an invention, a ruse to\naccount plausibly for his presence on her mother's doorstep! And she\nhad never suspected that the story was not true. In spite of her\nexperience of his lying, she had never suspected that that particular\nstatement was a lie. What a simpleton she was!\n\nThere was a continual movement in the room for about a quarter of an\nhour. Then a key turned in the lock of the trunk.\n\nHis head popped up over the foot of the bed. \"This isn't a joke, you\nknow,\" he said.\n\nShe kept silence.\n\n\"I give you one more chance. Will you write to your mother--or\nConstance if you like--or won't you?\"\n\nShe scorned to reply in any way.\n\n\"I'm your husband,\" he said. \"And it's your duty to obey me,\nparticularly in an affair like this. I order you to write to your\nmother.\"\n\nThe corners of her lips turned downwards.\n\nAngered by her mute obstinacy, he broke away from the bed with a sudden\ngesture.\n\n\"You do as you like,\" he cried, putting on his overcoat, \"and I shall\ndo as I like. You can't say I haven't warned you. It's your own\ndeliberate choice, mind you! Whatever happens to you you've brought on\nyourself.\" He lifted and shrugged his shoulders to get the overcoat\nexactly into place on his shoulders.\n\nShe would not speak a word, not even to insist that she was indisposed.\n\nHe pushed his trunk outside the door, and returned to the bed.\n\n\"You understand,\" he said menacingly; \"I'm off.\"\n\nShe looked up at the foul ceiling.\n\n\"Hm!\" he sniffed, bringing his reserves of pride to combat the\npersistent silence that was damaging his dignity. And he went off,\nsticking his head forward like a pugilist.\n\n\"Here!\" she muttered. \"You're forgetting this.\"\n\nHe turned.\n\nShe stretched her hand to the night-table and held up a red circlet.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"It's the bit of paper off the cigar you bought in the Rue Montmartre\nthis afternoon,\" she answered, in a significant tone.\n\nHe hesitated, then swore violently, and bounced out of the room. He had\nmade her suffer, but she was almost repaid for everything by that\nmoment of cruel triumph. She exulted in it, and never forgot it.\n\nFive minutes later, the gloomy menial in felt slippers and alpaca\njacket, who seemed to pass the whole of his life flitting in and out of\nbedrooms like a rabbit in a warren, carried Gerald's trunk downstairs.\nShe recognized the peculiar tread of his slippers.\n\nThen there was a knock at the door. The landlady entered, actuated by a\nlegitimate curiosity.\n\n\"Madame is suffering?\" the landlady began.\n\nSophia refused offers of food and nursing.\n\n\"Madame knows without doubt that monsieur has gone away?\"\n\n\"Has he paid the bill?\" Sophia asked bluntly.\n\n\"But yes, madame, till to-morrow. Then madame has want of nothing?\"\n\n\"If you will extinguish the candle,\" said Sophia.\n\nHe had deserted her, then!\n\n\"All this,\" she reflected, listening in the dark to the ceaseless\nrattle of the street, \"because mother and Constance wanted to see the\nelephant, and I had to go into father's room! I should never have\ncaught sight of him from the drawing-room window!\"\n\nIV\n\nShe passed a night of physical misery, exasperated by the tireless\nrattling vitality of the street. She kept saying to herself: \"I'm all\nalone now, and I'm going to be ill. I am ill.\" She saw herself dying in\nParis, and heard the expressions of facile sympathy and idle curiosity\ndrawn forth by the sight of the dead body of this foreign woman in a\nlittle Paris hotel. She reached the stage, in the gradual excruciation\nof her nerves, when she was obliged to concentrate her agonized mind on\nan intense and painful expectancy of the next new noise, which when it\ncame increased her torture and decreased her strength to support it.\nShe went through all the interminable dilatoriness of the dawn, from\nthe moment when she could scarcely discern the window to the moment\nwhen she could read the word 'Bock' on the red circlet of paper which\nhad tossed all night on the sea of the counterpane. She knew she would\nnever sleep again. She could not imagine herself asleep; and then she\nwas startled by a sound that seemed to clash with the rest of her\nimpressions. It was a knocking at the door. With a start she perceived\nthat she must have been asleep.\n\n\"Enter,\" she murmured.\n\nThere entered the menial in alpaca. His waxen face showed a morose\ncommiseration. He noiselessly approached the bed--he seemed to have\nnone of the characteristics of a man, but to be a creature infinitely\nmysterious and aloof from humanity--and held out to Sophia a visiting\ncard in his grey hand.\n\nIt was Chirac's card.\n\n\"Monsieur asked for monsieur,\" said the waiter. \"And then, as monsieur\nhad gone away he demanded to see madame. He says it is very important.\"\n\nHer heart jumped, partly in vague alarm, and partly with a sense of\nrelief at this chance of speaking to some one whom she knew. She tried\nto reflect rationally.\n\n\"What time is it?\" she inquired.\n\n\"Eleven o'clock, madame.\"\n\nThis was surprising. The fact that it was eleven o'clock destroyed the\nremains of her self-confidence. How could it be eleven o'clock, with\nthe dawn scarcely finished?\n\n\"He says it is very important,\" repeated the waiter, imperturbably and\nsolemnly. \"Will madame see him an instant?\"\n\nBetween resignation and anticipation she said: \"Yes.\"\n\n\"It is well, madame,\" said the waiter, disappearing without a sound.\n\nShe sat up and managed to drag her matinee from a chair and put it\naround her shoulders. Then she sank back from weakness, physical and\nspiritual. She hated to receive Chirac in a bedroom, and particularly\nin that bedroom. But the hotel had no public room except the\ndining-room, which began to be occupied after eleven o'clock. Moreover,\nshe could not possibly get up. Yes, on the whole she was pleased to see\nChirac. He was almost her only acquaintance, assuredly the only being\nwhom she could by any stretch of meaning call a friend, in the whole of\nEurope. Gerald and she had wandered to and fro, skimming always over\nthe real life of nations, and never penetrating into it. There was no\nplace for them, because they had made none. With the exception of\nChirac, whom an accident of business had thrown, into Gerald's company\nyears before, they had no social relations. Gerald was not a man to\nmake friends; he did not seem to need friends, or at any rate to feel\nthe want of them. But, as chance had given him Chirac, he maintained\nthe connection whenever they came to Paris. Sophia, of course, had not\nbeen able to escape from the solitude imposed by existence in hotels.\nSince her marriage she had never spoken to a woman in the way of\nintimacy. But once or twice she had approached intimacy with Chirac,\nwhose wistful admiration for her always aroused into activity her\ndesire to charm.\n\nPreceded by the menial, he came into the room hurriedly,\napologetically, with an air of acute anxiety. And as he saw her lying\non her back, with flushed features, her hair disarranged, and only the\ngrace of the silk ribbons of her matinee to mitigate the melancholy\nrepulsiveness of her surroundings, that anxiety seemed to deepen.\n\n\"Dear madame,\" he stammered, \"all my excuses!\" He hastened to the\nbedside and kissed her hand--a little peek according to his custom.\n\"You are ill?\"\n\n\"I have my migraine,\" she said. \"You want Gerald?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said diffidently. \"He had promised----\"\n\n\"He has left me,\" Sophia interrupted him in her weak and fatigued\nvoice. She closed her eyes as she uttered the words.\n\n\"Left you?\" He glanced round to be sure that the waiter had retired.\n\n\"Quitted me! Abandoned me! Last night!\"\n\n\"Not possible!\" he breathed.\n\nShe nodded. She felt intimate with him. Like all secretive persons, she\ncould be suddenly expansive at times.\n\n\"It is serious?\" he questioned.\n\n\"All that is most serious,\" she replied.\n\n\"And you ill! Ah, the wretch! Ah, the wretch! That, for example!\" He\nwaved his hat about.\n\n\"What is it you want, Chirac?\" she demanded, in a confidential tone.\n\n\"Eh, well,\" said Chirac. \"You do not know where he has gone?\"\n\n\"No. What do you want?\" she insisted.\n\nHe was nervous. He fidgetted. She guessed that, though warm with\nsympathy for her plight, he was preoccupied by interests and\napprehensions of his own. He did not refuse her request temporarily to\nleave the astonishing matter of her situation in order to discuss the\nmatter of his visit.\n\n\"Eh, well! He came to me yesterday afternoon in the Rue Croissant to\nborrow some money.\"\n\nShe understood then the object of Gerald's stroll on the previous\nafternoon.\n\n\"I hope you didn't lend him any,\" she said.\n\n\"Eh, well! It was like this. He said he ought to have received five\nthousand francs yesterday morning, but that he had had a telegram that\nit would not arrive till to-day. And he had need of five hundred francs\nat once. I had not five hundred francs\"--he smiled sadly, as if to\ninsinuate that he did not handle such sums--\"but I borrowed it from\nthe cashbox of the journal. It is necessary, absolutely, that I should\nreturn it this morning.\" He spoke with increased seriousness. \"Your\nhusband said he would take a cab and bring me the money immediately on\nthe arrival of the post this morning--about nine o'clock. Pardon me for\nderanging you with such a----\"\n\nHe stopped. She could see that he really was grieved to 'derange' her,\nbut that circumstances pressed.\n\n\"At my paper,\" he murmured, \"it is not so easy as that to--in fine----!\"\n\nGerald had genuinely been at his last francs. He had not lied when she\nthought he had lied. The nakedness of his character showed now.\nInstantly upon the final and definite cessation of the lawful supply of\nmoney, he had set his wits to obtain money unlawfully. He had, in fact,\nsimply stolen it from Chirac, with the ornamental addition of\nendangering Chirac's reputation and situation--as a sort of reward to\nChirac for the kindness! And, further, no sooner had he got hold of the\nmoney than it had intoxicated him, and he had yielded to the first\nfatuous temptation. He had no sense of responsibility, no scruple. And\nas for common prudence--had he not risked permanent disgrace and even\nprison for a paltry sum which he would certainly squander in two or\nthree days? Yes, it was indubitable that he would stop at nothing, at\nnothing whatever.\n\n\"You did not know that he was coming to me?\" asked Chirac, pulling his\nshort, silky brown beard.\n\n\"No,\" Sophia answered.\n\n\"But he said that you had charged him with your friendlinesses to me!\"\nHe nodded his head once or twice, sadly but candidly accepting, in his\nquality of a Latin, the plain facts of human nature--reconciling\nhimself to them at once.\n\nSophia revolted at this crowning detail of the structure of Gerald's\nrascality.\n\n\"It is fortunate that I can pay you,\" she said.\n\n\"But----\" he tried to protest.\n\n\"I have quite enough money.\"\n\nShe did not say this to screen Gerald, but merely from amour-propre.\nShe would not let Chirac think that she was the wife of a man bereft of\nall honour. And so she clothed Gerald with the rag of having, at any\nrate, not left her in destitution as well as in sickness. Her assertion\nseemed a strange one, in view of the fact that he had abandoned her on\nthe previous evening--that is to say, immediately after the borrowing\nfrom Chirac. But Chirac did not examine the statement.\n\n\"Perhaps he has the intention to send me the money. Perhaps, after all,\nhe is now at the offices----\"\n\n\"No,\" said Sophia. \"He is gone. Will you go downstairs and wait for me.\nWe will go together to Cook's office. It is English money I have.\"\n\n\"Cook's?\" he repeated. The word now so potent had then little\nsignificance. \"But you are ill. You cannot----\"\n\n\"I feel better.\"\n\nShe did. Or rather, she felt nothing except the power of her resolve to\nremove the painful anxiety from that wistful brow. The shame of the\ntrick played on Chirac awakened new forces in her. She dressed in a\nphysical torment which, however, had no more reality than a nightmare.\nShe searched in a place where even an inquisitive husband would not\nthink of looking, and then, painfully, she descended the long stairs,\nholding to the rail, which swam round and round her, carrying the whole\nstaircase with it. \"After all,\" she thought, \"I can't be seriously ill,\nor I shouldn't have been able to get up and go out like this. I never\nguessed early this morning that I could do it! I can't possibly be as\nill as I thought I was!\"\n\nAnd in the vestibule she encountered Chirac's face, lightening at the\nsight of her, which proved to him that his deliverance was really to be\naccomplished.\n\n\"Permit me----\"\n\n\"I'm all right,\" she smiled, tottering. \"Get a cab.\" It suddenly\noccurred to her that she might quite as easily have given him the money\nin English notes; he could have changed them. But she had not thought.\nHer brain would not operate. She was dreaming and waking together.\n\nHe helped her into the cab.\n\nV\n\nIn the bureau de change there was a little knot of English, people,\nwith naive, romantic, and honest faces, quite different from the faces\noutside in the street. No corruption in those faces, but a sort of\nwondering and infantile sincerity, rather out of its element and lost\nin a land too unsophisticated, seeming to belong to an earlier age!\nSophia liked their tourist stare, and their plain and ugly clothes. She\nlonged to be back in England, longed for a moment with violence,\ndrowning in that desire.\n\nThe English clerk behind his brass bars took her notes, and carefully\nexamined them one by one. She watched him, not entirely convinced of\nhis reality, and thought vaguely of the detestable morning when she had\nabstracted the notes from Gerald's pocket. She was filled with pity for\nthe simple, ignorant Sophia of those days, the Sophia who still had a\nfew ridiculous illusions concerning Gerald's character. Often, since,\nshe had been tempted to break into the money, but she had always\nwithstood the temptation, saying to herself that an hour of more urgent\nneed would come. It had come. She was proud of her firmness, of the\nforce of will which had enabled her to reserve the fund intact. The\nclerk gave her a keen look, and then asked her how she would take the\nFrench money. And she saw the notes falling down one after another on\nto the counter as the clerk separated them with a snapping sound of the\npaper.\n\nChirac was beside her.\n\n\"Does that make the count?\" she said, having pushed towards him five\nhundred-franc notes.\n\n\"I should not know how to thank you,\" he said, accepting the notes.\n\"Truly--\"\n\nHis joy was unmistakably eager. He had had a shock and a fright, and he\nnow saw the danger past. He could return to the cashier of his\nnewspaper, and fling down the money with a lordly and careless air, as\nif to say: \"When it is a question of these English, one can always be\nsure!\" But first he would escort her to the hotel. She declined--she\ndid not know why, for he was her sole point of moral support in all\nFrance. He insisted. She yielded. So she turned her back, with regret,\non that little English oasis in the Sahara of Paris, and staggered to\nthe fiacre.\n\nAnd now that she had done what she had to do, she lost control of her\nbody, and reclined flaccid and inert. Chirac was evidently alarmed. He\ndid not speak, but glanced at her from time to time with eyes full of\nfear. The carriage appeared to her to be swimming amid waves over great\ndepths. Then she was aware of a heavy weight against her shoulder; she\nhad slipped down upon Chirac, unconscious.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nFEVER\n\nI\n\n\nThen she was lying in bed in a small room, obscure because it was\nheavily curtained; the light came through the inner pair of curtains of\necru lace, with a beautiful soft silvery quality. A man was standing by\nthe side of the bed--not Chirac.\n\n\"Now, madame,\" he said to her, with kind firmness, and speaking with a\ncharming exaggerated purity of the vowels. \"You have the mucous fever.\nI have had it myself. You will be forced to take baths, very\nfrequently. I must ask you to reconcile yourself to that, to be good.\"\n\nShe did not reply. It did not occur to her to reply. But she certainly\nthought that this doctor--he was probably a doctor--was overestimating\nher case. She felt better than she had felt for two days. Still, she\ndid not desire to move, nor was she in the least anxious as to her\nsurroundings. She lay quiet.\n\nA woman in a rather coquettish deshabille watched over her with expert\nskill.\n\nLater, Sophia seemed to be revisiting the sea on whose waves the cab\nhad swum; but now she was under the sea, in a watery gulf, terribly\ndeep; and the sounds of the world came to her through the water, sudden\nand strange. Hands seized her and forced her from the subaqueous grotto\nwhere she had hidden into new alarms. And she briefly perceived that\nthere was a large bath by the side of the bed, and that she was being\npushed into it. The water was icy cold. After that her outlook upon\nthings was for a time clearer and more precise. She knew from fragments\nof talk which she heard that she was put into the cold bath by her bed\nevery three hours, night and day, and that she remained in it for ten\nminutes. Always, before the bath, she had to drink a glass of wine, and\nsometimes another glass while she was in the bath. Beyond this wine,\nand occasionally a cup of soup, she took nothing, had no wish to take\nanything. She grew perfectly accustomed to these extraordinary habits\nof life, to this merging of night and day into one monotonous and\nendless repetition of the same rite amid the same circumstances on\nexactly the same spot. Then followed a period during which she objected\nto being constantly wakened up for this annoying immersion. And she\nfought against it even in her dreams. Long days seemed to pass when she\ncould not be sure whether she had been put into the bath or not, when\nall external phenomena were disconcertingly interwoven with matters\nwhich she knew to be merely fanciful. And then she was overwhelmed by\nthe hopeless gravity of her state. She felt that her state was\ndesperate. She felt that she was dying. Her unhappiness was extreme,\nnot because she was dying, but because the veils of sense were so\npuzzling, so exasperating, and because her exhausted body was so\nvitiated, in every fibre, by disease. She was perfectly aware that she\nwas going to die. She cried aloud for a pair of scissors. She wanted to\ncut off her hair, and to send part of it to Constance and part of it to\nher mother, in separate packages. She insisted upon separate packages.\nNobody would give her a pair of scissors. She implored, meekly,\nhaughtily, furiously, but nobody would satisfy her. It seemed to her\nshocking that all her hair should go with her into her coffin while\nConstance and her mother had nothing by which to remember her, no\ntangible souvenir of her beauty. Then she fought for the scissors. She\nclutched at some one--always through those baffling veils--who was\nputting her into the bath by the bedside, and fought frantically. It\nappeared to her that this some one was the rather stout woman who had\nsupped at Sylvain's with the quarrelsome Englishman, four years ago.\nShe could not rid herself of this singular conceit, though she knew it\nto be absurd....\n\nA long time afterwards--it seemed like a century--she did actually and\nunmistakably see the woman sitting by her bed, and the woman was crying.\n\n\"Why are you crying?\" Sophia asked wonderingly.\n\nAnd the other, younger, woman, who was standing at the foot of the bed,\nreplied:\n\n\"You do well to ask! It is you who have hurt her, in your delirium,\nwhen you so madly demanded the scissors.\"\n\nThe stout woman smiled with the tears on her cheeks; but Sophia wept,\nfrom remorse. The stout woman looked old, worn, and untidy. The other\none was much younger. Sophia did not trouble to inquire from them who\nthey were.\n\nThat little conversation formed a brief interlude in the delirium,\nwhich overtook her again and distorted everything. She forgot, however,\nthat she was destined to die.\n\nOne day her brain cleared. She could be sure that she had gone to sleep\nin the morning and not wakened till the evening. Hence she had not been\nput into the bath.\n\n\"Have I had my baths?\" she questioned.\n\nIt was the doctor who faced her.\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"the baths are finished.\"\n\nShe knew from his face that she was out of danger. Moreover, she was\nconscious of a new feeling in her body, as though the fount of physical\nenergy within her, long interrupted, had recommenced to flow--but very\nslowly, a trickling. It was a rebirth. She was not glad, but her body\nitself was glad; her body had an existence of its own.\n\nShe was now often left by herself in the bedroom. To the right of the\nfoot of the bed was a piano in walnut, and to the left a chimney-piece\nwith a large mirror. She wanted to look at herself in the mirror. But\nit was a very long way off. She tried to sit up, and could not. She\nhoped that one day she would be able to get as far as the mirror. She\nsaid not a word about this to either of the two women.\n\nOften they would sit in the bedroom and talk without ceasing. Sophia\nlearnt that the stout woman was named Foucault, and the other Laurence.\nSometimes Laurence would address Madame Foucault as Aimee, but usually\nshe was more formal. Madame Foucault always called the other Laurence.\n\nSophia's curiosity stirred and awoke. But she could not obtain any very\nexact information as to where she was, except that the house was in the\nRue Breda, off the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette. She recollected vaguely\nthat the reputation of the street was sinister. It appeared that, on\nthe day when she had gone out with Chirac, the upper part of the Rue\nNotre Dame de Lorette was closed for repairs--(this she\nremembered)--and that the cabman had turned up the Rue Breda in order\nto make a detour, and that it was just opposite to the house of Madame\nFoucault that she had lost consciousness. Madame Foucault happened to\nbe getting into a cab at the moment; but she had told Chirac\nnevertheless to carry Sophia into the house, and a policeman had\nhelped. Then, when the doctor came, it was discovered that she could\nnot be moved, save to a hospital, and both Madame Foucault and Laurence\nwere determined that no friend of Chirac's should be committed to the\nhorrors of a Paris hospital. Madame Foucault had suffered in one as a\npatient, and Laurence had been a nurse in another....\n\nChirac was now away. The women talked loosely of a war.\n\n\"How kind you have been!\" murmured Sophia, with humid eyes.\n\nBut they silenced her with gestures. She was not to talk. They seemed\nto have nothing further to tell her. They said Chirac would be\nreturning perhaps soon, and that she could talk to him. Evidently they\nboth held Chirac in affection. They said often that he was a charming\nboy.\n\nBit by bit Sophia comprehended the length and the seriousness of her\nillness, and the immense devotion of the two women, and the terrific\ndisturbance of their lives, and her own debility. She saw that the\nwomen were strongly attached to her, and she could not understand why,\nas she had never done anything for them, whereas they had done\neverything for her. She had not learnt that benefits rendered, not\nbenefits received, are the cause of such attachments.\n\nAll the time she was plotting, and gathering her strength to disobey\norders and get as far as the mirror. Her preliminary studies and her\npreparations were as elaborate as those of a prisoner arranging to\nescape from a fortress. The first attempt was a failure. The second\nsucceeded. Though she could not stand without support, she managed by\nclinging to the bed to reach a chair, and to push the chair in front of\nher until it approached the mirror. The enterprise was exciting and\nterrific. Then she saw a face in the glass: white, incredibly\nemaciated, with great, wild, staring eyes; and the shoulders were bent\nas though with age. It was a painful, almost a horrible sight. It\nfrightened her, so that in her alarm she recoiled from it. Not\nattending sufficiently to the chair, she sank to the ground. She could\nnot pick herself up, and she was caught there, miserably, by her\nangered jailers. The vision of her face taught her more efficiently\nthan anything else the gravity of her adventure. As the women lifted\nher inert, repentant mass into the bed, she reflected, \"How queer my\nlife is!\" It seemed to her that she ought to have been trimming hats in\nthe showroom instead of being in that curtained, mysterious, Parisian\ninterior.\n\nII\n\nOne day Madame Foucault knocked at the door of Sophia's little room\n(this ceremony of knocking was one of the indications that Sophia,\nconvalescent, had been reinstated in her rights as an individual), and\ncried:\n\n\"Madame, one is going to leave you all alone for some time.\"\n\n\"Come in,\" said Sophia, who was sitting up in an armchair, and reading.\n\nMadame Foucault opened the door. \"One is going to leave you all alone\nfor some time,\" she repeated in a low, confidential voice, sharply\ncontrasting with her shriek behind the door.\n\nSophia nodded and smiled, and Madame Foucault also nodded and smiled.\nBut Madame Foucault's face quickly resumed its anxious expression.\n\n\"The servant's brother marries himself to-day, and she implored me to\naccord her two days--what would you? Madame Laurence is out. And I must\ngo out. It is four o'clock. I shall re-enter at six o'clock striking.\nTherefore ...\"\n\n\"Perfectly,\" Sophia concurred.\n\nShe looked curiously at Madame Foucault, who was carefully made up and\narranged for the street, in a dress of yellow tussore with blue\nornaments, bright lemon-coloured gloves, a little blue bonnet, and a\nlittle white parasol not wider when opened than her shoulders. Cheeks,\nlips, and eyes were heavily charged with rouge, powder, or black. And\nthat too abundant waist had been most cunningly confined in a belt that\ndescended beneath, instead of rising above, the lower masses of the\nvast torso. The general effect was worthy of the effort that must have\ngone to it. Madame Foucault was not rejuvenated by her toilette, but it\nalmost procured her pardon for the crime of being over forty, fat,\ncreased, and worn out. It was one of those defeats that are a triumph.\n\n\"You are very chic,\" said Sophia, uttering her admiration.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Madame Foucault, shrugging the shoulders of disillusion.\n\"Chic! What does that do?\"\n\nBut she was pleased.\n\nThe front-door banged. Sophia, by herself for the first time in the\nflat into which she had been carried unconscious and which she had\nnever since left, had the disturbing sensation of being surrounded by\nmysterious rooms and mysterious things. She tried to continue reading,\nbut the sentences conveyed nothing to her. She rose--she could walk now\na little--and looked out of the window, through the interstices of the\npattern of the lace curtains. The window gave on the courtyard, which\nwas about sixteen feet below her. A low wall divided the courtyard from\nthat of the next house. And the windows of the two houses, only to be\ndistinguished by the different tints of their yellow paint, rose tier\nabove tier in level floors, continuing beyond Sophia's field of vision.\nShe pressed her face against the glass, and remembered the St. Luke's\nSquare of her childhood; and just as there from the showroom window she\ncould not even by pressing her face against the glass see the pavement,\nso here she could not see the roof; the courtyard was like the bottom\nof a well. There was no end to the windows; six storeys she could\ncount, and the sills of a seventh were the limit of her view. Every\nwindow was heavily curtained, like her own. Some of the upper ones had\ngreen sunblinds. Scarcely any sound! Mysteries brooded without as well\nas within the flat of Madame Foucault. Sophia saw a bodiless hand\ntwitch at a curtain and vanish. She noticed a green bird in a tiny cage\non a sill in the next house. A woman whom she took to be the concierge\nappeared in the courtyard, deposited a small plant in the track of a\nray of sunshine that lighted a corner for a couple of hours in the\nafternoon, and disappeared again. Then she heard a piano--somewhere.\nThat was all. The feeling that secret and strange lives were being\nlived behind those baffling windows, that humanity was everywhere\nintimately pulsing around her, oppressed her spirit yet not quite\nunpleasantly. The environment softened her glance upon the spectacle of\nexistence, insomuch that sadness became a voluptuous pleasure. And the\nenvironment threw her back on herself, into a sensuous contemplation of\nthe fundamental fact of Sophia Scales, formerly Sophia Baines.\n\nShe turned to the room, with the marks of the bath on the floor by the\nbed, and the draped piano that was never opened, and her two trunks\nfilling up the corner opposite the door. She had the idea of thoroughly\nexamining those trunks, which Chirac or somebody else must have fetched\nfrom the hotel. At the top of one of them was her purse, tied up with\nold ribbon and ostentatiously sealed! How comical these French people\nwere when they deemed it necessary to be serious! She emptied both\ntrunks, scrutinizing minutely all her goods, and thinking of the varied\noccasions upon which she had obtained them. Then she carefully restored\nthem, her mind full of souvenirs newly awakened.\n\nShe sighed as she straightened her back. A clock struck in another\nroom. It seemed to invite her towards discoveries. She had been in no\nother room of the flat. She knew nothing of the rest of the flat save\nby sound. For neither of the other women had ever described it, nor had\nit occurred to them that Sophia might care to leave her room though she\ncould not leave the house.\n\nShe opened her door, and glanced along the dim corridor, with which she\nwas familiar. She knew that the kitchen lay next to her little room,\nand that next to the kitchen came the front-door. On the opposite side\nof the corridor were four double-doors. She crossed to the pair of\ndoors facing her own little door, and quietly turned the handle, but\nthe doors were locked; the same with the next pair. The third pair\nyielded, and she was in a large bedroom, with three windows on the\nstreet. She saw that the second pair of doors, which she had failed to\nunfasten, also opened into this room. Between the two pairs of doors\nwas a wide bed. In front of the central window was a large\ndressing-table. To the left of the bed, half hiding the locked doors,\nwas a large screen. On the marble mantelpiece, reflected in a huge\nmirror, that ascended to the ornate cornice, was a gilt-and-basalt\nclock, with pendants to match. On the opposite side of the room from\nthis was a long wide couch. The floor was of polished oak, with a skin\non either side of the bed. At the foot of the bed was a small\nwriting-table, with a penny bottle of ink on it. A few coloured prints\nand engravings--representing, for example, Louis Philippe and his\nfamily, and people perishing on a raft--broke the tedium of the walls.\nThe first impression on Sophia's eye was one of sombre splendour.\nEverything had the air of being richly ornamented, draped, looped,\ncarved, twisted, brocaded into gorgeousness. The dark crimson\nbed-hangings fell from massive rosettes in majestic folds. The\ncounterpane was covered with lace. The window-curtains had amplitude\nbeyond the necessary, and they were suspended from behind fringed and\npleated valances. The green sofa and its sateen cushions were stiff\nwith applied embroidery. The chandelier hanging from the middle of the\nceiling, modelled to represent cupids holding festoons, was a\nglittering confusion of gilt and lustres; the lustres tinkled when\nSophia stood on a certain part of the floor. The cane-seated chairs\nwere completely gilded. There was an effect of spaciousness. And the\nsituation of the bed between the two double-doors, with the three\nwindows in front and other pairs of doors communicating with other\nrooms on either hand, produced in addition an admirable symmetry.\n\nBut Sophia, with the sharp gaze of a woman brought up in the traditions\nof a modesty so proud that it scorns ostentation, quickly tested and\ncondemned the details of this chamber that imitated every luxury.\nNothing in it, she found, was 'good.' And in St. Luke's Square\n'goodness' meant honest workmanship, permanence, the absence of\npretence. All the stuffs were cheap and showy and shabby; all the\nfurniture was cracked, warped, or broken. The clock showed five minutes\npast twelve at five o'clock. And further, dust was everywhere, except\nin those places where even the most perfunctory cleaning could not have\nleft it. In the obscurer pleatings of draperies it lay thick. Sophia's\nlip curled, and instinctively she lifted her peignoir. One of her\nmother's phrases came into her head: 'a lick and a promise.' And then\nanother: \"If you want to leave dirt, leave it where everybody can see\nit, not in the corners.\"\n\nShe peeped behind the screen, and all the horrible welter of a cabinet\nde toilette met her gaze: a repulsive medley of foul waters, stained\nvessels and cloths, brushes, sponges, powders, and pastes. Clothes were\nhung up in disorder on rough nails; among them she recognized a\ndressing-gown of Madame Foucault's, and, behind affairs of later date,\nthe dazzling scarlet cloak in which she had first seen Madame Foucault,\ndilapidated now. So this was Madame Foucault's room! This was the bower\nfrom which that elegance emerged, the filth from which had sprung the\nmature blossom!\n\nShe passed from that room direct to another, of which the shutters were\nclosed, leaving it in twilight. This room too was a bedroom, rather\nsmaller than the middle one, and having only one window, but furnished\nwith the same dubious opulence. Dust covered it everywhere, and small\nfootmarks were visible in the dust on the floor. At the back was a\nsmall door, papered to match the wall, and within this door was a\ncabinet de toilette, with no light and no air; neither in the room nor\nin the closet was there any sign of individual habitation. She\ntraversed the main bedroom again and found another bedroom to balance\nthe second one, but open to the full light of day, and in a state of\nextreme disorder; the double-pillowed bed had not even been made:\nclothes and towels draped all the furniture: shoes were about the\nfloor, and on a piece of string tied across the windows hung a single\nwhite stocking, wet. At the back was a cabinet de toilette, as dark as\nthe other one, a vile malodorous mess of appliances whose familiar\nforms loomed vague and extraordinarily sinister in the dense obscurity.\nSophia turned away with the righteous disgust of one whose preparations\nfor the gaze of the world are as candid and simple as those of a child.\nConcealed dirt shocked her as much as it would have shocked her mother;\nand as for the trickeries of the toilet table, she contemned them as\nharshly as a young saint who has never been tempted contemns moral\nweakness. She thought of the strange flaccid daily life of those two\nwomen, whose hours seemed to slip unprofitably away without any result\nof achievement. She had actually witnessed nothing; but since the\nbeginning of her convalescence her ears had heard, and she could piece\nthe evidences together. There was never any sound in the flat, outside\nthe kitchen, until noon. Then vague noises and smells would commence.\nAnd about one o'clock Madame Foucault, disarrayed, would come to\ninquire if the servant had attended to the needs of the invalid. Then\nthe odours of cookery would accentuate themselves; bells rang;\nfragments of conversations escaped through doors ajar; occasionally a\nman's voice or a heavy step; then the fragrance of coffee; sometimes\nthe sound of a kiss, the banging of the front door, the noise of\nbrushing, or of the shaking of a carpet, a little scream as at some\ntrifling domestic contretemps. Laurence, still in a dressing-gown,\nwould lounge into Sophia's room, dirty, haggard, but polite with a\ncurious stiff ceremony, and would drink her coffee there. This\nwandering in peignoirs would continue till three o'clock, and then\nLaurence might say, as if nerving herself to an unusual and immense\neffort: \"I must be dressed by five o'clock. I have not a moment.\" Often\nMadame Foucault did not dress at all; on such days she would go to bed\nimmediately after dinner, with the remark that she didn't know what was\nthe matter with her, but she was exhausted. And then the servant would\nretire to her seventh floor, and there would be silence until, now and\nthen, faint creepings were heard at midnight or after. Once or twice,\nthrough the chinks of her door, Sophia had seen a light at two o'clock\nin the morning, just before the dawn.\n\nYet these were the women who had saved her life, who between them had\nput her into a cold bath every three hours night and day for weeks!\nSurely it was impossible after that to despise them for shiftlessness\nand talkative idling in peignoirs; impossible to despise them for\nanything whatever! But Sophia, conscious of her inheritance of strong\nand resolute character, did despise them as poor things. The one point\non which she envied them was their formal manners to her, which seemed\nto become more dignified and graciously distant as her health improved.\nIt was always 'Madame,' 'Madame,' to her, with an intonation of\nincreasing deference. They might have been apologizing to her for\nthemselves.\n\nShe prowled into all the corners of the flat; but she discovered no\nmore rooms, nothing but a large cupboard crammed with Madame Foucault's\ndresses. Then she went back to the large bedroom, and enjoyed the busy\nmovement and rattle of the sloping street, and had long, vague\nyearnings for strength and for freedom in wide, sane places. She\ndecided that on the morrow she would dress herself 'properly,' and\nnever again wear a peignoir; the peignoir and all that it represented,\ndisgusted her. And while looking at the street she ceased to see it and\nsaw Cook's office and Chirac helping her into the carriage. Where was\nhe? Why had he brought her to this impossible abode? What did he mean\nby such conduct? But could he have acted otherwise? He had done the one\nthing that he could do.... Chance! ... Chance! And why an impossible\nabode? Was one place more impossible than another? All this came of\nrunning away from home with Gerald. It was remarkable that she seldom\nthought of Gerald. He had vanished from her life as he had come into\nit--madly, preposterously. She wondered what the next stage in her\ncareer would be. She certainly could not forecast it. Perhaps Gerald\nwas starving, or in prison ... Bah! That exclamation expressed her\nappalling disdain of Gerald and of the Sophia who had once deemed him\nthe paragon of men. Bah!\n\nA carriage stopping in front of the house awakened her from her\nmeditation. Madame Foucault and a man very much younger than Madame\nFoucault got out of it. Sophia fled. After all, this prying into other\npeople's rooms was quite inexcusable. She dropped on to her own bed and\npicked up a book, in case Madame Foucault should come in.\n\nIII\n\nIn the evening, just after night had fallen, Sophia on the bed heard\nthe sound of raised and acrimonious voices in Madame Foucault's room.\nNothing except dinner had happened since the arrival of Madame Foucault\nand the young man. These two had evidently dined informally in the\nbedroom on a dish or so prepared by Madame Foucault, who had herself\nserved Sophia with her invalid's repast. The odours of cookery still\nhung in the air.\n\nThe noise of virulent discussion increased and continued, and then\nSophia could hear sobbing, broken by short and fierce phrases from the\nman. Then the door of the bedroom opened brusquely. \"J'en ai soupe!\"\nexclaimed the man, in tones of angry disgust. \"Laisse-moi, je te prie!\"\nAnd then a soft muffled sound, as of a struggle, a quick step, and the\nvery violent banging of the front door. After that there was a\nnoticeable silence, save for the regular sobbing. Sophia wondered when\nit would cease, that monotonous sobbing.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" she called out from her bed.\n\nThe sobbing grew louder, like the sobbing of a child who has detected\nan awakening of sympathy and instinctively begins to practise upon it.\nIn the end Sophia arose and put on the peignoir which she had almost\ndetermined never to wear again. The broad corridor was lighted by a\nsmall, smelling oil-lamp with a crimson globe. That soft, transforming\nradiance seemed to paint the whole corridor with voluptuous luxury: so\nmuch so that it was impossible to believe that the smell came from the\nlamp. Under the lamp lay Madame Foucault on the floor, a shapeless mass\nof lace, frilled linen, and corset; her light brown hair was loose and\nspread about the floor. At the first glance, the creature abandoned to\ngrief made a romantic and striking picture, and Sophia thought for an\ninstant that she had at length encountered life on a plane that would\ncorrespond to her dreams of romance. And she was impressed, with a\nfeeling somewhat akin to that of a middling commoner when confronted\nwith a viscount. There was, in the distance, something imposing and\nsensational about that prone, trembling figure. The tragic works of\nlove were therein apparently manifest, in a sort of dignified beauty.\nBut when Sophia bent over Madame Foucault, and touched her flabbiness,\nthis illusion at once vanished; and instead of being dramatically\npathetic the woman was ridiculous. Her face, especially as damaged by\ntears, could not support the ordeal of inspection; it was horrible; not\na picture, but a palette; or like the coloured design of a pavement\nartist after a heavy shower. Her great, relaxed eyelids alone would\nhave rendered any face absurd; and there were monstrous details far\nworse than the eyelids. Then she was amazingly fat; her flesh seemed to\nbe escaping at all ends from a corset strained to the utmost limit. And\nabove her boots--she was still wearing dainty, high-heeled, tightly\nlaced boots--the calves bulged suddenly out.\n\nAs a woman of between forty and fifty, the obese sepulchre of a dead\nvulgar beauty, she had no right to passions and tears and homage, or\neven the means of life; she had no right to expose herself\npicturesquely beneath a crimson glow in all the panoply of ribboned\ngarters and lacy seductiveness. It was silly; it was disgraceful. She\nought to have known that only youth and slimness have the right to\nappeal to the feelings by indecent abandonments.\n\nSuch were the thoughts that mingled with the sympathy of the beautiful\nand slim Sophia as she bent down to Madame Foucault. She was sorry for\nher landlady, but at the same time she despised her, and resented her\nwoe.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" she asked quietly.\n\n\"He has chucked me!\" stammered Madame Foucault. \"And he's the last. I\nhave no one now!\"\n\nShe rolled over in the most grotesque manner, kicking up her legs, with\na fresh outburst of sobs. Sophia felt quite ashamed for her.\n\n\"Come and lie down. Come now!\" she said, with a touch of sharpness.\n\"You musn't lie there like that.\"\n\nMadame Foucault's behaviour was really too outrageous. Sophia helped\nher, morally rather than physically, to rise, and then persuaded her\ninto the large bedroom. Madame Foucault fell on the bed, of which the\ncounterpane had been thrown over the foot. Sophia covered the lower\npart of her heaving body with the counterpane.\n\n\"Now, calm yourself, please!\"\n\nThis room too was lit in crimson, by a small lamp that stood on the\nnight-table, and though the shade of the lamp was cracked, the general\neffect of the great chamber was incontestably romantic. Only the\npillows of the wide bed and a small semi-circle of floor were\nilluminated, all the rest lay in shadow. Madame Foucault's head had\ndropped between the pillows. A tray containing dirty plates and glasses\nand a wine-bottle was speciously picturesque on the writing-table.\n\nDespite her genuine gratitude to Madame Foucault for astounding care\nduring her illness, Sophia did not like her landlady, and the present\nscene made her coldly wrathful. She saw the probability of having\nanother's troubles piled on the top of her own. She did not, in her\nmind, actively object, because she felt that she could not be more\nhopelessly miserable than she was; but she passively resented the\nimposition. Her reason told her that she ought to sympathize with this\nageing, ugly, disagreeable, undignified woman; but her heart was\nreluctant; her heart did not want to know anything at all about Madame\nFoucault, nor to enter in any way into her private life.\n\n\"I have not a single friend now,\" stammered Madame Foucault.\n\n\"Oh, yes, you have,\" said Sophia, cheerfully. \"You have Madame\nLaurence.\"\n\n\"Laurence--that is not a friend. You know what I mean.\"\n\n\"And me! I am your friend!\" said Sophia, in obedience to her conscience.\n\n\"You are very kind,\" replied Madame Foucault, from the pillow. \"But you\nknow what I mean.\"\n\nThe fact was that Sophia did know what she meant. The terms of their\nintercourse had been suddenly changed. There was no pretentious\nceremony now, but the sincerity that disaster brings. The vast\nstructure of make-believe, which between them they had gradually built,\nhad crumbled to nothing.\n\n\"I never treated badly any man in my life,\" whimpered Madame Foucault.\n\"I have always been a--good girl. There is not a man who can say I have\nnot been a good girl. Never was I a girl like the rest. And every one\nhas said so. Ah! when I tell you that once I had a hotel in the Avenue\nde la Reine Hortense. Four horses ... I have sold a horse to Madame\nMusard.... You know Madame Musard.... But one cannot make economies.\nImpossible to make economies! Ah! In 'fifty-six I was spending a\nhundred thousand francs a year. That cannot last. Always I have said to\nmyself: 'That cannot last.' Always I had the intention.... But what\nwould you? I installed myself here, and borrowed money to pay for the\nfurniture. There did not remain to me one jewel. The men are poltroons,\nall! I could let three bedrooms for three hundred and fifty francs a\nmonth, and with serving meals and so on I could live.\"\n\n\"Then that,\" Sophia interrupted, pointing to her own bedroom across the\ncorridor, \"is your room?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Madame Foucault. \"I put you in it because at the moment all\nthese were let. They are so no longer. Only one--Laurence--and she does\nnot pay me always. What would you? Tenants--that does not find itself\nat the present hour.... I have nothing, and I owe. And he quits me. He\nchooses this moment to quit me! And why? For nothing. For nothing. That\nis not for his money that I regret him. No, no! You know, at his\nage--he is twenty-five--and with a woman like me--one is not generous!\nNo. I loved him. And then a man is a moral support, always. I loved\nhim. It is at my age, mine, that one knows how to love. Beauty goes\nalways, but not the temperament! Ah, that--No! ... I loved him. I love\nhim.\"\n\nSophia's face tingled with a sudden emotion caused by the repetition of\nthose last three words, whose spell no usage can mar. But she said\nnothing.\n\n\"Do you know what I shall become? There is nothing but that for me. And\nI know of such, who are there already. A charwoman! Yes, a charwoman!\nMore soon or more late. Well, that is life. What would you? One exists\nalways.\" Then in a different tone: \"I demand your pardon, madame, for\ntalking like this. I ought to have shame.\"\n\nAnd Sophia felt that in listening she also ought to be ashamed. But she\nwas not ashamed. Everything seemed very natural, and even ordinary.\nAnd, moreover, Sophia was full of the sense of her superiority over the\nwoman on the bed. Four years ago, in the Restaurant Sylvain, the\ningenuous and ignorant Sophia had shyly sat in awe of the resplendent\ncourtesan, with her haughty stare, her large, easy gestures, and her\nimperturbable contempt for the man who was paying. And now Sophia knew\nthat she, Sophia, knew all that was to be known about human nature. She\nhad not merely youth, beauty, and virtue, but knowledge--knowledge\nenough to reconcile her to her own misery. She had a vigorous, clear\nmind, and a clean conscience. She could look any one in the face, and\njudge every one too as a woman of the world. Whereas this obscene wreck\non the bed had nothing whatever left. She had not merely lost her\neffulgent beauty, she had become repulsive. She could never have had\nany commonsense, nor any force of character. Her haughtiness in the day\nof glory was simply fatuous, based on stupidity. She had passed the\nyears in idleness, trailing about all day in stuffy rooms, and emerging\nat night to impress nincompoops; continually meaning to do things which\nshe never did, continually surprised at the lateness of the hour,\ncontinually occupied with the most foolish trifles. And here she was at\nover forty writhing about on the bare floor because a boy of\ntwenty-five (who MUST be a worthless idiot) had abandoned her after a\nscene of ridiculous shoutings and stampings. She was dependent on the\ncaprices of a young scamp, the last donkey to turn from her with\nloathing! Sophia thought: \"Goodness! If I had been in her place I\nshouldn't have been like that. I should have been rich. I should have\nsaved like a miser. I wouldn't have been dependent on anybody at that\nage. If I couldn't have made a better courtesan than this pitiable\nwoman, I would have drowned myself.\"\n\nIn the harsh vanity of her conscious capableness and young strength she\nthought thus, half forgetting her own follies, and half excusing them\non the ground of inexperience.\n\nSophia wanted to go round the flat and destroy every crimson lampshade\nin it. She wanted to shake Madame Foucault into self-respect and\nsagacity. Moral reprehension, though present in her mind, was only\nfaint. Certainly she felt the immense gulf between the honest woman and\nthe wanton, but she did not feel it as she would have expected to feel\nit. \"What a fool you have been!\" she thought; not: \"What a sinner!\"\nWith her precocious cynicism, which was somewhat unsuited to the lovely\nnorthern youthfulness of that face, she said to herself that the whole\nsituation and their relative attitudes would have been different if\nonly Madame Foucault had had the wit to amass a fortune, as (according\nto Gerald) some of her rivals had succeeded in doing.\n\nAnd all the time she was thinking, in another part of her mind: \"I\nought not to be here. It's no use arguing. I ought not to be here.\nChirac did the only thing for me there was to do. But I must go now.\"\n\nMadame Foucault continued to recite her woes, chiefly financial, in a\nweak voice damp with tears; she also continued to apologize for\nmentioning herself. She had finished sobbing, and lay looking at the\nwall, away from Sophia, who stood irresolute near the bed, ashamed for\nher companion's weakness and incapacity.\n\n\"You must not forget,\" said Sophia, irritated by the unrelieved\ndarkness of the picture drawn by Madame Foucault, \"that at least I owe\nyou a considerable sum, and that I am only waiting for you to tell me\nhow much it is. I have asked you twice already, I think.\"\n\n\"Oh, you are still suffering!\" said Madame Foucault.\n\n\"I am quite well enough to pay my debts,\" said Sophia.\n\n\"I do not like to accept money from you,\" said Madame Foucault.\n\n\"But why not?\"\n\n\"You will have the doctor to pay.\"\n\n\"Please do not talk in that way,\" said Sophia. \"I have money, and I can\npay for everything, and I shall pay for everything.\"\n\nShe was annoyed because she was sure that Madame Foucault was only\nmaking a pretence of delicacy, and that in any case her delicacy was\npreposterous. Sophia had remarked this on the two previous occasions\nwhen she had mentioned the subject of bills. Madame Foucault would not\ntreat her as an ordinary lodger, now that the illness was past. She\nwanted, as it were, to complete brilliantly what she had begun, and to\nlive in Sophia's memory as a unique figure of lavish philanthropy. This\nwas a sentiment, a luxury that she desired to offer herself: the\nthought that she had played providence to a respectable married lady in\ndistress; she frequently hinted at Sophia's misfortunes and\nhelplessness. But she could not afford the luxury. She gazed at it as a\npoor woman gazes at costly stuffs through the glass of a shop-window.\nThe truth was, she wanted the luxury for nothing. For a double reason\nSophia was exasperated: by Madame Foucault's absurd desire, and by a\nnatural objection to the role of a subject for philanthropy. She would\nnot admit that Madame Foucault's devotion as a nurse entitled her to\nthe satisfaction of being a philanthropist when there was no necessity\nfor philanthropy.\n\n\"How long have I been here?\" asked Sophia.\n\n\"I don't know.\" murmured Madame Foucault. \"Eight weeks--or is it nine?\"\n\n\"Suppose we say nine,\" said Sophia.\n\n\"Very well,\" agreed Madame Foucault, apparently reluctant.\n\n\"Now, how much must I pay you per week?\"\n\n\"I don't want anything--I don't want anything! You are a friend of\nChirac's. You----\"\n\n\"Not at all!\" Sophia interrupted, tapping her foot and biting her lip.\n\"Naturally I must pay.\"\n\nMadame Foucault wept quietly.\n\n\"Shall I pay you seventy-five francs a week?\" said Sophia, anxious to\nend the matter.\n\n\"It is too much!\" Madame Foucault protested, insincerely.\n\n\"What? For all you have done for me?\"\n\n\"I speak not of that,\" Madame Foucault modestly replied.\n\nIf the devotion was not to be paid for, then seventy-five francs a week\nwas assuredly too much, as during more than half the time Sophia had\nhad almost no food. Madame Foucault was therefore within the truth when\nshe again protested, at sight of the bank-notes which Sophia brought\nfrom her trunk:\n\n\"I am sure that it is too much.\"\n\n\"Not at all!\" Sophia repeated. \"Nine weeks at seventy-five. That makes\nsix hundred and seventy-five. Here are seven hundreds.\"\n\n\"I have no change,\" said Madame Foucault. \"I have nothing.\"\n\n\"That will pay for the hire of the bath,\" said Sophia.\n\nShe laid the notes on the pillow. Madame Foucault looked at them\ngluttonously, as any other person would have done in her place. She did\nnot touch them. After an instant she burst into wild tears.\n\n\"But why do you cry?\" Sophia asked, softened.\n\n\"I--I don't know!\" spluttered Madame Foucault. \"You are so beautiful. I\nam so content that we saved you.\" Her great wet eyes rested on Sophia.\n\nIt was sentimentality. Sophia ruthlessly set it down as sentimentality.\nBut she was touched. She was suddenly moved. Those women, such as they\nwere in their foolishness, probably had saved her life--and she a\nstranger! Flaccid as they were, they had been capable of resolute\nperseverance there. It was possible to say that chance had thrown them\nupon an enterprise which they could not have abandoned till they or\ndeath had won. It was possible to say that they hoped vaguely to derive\nadvantage from their labours. But even then? Judged by an ordinary\nstandard, those women had been angels of mercy. And Sophia was\ndespising them, cruelly taking their motives to pieces, accusing them\nof incapacity when she herself stood a supreme proof of their capacity\nin, at any rate, one direction! In a rush of emotion she saw her\nhardness and her injustice.\n\nShe bent down. \"Never can I forget how kind you have been to me. It is\nincredible! Incredible!\" She spoke softly, in tones loaded with genuine\nfeeling. It was all she said. She could not embroider on the theme. She\nhad no talent for thanksgiving.\n\nMadame Foucault made the beginning of a gesture, as if she meant to\nkiss Sophia with those thick, marred lips; but refrained. Her head sank\nback, and then she had a recurrence of the fit of nervous sobbing.\nImmediately afterwards there was the sound of a latchkey in the\nfront-door of the flat; the bedroom door was open. Still sobbing very\nviolently, she cocked her ear, and pushed the bank-notes under the\npillow.\n\nMadame Laurence--as she was called: Sophia had never heard her\nsurname--came straight into the bedroom, and beheld the scene with\nastonishment in her dark twinkling eyes. She was usually dressed in\nblack, because people said that black suited her, and because black was\nnever out of fashion; black was an expression of her idiosyncrasy. She\nshowed a certain elegance, and by comparison with the extreme disorder\nof Madame Foucault and the deshabille of Sophia her appearance, all\nfresh from a modish restaurant, was brilliant; it gave her an advantage\nover the other two--that moral advantage which ceremonial raiment\nalways gives.\n\n\"What is it that passes?\" she demanded.\n\n\"He has chucked me, Laurence!\" exclaimed Madame Foucault, in a sort of\nhysteric scream which seemed to force its way through her sobs. From\nthe extraordinary freshness of Madame Foucault's woe, it might have\nbeen supposed that her young man had only that instant strode out.\n\nLaurence and Sophia exchanged a swift glance; and Laurence, of course,\nperceived that Sophia's relations with her landlady and nurse were now\nof a different, a more candid order. She indicated her perception of\nthe change by a single slight movement of the eyebrows.\n\n\"But listen, Aimee,\" she said authoritatively. \"You must not let\nyourself go like that. He will return.\"\n\n\"Never!\" cried Madame Foucault. \"It is finished. And he is the last!\"\n\nLaurence, ignoring Madame Foucault, approached Sophia. \"You have an air\nvery fatigued,\" she said, caressing Sophia's shoulder with her gloved\nhand. \"You are pale like everything. All this is not for you. It is not\nreasonable to remain here, you still suffering! At this hour! Truly not\nreasonable!\"\n\nHer hands persuaded Sophia towards the corridor. And, in fact, Sophia\ndid then notice her own exhaustion. She departed from the room with the\nready obedience of physical weakness, and shut her door.\n\nAfter about half an hour, during which she heard confused noises and\nmurmurings, her door half opened.\n\n\"May I enter, since you are not asleep?\" It was Laurence's voice.\nTwice, now, she had addressed Sophia without adding the formal 'madame.'\n\n\"Enter, I beg you,\" Sophia called from the bed. \"I am reading.\"\n\nLaurence came in. Sophia was both glad and sorry to see her. She was\neager to hear gossip which, however, she felt she ought to despise.\nMoreover, she knew that if they talked that night they would talk as\nfriends, and that Laurence would ever afterwards treat her with the\nfamiliarity of a friend. This she dreaded. Still, she knew that she\nwould yield, at any rate, to the temptation to listen to gossip.\n\n\"I have put her to bed,\" said Laurence, in a whisper, as she cautiously\nclosed the door. \"The poor woman! Oh, what a charming bracelet! It is a\ntrue pearl, naturally?\"\n\nHer roving eye had immediately, with an infallible instinct, caught\nsight of a bracelet which, in taking stock of her possessions, Sophia\nhad accidentally left on the piano. She picked it up, and then put it\ndown again.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Sophia. She was about to add: \"It's nearly all the\njewellery I possess;\" but she stopped.\n\nLaurence moved towards Sophia's bed, and stood over it as she had often\ndone in her quality as nurse. She had taken off her gloves, and she\nmade a piquant, pretty show, with her thirty years, and her agreeable,\nslightly roguish face, in which were mingled the knowingness of a\nstreet boy and the confidence of a woman who has ceased to be surprised\nat the influence of her snub nose on a highly intelligent man.\n\n\"Did she tell you what they had quarrelled about?\" Laurence inquired\nabruptly. And not only the phrasing of the question, but the assured\ntone in which it was uttered, showed that Laurence meant to be the\nfamiliar of Sophia.\n\n\"Not a word!\" said Sophia.\n\nIn this brief question and reply, all was crudely implied that had\npreviously been supposed not to exist. The relations between the two\nwomen were altered irretrievably in a moment.\n\n\"It must have been her fault!\" said Laurence. \"With men she is\ninsupportable. I have never understood how that poor woman has made her\nway. With women she is charming. But she seems to be incapable of not\ntreating men like dogs. Some men adore that, but they are few. Is it\nnot?\"\n\nSophia smiled.\n\n\"I have told her! How many times have I told her! But it is useless. It\nis stronger than she is, and if she finishes on straw one will be able\nto say that it was because of that. But truly she ought not to have\nasked him here! Truly that was too much! If he knew...!\"\n\n\"Why not?\" asked Sophia, awkwardly. The answer startled her.\n\n\"Because her room has not been disinfected.\"\n\n\"But I thought all the flat had been disinfected?\"\n\n\"All except her room.\"\n\n\"But why not her room?\"\n\nLaurence shrugged her shoulders. \"She did not want to disturb her\nthings! Is it that I know, I? She is like that. She takes an idea--and\nthen, there you are!\"\n\n\"She told me every room had been disinfected.\"\n\n\"She told the same to the police and the doctor.\"\n\n\"Then all the disinfection is useless?\"\n\n\"Perfectly! But she is like that. This flat might be very remunerative;\nbut with her, never! She has not even paid for the furniture--after two\nyears!\"\n\n\"But what will become of her?\" Sophia asked.\n\n\"Ah--that!\" Another shrug of the shoulders. \"All that I know is that it\nwill be necessary for me to leave here. The last time I brought\nMonsieur Cerf here, she was excessively rude to him. She has doubtless\ntold you about Monsieur Cerf?\"\n\n\"No. Who is Monsieur Cerf?\"\n\n\"Ah! She has not told you? That astonishes me. Monsieur Cerf, that is\nmy friend, you know.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" murmured Sophia.\n\n\"Yes,\" Laurence proceeded, impelled by a desire to impress Sophia and\nto gossip at large. \"That is my friend. I knew him at the hospital. It\nwas to please him that I left the hospital. After that we quarrelled\nfor two years; but at the end he gave me right. I did not budge. Two\nyears! It is long. And I had left the hospital. I could have gone back.\nBut I would not. That is not a life, to be nurse in a Paris hospital!\nNo, I drew myself out as well as I could ... He is the most charming\nboy you can imagine! And rich now; that is to say, relatively. He has a\ncousin infinitely more rich than he. I dined with them both to-night at\nthe Maison Doree. For a luxurious boy, he is a luxurious boy--the\ncousin I mean. It appears that he has made a fortune in Canada.\"\n\n\"Truly!\" said Sophia, with politeness. Laurence's hand was playing on\nthe edge of the bed, and Sophia observed for the first time that it\nbore a wedding-ring.\n\n\"You remark my ring?\" Laurence laughed. \"That is he--the cousin.\n'What!' he said, 'you do not wear an alliance? An alliance is more\nproper. We are going to arrange that after dinner.' I said that all the\njewellers' shops would be closed. 'That is all the same to me,' he\nsaid. 'We will open one.' And in effect ... it passed like that. He\nsucceeded! Is it not beautiful?\" She held forth her hand.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Sophia. \"It is very beautiful.\"\n\n\"Yours also is beautiful,\" said Laurence, with an extremely puzzling\nintonation.\n\n\"It is just the ordinary English wedding-ring,\" said Sophia. In spite\nof herself she blushed.\n\n\"Now I have married you. It is I, the cure, said he--the cousin--when\nhe put the ring on my finger. Oh, he is excessively amusing! He pleases\nme much. And he is all alone. He asked me whether I knew among my\nfriends a sympathetic, pretty girl, to make four with us three for a\npicnic. I said I was not sure, but I thought not. Whom do I know?\nNobody. I'm not a woman like the rest. I am always discreet. I do not\nlike casual relations.... But he is very well, the cousin. Brown\neyes.... It is an idea--will you come, one day? He speaks English. He\nloves the English. He is all that is most correct, the perfect\ngentleman. He would arrange a dazzling fete. I am sure he would be\nenchanted to make your acquaintance. Enchanted! ... As for my Charles,\nhappily he is completely mad about me--otherwise I should have fear.\"\n\nShe smiled, and in her smile was a genuine respect for Sophia's face.\n\n\"I fear I cannot come,\" said Sophia. She honestly endeavoured to keep\nout of her reply any accent of moral superiority, but she did not quite\nsucceed. She was not at all horrified by Laurence's suggestion. She\nmeant simply to refuse it; but she could not do so in a natural voice.\n\n\"It is true you are not yet strong enough,\" said the imperturbable\nLaurence, quickly, and with a perfect imitation of naturalness. \"But\nsoon you must make a little promenade.\" She stared at her ring. \"After\nall, it is more proper,\" she observed judicially. \"With a wedding-ring\none is less likely to be annoyed. What is curious is that the idea\nnever before came to me. Yet ...\"\n\n\"You like jewellery?\" said Sophia.\n\n\"If I like jewellery!\" with a gesture of the hands.\n\n\"Will you pass me that bracelet?\"\n\nLaurence obeyed, and Sophia clasped it round the girl's wrist.\n\n\"Keep it,\" Sophia said.\n\n\"For me?\" Laurence exclaimed, ravished. \"It is too much.\"\n\n\"It is not enough,\" said Sophia. \"And when you look at it, you must\nremember how kind you were to me, and how grateful I am.\"\n\n\"How nicely you say that!\" Laurence said ecstatically.\n\nAnd Sophia felt that she had indeed said it rather nicely. This giving\nof the bracelet, souvenir of one of the few capricious follies that\nGerald had committed for her and not for himself, pleased Sophia very\nmuch.\n\n\"I am afraid your nursing of me forced you to neglect Monsieur Cerf,\"\nshe added.\n\n\"Yes, a little!\" said Laurence, impartially, with a small pout of\nhaughtiness. \"It is true that he used to complain. But I soon put him\nstraight. What an idea! He knows there are things upon which I do not\njoke. It is not he who will quarrel a second time! Believe me!\"\n\nLaurence's absolute conviction of her power was what impressed Sophia.\nTo Sophia she seemed to be a vulgar little piece of goods, with dubious\ncharm and a glance that was far too brazen. Her movements were vulgar.\nAnd Sophia wondered how she had established her empire and upon what it\nrested.\n\n\"I shall not show this to Aimee,\" whispered Laurence, indicating the\nbracelet.\n\n\"As you wish,\" said Sophia.\n\n\"By the way, have I told you that war is declared?\" Laurence casually\nremarked.\n\n\"No,\" said Sophia. \"What war?\"\n\n\"The scene with Aimee made me forget it ... With Germany. The city is\nquite excited. An immense crowd in front of the new Opera. They say we\nshall be at Berlin in a month--or at most two months.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" Sophia muttered. \"Why is there a war?\"\n\n\"Ah! It is I who asked that. Nobody knows. It is those Prussians.\"\n\n\"Don't you think we ought to begin again with the disinfecting?\" Sophia\nasked anxiously. \"I must speak to Madame Foucault.\"\n\nLaurence told her not to worry, and went off to show the bracelet to\nMadame Foucault. She had privately decided that this was a pleasure\nwhich, after all, she could not deny herself.\n\nIV\n\nAbout a fortnight later--it was a fine Saturday in early\nAugust--Sophia, with a large pinafore over her dress, was finishing the\nportentous preparations for disinfecting the flat. Part of the affair\nwas already accomplished, her own room and the corridor having been\nfumigated on the previous day, in spite of the opposition of Madame\nFoucault, who had taken amiss Laurence's tale-bearing to Sophia.\nLaurence had left the flat--under exactly what circumstances Sophia\nknew not, but she guessed that it must have been in consequence of a\nscene elaborating the tiff caused by Madame Foucault's resentment\nagainst Laurence. The brief, factitious friendliness between Laurence\nand Sophia had gone like a dream, and Laurence had gone like a dream.\nThe servant had been dismissed; in her place Madame Foucault employed a\ncharwoman each morning for two hours. Finally, Madame Foucault had been\nsuddenly called away that morning by a letter to her sick father at St.\nMammes-sur-Seine. Sophia was delighted at the chance. The disinfecting\nof the flat had become an obsession with Sophia--the obsession of a\nconvalescent whose perspective unconsciously twists things to the most\nwry shapes. She had had trouble on the day before with Madame Foucault,\nand she was expecting more serious trouble when the moment arrived for\nejecting Madame Foucault as well as all her movable belongings from\nMadame Foucault's own room. Nevertheless, Sophia had been determined,\nwhatever should happen, to complete an honest fumigation of the entire\nflat. Hence the eagerness with which, urging Madame Foucault to go to\nher father, Sophia had protested that she was perfectly strong and\ncould manage by herself for a couple of days. Owing to the partial\nsuppression of the ordinary railway services in favour of military\nneeds, Madame Foucault could not hope to go and return on the same day.\nSophia had lent her a louis.\n\nPans of sulphur were mysteriously burning in each of the three front\nrooms, and two pairs of doors had been pasted over with paper, to\nprevent the fumes from escaping. The charwoman had departed. Sophia,\nwith brush, scissors, flour-paste, and news-sheets, was sealing the\nthird pair of doors, when there was a ring at the front door.\n\nShe had only to cross the corridor in order to open.\n\nIt was Chirac. She was not surprised to see him. The outbreak of the\nwar had induced even Sophia and her landlady to look through at least\none newspaper during the day, and she had in this way learnt, from an\narticle signed by Chirac, that he had returned to Paris after a mission\ninto the Vosges country for his paper.\n\nHe started on seeing her. \"Ah!\" He breathed out the exclamation slowly.\nAnd then smiled, seized her hand, and kissed it.\n\nThe sight of his obvious extreme pleasure in meeting her again was the\nsweetest experience that had fallen to Sophia for years.\n\n\"Then you are cured?\"\n\n\"Quite.\"\n\nHe sighed. \"You know, this is an enormous relief to me, to know,\nveritably, that you are no longer in danger. You gave me a fright ...\nbut a fright, my dear madame!\"\n\nShe smiled in silence.\n\nAs he glanced inquiringly up and down the corridor, she said--\n\n\"I'm all alone in the flat. I'm disinfecting it.\"\n\n\"Then that is sulphur that I smell?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Excuse me while I finish this door,\" she said.\n\nHe closed the front-door. \"But you seem to be quite at home here!\" he\nobserved.\n\n\"I ought to be,\" said she.\n\nHe glanced again inquiringly up and down the corridor. \"And you are\nreally all alone now?\" he asked, as though to be doubly sure.\n\nShe explained the circumstances.\n\n\"I owe you my most sincere excuses for bringing you here,\" he said\nconfidentially.\n\n\"But why?\" she replied, looking intently at her door. \"They have been\nmost kind to me. Nobody could have been kinder. And Madame Laurence\nbeing such a good nurse----\"\n\n\"It is true,\" said he. \"That was a reason. In effect they are both very\ngood-natured little women.... You comprehend, as journalist it arrives\nto me to know all kinds of people ...\" He snapped his fingers ... \"And\nas we were opposite the house. In fine, I pray you to excuse me.\"\n\n\"Hold me this paper,\" she said. \"It is necessary that every crack\nshould be covered; also between the floor and the door.\"\n\n\"You English are wonderful,\" he murmured, as he took the paper.\n\"Imagine you doing that! Then,\" he added, resuming the confidential\ntone, \"I suppose you will leave the Foucault now, hein?\"\n\n\"I suppose so,\" she said carelessly.\n\n\"You go to England?\"\n\nShe turned to him, as she patted the creases out of a strip of paper\nwith a duster, and shook her head.\n\n\"Not to England?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"If it is not indiscreet, where are you going?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said candidly.\n\nAnd she did not know. She was without a plan. Her brain told her that\nshe ought to return to Bursley, or, at the least, write. But her pride\nwould not hear of such a surrender. Her situation would have to be far\nmore desperate than it was before she could confess her defeat to her\nfamily even in a letter. A thousand times no! That was a point which\nshe had for ever decided. She would face any disaster, and any other\nshame, rather than the shame of her family's forgiving reception of her.\n\n\"And you?\" she asked. \"How does it go? This war?\"\n\nHe told her, in a few words, a few leading facts about himself. \"It\nmust not be said,\" he added of the war, \"but that will turn out ill!\nI--I know, you comprehend.\"\n\n\"Truly?\" she answered with casualness.\n\n\"You have heard nothing of him?\" Chirac asked.\n\n\"Who? Gerald?\"\n\nHe gave a gesture.\n\n\"Nothing! Not a word! Nothing!\"\n\n\"He will have gone back to England!\"\n\n\"Never!\" she said positively.\n\n\"But why not?\"\n\n\"Because he prefers France. He really does like France. I think it is\nthe only real passion he ever had.\"\n\n\"It is astonishing,\" reflected Chirac, \"how France is loved! And\nyet...! But to live, what will he do? Must live!\"\n\nSophia merely shrugged her shoulders.\n\n\"Then it is finished between you two?\" he muttered awkwardly.\n\nShe nodded. She was on her knees, at the lower crack of the doors.\n\n\"There!\" she said, rising. \"It's well done, isn't it? That is all.\"\n\nShe smiled at him, facing him squarely, in the obscurity of the untidy\nand shabby corridor. Both felt that they had become very intimate. He\nwas intensely flattered by her attitude, and she knew it.\n\n\"Now,\" she said, \"I will take off my pinafore. Where can I niche you?\nThere is only my bedroom, and I want that. What are we to do?\"\n\n\"Listen,\" he suggested diffidently. \"Will you do me the honour to come\nfor a drive? That will do you good. There is sunshine. And you are\nalways very pale.\"\n\n\"With pleasure,\" she agreed cordially.\n\nWhile dressing, she heard him walking up and down the corridor;\noccasionally they exchanged a few words. Before leaving, Sophia pulled\noff the paper from one of the key-holes of the sealed suite of rooms,\nand they peered through, one after the other, and saw the green glow of\nthe sulphur, and were troubled by its uncanniness. And then Sophia\nrefixed the paper.\n\nIn descending the stairs of the house she felt the infirmity of her\nknees; but in other respects, though she had been out only once before\nsince her illness, she was conscious of a sufficient strength. A\ndisinclination for any enterprise had prevented her from taking the air\nas she ought to have done, but within the flat she had exercised her\nlimbs in many small tasks. The little Chirac, nervously active and\nrestless, wanted to take her arm, but she would not allow it.\n\nThe concierge and part of her family stared curiously at Sophia as she\npassed under the archway, for the course of her illness had excited the\ninterest of the whole house. Just as the carriage was driving off, the\nconcierge came across the pavement and paid her compliments, and then\nsaid:\n\n\"You do not know by hazard why Madame Foucault has not returned for\nlunch, madame?\"\n\n\"Returned for lunch!\" said Sophia. \"She will not come back till\nto-morrow.\"\n\nThe concierge made a face. \"Ah! How curious it is! She told my husband\nthat she would return in two hours. It is very grave! Question of\nbusiness.\"\n\n\"I know nothing, madame,\" said Sophia. She and Chirac looked at each\nother. The concierge murmured thanks and went off muttering\nindistinctly.\n\nThe fiacre turned down the Rue Laferriere, the horse slipping and\nsliding as usual over the cobblestones. Soon they were on the\nboulevard, making for the Champs Elysees and the Bois de Boulogne.\n\nThe fresh breeze and bright sunshine and the large freedom of the\nstreets quickly intoxicated Sophia--intoxicated her, that is to say, in\nquite a physical sense. She was almost drunk, with the heady savour of\nlife itself. A mild ecstasy of well-being overcame her. She saw the\nflat as a horrible, vile prison, and blamed herself for not leaving it\nsooner and oftener. The air was medicine, for body and mind too. Her\nperspective was instantly corrected. She was happy, living neither in\nthe past nor in the future, but in and for that hour. And beneath her\nhappiness moved a wistful melancholy for the Sophia who had suffered\nsuch a captivity and such woes. She yearned for more and yet more\ndelight, for careless orgies of passionate pleasure, in the midst of\nwhich she would forget all trouble. Why had she refused the offer of\nLaurence? Why had she not rushed at once into the splendid fire of\njoyous indulgence, ignoring everything but the crude, sensuous\ninstinct? Acutely aware as she was of her youth, her beauty, and her\ncharm, she wondered at her refusal. She did not regret her refusal. She\nplacidly observed it as the result of some tremendously powerful motive\nin herself, which could not be questioned or reasoned with--which was,\nin fact, the essential HER.\n\n\"Do I look like an invalid?\" she asked, leaning back luxuriously in the\ncarriage among the crowd of other vehicles.\n\nChirac hesitated. \"My faith! Yes!\" he said at length. \"But it becomes\nyou. If I did not know that you have little love for compliments, I--\"\n\n\"But I adore compliments!\" she exclaimed. \"What made you think that?\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" he youthfully burst out, \"you are more ravishing than\never.\"\n\nShe gave herself up deliciously to his admiration.\n\nAfter a silence, he said: \"Ah! if you knew how disquieted I was about\nyou, away there...! I should not know how to tell you. Veritably\ndisquieted, you comprehend! What could I do? Tell me a little about\nyour illness.\"\n\nShe recounted details.\n\nAs the fiacre entered the Rue Royale, they noticed a crowd of people in\nfront of the Madeleine shouting and cheering.\n\nThe cabman turned towards them. \"It appears there has been a victory!\"\nhe said.\n\n\"A victory! If only it was true!\" murmured Chirac, cynically.\n\nIn the Rue Royale people were running frantically to and fro, laughing\nand gesticulating in glee. The customers in the cafes stood on their\nchairs, and even on tables, to watch, and occasionally to join in, the\nsudden fever. The fiacre was slowed to a walking pace. Flags and\ncarpets began to show from the upper storeys of houses. The crowd grew\nthicker and more febrile. \"Victory! Victory!\" rang hoarsely, shrilly,\nand hoarsely again in the air.\n\n\"My God!\" said Chirac, trembling. \"It must be a true victory! We are\nsaved! We are saved! ... Oh yes, it is true!\"\n\n\"But naturally it is true! What are you saying?\" demanded the driver.\n\nAt the Place de la Concorde the fiacre had to stop altogether. The\nimmense square was a sea of white hats and flowers and happy faces,\nwith carriages anchored like boats on its surface. Flag after flag\nwaved out from neighbouring roofs in the breeze that tempered the\nAugust sun. Then hats began to go up, and cheers rolled across the\nsquare like echoes of firing in an enclosed valley. Chirac's driver\njumped madly on to his seat, and cracked his whip.\n\n\"Vive la France!\" he bawled with all the force of his lungs.\n\nA thousand throats answered him.\n\nThen there was a stir behind them. Another carriage was being slowly\nforced to the front. The crowd was pushing it, and crying,\n\"Marseillaise! Marseillaise!\" In the carriage was a woman alone; not\nbeautiful, but distinguished, and with the assured gaze of one who is\naccustomed to homage and multitudinous applause.\n\n\"It is Gueymard!\" said Chirac to Sophia. He was very pale. And he too\nshouted, \"Marseillaise!\" All his features were distorted.\n\nThe woman rose and spoke to her coachman, who offered his hand and she\nclimbed to the box seat, and stood on it and bowed several times.\n\n\"Marseillaise!\" The cry continued. Then a roar of cheers, and then\nsilence spread round the square like an inundation. And amid this\nsilence the woman began to sing the Marseillaise. As she sang, the\ntears ran down her cheeks. Everybody in the vicinity was weeping or\nsternly frowning. In the pauses of the first verse could be heard the\nrattle of horses' bits, or a whistle of a tug on the river. The\nrefrain, signalled by a proud challenging toss of Gueymard's head,\nleapt up like a tropical tempest, formidable, overpowering. Sophia, who\nhad had no warning of the emotion gathering within her, sobbed\nviolently. At the close of the hymn Gueymard's carriage was assaulted\nby worshippers. All around, in the tumult of shouting, men were kissing\nand embracing each other; and hats went up continually in fountains.\nChirac leaned over the side of the carriage and wrung the hand of a man\nwho was standing by the wheel.\n\n\"Who is that?\" Sophia asked, in an unsteady voice, to break the\ninexplicable tension within her.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Chirac. He was weeping like a child. And he sang\nout: \"Victory! To Berlin! Victory!\"\n\nV\n\nSophia walked alone, with tired limbs, up the damaged oak stairs to the\nflat. Chirac had decided that, in the circumstances of the victory, he\nwould do well to go to the offices of his paper rather earlier than\nusual. He had brought her back to the Rue Breda. They had taken leave\nof each other in a sort of dream or general enchantment due to their\nparticipation in the vast national delirium which somehow dominated\nindividual feelings. They did not define their relations. They had been\nconscious only of emotion.\n\nThe stairs, which smelt of damp even in summer, disgusted Sophia. She\nthought of the flat with horror and longed for green places and luxury.\nOn the landing were two stoutish, ill-dressed men, of middle age,\napparently waiting. Sophia found her key and opened the door.\n\n\"Pardon, madame!\" said one of the men, raising his hat, and they both\npushed into the flat after her. They stared, puzzled, at the strips of\npaper pasted on the doors.\n\n\"What do you want?\" she asked haughtily. She was very frightened. The\nextraordinary interruption brought her down with a shock to the scale\nof the individual.\n\n\"I am the concierge,\" said the man who had addressed her. He had the\nair of a superior artisan. \"It was my wife who spoke to you this\nafternoon. This,\" pointing to his companion, \"this is the law. I regret\nit, but ...\"\n\nThe law saluted and shut the front door. Like the concierge, the law\nemitted an odour--the odour of uncleanliness on a hot August day.\n\n\"The rent?\" exclaimed Sophia.\n\n\"No, madame, not the rent: the furniture!\"\n\nThen she learnt the history of the furniture. It had belonged to the\nconcierge, who had acquired it from a previous tenant and sold it on\ncredit to Madame Foucault. Madame Foucault had signed bills and had not\nmet them. She had made promises and broken them. She had done\neverything except discharge her liabilities. She had been warned and\nwarned again. That day had been fixed as the last limit, and she had\nsolemnly assured her creditor that on that day she would pay. On\nleaving the house she had stated precisely and clearly that she would\nreturn before lunch with all the money. She had made no mention of a\nsick father.\n\nSophia slowly perceived the extent of Madame Foucault's duplicity and\nmoral cowardice. No doubt the sick father was an invention. The woman,\nat the end of a tether which no ingenuity of lies could further\nlengthen, had probably absented herself solely to avoid the pain of\nwitnessing the seizure. She would do anything, however silly, to avoid\nan immediate unpleasantness. Or perhaps she had absented herself\nwithout any particular aim, but simply in the hope that something\nfortunate might occur. Perhaps she had hoped that Sophia, taken\nunawares, would generously pay. Sophia smiled grimly.\n\n\"Well,\" she said. \"I can't do anything. I suppose you must do what you\nhave to do. You will let me pack up my own affairs?\"\n\n\"Perfectly, madame!\"\n\nShe warned them as to the danger of opening the sealed rooms. The man\nof the law seemed prepared to stay in the corridor indefinitely. No\nprospect of delay disturbed him.\n\nStrange and disturbing, the triumph of the concierge! He was a\nlocksmith by trade. He and his wife and their children lived in two\nlittle dark rooms by the archway--an insignificant fragment of the\nhouse. He was away from home about fourteen hours every day, except\nSundays, when he washed the courtyard. All the other duties of the\nconcierge were performed by the wife. The pair always looked poor,\nuntidy, dirty, and rather forlorn. But they were steadily levying toll\non everybody in the big house. They amassed money in forty ways. They\nlived for money, and all men have what they live for. With what\narrogant gestures Madame Foucault would descend from a carriage at the\ngreat door! What respectful attitudes and tones the ageing courtesan\nwould receive from the wife and children of the concierge! But beneath\nthese conventional fictions the truth was that the concierge held the\nwhip. At last he was using it. And he had given himself a half-holiday\nin order to celebrate his second acquirement of the ostentatious\nfurniture and the crimson lampshades. This was one of the dramatic\ncrises in his career as a man of substance. The national thrill of\nvictory had not penetrated into the flat with the concierge and the\nlaw. The emotions of the concierge were entirely independent of the\nNapoleonic foreign policy.\n\nAs Sophia, sick with a sudden disillusion, was putting her things\ntogether, and wondering where she was to go, and whether it would be\npolitic to consult Chirac, she heard a fluster at the front door:\ncries, protestations, implorings. Her own door was thrust open, and\nMadame Foucault burst in.\n\n\"Save me!\" exclaimed Madame Foucault, sinking to the ground.\n\nThe feeble theatricality of the gesture offended Sophia's taste. She\nasked sternly what Madame Foucault expected her to do. Had not Madame\nFoucault knowingly exposed her, without the least warning, to the\nextreme annoyance of this visit of the law, a visit which meant\npractically that Sophia was put into the street?\n\n\"You must not be hard!\" Madame Foucault sobbed.\n\nSophia learnt the complete history of the woman's efforts to pay for\nthe furniture: a farrago of folly and deceptions. Madame Foucault\nconfessed too much. Sophia scorned confession for the sake of\nconfession. She scorned the impulse which forces a weak creature to\ninsist on its weakness, to revel in remorse, and to find an excuse for\nits conduct in the very fact that there is no excuse. She gathered that\nMadame Foucault had in fact gone away in the hope that Sophia, trapped,\nwould pay; and that in the end, she had not even had the courage of her\nown trickery, and had run back, driven by panic into audacity, to fall\nat Sophia's feet, lest Sophia might not have yielded and the furniture\nhave been seized. From, beginning to end the conduct of Madame Foucault\nhad been fatuous and despicable and wicked. Sophia coldly condemned\nMadame Foucault for having allowed herself to be brought into the world\nwith such a weak and maudlin character, and for having allowed herself\nto grow old and ugly. As a sight the woman was positively disgraceful.\n\n\"Save me!\" she exclaimed again. \"I did what I could for you!\"\n\nSophia hated her. But the logic of the appeal was irresistible.\n\n\"But what can I do?\" she asked reluctantly.\n\n\"Lend me the money. You can. If you don't, this will be the end for me.\"\n\n\"And a good thing, too!\" thought Sophia's hard sense.\n\n\"How much is it?\" Sophia glumly asked.\n\n\"It isn't a thousand francs!\" said Madame Foucault with eagerness. \"All\nmy beautiful furniture will go for less than a thousand francs! Save\nme!\"\n\nShe was nauseating Sophia.\n\n\"Please rise,\" said Sophia, her hands fidgeting undecidedly.\n\n\"I shall repay you, surely!\" Madame Foucault asseverated. \"I swear!\"\n\n\"Does she take me for a fool?\" thought Sophia, \"with her oaths!\"\n\n\"No!\" said Sophia. \"I won't lend you the money. But I tell you what I\nwill do. I will buy the furniture at that price; and I will promise to\nre-sell it to you as soon as you can pay me. Like that, you can be\ntranquil. But I have very little money. I must have a guarantee. The\nfurniture must be mine till you pay me.\"\n\n\"You are an angel of charity!\" cried Madame Foucault, embracing\nSophia's skirts. \"I will do whatever you wish. Ah! You Englishwomen are\nastonishing.\"\n\nSophia was not an angel of charity. What she had promised to do\ninvolved sacrifice and anxiety without the prospect of reward. But it\nwas not charity. It was part of the price Sophia paid for the exercise\nof her logical faculty; she paid it unwillingly. 'I did what I could\nfor you!' Sophia would have died sooner than remind any one of a\nbenefit conferred, and Madame Foucault had committed precisely that\nenormity. The appeal was inexcusable to a fine mind; but it was\neffective.\n\nThe men were behind the door, listening. Sophia paid out of her stock\nof notes. Needless to say, the total was more and not less than a\nthousand francs. Madame Foucault grew rapidly confidential with the\nman. Without consulting Sophia, she asked the bailiff to draw up a\nreceipt transferring the ownership of all the furniture to Sophia; and\nthe bailiff, struck into obligingness by glimpses of Sophia's beauty,\nconsented to do so. There was much conferring upon forms of words, and\nflourishing of pens between thick, vile fingers, and scattering of ink.\n\nBefore the men left Madame Foucault uncorked a bottle of wine for them,\nand helped them to drink it. Throughout the evening she was\ninsupportably deferential to Sophia, who was driven to bed. Madame\nFoucault contentedly went up to the sixth floor to occupy the servant's\nbedroom. She was glad to get so far away from the sulphur, of which a\nfew faint fumes had penetrated into the corridor.\n\nThe next morning, after a stifling night of bad dreams, Sophia was too\nill to get up. She looked round at the furniture in the little room,\nand she imagined the furniture in the other rooms, and dismally\nthought: \"All this furniture is mine. She will never pay me! I am\nsaddled with it.\"\n\nIt was cheaply bought, but she probably could not sell it for even what\nshe had paid. Still, the sense of ownership was reassuring.\n\nThe charwoman brought her coffee, and Chirac's newspaper; from which\nshe learnt that the news of the victory which had sent the city mad on\nthe previous day was utterly false. Tears came into her eyes as she\ngazed absently at all the curtained windows of the courtyard. She had\nyouth and loveliness; according to the rules she ought to have been\nirresponsible, gay, and indulgently watched over by the wisdom of\nadmiring age. But she felt towards the French nation as a mother might\nfeel towards adorable, wilful children suffering through their own\ncharming foolishness. She saw France personified in Chirac. How easily,\ndespite his special knowledge, he had yielded to the fever! Her heart\nbled for France and Chirac on that morning of reaction and of truth.\nShe could not bear to recall the scene in the Place de la Concorde.\nMadame Foucault had not descended.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE SIEGE\n\nI\n\n\nMadame Foucault came into Sophia's room one afternoon with a peculiar\nguilty expression on her large face, and she held her peignoir close to\nher exuberant body in folds consciously majestic, as though\nendeavouring to prove to Sophia by her carriage that despite her\nshifting eyes she was the most righteous and sincere woman that ever\nlived.\n\nIt was Saturday, the third of September, a beautiful day. Sophia,\nsuffering from an unimportant relapse, had remained in a state of\ninactivity, and had scarcely gone out at all. She loathed the flat, but\nlacked the energy to leave it every day. There was no sufficiently\ndefinite object in leaving it. She could not go out and look for health\nas she might have looked for flowers. So she remained in the flat, and\nstared at the courtyard and the continual mystery of lives hidden\nbehind curtains that occasionally moved. And the painted yellow walls\nof the house, and the papered walls of her room pressed upon her and\ncrushed her. For a few days Chirac had called daily, animated by the\nmost adorable solicitude. Then he had ceased to call. She had tired of\nreading the journals; they lay unopened. The relations between Madame\nFoucault and herself, and her status in the flat of which she now\nlegally owned the furniture,--these things were left unsettled. But the\nquestion of her board was arranged on the terms that she halved the\ncost of food and service with Madame Foucault; her expenses were thus\nreduced to the lowest possible--about eighteen francs a week. An idea\nhung in the air--like a scientific discovery on the point of being made\nby several independent investigators simultaneously--that she and\nMadame Foucault should co-operate in order to let furnished rooms at a\nremunerative profit. Sophia felt the nearness of the idea and she\nwanted to be shocked at the notion of any avowed association between\nherself and Madame Foucault; but she could not be.\n\n\"Here are a lady and a gentleman who want a bedroom,\" began Madame\nFoucault, \"a nice large bedroom, furnished.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Sophia; \"who are they?\"\n\n\"They will pay a hundred and thirty francs a month, in advance, for the\nmiddle bedroom.\"\n\n\"You've shown it to them already?\" said Sophia. And her tone implied\nthat somehow she was conscious of a right to overlook the affair of\nMadame Foucault.\n\n\"No,\" said the other. \"I said to myself that first I would ask you for\na counsel.\"\n\n\"Then will they pay all that for a room they haven't seen?\"\n\n\"The fact is,\" said Madame Foucault, sheepishly. \"The lady has seen the\nroom before. I know her a little. It is a former tenant. She lived here\nsome weeks.\"\n\n\"In that room?\"\n\n\"Oh no! She was poor enough then.\"\n\n\"Where are they?\"\n\n\"In the corridor. She is very well, the lady. Naturally one must live,\nshe like all the world; but she is veritably well. Quite respectable!\nOne would never say ... Then there would be the meals. We could demand\none franc for the cafe au lait, two and a half francs for the lunch,\nand three francs for the dinner. Without counting other things. That\nwould mean over five hundred francs a month, at least. And what would\nthey cost us? Almost nothing! By what appears, he is a plutocrat ... I\ncould thus quickly repay you.\"\n\n\"Is it a married couple?\"\n\n\"Ah! You know, one cannot demand the marriage certificate.\" Madame\nFoucault indicated by a gesture that the Rue Breda was not the paradise\nof saints.\n\n\"When she came before, this lady, was it with the same man?\" Sophia\nasked coldly.\n\n\"Ah, my faith, no!\" exclaimed Madame Foucault, bridling. \"It was a bad\nsort, the other, a...! Ah, no.\"\n\n\"Why do you ask my advice?\" Sophia abruptly questioned, in a hard,\ninimical voice. \"Is it that it concerns me?\"\n\nTears came at once into the eyes of Madame Foucault. \"Do not be\nunkind,\" she implored.\n\n\"I'm not unkind,\" said Sophia, in the same tone.\n\n\"Shall you leave me if I accept this offer?\"\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Sophia, bluntly. She tried to be large-hearted,\nlarge-minded, and sympathetic; but there was no sign of these qualities\nin her speech.\n\n\"And if you take with you the furniture which is yours...!\"\n\nSophia kept silence.\n\n\"How am I to live, I demand of you?\" Madame Foucault asked weakly.\n\n\"By being respectable and dealing with respectable people!\" said\nSophia, uncompromisingly, in tones of steel.\n\n\"I am unhappy!\" murmured the elder woman. \"However, you are more strong\nthan I!\"\n\nShe brusquely dabbed her eyes, gave a little sob, and ran out of the\nroom. Sophia listened at the door, and heard her dismiss the would-be\ntenants of the best bedroom. She wondered that she should possess such\nmoral ascendancy over the woman, she so young and ingenuous! For, of\ncourse, she had not meant to remove the furniture. She could hear\nMadame Foucault sobbing quietly in one of the other rooms; and her lips\ncurled.\n\nBefore evening a truly astonishing event happened. Perceiving that\nMadame Foucault showed no signs of bestirring herself, Sophia, with\ngood nature in her heart but not on her tongue, went to her, and said:\n\n\"Shall I occupy myself with the dinner?\"\n\nMadame Foucault sobbed more loudly.\n\n\"That would be very amiable on your part,\" Madame Foucault managed at\nlast to reply, not very articulately.\n\nSophia put a hat on and went to the grocer's. The grocer, who kept a\nbusy establishment at the corner of the Rue Clausel, was a middle-aged\nand wealthy man. He had sent his young wife and two children to\nNormandy until victory over the Prussians should be more assured, and\nhe asked Sophia whether it was true that there was a good bedroom to\nlet in the flat where she lived. His servant was ill of smallpox; he\nwas attacked by anxieties and fears on all sides; he would not enter\nhis own flat on account of possible infection; he liked Sophia, and\nMadame Foucault had been a customer of his, with intervals, for twenty\nyears. Within an hour he had arranged to rent the middle bedroom at\neighty francs a month, and to take his meals there. The terms were\nmodest, but the respectability was prodigious. All the glory of this\ntenancy fell upon Sophia.\n\nMadame Foucault was deeply impressed. Characteristically she began at\nonce to construct a theory that Sophia had only to walk out of the\nhouse in order to discover ideal tenants for the rooms. Also she\nregarded the advent of the grocer as a reward from Providence for her\nself-denial in refusing the profits of sinfulness. Sophia felt\npersonally responsible to the grocer for his comfort, and so she\nherself undertook the preparation of the room. Madame Foucault was\namazed at the thoroughness of her housewifery, and at the ingenuity of\nher ideas for the arrangement of furniture. She sat and watched with\nadmiration sycophantic but real.\n\nThat night, when Sophia was in bed, Madame Foucault came into the room,\nand dropped down by the side of the bed, and begged Sophia to be her\nmoral support for ever. She confessed herself generally. She explained\nhow she had always hated the negation of respectability; how\nrespectability was the one thing that she had all her life passionately\ndesired. She said that if Sophia would be her partner in the letting of\nfurnished rooms to respectable persons, she would obey her in\neverything. She gave Sophia a list of all the traits in Sophia's\ncharacter which she admired. She asked Sophia to influence her, to\nstand by her. She insisted that she would sleep on the sixth floor in\nthe servant's tiny room; and she had a vision of three bedrooms let to\nsuccessful tradesmen. She was in an ecstasy of repentance and good\nintentions.\n\nSophia consented to the business proposition; for she had nothing else\nwhatever in prospect, and she shared Madame Foucault's rosy view about\nthe remunerativeness of the bedrooms. With three tenants who took meals\nthe two women would be able to feed themselves for nothing and still\nmake a profit on the food; and the rents would be clear gain.\n\nAnd she felt very sorry for the ageing, feckless Madame Foucault, whose\nsincerity was obvious. The association between them would be strange;\nit would have been impossible to explain it to St. Luke's Square....\nAnd yet, if there was anything at all in the virtue of Christian\ncharity, what could properly be urged against the association?\n\n\"Ah!\" murmured Madame Foucault, kissing Sophia's hands, \"it is to-day,\nthen, that I recommence my life. You will see--you will see! You have\nsaved me!\"\n\nIt was a strange sight, the time-worn, disfigured courtesan, half\nprostrate before the beautiful young creature proud and unassailable in\nthe instinctive force of her own character. It was almost a didactic\ntableau, fraught with lessons for the vicious. Sophia was happier than\nshe had been for years. She had a purpose in existence; she had a fluid\nsoul to mould to her will according to her wisdom; and there was a\nlarge compassion to her credit. Public opinion could not intimidate\nher, for in her case there was no public opinion; she knew nobody;\nnobody had the right to question her doings.\n\nThe next day, Sunday, they both worked hard at the bedrooms from early\nmorning. The grocer was installed in his chamber, and the two other\nrooms were cleansed as they had never been cleansed. At four o'clock,\nthe weather being more magnificent than ever, Madame Foucault said:\n\n\"If we took a promenade on the boulevard?\"\n\nSophia reflected. They were partners. \"Very well,\" she agreed.\n\nThe boulevard was crammed with gay, laughing crowds. All the cafes were\nfull. None, who did not know, could have guessed that the news of Sedan\nwas scarcely a day old in the capital. Delirious joy reigned in the\nglittering sunshine. As the two women strolled along, content with\ntheir industry and their resolves, they came to a National Guard, who,\nperched on a ladder, was chipping away the \"N\" from the official sign\nof a court-tradesman. He was exchanging jokes with a circle of open\nmouths. It was in this way that Madame Foucault and Sophia learnt of\nthe establishment of a republic.\n\n\"Vive la republique!\" cried Madame Foucault, incontinently, and then\napologized to Sophia for the lapse.\n\nThey listened a long while to a man who was telling strange histories\nof the Empress.\n\nSuddenly Sophia noticed that Madame Foucault was no longer at her\nelbow. She glanced about, and saw her in earnest conversation with a\nyoung man whose face seemed familiar. She remembered it was the young\nman with whom Madame Foucault had quarrelled on the night when Sophia\nfound her prone in the corridor; the last remaining worshipper of the\ncourtesan.\n\nThe woman's face was quite changed by her agitation. Sophia drew away,\noffended. She watched the pair from a distance for a few moments, and\nthen, furious in disillusion, she escaped from the fever of the\nboulevards and walked quietly home. Madame Foucault did not return.\nApparently Madame Foucault was doomed to be the toy of chance. Two days\nlater Sophia received a scrawled letter from her, with the information\nthat her lover had required that she should accompany him to Brussels,\nas Paris would soon be getting dangerous. \"He adores me always. He is\nthe most delicious boy. As I have always said, this is the grand\npassion of my life. I am happy. He would not permit me to come to you.\nHe has spent two thousand francs on clothes for me, since naturally I\nhad nothing.\" And so on. No word of apology. Sophia, in reading the\nletter, allowed for a certain exaggeration and twisting of the truth.\n\n\"Young fool! Fool!\" she burst out angrily. She did not mean herself;\nshe meant the fatuous adorer of that dilapidated, horrible woman. She\nnever saw her again. Doubtless Madame Foucault fulfilled her own\nprediction as to her ultimate destiny, but in Brussels.\n\nII\n\nSophia still possessed about a hundred pounds, and had she chosen to\nleave Paris and France, there was nothing to prevent her from doing so.\nPerhaps if she had chanced to visit the Gare St. Lazare or the Gare du\nNord, the sight of tens of thousands of people flying seawards might\nhave stirred in her the desire to flee also from the vague coming\ndanger. But she did not visit those termini; she was too busy looking\nafter M. Niepce, her grocer. Moreover, she would not quit her\nfurniture, which seemed to her to be a sort of rock. With a flat full\nof furniture she considered that she ought to be able to devise a\nlivelihood; the enterprise of becoming independent was already indeed\nbegun. She ardently wished to be independent, to utilize in her own\nbehalf the gifts of organization, foresight, commonsense and tenacity\nwhich she knew she possessed and which had lain idle. And she hated the\nidea of flight.\n\nChirac returned as unexpectedly as he had gone; an expedition for his\npaper had occupied him. With his lips he urged her to go, but his eyes\nspoke differently. He had, one afternoon, a mood of candid despair,\nsuch as he would have dared to show only to one in whom he felt great\nconfidence. \"They will come to Paris,\" he said; \"nothing can stop them.\nAnd ... then...!\" He gave a cynical laugh. But when he urged her to go\nshe said:\n\n\"And what about my furniture? And I've promised M. Niepce to look after\nhim.\"\n\nThen Chirac informed her that he was without a lodging, and that he\nwould like to rent one of her rooms. She agreed.\n\nShortly afterwards he introduced a middle-aged acquaintance named\nCarlier, the secretary-general of his newspaper, who wished to rent a\nbedroom. Thus by good fortune Sophia let all her rooms immediately, and\nwas sure of over two hundred francs a month, apart from the profit on\nmeals supplied. On this latter occasion Chirac (and his companion too)\nwas quite optimistic, reiterating an absolute certitude that Paris\ncould never be invested. Briefly, Sophia did not believe him. She\nbelieved the candidly despairing Chirac. She had no information, no\nwide theory, to justify her pessimism; nothing but the inward\nconviction that the race capable of behaving as she had seen it behave\nin the Place de la Concorde, was bound to be defeated. She loved the\nFrench race; but all the practical Teutonic sagacity in her wanted to\ntake care of it in its difficulties, and was rather angry with it for\nbeing so unfitted to take care of itself.\n\nShe let the men talk, and with careless disdain of their discussions\nand their certainties she went about her business of preparation. At\nthis period, overworked and harassed by novel responsibilities and\nrisks, she was happier, for days together, than she had ever been,\nsimply because she had a purpose in life and was depending upon\nherself. Her ignorance of the military and political situation was\ncomplete; the situation did not interest her. What interested her was\nthat she had three men to feed wholly or partially, and that the price\nof eatables was rising. She bought eatables. She bought fifty pecks of\npotatoes at a franc a peck, and another fifty pecks at a franc and a\nquarter--double the normal price; ten hams at two and a half francs a\npound; a large quantity of tinned vegetables and fruits, a sack of\nflour, rice, biscuits, coffee, Lyons sausage, dried prunes, dried figs,\nand much wood and charcoal. But the chief of her purchases was cheese,\nof which her mother used to say that bread and cheese and water made a\ncomplete diet. Many of these articles she obtained from her grocer. All\nof them, except the flour and the biscuits, she stored in the cellar\nbelonging to the flat; after several days' delay, for the Parisian\nworkmen were too elated by the advent of a republic to stoop to labour,\nshe caused a new lock to be fixed on the cellar-door. Her activities\nwere the sensation of the house. Everybody admired, but no one imitated.\n\nOne morning, on going to do her marketing, she found a notice across\nthe shuttered windows of her creamery in the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette:\n\"Closed for want of milk.\" The siege had begun. It was in the closing\nof the creamery that the siege was figured for her; in this, and in\neggs at five sous a piece. She went elsewhere for her milk and paid a\nfranc a litre for it. That evening she told her lodgers that the price\nof meals would be doubled, and that if any gentleman thought that he\ncould get equally good meals elsewhere, he was at liberty to get them\nelsewhere. Her position was strengthened by the appearance of another\ncandidate for a room, a friend of Niepce. She at once offered him her\nown room, at a hundred and fifty francs a month.\n\n\"You see,\" she said, \"there is a piano in it.\"\n\n\"But I don't play the piano,\" the man protested, shocked at the price.\n\n\"That is not my fault,\" she said.\n\nHe agreed to pay the price demanded for the room because of the\nopportunity of getting good meals much cheaper than in the restaurants.\nLike M. Niepce, he was a 'siege-widower,' his wife having been put\nunder shelter in Brittany. Sophia took to the servant's bedroom on the\nsixth floor. It measured nine feet by seven, and had no window save a\nskylight; but Sophia was in a fair way to realize a profit of at least\nfour pounds a week, after paying for everything.\n\nOn the night when she installed herself in that chamber, amid a world\nof domestics and poor people, she worked very late, and the rays of her\ncandles shot up intermittently through the skylight into a black\nheaven; at intervals she flitted up and down the stairs with a candle.\nUnknown to her a crowd gradually formed opposite the house in the\nstreet, and at about one o'clock in the morning a file of soldiers woke\nthe concierge and invaded the courtyard, and every window was suddenly\npopulated with heads. Sophia was called upon to prove that she was not\na spy signalling to the Prussians. Three quarters of an hour passed\nbefore her innocence was established and the staircases cleared of\nuniforms and dishevelled curiosity. The childish, impossible unreason\nof the suspicion against her completed in Sophia's mind the ruin of the\nreputation of the French people as a sensible race. She was extremely\ncaustic the next day to her boarders. Except for this episode, the\nfrequency of military uniforms in the streets, the price of food, and\nthe fact that at least one house in four was flying either the\nambulance flag or the flag of a foreign embassy (in an absurd hope of\nimmunity from the impending bombardment) the siege did not exist for\nSophia. The men often talked about their guard-duty, and disappeared\nfor a day or two to the ramparts, but she was too busy to listen to\nthem. She thought of nothing but her enterprise, which absorbed all her\npowers. She arose at six a.m., in the dark, and by seven-thirty M.\nNiepce and his friend had been served with breakfast, and much general\nwork was already done. At eight o'clock she went out to market. When\nasked why she continued to buy at a high price, articles of which she\nhad a store, she would reply: \"I am keeping all that till things are\nmuch dearer.\" This was regarded as astounding astuteness.\n\nOn the fifteenth of October she paid the quarter's rent of the flat,\nfour hundred francs, and was accepted as tenant. Her ears were soon\nquite accustomed to the sound of cannon, and she felt that she had\nalways been a citizeness of Paris, and that Paris had always been\nbesieged. She did not speculate about the end of the siege; she lived\nfrom day to day. Occasionally she had a qualm of fear, when the firing\ngrew momentarily louder, or when she heard that battles had been fought\nin such and such a suburb. But then she said it was absurd to be afraid\nwhen you were with a couple of million people, all in the same plight\nas yourself. She grew reconciled to everything. She even began to like\nher tiny bedroom, partly because it was so easy to keep warm (the\nquestion of artificial heat was growing acute in Paris), and partly\nbecause it ensured her privacy. Down in the flat, whatever was done or\nsaid in one room could be more or less heard in all the others, owing\nto the prevalence of doors.\n\nHer existence, in the first half of November, had become regular with a\nmonotony almost absolute. Only the number of meals served to her\nboarders varied slightly from day to day. All these repasts, save now\nand then one in the evening, were carried into the bedrooms by the\ncharwoman. Sophia did not allow herself to be seen much, except in the\nafternoons. Though Sophia continued to increase her prices, and was now\nselling her stores at an immense profit, she never approached the\nprices current outside. She was very indignant against the exploitation\nof Paris by its shopkeepers, who had vast supplies of provender, and\nwere hoarding for the rise. But the force of their example was too\ngreat for her to ignore it entirely; she contented herself with about\nhalf their gains. Only to M. Niepce did she charge more than to the\nothers, because he was a shopkeeper. The four men appreciated their\nparadise. In them developed that agreeable feeling of security which\nsolitary males find only under the roof of a landlady who is at once\nprompt, honest, and a votary of cleanliness. Sophia hung a slate near\nthe frontdoor, and on this slate they wrote their requests for meals,\nfor being called, for laundry-work, etc. Sophia never made a mistake,\nand never forgot. The perfection of the domestic machine amazed these\nmen, who had been accustomed to something quite different, and who\nevery day heard harrowing stories of discomfort and swindling from\ntheir acquaintances. They even admired Sophia for making them pay, if\nnot too high, still high. They thought it wonderful that she should\ntell them the price of all things in advance, and even show them how to\navoid expense, particularly in the matter of warmth. She arranged rugs\nfor each of them, so that they could sit comfortably in their rooms\nwith nothing but a small charcoal heater for the hands. Quite naturally\nthey came to regard her as the paragon and miracle of women. They\nendowed her with every fine quality. According to them there had never\nbeen such a woman in the history of mankind; there could not have been!\nShe became legendary among their friends: a young and elegant creature,\nsurpassingly beautiful, proud, queenly, unapproachable, scarcely\nvisible, a marvellous manager, a fine cook and artificer of strange\nEnglish dishes, utterly reliable, utterly exact and with habits of\norder...! They adored the slight English accent which gave a touch of\nthe exotic to her very correct and freely idiomatic French. In short,\nSophia was perfect for them, an impossible woman. Whatever she did was\nright.\n\nAnd she went up to her room every night with limbs exhausted, but with\nhead clear enough to balance her accounts and go through her money. She\ndid this in bed with thick gloves on. If often she did not sleep well,\nit was not because of the distant guns, but because of her\npreoccupation with the subject of finance. She was making money, and\nshe wanted to make more. She was always inventing ways of economy. She\nwas so anxious to achieve independence that money was always in her\nmind. She began to love gold, to love hoarding it, and to hate paying\nit away.\n\nOne morning her charwoman, who by good fortune was nearly as precise as\nSophia herself, failed to appear. When the moment came for serving M.\nNiepce's breakfast, Sophia hesitated, and then decided to look after\nthe old man personally. She knocked at his door, and went boldly in\nwith the tray and candle. He started at seeing her; she was wearing a\nblue apron, as the charwoman did, but there could be no mistaking her\nfor the charwoman. Niepce looked older in bed than when dressed. He had\na rather ridiculous, undignified appearance, common among old men\nbefore their morning toilette is achieved; and a nightcap did not\nimprove it. His rotund paunch lifted the bedclothes, upon which, for\nthe sake of extra warmth, he had spread unmajestic garments. Sophia\nsmiled to herself; but the contempt implied by that secret smile was\nsoftened by the thought: \"Poor old man!\" She told him briefly that she\nsupposed the charwoman to be ill. He coughed and moved nervously. His\nbenevolent and simple face beamed on her paternally as she fixed the\ntray by the bed.\n\n\"I really must open the window for one little second,\" she said, and\ndid so. The chill air of the street came through the closed shutters,\nand the old man made a noise as of shivering. She pushed back the\nshutters, and closed the window, and then did the same with the other\ntwo windows. It was almost day in the room.\n\n\"You will no longer need the candle,\" she said, and came back to the\nbedside to extinguish it.\n\nThe benign and fatherly old man put his arm round her waist. Fresh from\nthe tonic of pure air, and with the notion of his ridiculousness still\nin her mind, she was staggered for an instant by this gesture. She had\nnever given a thought to the temperament of the old grocer, the husband\nof a young wife. She could not always imaginatively keep in mind the\neffect of her own radiance, especially under such circumstances. But\nafter an instant her precocious cynicism, which had slept, sprang up.\n\"Naturally! I might have expected it!\" she thought with blasting scorn.\n\n\"Take away your hand!\" she said bitterly to the amiable old fool. She\ndid not stir.\n\nHe obeyed, sheepishly.\n\n\"Do you wish to remain with me?\" she asked, and as he did not\nimmediately answer, she said in a most commanding tone: \"Answer, then!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said feebly.\n\n\"Well, behave properly.\"\n\nShe went towards the door.\n\n\"I wished only--\" he stammered.\n\n\"I do not wish to know what you wished,\" she said.\n\nAfterwards she wondered how much of the incident had been overheard.\nThe other breakfasts she left outside the respective doors; and in\nfuture Niepce's also.\n\nThe charwoman never came again. She had caught smallpox and she died of\nit, thus losing a good situation. Strange to say, Sophia did not\nreplace her; the temptation to save her wages and food was too strong.\nShe could not, however, stand waiting for hours at the door of the\nofficial baker and the official butcher, one of a long line of frozen\nwomen, for the daily rations of bread and tri-weekly rations of meat.\nShe employed the concierge's boy, at two sous an hour, to do this.\nSometimes he would come in with his hands so blue and cold that he\ncould scarcely hold the precious cards which gave the right to the\nrations and which cost Chirac an hour or two of waiting at the mayoral\noffices each week. Sophia might have fed her flock without resorting to\nthe official rations, but she would not sacrifice the economy which\nthey represented. She demanded thick clothes for the concierge's boy,\nand received boots from Chirac, gloves from Carlier, and a great\novercoat from Niepce. The weather increased in severity, and provisions\nin price. One day she sold to the wife of a chemist who lived on the\nfirst floor, for a hundred and ten francs, a ham for which she had paid\nless than thirty francs. She was conscious of a thrill of joy in\nreceiving a beautiful banknote and a gold coin in exchange for a mere\nham. By this time her total cash resources had grown to nearly five\nthousand francs. It was astounding. And the reserves in the cellar were\nstill considerable, and the sack of flour that encumbered the kitchen\nwas still more than half full. The death of the faithful charwoman,\nwhen she heard of it, produced but little effect on Sophia, who was so\noverworked and so completely absorbed in her own affairs that she had\nno nervous energy to spare for sentimental regrets. The charwoman, by\nwhose side she had regularly passed many hours in the kitchen, so that\nshe knew every crease in her face and fold of her dress, vanished out\nof Sophia's memory.\n\nSophia cleaned and arranged two of the bedrooms in the morning, and two\nin the afternoon. She had stayed in hotels where fifteen bedrooms were\nin charge of a single chambermaid, and she thought it would be hard if\nshe could not manage four in the intervals of cooking and other work!\nThis she said to herself by way of excuse for not engaging another\ncharwoman. One afternoon she was rubbing the brass knobs of the\nnumerous doors in M. Niepce's room, when the grocer unexpectedly came\nin.\n\nShe glanced at him sharply. There was a self-conscious look in his eye.\nHe had entered the flat noiselessly. She remembered having told him, in\nresponse to a question, that she now did his room in the afternoon. Why\nshould he have left his shop? He hung up his hat behind the door, with\nthe meticulous care of an old man. Then he took off his overcoat and\nrubbed his hands.\n\n\"You do well to wear gloves, madame,\" he said. \"It is dog's weather.\"\n\n\"I do not wear them for the cold,\" she replied. \"I wear them so as not\nto spoil my hands.\"\n\n\"Ah! truly! Very well! Very well! May I demand some wood? Where shall I\nfind it? I do not wish to derange you.\"\n\nShe refused his help, and brought wood from the kitchen, counting the\nlogs audibly before him.\n\n\"Shall I light the fire now?\" she asked.\n\n\"I will light it,\" he said.\n\n\"Give me a match, please.\"\n\nAs she was arranging the wood and paper, he said: \"Madame, will you\nlisten to me?\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"Do not be angry,\" he said. \"Have I not proved that I am capable of\nrespecting you? I continue in that respect. It is with all that respect\nthat I say to you that I love you, madame.... No, remain calm, I\nimplore you!\" The fact was that Sophia showed no sign of not remaining\ncalm. \"It is true that I have a wife. But what do you wish...? She is\nfar away. I love you madly,\" he proceeded with dignified respect. \"I\nknow I am old; but I am rich. I understand your character. You are a\nlady, you are decided, direct, sincere, and a woman of business. I have\nthe greatest respect for you. One can talk to you as one could not to\nanother woman. You prefer directness and sincerity. Madame, I will give\nyou two thousand francs a month, and all you require from my shop, if\nyou will be amiable to me. I am very solitary, I need the society of a\ncharming creature who would be sympathetic. Two thousand francs a\nmonth. It is money.\"\n\nHe wiped his shiny head with his hand.\n\nSophia was bending over the fire. She turned her head towards him.\n\n\"Is that all?\" she said quietly.\n\n\"You could count on my discretion,\" he said in a low voice. \"I\nappreciate your scruples. I would come, very late, to your room on the\nsixth. One could arrange ... You see, I am direct, like you.\"\n\nShe had an impulse to order him tempestuously out of the flat; but it\nwas not a genuine impulse. He was an old fool. Why not treat him as\nsuch? To take him seriously would be absurd. Moreover, he was a very\nremunerative boarder.\n\n\"Do not be stupid,\" she said with cruel tranquillity. \"Do not be an old\nfool.\"\n\nAnd the benign but fatuous middle-aged lecher saw the enchanting vision\nof Sophia, with her natty apron and her amusing gloves, sweep and fade\nfrom the room. He left the house, and the expensive fire warmed an\nempty room.\n\nSophia was angry with him. He had evidently planned the proposal. If\ncapable of respect, he was evidently also capable of chicane. But she\nsupposed these Frenchmen were all alike: disgusting; and decided that\nit was useless to worry over a universal fact. They had simply no\nshame, and she had been very prudent to establish herself far away on\nthe sixth floor. She hoped that none of the other boarders had\noverheard Niepce's outrageous insolence. She was not sure if Chirac was\nnot writing in his room.\n\nThat night there was no sound of cannon in the distance, and Sophia for\nsome time was unable to sleep. She woke up with a start, after a doze,\nand struck a match to look at her watch. It had stopped. She had\nforgotten to wind it up, which omission indicated that the grocer had\nperturbed her more than she thought. She could not be sure how long she\nhad slept. The hour might be two o'clock or it might be six o'clock.\nImpossible for her to rest! She got up and dressed (in case it should\nbe as late as she feared) and crept down the interminable creaking\nstairs with the candle. As she descended, the conviction that it was\nthe middle of the night grew upon her, and she stepped more softly.\nThere was no sound save that caused by her footfalls. With her latchkey\nshe cautiously opened the front door of the flat and entered. She could\nthen hear the noisy ticking of the small, cheap clock in the kitchen.\nAt the same moment another door creaked, and Chirac, with hair all\ntousled, but fully dressed, appeared in the corridor.\n\n\"So you have decided to sell yourself to him!\" Chirac whispered.\n\nShe drew away instinctively, and she could feel herself blushing. She\nwas at a loss. She saw that Chirac was in a furious rage, tremendously\nmoved. He crept towards her, half crouching. She had never seen\nanything so theatrical as his movement, and the twitching of his face.\nShe felt that she too ought to be theatrical, that she ought nobly to\nscorn his infamous suggestion, his unwarrantable attack. Even supposing\nthat she had decided to sell herself to the old pasha, did that concern\nhim? A dignified silence, an annihilating glance, were all that he\ndeserved. But she was not capable of this heroic behaviour.\n\n\"What time is it?\" she added weakly.\n\n\"Three o'clock,\" Chirac sneered.\n\n\"I forgot to wind up my watch,\" she said. \"And so I came down to see.\"\n\n\"In effect!\" He spoke sarcastically, as if saying: \"I've waited for\nyou, and here you are.\"\n\nShe said to herself that she owed him nothing, but all the time she\nfelt that he and she were the only young people in that flat, and that\nshe did owe to him the proof that she was guiltless of the supreme\ndishonour of youth. She collected her forces and looked at him.\n\n\"You should be ashamed,\" she said. \"You will wake the others.\"\n\n\"And M. Niepce--will he need to be wakened?\"\n\n\"M. Niepce is not here,\" she said.\n\nNiepce's door was unlatched. She pushed it open, and went into the\nroom, which was empty and bore no sign of having been used.\n\n\"Come and satisfy yourself!\" she insisted.\n\nChirac did so. His face fell.\n\nShe took her watch from her pocket.\n\n\"And now wind my watch, and set it, please.\"\n\nShe saw that he was in anguish. He could not take the watch. Tears came\ninto his eyes. Then he hid his face, and dashed away. She heard a\nsob-impeded murmur that sounded like, \"Forgive me!\" and the banging of\na door. And in the stillness she heard the regular snoring of M.\nCarlier. She too cried. Her vision was blurred by a mist, and she\nstumbled into the kitchen and seized the clock, and carried it with her\nupstairs, and shivered in the intense cold of the night. She wept\ngently for a very long time. \"What a shame! What a shame!\" she said to\nherself. Yet she did not quite blame Chirac. The frost drove her into\nbed, but not to sleep. She continued to cry. At dawn her eyes were\ninflamed with weeping. She was back in the kitchen then. Chirac's door\nwas wide open. He had left the flat. On the slate was written, \"I shall\nnot take meals to-day.\"\n\nIII\n\nTheir relations were permanently changed. For several days they did not\nmeet at all; and when at the end of the week Chirac was obliged at last\nto face Sophia in order to pay his bill, he had a most grievous\nexpression. It was obvious that he considered himself a criminal\nwithout any defence to offer for his crime. He seemed to make no\nattempt to hide his state of mind. But he said nothing. As for Sophia,\nshe preserved a mien of amiable cheerfulness. She exerted herself to\nconvince him by her attitude that she bore no resentment, that she had\ndetermined to forget the incident, that in short she was the forgiving\nangel of his dreams. She did not, however, succeed entirely in being\nquite natural. Confronted by his misery, it would have been impossible\nfor her to be quite natural, and at the same time quite cheerful!\n\nA little later the social atmosphere of the flat began to grow\nquerulous, disputatious and perverse. The nerves of everybody were\nseriously strained. This applied to the whole city. Days of heavy rains\nfollowed the sharp frosts, and the town was, as it were, sodden with\nwoe. The gates were closed. And though nine-tenths of the inhabitants\nnever went outside the gates, the definite and absolute closing of them\ndemoralized all hearts. Gas was no longer supplied. Rats, cats, and\nthorough-bred horses were being eaten and pronounced 'not bad.' The\nsiege had ceased to be a novelty. Friends did not invite one another to\na 'siege-dinner' as to a picnic. Sophia, fatigued by regular overwork,\nbecame weary of the situation. She was angry with the Prussians for\ndilatoriness, and with the French for inaction, and she poured out her\nEnglish spleen on her boarders. The boarders told each other in secret\nthat the patronne was growing formidable. Chiefly she bore a grudge\nagainst the shopkeepers; and when, upon a rumour of peace, the\nshop-windows one day suddenly blossomed with prodigious quantities of\nall edibles, at highest prices, thus proving that the famine was\nartificially created, Sophia was furious. M. Niepce in particular,\nthough he sold goods to her at a special discount, suffered\nindignities. A few days later that benign and fatherly man put himself\nlamentably in the wrong by attempting to introduce into his room a\ncharming young creature who knew how to be sympathetic. Sophia, by an\naccident unfortunate for the grocer, caught them in the corridor. She\nwas beside herself, but the only outward symptoms were a white face and\na cold steely voice that grated like a rasp on the susceptibilities of\nthe adherents of Aphrodite. At this period Sophia had certainly\ndeveloped into a termagant--without knowing it!\n\nShe would often insist now on talking about the siege, and hearing\neverything that the men could tell her. Her comments, made without the\nleast regard for the justifiable delicacy of their feelings as\nFrenchmen, sometimes led to heated exchanges. When all Montmartre and\nthe Quartier Breda was impassioned by the appearance from outside of\nthe Thirty-second battalion, she took the side of the populace, and\nwould not credit the solemn statement of the journalists, proved by\ndocuments, that these maltreated soldiers were not cowards in flight.\nShe supported the women who had spit in the faces of the Thirty-second.\nShe actually said that if she had met them, she would have spit too.\nReally, she was convinced of the innocence of the Thirty-second, but\nsomething prevented her from admitting it. The dispute ended with high\nwords between herself and Chirac.\n\nThe next day Chirac came home at an unusual hour, knocked at the\nkitchen door, and said:\n\n\"I must give notice to leave you.\"\n\n\"Why?\" she demanded curtly.\n\nShe was kneading flour and water for a potato-cake. Her potato-cakes\nwere the joy of the household.\n\n\"My paper has stopped!\" said Chirac.\n\n\"Oh!\" she added thoughtfully, but not looking at him. \"That is no\nreason why you should leave.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"This place is beyond my means. I do not need to tell\nyou that in ceasing to appear the paper has omitted to pay its debts.\nThe house owes me a month's salary. So I must leave.\"\n\n\"No!\" said Sophia. \"You can pay me when you have money.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I have no intention of accepting your kindness.\"\n\n\"Haven't you got any money?\" she abruptly asked.\n\n\"None,\" said he. \"It is the disaster--quite simply!\"\n\n\"Then you will be forced to get into debt somewhere.\"\n\n\"Yes, but not here! Not to you!\"\n\n\"Truly, Chirac,\" she exclaimed, with a cajoling voice, \"you are not\nreasonable.\"\n\n\"Nevertheless it is like that!\" he said with decision.\n\n\"Eh, well!\" she turned on him menacingly. \"It will not be like that!\nYou understand me? You will stay. And you will pay me when you can.\nOtherwise we shall quarrel. Do you imagine I shall tolerate your\nchildishness? Just because you were angry last night----\"\n\n\"It is not that,\" he protested. \"You ought to know it is not that.\"\n(She did.) \"It is solely that I cannot permit myself to----\"\n\n\"Enough!\" she cried peremptorily, stopping him. And then in a quieter\ntone, \"And what about Carlier? Is he also in the ditch?\"\n\n\"Ah! he has money,\" said Chirac, with sad envy.\n\n\"You also, one day,\" said she. \"You stop--in any case until after\nChristmas, or we quarrel. Is it agreed?\" Her accent had softened.\n\n\"You are too good!\" he yielded. \"I cannot quarrel with you. But it\npains me to accept--\"\n\n\"Oh!\" she snapped, dropping into the vulgar idiom, \"you make me sweat\nwith your stupid pride. Is it that that you call friendship? Go away\nnow. How do you wish that I should succeed with this cake while you\nstation yourself there to distract me?\"\n\nIV\n\nBut in three days' Chirac, with amazing luck, fell into another\nsituation, and on the Journal des Debats. It was the Prussians who had\nfound him a place. The celebrated Payenneville, second greatest\nchroniqueur of his time, had caught a cold while doing his duty as a\nnational guard, and had died of pneumonia. The weather was severe\nagain; soldiers were being frozen to death at Aubervilliers.\nPayenneville's position was taken by another man, whose post was\noffered to Chirac. He told Sophia of his good fortune with unconcealed\nvanity.\n\n\"You with your smile!\" she said impatiently. \"One can refuse you\nnothing!\"\n\nShe behaved just as though Chirac had disgusted her. She humbled him.\nBut with his fellow-lodgers his airs of importance as a member of the\neditorial staff of the Debats were comical in their ingenuousness. On\nthe very same day Carlier gave notice to leave Sophia. He was\ncomparatively rich; but the habits which had enabled him to arrive at\nindependence in the uncertain vocation of a journalist would not allow\nhim, while he was earning nothing, to spend a sou more than was\nabsolutely necessary. He had decided to join forces with a widowed\nsister, who was accustomed to parsimony as parsimony is understood in\nFrance, and who was living on hoarded potatoes and wine.\n\n\"There!\" said Sophia, \"you have lost me a tenant!\"\n\nAnd she insisted, half jocularly and half seriously, that Carlier was\nleaving because he could not stand Chirac's infantile conceit. The flat\nwas full of acrimonious words.\n\nOn Christmas morning Chirac lay in bed rather late; the newspapers did\nnot appear that day. Paris seemed to be in a sort of stupor. About\neleven o'clock he came to the kitchen door.\n\n\"I must speak with you,\" he said. His tone impressed Sophia.\n\n\"Enter,\" said she.\n\nHe went in, and closed the door like a conspirator. \"We must have a\nlittle fete,\" he said. \"You and I.\"\n\n\"Fete!\" she repeated. \"What an idea! How can I leave?\"\n\nIf the idea had not appealed to the secrecies of her heart, stirring\ndesires and souvenirs upon which the dust of time lay thick, she would\nnot have begun by suggesting difficulties; she would have begun by a\nflat refusal.\n\n\"That is nothing,\" he said vigorously. \"It is Christmas, and I must\nhave a chat with you. We cannot chat here. I have not had a true little\nchat with you since you were ill. You will come with me to a restaurant\nfor lunch.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"And the lunch of my lodgers?\"\n\n\"You will serve it a little earlier. We will go out immediately\nafterwards, and we will return in time for you to prepare dinner. It is\nquite simple.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"You are mad,\" she said crossly.\n\n\"It is necessary that I should offer you something,\" he went on\nscowling. \"You comprehend me? I wish you to lunch with me to-day. I\ndemand it, and you are not going to refuse me.\"\n\nHe was very close to her in the little kitchen, and he spoke fiercely,\nbullyingly, exactly as she had spoken to him when insisting that he\nshould live on credit with her for a while.\n\n\"You are very rude,\" she parried.\n\n\"If I am rude, it is all the same to me,\" he held out uncompromisingly.\n\"You will lunch with me; I hold to it.\"\n\n\"How can I be dressed?\" she protested.\n\n\"That does not concern me. Arrange that as you can.\"\n\nIt was the most curious invitation to a Christmas dinner imaginable.\n\nAt a quarter past twelve they issued forth side by side, heavily clad,\ninto the mournful streets. The sky, slate-coloured, presaged snow. The\nair was bitterly cold, and yet damp. There were no fiacres in the\nlittle three-cornered place which forms the mouth of the Rue Clausel.\nIn the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, a single empty omnibus was toiling up\nthe steep glassy slope, the horses slipping and recovering themselves\nin response to the whip-cracking, which sounded in the streets as in an\nempty vault. Higher up, in the Rue Fontaine, one of the few shops that\nwere open displayed this announcement: \"A large selection of cheeses\nfor New Year's gifts.\" They laughed.\n\n\"Last year at this moment,\" said Chirac, \"I was thinking of only one\nthing--the masked ball at the opera. I could not sleep after it. This\nyear even the churches, are not open. And you?\"\n\nShe put her lips together. \"Do not ask me,\" she said.\n\nThey proceeded in silence.\n\n\"We are triste, we others,\" he said. \"But the Prussians, in their\ntrenches, they cannot be so gay, either! Their families and their\nChristmas trees must be lacking to them. Let us laugh!\"\n\nThe Place Blanche and the Boulevard de Clichy were no more lively than\nthe lesser streets and squares. There was no life anywhere, scarcely a\nsound; not even the sound of cannon. Nobody knew anything; Christmas\nhad put the city into a lugubrious trance of hopelessness. Chirac took\nSophia's arm across the Place Blanche, and a few yards up the Rue Lepic\nhe stopped at a small restaurant, famous among the initiated, and known\nas \"The Little Louis.\" They entered, descending by two steps into a\nconfined and sombrely picturesque interior.\n\nSophia saw that they were expected. Chirac must have paid a previous\nvisit to the restaurant that morning. Several disordered tables showed\nthat people had already lunched, and left; but in the corner was a\ntable for two, freshly laid in the best manner of such restaurants;\nthat is to say, with a red-and-white checked cloth, and two other\nred-and-white cloths, almost as large as the table-cloth, folded as\nserviettes and arranged flat on two thick plates between solid steel\ncutlery; a salt-cellar, out of which one ground rock-salt by turning a\nhandle, a pepper-castor, two knife-rests, and two common tumblers. The\nphenomena which differentiated this table from the ordinary table were\na champagne bottle and a couple of champagne glasses. Champagne was one\nof the few items which had not increased in price during the siege.\n\nThe landlord and his wife were eating in another corner, a fat,\nslatternly pair, whom no privations of a siege could have emaciated.\nThe landlord rose. He was dressed as a chef, all in white, with the\nsacred cap; but a soiled white. Everything in the place was untidy,\nunkempt and more or less unclean, except just the table upon which\nchampagne was waiting. And yet the restaurant was agreeable,\nreassuring. The landlord greeted his customers as honest friends. His\ngreasy face was honest, and so was the pale, weary, humorous face of\nhis wife. Chirac saluted her.\n\n\"You see,\" said she, across from the other corner, indicating a bone on\nher plate. \"This is Diane!\"\n\n\"Ah! the poor animal!\" exclaimed Chirac, sympathetically.\n\n\"What would you?\" said the landlady. \"It cost too dear to feed her. And\nshe was so mignonne! One could not watch her grow thin!\"\n\n\"I was saying to my wife,\" the landlord put in, \"how she would have\nenjoyed that bone--Diane!\" He roared with laughter.\n\nSophia and the landlady exchanged a curious sad smile at this\npleasantry, which had been re-discovered by the landlord for perhaps\nthe thousandth time during the siege, but which he evidently regarded\nas quite new and original.\n\n\"Eh, well!\" he continued confidentially to Chirac. \"I have found for\nyou something very good--half a duck.\" And in a still lower tone: \"And\nit will not cost you too dear.\"\n\nNo attempt to realize more than a modest profit was ever made in that\nrestaurant. It possessed a regular clientele who knew the value of the\nlittle money they had, and who knew also how to appreciate sincere and\naccomplished cookery. The landlord was the chef, and he was always\nreferred to as the chef, even by his wife.\n\n\"How did you get that?\" Chirac asked.\n\n\"Ah!\" said the landlord, mysteriously. \"I have one of my friends, who\ncomes from Villeneuve St. Georges--refugee, you know. In fine ...\" A\nwave of the fat hands, suggesting that Chirac should not inquire too\nclosely.\n\n\"In effect!\" Chirac commented. \"But it is very chic, that!\"\n\n\"I believe you that it is chic!\" said the landlady, sturdily.\n\n\"It is charming,\" Sophia murmured politely.\n\n\"And then a quite little salad!\" said the landlord.\n\n\"But that--that is still more striking!\" said Chirac.\n\nThe landlord winked. The fact was that the commerce which resulted in\nfresh green vegetables in the heart of a beleagured town was notorious.\n\n\"And then also a quite little cheese!\" said Sophia, slightly imitating\nthe tone of the landlord, as she drew from the inwardness of her cloak\na small round parcel. It contained a Brie cheese, in fairly good\ncondition. It was worth at least fifty francs, and it had cost Sophia\nless than two francs. The landlady joined the landlord in inspecting\nthis wondrous jewel. Sophia seized a knife and cut a slice for the\nlandlady's table.\n\n\"Madame is too good!\" said the landlady, confused by this noble\ngenerosity, and bearing the gift off to her table as a fox-terrier will\nhurriedly seek solitude with a sumptuous morsel. The landlord beamed.\nChirac was enchanted. In the intimate and unaffected cosiness of that\ninterior the vast, stupefied melancholy of the city seemed to be\nforgotten, to have lost its sway.\n\nThen the landlord brought a hot brick for the feet of madame. It was\nmore an acknowledgment of the slice of cheese than a necessity, for the\nrestaurant was very warm; the tiny kitchen opened directly into it, and\nthe door between the two was open; there was no ventilation whatever.\n\n\"It is a friend of mine,\" said the landlord, proudly, in the way of\ngossip as he served an undescribed soup, \"a butcher in the Faubourg St.\nHonore, who has bought the three elephants of the Jardin des Plantes\nfor twenty-seven thousand francs.\"\n\nEyebrows were lifted. He uncorked the champagne.\n\nAs she drank the first mouthful (she had long lost her youthful\naversion for wine), Sophia had a glimpse of herself in a tilted mirror\nhung rather high on the opposite wall. It was several months since she\nhad attired herself with ceremoniousness. The sudden unexpected vision\nof elegance and pallid beauty pleased her. And the instant effect of\nthe champagne was to renew in her mind a forgotten conception of the\ngoodness of life and of the joys which she had so long missed.\n\nV\n\nAt half-past two they were alone in the little salon of the restaurant,\nand vaguely in their dreamy and feverish minds that were too\npreoccupied to control with precision their warm, relaxed bodies, there\nfloated the illusion that the restaurant belonged to them and that in\nit they were at home. It was no longer a restaurant, but a retreat and\nshelter from hard life. The chef and his wife were dozing in an inner\nroom. The champagne was drunk; the adorable cheese was eaten; and they\nwere sipping Marc de Bourgogne. They sat at right angles to one\nanother, close to one another, with brains aswing; full of good nature\nand quick sympathy; their flesh content and yet expectant. In a pause\nof the conversation (which, entirely banal and fragmentary, had seemed\nto reach the acme of agreeableness), Chirac put his hand on the hand of\nSophia as it rested limp on the littered table. Accidentally she caught\nhis eye; she had not meant to do so. They both became self-conscious.\nHis thin, bearded face had more than ever that wistfulness which always\nsoftened towards him the uncompromisingness of her character. He had\nthe look of a child. For her, Gerald had sometimes shown the same look.\nBut indeed she was now one of those women for whom all men, and\nespecially all men in a tender mood, are invested with a certain\nincurable quality of childishness. She had not withdrawn her hand at\nonce, and so she could not withdraw it at all.\n\nHe gazed at her with timid audacity. Her eyes were liquid.\n\n\"What are you thinking about?\" she asked.\n\n\"I was asking myself what I should have done if you had refused to\ncome.\"\n\n\"And what SHOULD you have done?\"\n\n\"Assuredly something terribly inconvenient,\" he replied, with the large\nimportance of a man who is in the domain of pure supposition. He leaned\ntowards her. \"My very dear friend,\" he said in a different voice,\ngetting bolder.\n\nIt was infinitely sweet to her, voluptuously sweet, this basking in the\nheat of temptation. It certainly did seem to her, then, the one real\npleasure in the world. Her body might have been saying to his: \"See how\nready I am!\" Her body might have been saying to his: \"Look into my\nmind. For you I have no modesty. Look and see all that is there.\" The\nveil of convention seemed to have been rent. Their attitude to each\nother was almost that of lover and mistress, between whom a single\nglance may be charged with the secrets of the past and promises for the\nfuture. Morally she was his mistress in that moment.\n\nHe released her hand and put his arm round her waist.\n\n\"I love thee,\" he whispered with great emotion.\n\nHer face changed and hardened. \"You must not do that,\" she said,\ncoldly, unkindly, harshly. She scowled. She would not abate one crease\nin her forehead to the appeal of his surprised glance. Yet she did not\nwant to repulse him. The instinct which repulsed him was not within her\ncontrol. Just as a shy man will obstinately refuse an invitation which\nhe is hungering to accept, so, though not from shyness, she was\ncompelled to repulse Chirac. Perhaps if her desires had not been laid\nto sleep by excessive physical industry and nervous strain, the sequel\nmight have been different.\n\nChirac, like most men who have once found a woman weak, imagined that\nhe understood women profoundly. He thought of women as the Occidental\nthinks of the Chinese, as a race apart, mysterious but capable of being\ninfallibly comprehended by the application of a few leading principles\nof psychology. Moreover he was in earnest; he was hard driven, and he\nwas honest. He continued, respectfully obedient in withdrawing his arm:\n\n\"Very dear friend,\" he urged with undaunted confidence, \"you must know\nthat I love you.\"\n\nShe shook her head impatiently, all the time wondering what it was that\nprevented her from slipping into his arms. She knew that she was\ntreating him badly by this brusque change of front; but she could not\nhelp it. Then she began to feel sorry for him.\n\n\"We have been very good friends,\" he said. \"I have always admired you\nenormously. I did not think that I should dare to love you until that\nday when I overheard that old villain Niepce make his advances. Then,\nwhen I perceived my acute jealousy, I knew that I was loving you. Ever\nsince, I have thought only of you. I swear to you that if you will not\nbelong to me, it is already finished for me! Altogether! Never have I\nseen a woman like you! So strong, so proud, so kind, and so beautiful!\nYou are astonishing, yes, astonishing! No other woman could have drawn\nherself out of an impossible situation as you have done, since the\ndisappearance of your husband. For me, you are a woman unique. I am\nvery sincere. Besides, you know it ... Dear friend!\"\n\nShe shook her head passionately.\n\nShe did not love him. But she was moved. And she wanted to love him.\nShe wanted to yield to him, only liking him, and to love afterwards.\nBut this obstinate instinct held her back. \"I do not say, now,\" Chirac\nwent on. \"Let me hope.\"\n\nThe Latin theatricality of his gestures and his tone made her sorrowful\nfor him.\n\n\"My poor Chirac!\" she plaintively murmured, and began to put on her\ngloves.\n\n\"I shall hope!\" he persisted.\n\nShe pursed her lips. He seized her violently by the waist. She drew her\nface away from his, firmly. She was not hard, not angry now.\nDisconcerted by her compassion, he loosed her.\n\n\"My poor Chirac,\" she said, \"I ought not to have come. I must go. It is\nperfectly useless. Believe me.\"\n\n\"No, no!\" he whispered fiercely.\n\nShe stood up and the abrupt movement pushed the table gratingly across\nthe floor. The throbbing spell of the flesh was snapped like a\nstretched string, and the scene over. The landlord, roused from his\ndoze, stumbled in. Chirac had nothing but the bill as a reward for his\npains. He was baffled.\n\nThey left the restaurant, silently, with a foolish air.\n\nDusk was falling on the mournful streets, and the lamp-lighters were\nlighting the miserable oil lamps that had replaced gas. They two, and\nthe lamplighters, and an omnibus were alone in the streets. The gloom\nwas awful; it was desolating. The universal silence seemed to be the\nsilence of despair. Steeped in woe, Sophia thought wearily upon the\nhopeless problem of existence. For it seemed to her that she and Chirac\nhad created this woe out of nothing, and yet it was an incurable woe!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nSUCCESS\n\nI\n\n\nSophia lay awake one night in the room lately quitted by Carlier. That\nsilent negation of individuality had come and gone, and left scarcely\nany record of himself either in his room or in the memories of those\nwho had surrounded his existence in the house. Sophia had decided to\ndescend from the sixth floor, partly because the temptation of a large\nroom, after months in a cubicle, was rather strong; but more because of\nlate she had been obliged to barricade the door of the cubicle with a\nchest of drawers, owing to the propensities of a new tenant of the\nsixth floor. It was useless to complain to the concierge; the sole\neffective argument was the chest of drawers, and even that was frailer\nthan Sophia could have wished. Hence, finally, her retreat.\n\nShe heard the front-door of the flat open; then it was shut with\nnervous violence. The resonance of its closing would have certainly\nwakened less accomplished sleepers than M. Niepce and his friend, whose\nsnores continued with undisturbed regularity. After a pause of\nshuffling, a match was struck, and feet crept across the corridor with\nthe most exaggerated precautions against noise. There followed the\nunintentional bang of another door. It was decidedly the entry of a man\nwithout the slightest natural aptitude for furtive irruptions. The\nclock in M. Niepce's room, which the grocer had persuaded to exact\ntime-keeping, chimed three with its delicate ting.\n\nFor several days past Chirac had been mysteriously engaged very late at\nthe bureaux of the Debats. No one knew the nature of his employment; he\nsaid nothing, except to inform Sophia that he would continue to come\nhome about three o'clock until further notice. She had insisted on\nleaving in his room the materials and apparatus for a light meal.\nNaturally he had protested, with the irrational obstinacy of a\nphysically weak man who sticks to it that he can defy the laws of\nnature. But he had protested in vain.\n\nHis general conduct since Christmas Day had frightened Sophia, in spite\nof her tendency to stifle facile alarms at their birth. He had eaten\nscarcely anything at all, and he went about with the face of a man\ndying of a broken heart. The change in him was indeed tragic. And\ninstead of improving, he grew worse. \"Have I done this?\" Sophia asked\nherself. \"It is impossible that I should have done this! It is absurd\nand ridiculous that he should behave so!\" Her thoughts were employed\nalternately in sympathizing with him and in despising him, in blaming\nherself and in blaming him. When they spoke, they spoke awkwardly, as\nthough one or both of them had committed a shameful crime, which could\nnot even be mentioned. The atmosphere of the flat was tainted by the\nhorror. And Sophia could not offer him a bowl of soup without wondering\nhow he would look at her or avoid looking, and without carefully\narranging in advance her own gestures and speech. Existence was a\nnightmare of self-consciousness.\n\n\"At last they have unmasked their batteries!\" he had exclaimed with\npainful gaiety two days after Christmas, when the besiegers had\nrecommenced their cannonade. He tried to imitate the strange, general\njoy of the city, which had been roused from apathy by the recurrence of\na familiar noise; but the effort was a deplorable failure. And Sophia\ncondemned not merely the failure of Chirac's imitation, but the thing\nimitated. \"Childish!\" she thought. Yet, despise the feebleness of\nChirac's behaviour as she might, she was deeply impressed, genuinely\nastonished, by the gravity and persistence of the symptoms. \"He must\nhave been getting himself into a state about me for a long time,\" she\nthought. \"Surely he could not have gone mad like this all in a day or\ntwo! But I never noticed anything. No; honestly I never noticed\nanything!\" And just as her behaviour in the restaurant had shaken\nChirac's confidence in his knowledge of the other sex, so now the\nsingular behaviour of Chirac shook hers. She was taken aback. She was\nfrightened, though she pretended not to be frightened.\n\nShe had lived over and over again the scene in the restaurant. She\nasked herself over and over again if really she had not beforehand\nexpected him to make love to her in the restaurant. She could not\ndecide exactly when she had begun to expect a declaration; but probably\na long time before the meal was finished. She had foreseen it, and\nmight have stopped it. But she had not chosen to stop it. Curiosity\nconcerning not merely him, but also herself, had tempted her tacitly to\nencourage him. She asked herself over and over again why she had\nrepulsed him. It struck her as curious that she had repulsed him. Was\nit because she was a married woman? Was it because she had moral\nscruples? Was it at bottom because she did not care for him? Was it\nbecause she could not care for anybody? Was it because his fervid\nmanner of love-making offended her English phlegm? And did she feel\npleased or displeased by his forbearance in not renewing the assault?\nShe could not answer. She did not know.\n\nBut all the time she knew that she wanted love. Only, she conceived a\ndifferent kind of love: placid, regular, somewhat stern, somewhat above\nthe plane of whims, moods, caresses, and all mere fleshly contacts. Not\nthat she considered that she despised these things (though she did)!\nWhat she wanted was a love that was too proud, too independent, to\nexhibit frankly either its joy or its pain. She hated a display of\nsentiment. And even in the most intimate abandonments she would have\nmade reserves, and would have expected reserves, trusting to a lover's\npowers of divination, and to her own! The foundation of her character\nwas a haughty moral independence, and this quality was what she most\nadmired in others.\n\nChirac's inability to draw from his own pride strength to sustain\nhimself against the blow of her refusal gradually killed in her the\nsexual desire which he had aroused, and which during a few days\nflickered up under the stimulus of fancy and of regret. Sophia saw with\nincreasing clearness that her unreasoning instinct had been right in\nsaying him nay. And when, in spite of this, regrets still visited her,\nshe would comfort herself in thinking: \"I cannot be bothered with all\nthat sort of thing. It is not worth while. What does it lead to? Is not\nlife complicated enough without that? No, no! I will stay as I am. At\nany rate I know what I am in for, as things are!\" And she would reflect\nupon her hopeful financial situation, and the approaching prospect of a\nconstantly sufficient income. And a little thrill of impatience against\nthe interminable and gigantic foolishness of the siege would take her.\n\nBut her self-consciousness in presence of Chirac did not abate.\n\nAs she lay in bed she awaited accustomed sounds which should have\nconnoted Chirac's definite retirement for the night. Her ear, however,\ncaught no sound whatever from his room. Then she imagined that there\nwas a smell of burning in the flat. She sat up, and sniffed anxiously,\nof a sudden wideawake and apprehensive. And then she was sure that the\nsmell of burning was not in her imagination. The bedroom was in perfect\ndarkness. Feverishly she searched with her right hand for the matches\non the night-table, and knocked candlestick and matches to the floor.\nShe seized her dressing-gown, which was spread over the bed, and put it\non, aiming for the door. Her feet were bare. She discovered the door.\nIn the passage she could discern nothing at first, and then she made\nout a thin line of light, which indicated the bottom of Chirac's door.\nThe smell of burning was strong and unmistakable. She went towards the\nfaint light, fumbled for the door-handle with her palm, and opened. It\ndid not occur to her to call out and ask what was the matter.\n\nThe house was not on fire; but it might have been. She had left on the\ntable at the foot of Chirac's bed a small cooking-lamp, and a saucepan\nof bouillon. All that Chirac had to do was to ignite the lamp and put\nthe saucepan on it. He had ignited the lamp, having previously raised\nthe double wicks, and had then dropped into the chair by the table just\nas he was, and sunk forward and gone to sleep with his head lying\nsideways on the table. He had not put the saucepan on the lamp; he had\nnot lowered the wicks, and the flames, capped with thick black smoke,\nwere waving slowly to and fro within a few inches of his loose hair.\nHis hat had rolled along the floor; he was wearing his great overcoat\nand one woollen glove; the other glove had lodged on his slanting knee.\nA candle was also burning.\n\nSophia hastened forward, as it were surreptitiously, and with a\nforward-reaching movement turned down the wicks of the lamp; black\nspecks were falling on the table; happily the saucepan was covered, or\nthe bouillon would have been ruined.\n\nChirac made a heart-rending spectacle, and Sophia was aware of deep and\npainful emotion in seeing him thus. He must have been utterly exhausted\nand broken by loss of sleep. He was a man incapable of regular hours,\nincapable of treating his body with decency. Though going to bed at\nthree o'clock, he had continued to rise at his usual hour. He looked\nlike one dead; but more sad, more wistful. Outside in the street a fog\nreigned, and his thin draggled beard was jewelled with the moisture of\nit. His attitude had the unconsidered and violent prostration of an\noverspent dog. The beaten animal in him was expressed in every detail\nof that posture. It showed even in his white, drawn eyelids, and in the\nfalling of a finger. All his face was very sad. It appealed for mercy\nas the undefended face of sleep always appeals; it was so helpless, so\nexposed, so simple. It recalled Sophia to a sense of the inner\nmysteries of life, reminding her somehow that humanity walks ever on a\nthin crust over terrific abysses. She did not physically shudder; but\nher soul shuddered.\n\nShe mechanically placed the saucepan on the lamp, and the noise\nawakened Chirac. He groaned. At first he did not perceive her. When he\nsaw that some one was looking down at him, he did not immediately\nrealize who this some one was. He rubbed his eyes with his fists,\nexactly like a baby, and sat up, and the chair cracked.\n\n\"What then?\" he demanded. \"Oh, madame, I ask pardon. What?\"\n\n\"You have nearly destroyed the house,\" she said. \"I smelt fire, and I\ncame in. I was just in time. There is no danger now. But please be\ncareful.\" She made as if to move towards the door.\n\n\"But what did I do?\" he asked, his eyelids wavering.\n\nShe explained.\n\nHe rose from his chair unsteadily. She told him to sit down again, and\nhe obeyed as though in a dream.\n\n\"I can go now,\" she said.\n\n\"Wait one moment,\" he murmured. \"I ask pardon. I should not know how to\nthank you. You are truly too good. Will you wait one moment?\"\n\nHis tone was one of supplication. He gazed at her, a little dazzled by\nthe light and by her. The lamp and the candle illuminated the lower\npart of her face, theatrically, and showed the texture of her blue\nflannel peignoir; the pattern of a part of the lace collar was\nsilhouetted in shadow on her cheek. Her face was flushed, and her hair\nhung down unconfined. Evidently he could not recover from his excusable\nastonishment at the apparition of such a figure in his room.\n\n\"What is it--now?\" she said. The faint, quizzical emphasis which she\nput on the 'now' indicated the essential of her thought. The sight of\nhim touched her and filled her with a womanly sympathy. But that\nsympathy was only the envelope of her disdain of him. She could not\nadmire weakness. She could but pity it with a pity in which scorn was\nmingled. Her instinct was to treat him as a child. He had failed in\nhuman dignity. And it seemed to her as if she had not previously been\nquite certain whether she could not love him, but that now she was\nquite certain. She was close to him. She saw the wounds of a soul that\ncould not hide its wounds, and she resented the sight. She was hard.\nShe would not make allowances. And she revelled in her hardness.\nContempt--a good-natured, kindly, forgiving contempt--that was the\nkernel of the sympathy which exteriorly warmed her! Contempt for the\nlack of self-control which had resulted in this swift degeneration of a\nman into a tortured victim! Contempt for the lack of perspective which\nmagnified a mere mushroom passion till it filled the whole field of\nlife! Contempt for this feminine slavery to sentiment! She felt that\nshe might have been able to give herself to Chirac as one gives a toy\nto an infant. But of loving him...! No! She was conscious of an\nimmeasurable superiority to him, for she was conscious of the freedom\nof a strong mind.\n\n\"I wanted to tell you,\" said he, \"I am going away.\"\n\n\"Where?\" she asked.\n\n\"Out of Paris.\"\n\n\"Out of Paris? How?\"\n\n\"By balloon! My journal...! It is an affair of great importance. You\nunderstand. I offered myself. What would you?\"\n\n\"It is dangerous,\" she observed, waiting to see if he would put on the\nsilly air of one who does not understand fear.\n\n\"Oh!\" the poor fellow muttered with a fatuous intonation and snapping\nof the fingers. \"That is all the same to me. Yes, it is dangerous. Yes,\nit is dangerous!\" he repeated. \"But what would you...? For me...!\"\n\nShe wished that she had not mentioned danger. It hurt her to watch him\nincurring her ironic disdain.\n\n\"It will be the night after to-morrow,\" he said. \"In the courtyard of\nthe Gare du Nord. I want you to come and see me go. I particularly want\nyou to come and see me go. I have asked Carlier to escort you.\"\n\nHe might have been saying, \"I am offering myself to martyrdom, and you\nmust assist at the spectacle.\"\n\nShe despised him yet more.\n\n\"Oh! Be tranquil,\" he said. \"I shall not worry you. Never shall I speak\nto you again of my love. I know you. I know it would be useless. But I\nhope you will come and wish me bon voyage.\"\n\n\"Of course, if you really wish it,\" she replied with cheerful coolness.\n\nHe seized her hand and kissed it.\n\nOnce it had pleased her when he kissed her hand. But now she did not\nlike it. It seemed hysterical and foolish to her. She felt her feet to\nbe stone-cold on the floor.\n\n\"I'll leave you now,\" she said. \"Please eat your soup.\"\n\nShe escaped, hoping he would not espy her feet.\n\nII\n\nThe courtyard of the Nord Railway Station was lighted by oil-lamps\ntaken from locomotives; their silvered reflectors threw dazzling rays\nfrom all sides on the under portion of the immense yellow mass of the\nballoon; the upper portion was swaying to and fro with gigantic\nungainliness in the strong breeze. It was only a small balloon, as\nballoons are measured, but it seemed monstrous as it wavered over the\nhuman forms that were agitating themselves beneath it. The cordage was\nsilhouetted against the yellow taffetas as high up as the widest\ndiameter of the balloon, but above that all was vague, and even\nspectators standing at a distance could not clearly separate the summit\nof the great sphere from the darkly moving sky. The car, held by ropes\nfastened to stakes, rose now and then a few inches uneasily from the\nground. The sombre and severe architecture of the station-buildings\nenclosed the balloon on every hand; it had only one way of escape. Over\nthe roofs of that architecture, which shut out the sounds of the city,\ncame the irregular booming of the bombardment. Shells were falling in\nthe southern quarters of Paris, doing perhaps not a great deal of\ndamage, but still plunging occasionally into the midst of some domestic\ninterior and making a sad mess of it. The Parisians were convinced that\nthe shells were aimed maliciously at hospitals and museums; and when a\nchild happened to be blown to pieces their unspoken comments upon the\nPrussian savagery were bitter. Their faces said: \"Those barbarians\ncannot even spare our children!\" They amused themselves by creating a\nmarket in shells, paying more for a live shell than a dead one, and\nmodifying the tariff according to the supply. And as the cattle-market\nwas empty, and the vegetable-market was empty, and beasts no longer\npastured on the grass of the parks, and the twenty-five million rats of\nthe metropolis were too numerous to furnish interest to spectators, and\nthe Bourse was practically deserted, the traffic in shells sustained\nthe starving mercantile instinct during a very dull period. But the\neffect on the nerves was deleterious. The nerves of everybody were like\nnothing but a raw wound. Violent anger would spring up magically out of\nlaughter, and blows out of caresses. This indirect consequence of the\nbombardment was particularly noticeable in the group of men under the\nballoon. Each behaved as if he were controlling his temper in the most\ndifficult circumstances. Constantly they all gazed upwards into the\nsky, though nothing could possibly be distinguished there save the\nblurred edge of a flying cloud. But the booming came from that sky; the\nshells that were dropping on Montrouge came out of that sky; and the\nballoon was going up into it; the balloon was ascending into its\nmysteries, to brave its dangers, to sweep over the encircling ring of\nfire and savages.\n\nSophia stood apart with Carlier. Carlier had indicated a particular\nspot, under the shelter of the colonnade, where he said it was\nimperative that they should post themselves. Having guided Sophia to\nthis spot, and impressed upon her that they were not to move, he seemed\nto consider that the activity of his role was finished, and spoke no\nword. With the very high silk hat which he always wore, and a thin\nold-fashioned overcoat whose collar was turned up, he made a rather\ngrotesque figure. Fortunately the night was not very cold, or he might\nhave passively frozen to death on the edge of that feverish group.\nSophia soon ignored him. She watched the balloon. An aristocratic old\nman leaned against the car, watch in hand; at intervals he scowled, or\nstamped his foot. An old sailor, tranquilly smoking a pipe, walked\nround and round the balloon, staring at it; once he climbed up into the\nrigging, and once he jumped into the car and angrily threw out of it a\nbag, which some one had placed in it. But for the most part he was\ncalm. Other persons of authority hurried about, talking and\ngesticulating; and a number of workmen waited idly for orders.\n\n\"Where is Chirac?\" suddenly cried the old man with the watch.\n\nSeveral voices deferentially answered, and a man ran away into the\ngloom on an errand.\n\nThen Chirac appeared, nervous, self-conscious, restless. He was\nenveloped in a fur coat that Sophia had never seen before, and he\ncarried dangling in his hand a cage containing six pigeons whose\nwhiteness stirred uneasily within it. The sailor took the cage from him\nand all the persons of authority gathered round to inspect the\nwonderful birds upon which, apparently, momentous affairs depended.\nWhen the group separated, the sailor was to be seen bending over the\nedge of the car to deposit the cage safely. He then got into the car,\nstill smoking his pipe, and perched himself negligently on the\nwicker-work. The man with the watch was conversing with Chirac; Chirac\nnodded his head frequently in acquiescence, and seemed to be saying all\nthe time: \"Yes, sir! Perfectly sir! I understand, sir! Yes, sir!\"\n\nSuddenly Chirac turned to the car and put a question to the sailor, who\nshook his head. Whereupon Chirac gave a gesture of submissive despair\nto the man with the watch. And in an instant the whole throng was in a\nferment.\n\n\"The victuals!\" cried the man with the watch. \"The victuals, name of\nGod! Must one be indeed an idiot to forget the victuals! Name of\nGod--of God!\"\n\nSophia smiled at the agitation, and at the inefficient management which\nhad never thought of food. For it appeared that the food had not merely\nbeen forgotten; it was a question which had not even been considered.\nShe could not help despising all that crowd of self-important and fussy\nmales to whom the idea had not occurred that even balloonists must eat.\nAnd she wondered whether everything was done like that. After a delay\nthat seemed very long, the problem of victuals was solved, chiefly, as\nfar as Sophia could judge, by means of cakes of chocolate and bottles\nof wine.\n\n\"It is enough! It is enough!\" Chirac shouted passionately several times\nto a knot of men who began to argue with him.\n\nThen he gazed round furtively, and with an inflation of the chest and a\npatting of his fur coat he came directly towards Sophia. Evidently\nSophia's position had been prearranged between him and Carlier. They\ncould forget food, but they could think of Sophia's position!\n\nAll eyes followed him. Those eyes could not, in the gloom, distinguish\nSophia's beauty, but they could see that she was young and slim and\nelegant, and of foreign carriage. That was enough. The very air seemed\nto vibrate with the intense curiosity of those eyes. And immediately\nChirac grew into the hero of some brilliant and romantic adventure.\nImmediately he was envied and admired by every man of authority\npresent. What was she? Who was she? Was it a serious passion or simply\na caprice? Had she flung herself at him? It was undeniable that lovely\ncreatures did sometimes fling themselves at lucky mediocrities. Was she\na married woman? An artiste? A girl? Such queries thumped beneath\novercoats, while the correctness of a ceremonious demeanour was\nstrictly observed.\n\nChirac uncovered, and kissed her hand. The wind disarranged his hair.\nShe saw that his face was very pale and anxious beneath the swagger of\na sincere desire to be brave.\n\n\"Well, it is the moment!\" he said.\n\n\"Did you all forget the food?\" she asked.\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders. \"What will you? One cannot think of\neverything.\"\n\n\"I hope you will have a safe voyage,\" she said.\n\nShe had already taken leave of him once, in the house, and heard all\nabout the balloon and the sailor-aeronaut and the preparations; and now\nshe had nothing to say, nothing whatever.\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders again. \"I hope so!\" he murmured, but in a\ntone to convey that he had no such hope.\n\n\"The wind isn't too strong?\" she suggested.\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders again. \"What would you?\"\n\n\"Is it in the direction you want?\"\n\n\"Yes, nearly,\" he admitted unwillingly. Then rousing himself: \"Eh,\nwell, madame. You have been extremely amiable to come. I held to it\nvery much--that you should come. It is because of you I quit Paris.\"\n\nShe resented the speech by a frown.\n\n\"Ah!\" he implored in a whisper. \"Do not do that. Smile on me. After\nall, it is not my fault. Remember that this may be the last time I see\nyou, the last time I regard your eyes.\"\n\nShe smiled. She was convinced of the genuineness of the emotion which\nexpressed itself in all this flamboyant behaviour. And she had to make\nexcuses to herself on behalf of Chirac. She smiled to give him\npleasure. The hard commonsense in her might sneer, but indubitably she\nwas the centre of a romantic episode. The balloon darkly swinging\nthere! The men waiting! The secrecy of the mission! And Chirac,\nbare-headed in the wind that was to whisk him away, telling her in\nfatalistic accents that her image had devastated his life, while\nenvious aspirants watched their colloquy! Yes, it was romantic. And she\nwas beautiful! Her beauty was an active reality that went about the\nworld playing tricks in spite of herself. The thoughts that passed\nthrough her mind were the large, splendid thoughts of romance. And it\nwas Chirac who had aroused them! A real drama existed, then, triumphing\nover the accidental absurdities and pettinesses of the situation. Her\nfinal words to Chirac were tender and encouraging.\n\nHe hurried back to the balloon, resuming his cap. He was received with\nthe respect due to one who comes fresh from conquest. He was sacred.\n\nSophia rejoined Carlier, who had withdrawn, and began to talk to him\nwith a self-conscious garrulity. She spoke without reason and scarcely\nnoticed what she was saying. Already Chirac was snatched out of her\nlife, as other beings, so many of them, had been snatched. She thought\nof their first meetings, and of the sympathy which had always united\nthem. He had lost his simplicity, now, in the self-created crisis of\nhis fate, and had sunk in her esteem. And she was determined to like\nhim all the more because he had sunk in her esteem. She wondered\nwhether he really had undertaken this adventure from sentimental\ndisappointment. She wondered whether, if she had not forgotten to wind\nher watch one night, they would still have been living quietly under\nthe same roof in the Rue Breda.\n\nThe sailor climbed definitely into the car; he had covered himself with\na large cloak. Chirac had got one leg over the side of the car, and\neight men were standing by the ropes, when a horse's hoofs clattered\nthrough the guarded entrance to the courtyard, amid an uproar of sudden\nexcitement. The shiny chest of the horse was flecked with the classic\nfoam.\n\n\"A telegram from the Governor of Paris!\"\n\nAs the orderly, checking his mount, approached the group, even the old\nman with the watch raised his hat. The orderly responded, bent down to\nmake an inquiry, which Chirac answered, and then, with another exchange\nof salutes, the official telegram was handed over to Chirac, and the\nhorse backed away from the crowd. It was quite thrilling. Carlier was\nthrilled.\n\n\"He is never too prompt, the Governor. It is a quality!\" said Carlier,\nwith irony.\n\nChirac entered the car. And then the old man with the watch drew a\nblack bag from the shadow behind him and entrusted it to Chirac, who\naccepted it with a profound deference and hid it. The sailor began to\nissue commands. The men at the ropes were bending down now. Suddenly\nthe balloon rose about a foot and trembled. The sailor continued to\nshout. All the persons of authority gazed motionless at the balloon.\nThe moment of suspense was eternal.\n\n\"Let go all!\" cried the sailor, standing up, and clinging to the\ncordage. Chirac was seated in the car, a mass of dark fur with a small\npatch of white in it. The men at the ropes were a knot of struggling\nconfused figures.\n\nOne side of the car tilted up, and the sailor was nearly pitched out.\nThree men at the other side had failed to free the ropes.\n\n\"Let go, corpses!\" the sailor yelled at them.\n\nThe balloon jumped, as if it were drawn by some terrific impulse from\nthe skies.\n\n\"Adieu!\" called Chirac, pulling his cap off and waving it. \"Adieu!\"\n\n\"Bon voyage! Bon voyage!\" the little crowd cheered. And then, \"Vive la\nFrance!\" Throats tightened, including Sophia's.\n\nBut the top of the balloon had leaned over, destroying its pear-shape,\nand the whole mass swerved violently towards the wall of the station,\nthe car swinging under it like a toy, and an anchor under the car.\nThere was a cry of alarm. Then the great ball leaped again, and swept\nover the high glass roof, escaping by inches the spouting. The cheers\nexpired instantly.... The balloon was gone. It was spirited away as if\nby some furious and mighty power that had grown impatient in waiting\nfor it. There remained for a few seconds on the collective retina of\nthe spectators a vision of the inclined car swinging near the roof like\nthe tail of a kite. And then nothing! Blankness! Blackness! Already the\nballoon was lost to sight in the vast stormy ocean of the night, a\nplaything of the winds. The spectators became once more aware of the\ndull booming of the cannonade. The balloon was already perhaps flying\nunseen amid the wrack over those guns.\n\nSophia involuntarily caught her breath. A chill sense of loneliness, of\npurposelessness, numbed her being.\n\nNobody ever saw Chirac or the old sailor again. The sea must have\nswallowed them. Of the sixty-five balloons that left Paris during the\nsiege, two were not heard of. This was the first of the two. Chirac\nhad, at any rate, not magnified the peril, though his intention was\nundoubtedly to magnify it.\n\nIII\n\nThis was the end of Sophia's romantic adventures in France. Soon\nafterwards the Germans entered Paris, by mutual agreement, and made a\npoint of seeing the Louvre, and departed, amid the silence of a city.\nFor Sophia the conclusion of the siege meant chiefly that prices went\ndown. Long before supplies from outside could reach Paris, the\nshop-windows were suddenly full of goods which had arrived from the\nshopkeepers alone knew where. Sophia, with the stock in her cellar,\ncould have held out for several weeks more, and it annoyed her that she\nhad not sold more of her good things while good things were worth gold.\nThe signing of a treaty at Versailles reduced the value of Sophia's two\nremaining hams from about five pounds apiece to the usual price of\nhams. However, at the end of January she found herself in possession of\na capital of about eight thousand francs, all the furniture of the\nflat, and a reputation. She had earned it all. Nothing could destroy\nthe structure of her beauty, but she looked worn and appreciably older.\nShe wondered often when Chirac would return. She might have written to\nCarlier or to the paper; but she did not. It was Niepce who discovered\nin a newspaper that Chirac's balloon had miscarried. At the moment the\nnews did not affect her at all; but after several days she began to\nfeel her loss in a dull sort of way; and she felt it more and more,\nthough never acutely. She was perfectly convinced that Chirac could\nnever have attracted her powerfully. She continued to dream, at rare\nintervals, of the kind of passion that would have satisfied her,\nglowing but banked down like a fire in some fine chamber of a rich but\ncareful household.\n\nShe was speculating upon what her future would be, and whether by\ninertia she was doomed to stay for ever in the Rue Breda, when the\nCommune caught her. She was more vexed than frightened by the Commune;\nvexed that a city so in need of repose and industry should indulge in\nsuch antics. For many people the Commune was a worse experience than\nthe siege; but not for Sophia. She was a woman and a foreigner. Niepce\nwas infinitely more disturbed than Sophia; he went in fear of his life.\nSophia would go out to market and take her chances. It is true that\nduring one period the whole population of the house went to live in the\ncellars, and orders to the butcher and other tradesmen were given over\nthe party-wall into the adjoining courtyard, which communicated with an\nalley. A strange existence, and possibly perilous! But the women who\npassed through it and had also passed through the siege, were not very\nmuch intimidated by it, unless they happened to have husbands or lovers\nwho were active politicians.\n\nSophia did not cease, during the greater part of the year 1871, to make\na living and to save money. She watched every sou, and she developed a\ntendency to demand from her tenants all that they could pay. She\nexcused this to herself by ostentatiously declaring every detail of her\nprices in advance. It came to the same thing in the end, with this\nadvantage, that the bills did not lead to unpleasantness. Her\ndifficulties commenced when Paris at last definitely resumed its normal\naspect and life, when all the women and children came back to those\ncity termini which they had left in such huddled, hysterical throngs,\nwhen flats were re-opened that had long been shut, and men who for a\nwhole year had had the disadvantages and the advantages of being\nwithout wife and family, anchored themselves once more to the hearth.\nThen it was that Sophia failed to keep all her rooms let. She could\nhave let them easily and constantly and at high rents; but not to men\nwithout encumbrances. Nearly every day she refused attractive tenants\nin pretty hats, or agreeable gentlemen who only wanted a room on\ncondition that they might offer hospitality to a dashing petticoat. It\nwas useless to proclaim aloud that her house was 'serious.' The\nambition of the majority of these joyous persons was to live in a\n'serious' house, because each was sure that at bottom he or she was a\n'serious' person, and quite different from the rest of the joyous\nworld. The character of Sophia's flat, instead of repelling the wrong\nkind of aspirant, infallibly drew just that kind. Hope was\ninextinguishable in these bosoms. They heard that there would be no\nchance for them at Sophia's; but they tried nevertheless. And\noccasionally Sophia would make a mistake, and grave unpleasantness\nwould occur before the mistake could be rectified. The fact was that\nthe street was too much for her. Few people would credit that there was\na serious boarding-house in the Rue Breda. The police themselves would\nnot credit it. And Sophia's beauty was against her. At that time the\nRue Breda was perhaps the most notorious street in the centre of Paris;\nat the height of its reputation as a warren of individual\nimproprieties; most busily creating that prejudice against itself\nwhich, over thirty years later, forced the authorities to change its\nname in obedience to the wish of its tradesmen. When Sophia went out at\nabout eleven o'clock in the morning with her reticule to buy, the\nstreet was littered with women who had gone out with reticules to buy.\nBut whereas Sophia was fully dressed, and wore headgear, the others\nwere in dressing-gown and slippers, or opera-cloak and slippers, having\nslid directly out of unspeakable beds and omitted to brush their hair\nout of their puffy eyes. In the little shops of the Rue Breda, the Rue\nNotre Dame de Lorette, and the Rue des Martyrs, you were very close\nindeed to the primitive instincts of human nature. It was wonderful; it\nwas amusing; it was excitingly picturesque; and the universality of the\nmanners rendered moral indignation absurd. But the neighbourhood was\ncertainly not one in which a woman of Sophia's race, training, and\ncharacter, could comfortably earn a living, or even exist. She could\nnot fight against the entire street. She, and not the street, was out\nof place and in the wrong. Little wonder that the neighbours lifted\ntheir shoulders when they spoke of her! What beautiful woman but a mad\nEnglishwoman would have had the idea of establishing herself in the Rue\nBreda with the intention of living like a nun and compelling others to\ndo the same?\n\nBy dint of continual ingenuity, Sophia contrived to win somewhat more\nthan her expenses, but she was slowly driven to admit to herself that\nthe situation could not last.\n\nThen one day she saw in Galignani's Messenger an advertisement of an\nEnglish pension for sale in the Rue Lord Byron, in the Champs Elysees\nquarter. It belonged to some people named Frensham, and had enjoyed a\ncertain popularity before the war. The proprietor and his wife,\nhowever, had not sufficiently allowed for the vicissitudes of politics\nin Paris. Instead of saving money during their popularity they had put\nit on the back and on the fingers of Mrs. Frensham. The siege and the\nCommune had almost ruined them. With capital they might have restored\nthemselves to their former pride; but their capital was exhausted.\nSophia answered the advertisement. She impressed the Frenshams, who\nwere delighted with the prospect of dealing in business with an honest\nEnglish face. Like many English people abroad they were most strangely\nobsessed by the notion that they had quitted an island of honest men to\nlive among thieves and robbers. They always implied that dishonesty was\nunknown in Britain. They offered, if she would take over the lease, to\nsell all their furniture and their renown for ten thousand francs. She\ndeclined, the price seeming absurd to her. When they asked her to name\na price, she said that she preferred not to do so. Upon entreaty, she\nsaid four thousand francs. They then allowed her to see that they\nconsidered her to have been quite right in hesitating to name a price\nso ridiculous. And their confidence in the honest English face seemed\nto have been shocked. Sophia left. When she got back to the Rue Breda\nshe was relieved that the matter had come to nothing. She did not\nprecisely foresee what her future was to be, but at any rate she knew\nshe shrank from the responsibility of the Pension Frensham. The next\nmorning she received a letter offering to accept six thousand. She\nwrote and declined. She was indifferent and she would not budge from\nfour thousand. The Frenshams gave way. They were pained, but they gave\nway. The glitter of four thousand francs in cash, and freedom, was too\ntempting.\n\nThus Sophia became the proprietress of the Pension Frensham in the cold\nand correct Rue Lord Byron. She made room in it for nearly all her\nother furniture, so that instead of being under-furnished, as pensions\nusually are, it was over-furnished. She was extremely timid at first,\nfor the rent alone was four thousand francs a year; and the prices of\nthe quarter were alarmingly different from those of the Rue Breda. She\nlost a lot of sleep. For some nights, after she had been installed in\nthe Rue Lord Byron about a fortnight, she scarcely slept at all, and\nshe ate no more than she slept. She cut down expenditure to the very\nlowest, and frequently walked over to the Rue Breda to do her\nmarketing. With the aid of a charwoman at six sous an hour she\naccomplished everything. And though clients were few, the feat was in\nthe nature of a miracle; for Sophia had to cook.\n\nThe articles which George Augustus Sala wrote under the title \"Paris\nherself again\" ought to have been paid for in gold by the hotel and\npension-keepers of Paris. They awakened English curiosity and the\ndesire to witness the scene of terrible events. Their effect was\nimmediately noticeable. In less than a year after her adventurous\npurchase, Sophia had acquired confidence, and she was employing two\nservants, working them very hard at low wages. She had also acquired\nthe landlady's manner. She was known as Mrs. Frensham. Across the\nbalconies of two windows the Frenshams had left a gilded sign, \"Pension\nFrensham,\" and Sophia had not removed it. She often explained that her\nname was not Frensham; but in vain. Every visitor inevitably and\npersistently addressed her according to the sign. It was past the\ngeneral comprehension that the proprietress of the Pension Frensham\nmight bear another name than Frensham. But later there came into being\na class of persons, habitues of the Pension Frensham, who knew the real\nname of the proprietress and were proud of knowing it, and by this\nknowledge were distinguished from the herd. What struck Sophia was the\nastounding similarity of her guests. They all asked the same questions,\nmade the same exclamations, went out on the same excursions, returned\nwith the same judgments, and exhibited the same unimpaired assurance\nthat foreigners were really very peculiar people. They never seemed to\nadvance in knowledge. There was a constant stream of explorers from\nEngland who had to be set on their way to the Louvre or the Bon Marche.\n\nSophia's sole interest was in her profits. The excellence of her house\nwas firmly established. She kept it up, and she kept the modest prices\nup. Often she had to refuse guests. She naturally did so with a certain\ndistant condescension. Her manner to guests increased in stiff\nformality; and she was excessively firm with undesirables. She grew to\nbe seriously convinced that no pension as good as hers existed in the\nworld, or ever had existed, or ever could exist. Hers was the acme of\nniceness and respectability. Her preference for the respectable rose to\na passion. And there were no faults in her establishment. Even the once\ndespised showy furniture of Madame Foucault had mysteriously changed\ninto the best conceivable furniture; and its cracks were hallowed.\n\nShe never heard a word of Gerald nor of her family. In the thousands of\npeople who stayed under her perfect roof, not one mentioned Bursley nor\ndisclosed a knowledge of anybody that Sophia had known. Several men had\nthe wit to propose marriage to her with more or less skilfulness, but\nnone of them was skilful enough to perturb her heart. She had forgotten\nthe face of love. She was a landlady. She was THE landlady: efficient,\nstylish, diplomatic, and tremendously experienced. There was no\ntrickery, no baseness of Parisian life that she was not acquainted with\nand armed against. She could not be startled and she could not be\nswindled.\n\nYears passed, until there was a vista of years behind her. Sometimes\nshe would think, in an unoccupied moment, \"How strange it is that I\nshould be here, doing what I am doing!\" But the regular ordinariness of\nher existence would instantly seize her again. At the end of 1878, the\nExhibition Year, her Pension consisted of two floors instead of one,\nand she had turned the two hundred pounds stolen from Gerald into over\ntwo thousand.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK IV\n\nWHAT LIFE IS\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nFRENSHAM'S\n\nI\n\n\nMatthew Peel-Swynnerton sat in the long dining-room of the Pension\nFrensham, Rue Lord Byron, Paris; and he looked out of place there. It\nwas an apartment about thirty feet in length, and of the width of two\nwindows, which sufficiently lighted one half of a very long table with\nround ends. The gloom of the other extremity was illumined by a large\nmirror in a tarnished gilt frame, which filled a good portion of the\nwall opposite the windows. Near the mirror was a high folding-screen of\nfour leaves, and behind this screen could be heard the sound of a door\ncontinually shutting and opening. In the long wall to the left of the\nwindows were two doors, one dark and important, a door of state,\nthrough which a procession of hungry and a procession of sated solemn\nself-conscious persons passed twice daily, and the other, a smaller\ndoor, glazed, its glass painted with wreaths of roses, not an original\ndoor of the house, but a late breach in the wall, that seemed to lead\nto the dangerous and to the naughty. The wall-paper and the window\ndrapery were rich and forbidding, dark in hue, mysterious of pattern.\nOver the state-door was a pair of antlers. And at intervals, so high up\nas to defy inspection, engravings and oil-paintings made oblong patches\non the walls. They were hung from immense nails with porcelain heads,\nand they appeared to depict the more majestic aspect of man and nature.\nOne engraving, over the mantelpiece and nearer earth than the rest,\nunmistakably showed Louis Philippe and his family in attitudes of\nvirtue. Beneath this royal group, a vast gilt clock, flanked by\npendants of the same period, gave the right time--a quarter past seven.\n\nAnd down the room, filling it, ran the great white table, bordered with\nbowed heads and the backs of chairs. There were over thirty people at\nthe table, and the peculiarly restrained noisiness of their knives and\nforks on the plates proved that they were a discreet and a correct\npeople. Their clothes--blouses, bodices, and jackets--did not flatter\nthe lust of the eye. Only two or three were in evening dress. They\nspoke little, and generally in a timorous tone, as though silence had\nbeen enjoined. Somebody would half-whisper a remark, and then his\nneighbour, absently fingering her bread and lifting gaze from her plate\ninto vacancy, would conscientiously weigh the remark and half-whisper\nin reply: \"I dare say.\" But a few spoke loudly and volubly, and were\nregarded by the rest, who envied them, as underbred.\n\nFood was quite properly the chief preoccupation. The diners ate as\nthose eat who are paying a fixed price per day for as much as they can\nconsume while observing the rules of the game. Without moving their\nheads they glanced out of the corners of their eyes, watching the\nmanoeuvres of the three starched maids who served. They had no\nconception of food save as portions laid out in rows on large silver\ndishes, and when a maid bent over them deferentially, balancing the\ndish, they summed up the offering in an instant, and in an instant\ndecided how much they could decently take, and to what extent they\ncould practise the theoretic liberty of choice. And if the food for any\nreason did not tempt them, or if it egregiously failed to coincide with\ntheir aspirations, they considered themselves aggrieved. For, according\nto the game, they might not command; they had the right to seize all\nthat was presented under their noses, like genteel tigers; and they had\nthe right to refuse: that was all. The dinner was thus a series of\nemotional crises for the diners, who knew only that full dishes and\nclean plates came endlessly from the banging door behind the screen,\nand that ravaged dishes and dirty plates vanished endlessly through the\nsame door. They were all eating similar food simultaneously; they began\ntogether and they finished together. The flies that haunted the\npaper-bunches which hung from the chandeliers to the level of the\nflower-vases, were more free. The sole event that chequered the exact\nregularity of the repast was the occasional arrival of a wine-bottle\nfor one of the guests. The receiver of the wine-bottle signed a small\npaper in exchange for it and wrote largely a number on the label of the\nbottle; then, staring at the number and fearing that after all it might\nbe misread by a stupid maid or an unscrupulous compeer, he would\nre-write the number on another part of the label, even more largely.\n\nMatthew Peel-Swynnerton obviously did not belong to this world. He was\na young man of twenty-five or so, not handsome, but elegant. Though he\nwas not in evening dress, though he was, as a fact, in a very light\ngrey suit, entirely improper to a dinner, he was elegant. The suit was\nadmirably cut, and nearly new; but he wore it as though he had never\nworn anything else. Also his demeanour, reserved yet free from\nself-consciousness, his method of handling a knife and fork, the\nniceties of his manner in transferring food from the silver dishes to\nhis plate, the tone in which he ordered half a bottle of wine--all\nthese details infallibly indicated to the company that Matthew\nPeel-Swynnerton was their superior. Some folks hoped that he was the\nson of a lord, or even a lord. He happened to be fixed at the end of\nthe table, with his back to the window, and there was a vacant chair on\neither side of him; this situation favoured the hope of his high rank.\nIn truth, he was the son, the grandson, and several times the nephew,\nof earthenware manufacturers. He noticed that the large 'compote' (as\nit was called in his trade) which marked the centre of the table, was\nthe production of his firm. This surprised him, for Peel, Swynnerton\nand Co., known and revered throughout the Five Towns as 'Peels,' did\nnot cater for cheap markets. A late guest startled the room, a fat,\nflabby, middle-aged man whose nose would have roused the provisional\nhostility of those who have convinced themselves that Jews are not as\nother men. His nose did not definitely brand him as a usurer and a\nmurderer of Christ, but it was suspicious. His clothes hung loose, and\nmight have been anybody's clothes. He advanced with brisk assurance to\nthe table, bowed, somewhat too effusively, to several people, and sat\ndown next to Peel-Swynnerton. One of the maids at once brought him a\nplate of soup, and he said: \"Thank you, Marie,\" smiling at her. He was\nevidently a habitue of the house. His spectacled eyes beamed the\nsuperiority which comes of knowing girls by their names. He was\nseriously handicapped in the race for sustenance, being two and a half\ncourses behind, but he drew level with speed and then, having\naccomplished this, he sighed, and pointedly engaged Peel-Swynnerton\nwith his sociable glance.\n\n\"Ah!\" he breathed out. \"Nuisance when you come in late, sir!\"\n\nPeel-Swynnerton gave a reluctant affirmative.\n\n\"Doesn't only upset you! It upsets the house! Servants don't like it!\"\n\n\"No,\" murmured Peel-Swynnerton, \"I suppose not.\"\n\n\"However, it's not often _I_'m late,\" said the man. \"Can't help it\nsometimes. Business! Worst of these French business people is that\nthey've no notion of time. Appointments...! God bless my soul!\"\n\n\"Do you come here often?\" asked Peel-Swynnerton. He detested the\nfellow, quite inexcusably, perhaps because his serviette was tucked\nunder his chin; but he saw that the fellow was one of your determined\ntalkers, who always win in the end. Moreover, as being clearly not an\nordinary tourist in Paris, the fellow mildly excited his curiosity.\n\n\"I live here,\" said the other. \"Very convenient for a bachelor, you\nknow. Have done for years. My office is just close by. You may know my\nname--Lewis Mardon.\"\n\nPeel-Swynnerton hesitated. The hesitation convicted him of not 'knowing\nhis Paris' well.\n\n\"House-agent,\" said Lewis Mardon, quickly.\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said Peel-Swynnerton, vaguely recalling a vision of the name\namong the advertisements on newspaper kiosks.\n\n\"I expect,\" Mr. Mardon went on, \"my name is as well-known as anybody's\nin Paris.\"\n\n\"I suppose so,\" assented Peel-Swynnerton.\n\nThe conversation fell for a few moments.\n\n\"Staying here long?\" Mr. Mardon demanded, having added up\nPeel-Swynnerton as a man of style and of means, and being puzzled by\nhis presence at that table.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Peel-Swynnerton.\n\nThis was a lie, justified in the utterer's opinion as a repulse to Mr.\nMardon's vulgar inquisitiveness, such inquisitiveness as might have\nbeen expected from a fellow who tucked his serviette under his chin.\nPeel-Swynnerton knew exactly how long he would stay. He would stay\nuntil the day after the morrow; he had only about fifty francs in his\npocket. He had been making a fool of himself in another quarter of\nParis, and he had descended to the Pension Frensham as a place where he\ncould be absolutely sure of spending not more than twelve francs a day.\nIts reputation was high, and it was convenient for the Galliera Museum,\nwhere he was making some drawings which he had come to Paris expressly\nto make, and without which he could not reputably return to England. He\nwas capable of foolishness, but he was also capable of wisdom, and\nscarcely any pressure of need would have induced him to write home for\nmoney to replace the money spent on making himself into a fool.\n\nMr. Mardon was conscious of a check. But, being of an accommodating\ndisposition, he at once tried another direction.\n\n\"Good food here, eh?\" he suggested.\n\n\"Very,\" said Peel-Swynnerton, with sincerity. \"I was quite--\"\n\nAt that moment, a tall straight woman of uncertain age pushed open the\nprincipal door and stood for an instant in the doorway. Peel-Swynnerton\nhad just time to notice that she was handsome and pale, and that her\nhair was black, and then she was gone again, followed by a clipped\npoodle that accompanied her. She had signed with a brief gesture to one\nof the servants, who at once set about lighting the gas-jets over the\ntable.\n\n\"Who is that?\" asked Peel-Swynnerton, without reflecting that it was\nnow he who was making advances to the fellow whose napkin covered all\nhis shirt-front.\n\n\"That's the missis, that is,\" said Mr. Mardon, in a lower and\nsemi-confidential voice.\n\n\"Oh! Mrs. Frensham?\"\n\n\"Yes. But her real name is Scales,\" said Mr. Mardon, proudly.\n\n\"Widow, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And she runs the whole show?\"\n\n\"She runs the entire contraption,\" said Mr. Mardon, solemnly; \"and\ndon't you make any mistake!\" He was getting familiar.\n\nPeel-Swynnerton beat him off once more, glancing with careful,\nuninterested nonchalance at the gas-burners which exploded one after\nanother with a little plop under the application of the maid's taper.\nThe white table gleamed more whitely than ever under the flaring gas.\nPeople at the end of the room away from the window instinctively\nsmiled, as though the sun had begun to shine. The aspect of the dinner\nwas changed, ameliorated; and with the reiterated statement that the\nevenings were drawing in though it was only July, conversation became\nalmost general. In two minutes Mr. Mardon was genially talking across\nthe whole length of the table. The meal finished in a state that\nresembled conviviality.\n\nMatthew Peel-Swynnerton might not go out into the crepuscular delights\nof Paris. Unless he remained within the shelter of the Pension, he\ncould not hope to complete successfully his re-conversion from folly to\nwisdom. So he bravely passed through the small rose-embroidered door\ninto a small glass-covered courtyard, furnished with palms, wicker\narmchairs, and two small tables; and he lighted a pipe and pulled out\nof his pocket a copy of The Referee. That retreat was called the\nLounge; it was the only part of the Pension where smoking was not\neither a positive crime or a transgression against good form. He felt\nlonely. He said to himself grimly in one breath that pleasure was all\nrot, and in the next he sullenly demanded of the universe how it was\nthat pleasure could not go on for ever, and why he was not Mr. Barney\nBarnato. Two old men entered the retreat and burnt cigarettes with many\nprecautions. Then Mr. Lewis Mardon appeared and sat down boldly next to\nMatthew, like a privileged friend. After all, Mr. Mardon was better\nthan nobody whatever, and Matthew decided to suffer him, especially as\nhe began without preliminary skirmishing to talk about life in Paris.\nAn irresistible subject! Mr. Mardon said in a worldly tone that the\nexistence of a bachelor in Paris might easily be made agreeable. But\nthat, of course, for himself--well, he preferred, as a general rule,\nthe Pension Frensham sort of thing; and it was excellent for his\nbusiness. Still he could not ... he knew ... He compared the advantages\nof what he called 'knocking about' in Paris, with the equivalent in\nLondon. His information about London was out of date, and\nPeel-Swynnerton was able to set him right on important details. But his\ninformation about Paris was infinitely precious and interesting to the\nyounger man, who saw that he had hitherto lived under strange\nmisconceptions.\n\n\"Have a whiskey?\" asked Mr. Mardon, suddenly. \"Very good here!\" he\nadded.\n\n\"Thanks!\" drawled Peel-Swynnerton.\n\nThe temptation to listen to Mr. Mardon as long as Mr. Mardon would talk\nwas not to be overcome. And presently, when the old men had departed,\nthey were frankly telling each other stories in the dimness of the\nretreat. Then, when the supply of stories came to an end, Mr. Mardon\nsmacked his lips over the last drop of whiskey and ejaculated: \"Yes!\"\nas if giving a general confirmation to all that had been said.\n\n\"Do have one with me,\" said Matthew, politely. It was the least he\ncould do.\n\nThe second supply of whiskies was brought into the Lounge by Mr.\nMardon's Marie. He smiled on her familiarly, and remarked that he\nsupposed she would soon be going to bed after a hard day's work. She\ngave a moue and a flounce in reply, and swished out.\n\n\"Carries herself well, doesn't she?\" observed Mr. Mardon, as though\nMarie had been an exhibit at an agricultural show. \"Ten years ago she\nwas very fresh and pretty, but of course it takes it out of 'em, a\nplace like this!\"\n\n\"But still,\" said Peel-Swynnerton, \"they must like it or they wouldn't\nstay--that is, unless things are very different here from what they are\nin England.\"\n\nThe conversation seemed to have stimulated him to examine the woman\nquestion in all its bearings, with philosophic curiosity.\n\n\"Oh! They LIKE it,\" Mr. Mardon assured him, as one who knew. \"Besides,\nMrs. Scales treats 'em very well. I know THAT. She's told me. She's\nvery particular\"--he looked around to see if walls had ears--\"and, by\nJove, you've got to be; but she treats 'em well. You'd scarcely believe\nthe wages they get, and pickings. Now at the Hotel Moscow--know the\nHotel Moscow?\"\n\nHappily Peel-Swynnerton did. He had been advised to avoid it because it\ncatered exclusively for English visitors, but in the Pension Frensham\nhe had accepted something even more exclusively British than the Hotel\nMoscow. Mr. Mardon was quite relieved at his affirmative.\n\n\"The Hotel Moscow is a limited company now,\" said he; \"English.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"Yes. I floated it. It was my idea. A great success! That's how I know\nall about the Hotel Moscow.\" He looked at the walls again. \"I wanted to\ndo the same here,\" he murmured, and Peel-Swynnerton had to show that he\nappreciated this confidence. \"But she never would agree. I've tried her\nall ways. No go! It's a thousand pities.\"\n\n\"Paying thing, eh?\"\n\n\"This place? I should say it was! And I ought to be able to judge, I\nreckon. Mrs. Scales is one of the shrewdest women you'd meet in a day's\nmarch. She's made a lot of money here, a lot of money. And there's no\nreason why a place like this shouldn't be five times as big as it is.\nTen times. The scope's unlimited, my dear sir. All that's wanted is\ncapital. Naturally she has capital of her own, and she could get more.\nBut then, as she says, she doesn't want the place any bigger. She says\nit's now just as big as she can handle. That isn't so. She's a woman\nwho could handle anything--a born manager--but even if it was so, all\nshe would have to do would be to retire--only leave us the place and\nthe name. It's the name that counts. And she's made the name of\nFrensham worth something, I can tell you!\"\n\n\"Did she get the place from her husband?\" asked Peel-Swynnerton. Her\nown name of Scales intrigued him.\n\nMr. Mardon shook his head. \"Bought it on her own, after the husband's\ntime, for a song--a song! I know, because I knew the original\nFrenshams.\"\n\n\"You must have been in Paris a long time,\" said Peel-Swynnerton.\n\nMr. Mardon could never resist an opportunity to talk about himself. His\nwas a wonderful history. And Peel-Swynnerton, while scorning the man\nfor his fatuity, was impressed. And when that was finished--\n\n\"Yes!\" said Mr. Mardon after a pause, reaffirming everything in\ngeneral by a single monosyllable.\n\nShortly afterwards he rose, saying that his habits were regular.\n\n\"Good-night,\" he said with a mechanical smile.\n\n\"G-good-night,\" said Peel-Swynnerton, trying to force the tone of\nfellowship and not succeeding. Their intimacy, which had sprung up like\na mushroom, suddenly fell into dust. Peel-Swynnerton's unspoken comment\nto Mr. Mardon's back was: \"Ass!\" Still, the sum of Peel-Swynnerton's\nknowledge had indubitably been increased during the evening. And the\nhour was yet early. Half-past ten! The Folies-Marigny, with its\nbeautiful architecture and its crowds of white toilettes, and its\nfrothing of champagne and of beer, and its musicians in tight red\ncoats, was just beginning to be alive--and at a distance of scarcely a\nstone's-throw! Peel-Swynnerton pictured the terraced, glittering hall,\nwhich had been the prime origin of his exceeding foolishness. And he\npictured all the other resorts, great and small, garlanded with white\nlanterns, in the Champs Elysees; and the sombre aisles of the Champs\nElysees where mysterious pale figures walked troublingly under the\nshade of trees, while snatches of wild song or absurd brassy music\nfloated up from the resorts and restaurants. He wanted to go out and\nspend those fifty francs that remained in his pocket. After all, why\nnot telegraph to England for more money? \"Oh, damn it!\" he said\nsavagely, and stretched his arms and got up. The Lounge was very small,\ngloomy and dreary.\n\nOne brilliant incandescent light burned in the hall, crudely\nilluminating the wicker fauteuils, a corded trunk with a blue-and-red\nlabel on it, a Fitzroy barometer, a map of Paris, a coloured poster of\nthe Compagnie Transatlantique, and the mahogany retreat of the\nhall-portress. In that retreat was not only the hall-portress--an aged\nwoman with a white cap above her wrinkled pink face--but the mistress\nof the establishment. They were murmuring together softly; they seemed\nto be well disposed to one another. The portress was respectful, but\nthe mistress was respectful also. The hall, with its one light\ntranquilly burning, was bathed in an honest calm, the calm of a day's\nwork accomplished, of gradual relaxation from tension, of growing\nexpectation of repose. In its simplicity it affected Peel-Swynnerton as\na medicine tonic for nerves might have affected him. In that hall,\nthough exterior nocturnal life was but just stirring into activity, it\nseemed that the middle of the night had come, and that these two women\nalone watched in a mansion full of sleepers. And all the recitals which\nPeel-Swynnerton and Mr. Mardon had exchanged sank to the level of\npitiably foolish gossip. Peel-Swynnerton felt that his duty to the\nhouse was to retire to bed. He felt, too, that he could not leave the\nhouse without saying that he was going out, and that he lacked the\ncourage deliberately to tell these two women that he was going out--at\nthat time of night! He dropped into one of the chairs and made a second\nattempt to peruse The Referee. Useless! Either his mind was outside in\nthe Champs Elysees, or his gaze would wander surreptitiously to the\nfigure of Mrs. Scales. He could not well distinguish her face because\nit was in the shadow of the mahogany.\n\nThen the portress came forth from her box, and, slightly bent, sped\nactively across the hall, smiling pleasantly at the guest as she passed\nhim, and disappeared up the stairs. The mistress was alone in the\nretreat. Peel-Swynnerton jumped up brusquely, dropping the paper with a\nrustle, and approached her.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" he said deferentially. \"Have any letters come for me\nto-night?\"\n\nHe knew that the arrival of letters for him was impossible, since\nnobody knew his address.\n\n\"What name?\" The question was coldly polite, and the questioner looked\nhim full in the face. Undoubtedly she was a handsome woman. Her hair\nwas greying at the temples, and the skin was withered and crossed with\nlines. But she was handsome. She was one of those women of whom to\ntheir last on earth the stranger will say: \"When she was young she must\nhave been worth looking at!\"--with a little transient regret that\nbeautiful young women cannot remain for ever young. Her voice was firm\nand even, sweet in tone, and yet morally harsh from incessant\ntraffic--with all varieties of human nature. Her eyes were the\nimpartial eyes of one who is always judging. And evidently she was a\nproud, even a haughty creature, with her careful, controlled\npoliteness. Evidently she considered herself superior to no matter what\nguest. Her eyes announced that she had lived and learnt, that she knew\nmore about life than any one whom she was likely to meet, and that\nhaving pre-eminently succeeded in life, she had tremendous confidence\nin herself. The proof of her success was the unique Frensham's. A\nconsciousness of the uniqueness of Frensham's was also in those eyes.\nTheoretically Matthew Peel-Swynnerton's mental attitude towards\nlodging-house keepers was condescending, but here it was not\ncondescending. It had the real respectfulness of a man who for the\nmoment at any rate is impressed beyond his calculations. His glance\nfell as he said--\n\n\"Peel-Swynnerton.\" Then he looked up again.\n\nHe said the words awkwardly, and rather fearfully, as if aware that he\nwas playing with fire. If this Mrs. Scales was the long-vanished aunt\nof his friend, Cyril Povey, she must know those two names, locally so\nfamous. Did she start? Did she show a sign of being perturbed? At first\nhe thought he detected a symptom of emotion, but in an instant he was\nsure that he had detected nothing of the sort, and that it was silly to\nsuppose that he was treading on the edge of a romance. Then she turned\ntowards the letter-rack at her side, and he saw her face in profile. It\nbore a sudden and astonishing likeness to the profile of Cyril Povey; a\nresemblance unmistakable and finally decisive. The nose, and the curve\nof the upper lip were absolutely Cyril's. Matthew Peel-Swynnerton felt\nvery queer. He felt like a criminal in peril of being caught in the\nact, and he could not understand why he should feel so. The landlady\nlooked in the 'P' pigeon-hole, and in the 'S' pigeon-hole.\n\n\"No,\" she said quietly, \"I see nothing for you.\"\n\nTaken with a swift rash audacity, he said: \"Have you had any one named\nPovey here recently?\"\n\n\"Povey?\"\n\n\"Yes. Cyril Povey, of Bursley--in the Five Towns.\"\n\nHe was very impressionable, very sensitive, was Matthew\nPeel-Swynnerton. His voice trembled as he spoke. But hers also trembled\nin reply.\n\n\"Not that I remember! No! Were you expecting him to be here?\"\n\n\"Well, it wasn't at all sure,\" he muttered. \"Thank you. Good-night.\"\n\n\"Good-night,\" she said, apparently with the simple perfunctoriness of\nthe landlady who says good-night to dozens of strangers every evening.\n\nHe hurried away upstairs, and met the portress coming down. \"Well,\nwell!\" he thought. \"Of all the queer things--!\" And he kept nodding his\nhead. At last he had encountered something REALLY strange in the\nspectacle of existence. It had fallen to him to discover the legendary\nwoman who had fled from Bursley before he was born, and of whom nobody\nknew anything. What news for Cyril! What a staggering episode! He had\nscarcely any sleep that night. He wondered whether he would be able to\nmeet Mrs. Scales without self-consciousness on the morrow. However, he\nwas spared the curious ordeal of meeting her. She did not appear at all\non the following day; nor did he see her before he left. He could not\nfind a pretext for asking why she was invisible.\n\nII\n\nThe hansom of Matthew Peel-Swynnerton drew up in front of No. 26,\nVictoria Grove, Chelsea; his kit-bag was on the roof of the cab. The\ncabman had a red flower in his buttonhole. Matthew leaped out of the\nvehicle, holding his straw hat on his head with one hand. On reaching\nthe pavement he checked himself suddenly and became carelessly calm.\nAnother straw-hatted and grey-clad figure was standing at the side-gate\nof No. 26 in the act of lighting a cigarette.\n\n\"Hello, Matt!\" exclaimed the second figure, languidly, and in a veiled\nvoice due to the fact that he was still holding the match to the\ncigarette and puffing. \"What's the meaning of all this fluster? You're\njust the man I want to see.\"\n\nHe threw away the match with a wave of the arm, and took Matthew's hand\nfor a moment, blowing a double shaft of smoke through his nose.\n\n\"I want to see you, too,\" said Matthew. \"And I've only got a minute.\nI'm on my way to Euston. I must catch the twelve-five.\"\n\nHe looked at his friend, and could positively see no feature of it that\nwas not a feature of Mrs. Scales's face. Also, the elderly woman held\nher body in exactly the same way as the young man. It was entirely\ndisconcerting.\n\n\"Have a cigarette,\" answered Cyril Povey, imperturbably. He was two\nyears younger than Matthew, from whom he had acquired most of his vast\nand intricate knowledge of life and art, with certain leading notions\nof deportment; whose pupil indeed he was in all the things that matter\nto young men. But he had already surpassed his professor. He could\npretend to be old much more successfully than Matthew could.\n\nThe cabman approvingly watched the ignition of the second cigarette,\nand then the cabman pulled out a cigar, and showed his large, white\nteeth, as he bit the end off it. The appearance and manner of his fare,\nthe quality of the kit-bag, and the opening gestures of the interview\nbetween the two young dukes, had put the cabman in an optimistic mood.\nHe had no apprehensions of miserly and ungentlemanly conduct by his\nfare upon the arrival at Euston. He knew the language of the tilt of a\nstraw hat. And it was a magnificent day in London. The group of the two\nelegances dominated by the perfection of the cabman made a striking\ntableau of triumphant masculinity, content with itself, and needing\nnothing.\n\nMatthew lightly took Cyril's arm and drew him further down the street,\npast the gate leading to the studio (hidden behind a house) which Cyril\nrented.\n\n\"Look here, my boy,\" he began, \"I've found your aunt.\"\n\n\"Well, that's very nice of you,\" said Cyril, solemnly. \"That's a\nfriendly act. May I ask what aunt?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Scales,\" said Matthew. \"You know--\"\n\n\"Not the--\" Cyril's face changed.\n\n\"Yes, precisely!\" said Matthew, feeling that he was not being cheated\nof the legitimate joy caused by making a sensation. Assuredly he had\nmade a sensation in Victoria Grove.\n\nWhen he had related the whole story, Cyril said: \"Then she doesn't know\nyou know?\"\n\n\"I don't think so. No, I'm sure she doesn't. She may guess.\"\n\n\"But how can you be certain you haven't made a mistake? It may be\nthat--\"\n\n\"Look here, my boy,\" Matthew interrupted him. \"I've not made any\nmistake.\"\n\n\"But you've no proof.\"\n\n\"Proof be damned!\" said Matthew, nettled. \"I tell you it's HER!\"\n\n\"Oh! All right! All right! What puzzles me most is what the devil you\nwere doing in a place like that. According to your description of it,\nit must be a--\"\n\n\"I went there because I was broke,\" said Matthew.\n\n\"Razzle?\"\n\nMatthew nodded.\n\n\"Pretty stiff, that!\" commented Cyril, when Matthew had narrated the\nprologue to Frensham's.\n\n\"Well, she absolutely swore she never took less than two hundred\nfrancs. And she looked it, too! And she was worth it! I had the time of\nmy life with that woman. I can tell you one thing--no more English for\nme! They simply aren't in it.\"\n\n\"How old was she?\"\n\nMatthew reflected judicially. \"I should say she was thirty.\" The gaze\nof admiration and envy was upon him. He had the legitimate joy of\nmaking a second sensation. \"I'll let you know more about that when I\ncome back,\" he added. \"I can open your eyes, my child.\"\n\nCyril smiled sheepishly. \"Why can't you stay now?\" he asked. \"I'm going\nto take the cast of that Verrall girl's arm this afternoon, and I know\nI can't do it alone. And Robson's no good. You're just the man I want.\"\n\n\"Can't!\" said Matthew.\n\n\"Well, come into the studio a minute, anyhow.\"\n\n\"Haven't time; I shall miss my train.\"\n\n\"I don't care if you miss forty trains. You must come in. You've got to\nsee that fountain,\" Cyril insisted crossly.\n\nMatthew yielded. When they emerged into the street again, after six\nminutes of Cyril's savage interest in his own work, Matthew remembered\nMrs. Scales.\n\n\"Of course you'll write to your mother?\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Cyril, \"I'll write; but if you happen to see her, you might\ntell her.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Matthew. \"Shall you go over to Paris?\"\n\n\"What! To see Auntie?\" He smiled. \"I don't know. Depends. If the mater\nwill fork out all my exes ... it's an idea,\" he said lightly, and then\nwithout any change of tone, \"Naturally, if you're going to idle about\nhere all morning you aren't likely to catch the twelve-five.\"\n\nMatthew got into the cab, while the driver, the stump of a cigar\nbetween his exposed teeth, leaned forward and lifted the reins away\nfrom the tilted straw hat.\n\n\"By-the-by, lend me some silver,\" Matthew demanded. \"It's a good thing\nI've got my return ticket. I've run it as fine as ever I did in my\nlife.\"\n\nCyril produced eight shillings in silver. Secure in the possession of\nthese riches, Matthew called to the driver--\n\n\"Euston--like hell!\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said the driver, calmly.\n\n\"Not coming my way I suppose?\" Matthew shouted as an afterthought, just\nwhen the cab began to move.\n\n\"No. Barber's,\" Cyril shouted in answer, and waved his hand.\n\nThe horse rattled into Fulham Road.\n\nIII\n\nThree days later Matthew Peel-Swynnerton was walking along Bursley\nMarket Place when, just opposite the Town Hall, he met a short, fat,\nmiddle-aged lady dressed in black, with a black embroidered mantle, and\na small bonnet tied with black ribbon and ornamented with jet fruit and\ncrape leaves. As she stepped slowly and carefully forward she had the\ndignified, important look of a provincial woman who has always been\naccustomed to deference in her native town, and whose income is ample\nenough to extort obsequiousness from the vulgar of all ranks. But\nimmediately she caught sight of Matthew, her face changed. She became\nsimple and naive. She blushed slightly, smiling with a timid pleasure.\nFor her, Matthew belonged to a superior race. He bore the almost sacred\nname of Peel. His family had been distinguished in the district for\ngenerations. 'Peel!' You could without impropriety utter it in the same\nbreath with 'Wedgwood.' And 'Swynnerton' stood not much lower. Neither\nher self-respect, which was great, nor her commonsense, which far\nexceeded the average, could enable her to extend as far as the Peels\nthe theory that one man is as good as another. The Peels never shopped\nin St. Luke's Square. Even in its golden days the Square could not have\nexpected such a condescension. The Peels shopped in London or in\nStafford; at a pinch, in Oldcastle. That was the distinction for the\nageing stout lady in black. Why, she had not in six years recovered\nfrom her surprise that her son and Matthew Peel-Swynnerton treated each\nother rudely as equals! She and Matthew did not often meet, but they\nliked each other. Her involuntary meekness flattered him. And his\nrather elaborate homage flattered her. He admired her fundamental\ngoodness, and her occasional raps at Cyril seemed to put him into\necstasies of joy.\n\n\"Well, Mrs. Povey,\" he greeted her, standing over her with his hat\nraised. (It was a fashion he had picked up in Paris.) \"Here I am, you\nsee.\"\n\n\"You're quite a stranger, Mr. Matthew. I needn't ask you how you are.\nHave you been seeing anything of my boy lately?\"\n\n\"Not since Wednesday,\" said Matthew. \"Of course he's written to you?\"\n\n\"There's no 'of course' about it,\" she laughed faintly. \"I had a short\nletter from him on Wednesday morning. He said you were in Paris.\"\n\n\"But since that--hasn't he written?\"\n\n\"If I hear from him on Sunday I shall be lucky, bless ye!\" said\nConstance, grimly. \"It's not letter-writing that will kill Cyril.\"\n\n\"But do you mean to say he hasn't--\" Matthew stopped.\n\n\"Whatever's amiss?\" asked Constance. Matthew was at a loss to know what\nto do or say. \"Oh, nothing.\"\n\n\"Now, Mr. Matthew, do please--\" Constance's tone had suddenly quite\nchanged. It had become firm, commanding, and gravely suspicious. The\nconversation had ceased to be small-talk for her.\n\nMatthew saw how nervous and how fragile she was. He had never noticed\nbefore that she was so sensitive to trifles, though it was notorious\nthat nobody could safely discuss Cyril with her in terms of chaff. He\nwas really astounded at that youth's carelessness, shameful\ncarelessness. That Cyril's attitude to his mother was marked by a\ncertain benevolent negligence--this Matthew knew; but not to have\nwritten to her with the important news concerning Mrs. Scales was\nutterly inexcusable; and Matthew determined that he would tell Cyril\nso. He felt very sorry for Mrs. Povey. She seemed pathetic to him,\nstanding there in ignorance of a tremendous fact which she ought to\nhave been aware of. He was very content that he had said nothing about\nMrs. Scales to anybody except his own mother, who had prudently\nenjoined silence upon him, saying that his one duty, having told Cyril,\nwas to keep his mouth shut until the Poveys talked. Had it not been for\nhis mother's advice he would assuredly have spread the amazing tale,\nand Mrs. Povey might have first heard of it from a stranger's gossip,\nwhich would have been too cruel upon her.\n\n\"Oh!\" Matthew tried to smile gaily, archly. \"You're bound to hear from\nCyril to-morrow.\"\n\nHe wanted to persuade her that he was concealing merely some delightful\nsurprise from her. But he did not succeed. With all his experience of\nthe world and of women he was not clever enough to deceive that simple\nwoman.\n\n\"I'm waiting, Mr. Matthew,\" she said, in a tone that flattened the\nsmile out of Matthew's sympathetic face. She was ruthless. The fact\nwas, she had in an instant convinced herself that Cyril had met some\ngirl and was engaged to be married. She could think of nothing else.\n\"What has Cyril been doing?\" she added, after a pause.\n\n\"It's nothing to do with Cyril,\" said he.\n\n\"Then what is it?\"\n\n\"It was about--Mrs. Scales,\" he murmured, nearly trembling. As she\noffered no response, merely looking around her in a peculiar fashion,\nhe said: \"Shall we walk along a bit?\" And he turned in the direction in\nwhich she had been going. She obeyed the suggestion.\n\n\"What did ye say?\" she asked. The name of Scales for a moment had no\nsignificance for her. But when she comprehended it she was afraid, and\nso she said vacantly, as though wishing to postpone a shock: \"What did\nye say?\"\n\n\"I said it was about Mrs. Scales. You know I m-met her in Paris.\" And\nhe was saying to himself: \"I ought not to be telling this poor old\nthing here in the street. But what can I do?\"\n\n\"Nay, nay!\" she muttered.\n\nShe stopped and looked at him with a worried expression. Then he\nobserved that the hand that carried her reticule was making strange\npurposeless curves in the air, and her rosy face went the colour of\ncream, as though it had been painted with one stroke of an unseen\nbrush. Matthew was very much put about.\n\n\"Hadn't you better--\" he began.\n\n\"Eh,\" she said; \"I must sit me--\" Her bag dropped.\n\nHe supported her to the door of Allman's shop, the ironmonger's.\nUnfortunately, there were two steps up into the shop, and she could not\nclimb them. She collapsed like a sack of flour on the first step. Young\nEdward Allman ran to the door. He was wearing a black apron and\nfidgeting with it in his excitement.\n\n\"Don't lift her up--don't try to lift her up, Mr. Peel-Swynnerton!\" he\ncried, as Matthew instinctively began to do the wrong thing.\n\nMatthew stopped, looking a fool and feeling one, and he and young\nAllman contemplated each other helpless for a second across the body of\nConstance Povey. A part of the Market Place now perceived that the\nunusual was occurring. It was Mr. Shawcross, the chemist next door to\nAllman's who dealt adequately with the situation. He had seen all,\nwhile selling a Kodak to a young lady, and he ran out with salts.\nConstance recovered very rapidly. She had not quite swooned. She gave a\nlong sigh, and whispered weakly that she was all right. The three men\nhelped her into the lofty dark shop, which smelt of nails and of\nstove-polish, and she was balanced on a ricketty chair.\n\n\"My word!\" exclaimed young Allman, in his loud voice, when she could\nsmile and the pink was returning reluctantly to her cheeks. \"You\nmustn't frighten us like that, Mrs. Povey!\"\n\nMatthew said nothing. He had at last created a genuine sensation. Once\nagain he felt like a criminal, and could not understand why.\n\nConstance announced that she would walk slowly home, down the Cock-yard\nand along Wedgwood Street. But when, glancing round in her returned\nstrength, she saw the hedge of faces at the doorway, she agreed with\nMr. Shawcross that she would do better to have a cab. Young Allman went\nto the door and whistled to the unique cab that stands for ever at the\ngrand entrance to the Town Hall.\n\n\"Mr. Matthew will come with me,\" said Constance.\n\n\"Certainly, with pleasure,\" said Matthew.\n\nAnd she passed through the little crowd of gapers on Mr. Shawcross's\narm.\n\n\"Just take care of yourself, missis,\" said Mr. Shawcross to her,\nthrough the window of the cab. \"It's fainting weather, and we're none\nof us any younger, seemingly.\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"I'm awfully sorry I upset you, Mrs. Povey,\" said Matthew, when the cab\nmoved.\n\nShe shook her head, refusing his apology as unnecessary. Tears filled\nher eyes. In less than a minute the cab had stopped in front of\nConstance's light-grained door. She demanded her reticule from Matthew,\nwho had carried it since it fell. She would pay the cabman. Never\nbefore had Matthew permitted a woman to pay for a cab in which he had\nridden; but there was no arguing with Constance. Constance was\ndangerous.\n\nAmy Bates, still inhabiting the cave, had seen the cab-wheels through\nthe grating of her window and had panted up the kitchen stairs to open\nthe door ere Constance had climbed the steps. Amy, decidedly over\nforty, was a woman of authority. She wanted to know what was the\nmatter, and Constance had to tell her that she had 'felt unwell.' Amy\ntook the hat and mantle and departed to prepare a cup of tea. When they\nwere alone Constance said to Matthew:\n\n\"Now. Mr. Matthew, will you please tell me?\"\n\n\"It's only this,\" he began.\n\nAnd as he told it, in quite a few words, it indeed had the air of being\n'only that.' And yet his voice shook, in sympathy with the ageing\nwoman's controlled but visible emotion. It seemed to him that gladness\nshould have filled the absurd little parlour, but the spirit that\npresided had no name; it was certainly not joy. He himself felt very\nsad, desolated. He would have given much money to have been spared the\nexperience. He knew simply that in the memory of the stout, comical,\nnice woman in the rocking-chair he had stirred old, old things, wakened\nslumbers that might have been eternal. He did not know that he was\nsitting on the very spot where the sofa had been on which Samuel Povey\nlay when a beautiful and shameless young creature of fifteen extracted\nhis tooth. He did not know that Constance was sitting in the very chair\nin which the memorable Mrs. Baines had sat in vain conflict with that\nsame unconquerable girl. He did not know ten thousand matters that were\nrushing violently about in the vast heart of Constance.\n\nShe cross-questioned him in detail. But she did not put the questions\nwhich he in his innocence expected; such as, if her sister looked old,\nif her hair was grey, if she was stout or thin. And until Amy,\nmystified and resentful, had served the tea, on a little silver tray,\nshe remained comparatively calm. It was in the middle of a gulp of tea\nthat she broke down, and Matthew had to take the cup from her.\n\n\"I can't thank you, Mr. Matthew,\" she wept. \"I couldn't thank you\nenough.\"\n\n\"But I've done nothing,\" he protested.\n\nShe shook her head. \"I never hoped for this. Never hoped for it!\" she\nwent on. \"It makes me so happy--in a way.... You mustn't take any\nnotice of me. I'm silly. You must kindly write down that address for\nme. And I must write to Cyril at once. And I must see Mr. Critchlow.\"\n\n\"It's really very funny that Cyril hasn't written to you,\" said Matthew.\n\n\"Cyril has not been a good son,\" she said with sudden, solemn coldness.\n\"To think that he should have kept that...!\" She wept again.\n\nAt length Matthew saw the possibility of leaving. He felt her warm,\nsoft, crinkled hand round his fingers.\n\n\"You've behaved very nicely over this,\" she said. \"And very cleverly.\nIn EVERY thing--both over there and here. Nobody could have shown a\nnicer feeling than you've shown. It's a great comfort to me that my son\nhas got you for a friend.\"\n\nWhen he thought of his escapades, and of all the knowledge, unutterable\nin Bursley, fantastically impossible in Bursley, which he had imparted\nto her son, he marvelled that the maternal instinct should be so\ndeceived. Still, he felt that her praise of him was deserved.\n\nOutside, he gave vent to a 'Phew' of relief. He smiled, in his\nworldliest manner. But the smile was a sham. A pretence to himself! A\nchildish attempt to disguise from himself how profoundly he had been\nmoved by a natural scene!\n\nIV\n\nOn the night when Matthew Peel-Swynnerton spoke to Mrs. Scales, Matthew\nwas not the only person in the Pension Frensham who failed to sleep.\nWhen the old portress came downstairs from her errand, she observed\nthat her mistress was leaving the mahogany retreat.\n\n\"She is sleeping tranquilly, the poor one!\" said the portress,\ndischarging her commission, which had been to learn the latest news of\nthe mistress's indisposed dog, Fossette. In saying this her ancient,\nvibrant voice was rich with sympathy for the suffering animal. And she\nsmiled. She was rather like a figure out of an almshouse, with her\npink, apparently brittle skin, her tight black dress, and frilled white\ncap. She stooped habitually, and always walked quickly, with her head a\nfew inches in advance of her feet. Her grey hair was scanty. She was\nold; nobody perhaps knew exactly how old. Sophia had taken her with the\nPension, over a quarter of a century before, because she was old and\ncould not easily have found another place. Although the clientele was\nalmost exclusively English, she spoke only French, explaining herself\nto Britons by means of benevolent smiles.\n\n\"I think I shall go to bed, Jacqueline,\" said the mistress, in reply.\n\nA strange reply, thought Jacqueline. The unalterable custom of\nJacqueline was to retire at midnight and to rise at five-thirty. Her\nmistress also usually retired about midnight, and during the final hour\nmistress and portress saw a good deal of each other. And considering\nthat Jacqueline had just been sent up into the mistress's own bedroom\nto glance at Fossette, and that the bulletin was satisfactory, and that\nmadame and Jacqueline had several customary daily matters to discuss,\nit seemed odd that madame should thus be going instantly to bed.\nHowever, Jacqueline said nothing but:\n\n\"Very well, madame. And the number 32?\"\n\n\"Arrange yourself as you can,\" said the mistress, curtly.\n\n\"It is well, madame. Good evening, madame, and a good night.\"\n\nJacqueline, alone in the hall, re-entered her box and set upon one of\nthose endless, mysterious tasks which occupied her when she was not\nrushing to and fro or whistling up the tubes.\n\nSophia, scarcely troubling even to glance into Fossette's round basket,\nundressed, put out the light, and got into bed. She felt extremely and\ninexplicably gloomy. She did not wish to reflect; she strongly wished\nnot to reflect; but her mind insisted on reflection--a monotonous,\nfutile, and distressing reflection. Povey! Povey! Could this be\nConstance's Povey, the unique Samuel Povey? That is to say, not he, but\nhis son, Constance's son. Had Constance a grown-up son? Constance must\nbe over fifty now, perhaps a grandmother! Had she really married Samuel\nPovey? Possibly she was dead. Certainly her mother must be dead, and\nAunt Harriet and Mr. Critchlow. If alive, her mother must be at least\neighty years of age.\n\nThe cumulative effect of merely remaining inactive when one ought to be\nactive, was terrible. Undoubtedly she should have communicated with her\nfamily. It was silly not to have done so. After all, even if she had,\nas a child, stolen a trifle of money from her wealthy aunt, what would\nthat have mattered? She had been proud. She was criminally proud. That\nwas her vice. She admitted it frankly. But she could not alter her\npride. Everybody had some weak spot. Her reputation for sagacity, for\ncommonsense, was, she knew, enormous; she always felt, when people were\ntalking to her, that they regarded her as a very unusually wise woman.\nAnd yet she had been guilty of the capital folly of cutting herself off\nfrom her family. She was ageing, and she was alone in the world. She\nwas enriching herself; she had the most perfectly managed and the most\nrespectable Pension in the world (she sincerely believed), and she was\nalone in the world. Acquaintances she had--French people who never\noffered nor accepted hospitality other than tea or wine, and one or two\nmembers of the English commercial colony--but her one friend was\nFossette, aged three years! She was the most solitary person on earth.\nShe had heard no word of Gerald, no word of anybody. Nobody whatever\ncould truly be interested in her fate. This was what she had achieved\nafter a quarter of a century of ceaseless labour and anxiety, during\nwhich she had not once been away from the Rue Lord Byron for more than\nthirty hours at a stretch. It was appalling--the passage of years; and\nthe passage of years would grow more appalling. Ten years hence, where\nwould she be? She pictured herself dying. Horrible!\n\nOf course there was nothing to prevent her from going back to Bursley\nand repairing the grand error of her girlhood. No, nothing except the\nfact that her whole soul recoiled from the mere idea of any such\nenterprise! She was a fixture in the Rue Lord Byron. She was a part of\nthe street. She knew all that happened or could happen there. She was\nattached to it by the heavy chains of habit. In the chill way of long\nuse she loved it. There! The incandescent gas-burner of the street-lamp\noutside had been turned down, as it was turned down every night! If it\nis possible to love such a phenomenon, she loved that phenomenon. That\nphenomenon was a portion of her life, dear to her.\n\nAn agreeable young man, that Peel-Swynnerton! Then evidently, since her\ndays in Bursley, the Peels and the Swynnertons, partners in business,\nmust have intermarried, or there must have been some affair of a will.\nDid he suspect who she was? He had had a very self-conscious, guilty\nlook. No! He could not have suspected who she was. The idea was\nridiculous. Probably he did not even know that her name was Scales. And\neven if he knew her name, he had probably never heard of Gerald Scales,\nor the story of her flight. Why, he could not have been born until\nafter she had left Bursley! Besides, the Peels were always quite aloof\nfrom the ordinary social life of the town. No! He could not have\nsuspected her identity. It was infantile to conceive such a thing.\n\nAnd yet, she inconsequently proceeded in the tangle of her afflicted\nmind, supposing he had suspected it! Supposing by some queer chance, he\nhad heard her forgotten story, and casually put two and two together!\nSupposing even that he were merely to mention in the Five Towns that\nthe Pension Frensham was kept by a Mrs. Scales. 'Scales? Scales?'\npeople might repeat. 'Now, what does that remind me of?' And the ball\nmight roll and roll till Constance or somebody picked it up! And then...\n\nMoreover--a detail of which she had at first unaccountably failed to\nmark the significance--this Peel-Swynnerton was a friend of the Mr.\nPovey as to whom he had inquired. In that case it could not be the same\nPovey. Impossible that the Peels should be on terms of friendship with\nSamuel Povey or his connections! But supposing after all they were!\nSupposing something utterly unanticipated and revolutionary had\nhappened in the Five Towns!\n\nShe was disturbed. She was insecure. She foresaw inquiries being made\nconcerning her. She foresaw an immense family fuss, endless tomfoolery,\nthe upsetting of her existence, the destruction of her calm. And she\nsank away from that prospect. She could not face it. She did not want\nto face it. \"No,\" she cried passionately in her soul, \"I've lived\nalone, and I'll stay as I am. I can't change at my time of life.\" And\nher attitude towards a possible invasion of her solitude became one of\nresentment. \"I won't have it! I won't have it! I will be left alone.\nConstance! What can Constance be to me, or I to her, now?\" The vision\nof any change in her existence was in the highest degree painful to\nher. And not only painful! It frightened her. It made her shrink. But\nshe could not dismiss it.... She could not argue herself out of it. The\napparition of Matthew Peel-Swynnerton had somehow altered the very\nstuff of her fibres.\n\nAnd surging on the outskirts of the central storm of her brain were ten\nthousand apprehensions about the management of the Pension. All was\nblack, hopeless. The Pension might have been the most complete business\nfailure that gross carelessness and incapacity had ever provoked. Was\nit not the fact that she had to supervise everything herself, that she\ncould depend on no one? Were she to be absent even for a single day the\nentire structure would inevitably fall. Instead of working less she\nworked harder. And who could guarantee that her investments were safe?\n\nWhen dawn announced itself, slowly discovering each object in the\nchamber, she was ill. Fever seemed to rage in her head. And in and\nround her mouth she had strange sensations. Fossette stirred in the\nbasket near the large desk on which multifarious files and papers were\nranged with minute particularity.\n\n\"Fossette!\" she tried to call out; but no sound issued from her lips.\nShe could not move her tongue. She tried to protrude it, and could not.\nFor hours she had been conscious of a headache. Her heart sank. She was\nsick with fear. Her memory flashed to her father and his seizure. She\nwas his daughter! Paralysis! \"Ca serait le comble!\" she thought in\nFrench, horrified. Her fear became abject! \"Can I move at all?\" she\nthought, and madly jerked her head. Yes, she could move her head\nslightly on the pillow, and she could stretch her right arm, both arms.\nAbsurd cowardice! Of course it was not a seizure! She reassured\nherself. Still, she could not put her tongue out. Suddenly she began to\nhiccough, and she had no control over the hiccough. She put her hand to\nthe bell, whose ringing would summon the man who slept in a pantry off\nthe hall, and suddenly the hiccough ceased. Her hand dropped. She was\nbetter. Besides, what use in ringing for a man if she could not speak\nto him through the door? She must wait for Jacqueline. At six o'clock\nevery morning, summer and winter, Jacqueline entered her mistress's\nbedroom to release the dog for a moment's airing under her own\nsupervision. The clock on the mantelpiece showed five minutes past\nthree. She had three hours to wait. Fossette pattered across the room,\nand sprang on to the bed and nestled down. Sophia ignored her, but\nFossette, being herself unwell and torpid, did not seem to care.\n\nJacqueline was late. In the quarter of an hour between six o'clock and\na quarter past, Sophia suffered the supreme pangs of despair and verged\nupon insanity. It appeared to her that her cranium would blow off under\npressure from within. Then the door opened silently, a few inches.\nUsually Jacqueline came into the room, but sometimes she stood behind\nthe door and called in her soft, trembling voice, \"Fossette! Fossette!\"\nAnd on this morning she did not come into the room. The dog did not\nimmediately respond. Sophia was in an agony. She marshalled all her\nvolition, all her self-control and strength, to shout:\n\n\"Jacqueline!\"\n\nIt came out of her, a horribly difficult and misshapen birth, but it\ncame. She was exhausted.\n\n\"Yes, madame.\" Jacqueline entered.\n\nAs soon as she had a glimpse of Sophia she threw up her hands. Sophia\nstared at her, wordless.\n\n\"I will fetch the doctor--myself,\" whispered Jacqueline, and fled.\n\n\"Jacqueline!\" The woman stopped. Then Sophia determined to force\nherself to make a speech, and she braced her muscles to an\nunprecedented effort. \"Say not a word to the others.\" She could not\nbear that the whole household should know of her illness. Jacqueline\nnodded and vanished, the dog following. Jacqueline understood. She\nlived in the place with her mistress as with a fellow-conspirator.\n\nSophia began to feel better. She could get into a sitting posture,\nthough the movement made her dizzy. By working to the foot of the bed\nshe could see herself in the glass of the wardrobe. And she saw that\nthe lower part of her face was twisted out of shape.\n\nThe doctor, who knew her, and who earned a lot of money in her house,\ntold her frankly what had happened. Paralysie glosso-labio-laryngee was\nthe phrase he used. She understood. A very slight attack; due to\noverwork and worry. He ordered absolute rest and quiet.\n\n\"Impossible!\" she said, genuinely convinced that she alone was\nindispensable.\n\n\"Repose the most absolute!\" he repeated.\n\nShe marvelled that a few words with a man who chanced to be named\nPeel-Swynnerton could have resulted in such a disaster, and drew a\ncurious satisfaction from this fearful proof that she was so\nhighly-strung. But even then she did not realize how profoundly she had\nbeen disturbed.\n\nV\n\n\"My darling Sophia--\"\n\nThe inevitable miracle had occurred. Her suspicions concerning that Mr.\nPeel-Swynnerton were well-founded, after all! Here was a letter from\nConstance! The writing on the envelope was not Constance's; but even\nbefore examining it she had had a peculiar qualm. She received letters\nfrom England nearly every day asking about rooms and prices (and on\nmany of them she had to pay threepence excess postage, because the\nwriters carelessly or carefully forgot that a penny stamp was not\nsufficient); there was nothing to distinguish this envelope, and yet\nher first glance at it had startled her; and when, deciphering the\nsmudged post-mark, she made out the word 'Bursley,' her heart did\nliterally seem to stop, and she opened the letter in quite violent\ntremulation, thinking to herself: \"The doctor would say this is very\nbad for me.\" Six days had elapsed since her attack, and she was\nwonderfully better; the distortion of her face had almost disappeared.\nBut the doctor was grave; he ordered no medicine, merely a tonic; and\nmonotonously insisted on 'repose the most absolute,' on perfect mental\ncalm. He said little else, allowing Sophia to judge from his silences\nthe seriousness of her condition. Yes, the receipt of such a letter\nmust be bad for her!\n\nShe controlled herself while she read it, lying in her dressing-gown\nagainst several pillows on the bed; a mist did not form in her eyes,\nnor did she sob, nor betray physically that she was not reading an\norder for two rooms for a week. But the expenditure of nervous force\nnecessary to self-control was terrific.\n\nConstance's handwriting had changed; it was, however, easily\nrecognizable as a development of the neat calligraphy of the girl who\ncould print window-tickets. The 'S' of Sophia was formed in the same\nway as she had formed it in the last letter which she had received from\nher at Axe!\n\n\"MY DARLING SOPHIA,\n\n\"I cannot tell you how overjoyed I was to learn that after all these\nyears you are alive and well, and doing so well too. I long to see you,\nmy dear sister. It was Mr. Peel-Swynnerton who told me. He is a friend\nof Cyril's. Cyril is the name of my son. I married Samuel in 1867.\nCyril was born in 1874 at Christmas. He is now twenty-two, and doing\nvery well in London as a student of sculpture, though so young. He won\na National Scholarship. There were only eight, of which he won one, in\nall England. Samuel died in 1888. If you read the papers you must have\nseen about the Povey affair. I mean of course Mr. Daniel Povey,\nConfectioner. It was that that killed poor Samuel. Poor mother died in\n1875. It doesn't seem so long. Aunt Harriet and Aunt Maria are both\ndead. Old Dr. Harrop is dead, and his son has practically retired. He\nhas a partner, a Scotchman. Mr. Critchlow has married Miss Insull. Did\nyou ever hear of such a thing? They have taken over the shop, and I\nlive in the house part, the other being bricked up. Business in the\nSquare is not what it used to be. The steam trams take all the custom\nto Hanbridge, and they are talking of electric trams, but I dare say it\nis only talk. I have a fairly good servant. She has been with me a long\ntime, but servants are not what they were. I keep pretty well, except\nfor my sciatica and palpitation. Since Cyril went to London I have been\nvery lonely. But I try to cheer up and count my blessings. I am sure I\nhave a great deal to be thankful for. And now this news of you! Please\nwrite to me a long letter, and tell me all about yourself. It is a long\nway to Paris. But surely now you know I am still here, you will come\nand pay me a visit--at least. Everybody would be most glad to see you.\nAnd I should be so proud and glad. As I say, I am all alone. Mr.\nCritchlow says I am to say there is a deal of money waiting for you.\nYou know he is the trustee. There is the half-share of mother's and\nalso of Aunt Harriet's, and it has been accumulating. By the way, they\nare getting up a subscription for Miss Chetwynd, poor old thing. Her\nsister is dead, and she is in poverty. I have put myself down for L20.\nNow, my dear sister, please do write to me at once. You see it is still\nthe old address. I remain, my darling Sophia, with much love, your\naffectionate sister,\n\n\"CONSTANCE POVEY.\n\n\"P.S.--I should have written yesterday, but I was not fit. Every time I\nsat down to write, I cried.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Sophia to Fossette, \"she expects me to go to her,\ninstead of her coming to me! And yet who's the busiest?\"\n\nBut this observation was not serious. It was merely a trifle of\naffectionate malicious embroidery that Sophia put on the edge of her\ndeep satisfaction. The very spirit of simple love seemed to emanate\nfrom the paper on which Constance had written. And this spirit woke\nsuddenly and completely Sophia's love for Constance. Constance! At that\nmoment there was assuredly for Sophia no creature in the world like\nConstance. Constance personified for her the qualities of the Baines\nfamily. Constance's letter was a great letter, a perfect letter,\nperfect in its artlessness; the natural expression of the Baines\ncharacter at its best. Not an awkward reference in the whole of it! No\nclumsy expression of surprise at anything that she, Sophia, had done,\nor failed to do! No mention of Gerald! Just a sublime acceptance of the\nsituation as it was, and the assurance of undiminished love! Tact? No;\nit was something finer than tact! Tact was conscious, skilful. Sophia\nwas certain that the notion of tactfulness had not entered Constance's\nhead. Constance had simply written out of her heart. And that was what\nmade the letter so splendid. Sophia was convinced that no one but a\nBaines could have written such a letter. She felt that she must rise to\nthe height of that letter, that she too must show her Baines blood. And\nshe went primly to her desk, and began to write (on private notepaper)\nin that imperious large hand of hers that was so different from\nConstance's. She began a little stiffly, but after a few lines her\ngenerous and passionate soul was responding freely to the appeal of\nConstance. She asked that Mr. Critchlow should pay L20 for her to the\nMiss Chetwynd fund. She spoke of her Pension and of Paris, and of her\npleasure in Constance's letter. But she said nothing as to Gerald, nor\nas to the possibility of a visit to the Five Towns. She finished the\nletter in a blaze of love, and passed from it as from a dream to the\nsterile banality of the daily life of the Pension Frensham, feeling\nthat, compared to Constance's affection, nothing else had any worth.\n\nBut she would not consider the project of going to Bursley. Never,\nnever would she go to Bursley. If Constance chose to come to Paris and\nsee her, she would be delighted, but she herself would not budge. The\nmere notion of any change in her existence intimidated her. And as for\nreturning to Bursley itself ... no, no!\n\nNevertheless, at the Pension Frensham, the future could not be as the\npast. Sophia's health forbade that. She knew that the doctor was right.\nEvery time that she made an effort, she knew intimately and speedily\nthat the doctor was right. Only her will-power was unimpaired; the\nmachinery by which will-power is converted into action was mysteriously\ndamaged. She was aware of the fact. But she could not face it yet. Time\nwould have to elapse before she could bring herself to face that fact.\nShe was getting an old woman. She could no longer draw on reserves. Yet\nshe persisted to every one that she was quite recovered, and was\nabstaining from her customary work simply from an excess of prudence.\nCertainly her face had recovered. And the Pension, being a machine all\nof whose parts were in order, continued to run, apparently, with its\nusual smoothness. It is true that the excellent chef began to peculate,\nbut as his cuisine did not suffer, the result was not noticeable for a\nlong period. The whole staff and many of the guests knew that Sophia\nhad been indisposed; and they knew no more.\n\nWhen by hazard Sophia observed a fault in the daily conduct of the\nhouse, her first impulse was to go to the root of it and cure it, her\nsecond was to leave it alone, or to palliate it by some superficial\nremedy. Unperceived, and yet vaguely suspected by various people, the\ndecline of the Pension Frensham had set in. The tide, having risen to\nits highest, was receding, but so little that no one could be sure that\nit had turned. Every now and then it rushed up again and washed the\nfurthest stone.\n\nSophia and Constance exchanged several letters. Sophia said repeatedly\nthat she could not leave Paris. At length she roundly asked Constance\nto come and pay her a visit. She made the suggestion with fear--for the\nprospect of actually seeing her beloved Constance alarmed her--but she\ncould do no less than make it. And in a few days she had a reply to say\nthat Constance would have come, under Cyril's charge, but that her\nsciatica was suddenly much worse, and she was obliged to lie down every\nday after dinner to rest her legs. Travelling was impossible for her.\nThe fates were combining against Sophia's decision.\n\nAnd now Sophia began to ask herself about her duty to Constance. The\ntruth was that she was groping round to find an excuse for reversing\nher decision. She was afraid to reverse it, yet tempted. She had the\ndesire to do something which she objected to doing. It was like the\ndesire to throw one's self over a high balcony. It drew her, drew her,\nand she drew back against it. The Pension was now tedious to her. It\nbored her even to pretend to be the supervising head of the Pension.\nThroughout the house discipline had loosened.\n\nShe wondered when Mr. Mardon would renew his overtures for the\ntransformation of her enterprise into a limited company. In spite of\nherself she would deliberately cross his path and give him\nopportunities to begin on the old theme. He had never before left her\nin peace for so long a period. No doubt she had, upon his last assault,\nabsolutely convinced him that his efforts had no smallest chance of\nsuccess, and he had made up his mind to cease them. With a single word\nshe could wind him up again. The merest hint, one day when he was\npaying his bill, and he would be beseeching her. But she could not\nutter the word.\n\nThen she began to say openly that she did not feel well, that the house\nwas too much for her, and that the doctor had imperatively commanded\nrest. She said this to every one except Mardon. And every one somehow\npersisted in not saying it to Mardon. The doctor having advised that\nshe should spend more time in the open air, she would take afternoon\ndrives in the Bois with Fossette. It was October. But Mr. Mardon never\nseemed to hear of those drives.\n\nOne morning he met her in the street outside the house.\n\n\"I'm sorry to hear you're so unwell,\" he said confidentially, after\nthey had discussed the health of Fossette.\n\n\"So unwell!\" she exclaimed as if resenting the statement. \"Who told you\nI was so unwell?\"\n\n\"Jacqueline. She told me you often said that what you needed was a\ncomplete change. And it seems the doctor says so, too.\"\n\n\"Oh! doctors!\" she murmured, without however denying the truth of\nJacqueline's assertion. She saw hope in Mr. Mardon's eyes.\n\n\"Of course, you know,\" he said, still more confidentially, \"if you\nSHOULD happen to change your mind, I'm always ready to form a little\nsyndicate to take this\"--he waved discreetly at the Pension--\"off your\nhands.\"\n\nShe shook her head violently, which was strange, considering that for\nweeks she had been wishing to hear such words from Mr. Mardon.\n\n\"You needn't give it up altogether,\" he said. \"You could retain your\nhold on it. We'd make you manageress, with a salary and a share in the\nprofits. You'd be mistress just as much as you are now.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said she carelessly. \"IF _I_ GAVE IT UP, _I_ SHOULD GIVE IT UP\nENTIRELY. No half measures for me.\"\n\nWith the utterance of that sentence, the history of Frensham's as a\nprivate understanding was brought to a close. Sophia knew it. Mr.\nMardon knew it. Mr. Mardon's heart leapt. He saw in his imagination the\nformation of the preliminary syndicate, with himself at its head, and\nthen the re-sale by the syndicate to a limited company at a profit. He\nsaw a nice little profit for his own private personal self of a\nthousand or so--gained in a moment. The plant, his hope, which he had\ndeemed dead, blossomed with miraculous suddenness.\n\n\"Well,\" he said. \"Give it up entirely, then! Take a holiday for life.\nYou've deserved it, Mrs. Scales.\"\n\nShe shook her head once again.\n\n\"Think it over,\" he said.\n\n\"I gave you my answer years ago,\" she said obstinately, while fearing\nlest he should take her at her word.\n\n\"Oblige me by thinking it over,\" he said. \"I'll mention it to you again\nin a few days.\"\n\n\"It will be no use,\" she said.\n\nHe took his leave, waddling down the street in his vague clothes,\nconscious of his fame as Lewis Mardon, the great house-agent of the\nChamps Elysees, known throughout Europe and America.\n\nIn a few days he did mention it again.\n\n\"There's only one thing that makes me dream of it even for a moment,\"\nsaid Sophia. \"And that is my sister's health.\"\n\n\"Your sister!\" he exclaimed. He did not know she had a sister. Never\nhad she spoken of her family.\n\n\"Yes. Her letters are beginning to worry me.\"\n\n\"Does she live in Paris?\"\n\n\"No. In Staffordshire. She has never left home.\"\n\nAnd to preserve her pride intact she led Mr. Mardon to think that\nConstance was in a most serious way, whereas in truth Constance had\nnothing worse than her sciatica, and even that was somewhat better.\n\nThus she yielded.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE MEETING\n\nI\n\n\nSoon after dinner one day in the following spring, Mr. Critchlow\nknocked at Constance's door. She was seated in the rocking-chair in\nfront of the fire in the parlour. She wore a large 'rough' apron, and\nwith the outlying parts of the apron she was rubbing the moisture out\nof the coat of a young wire-haired fox-terrier, for whom no more\noriginal name had been found than 'Spot.' It is true that he had a\nspot. Constance had more than once called the world to witness that she\nwould never have a young dog again, because, as she said, she could not\nbe always running about after them, and they ate the stuffing out of\nthe furniture. But her last dog had lived too long; a dog can do worse\nthings than eat furniture; and, in her natural reaction against age in\ndogs, and also in the hope of postponing as long as possible the\ninevitable sorrow and upset which death causes when it takes off a\ndomestic pet, she had not known how to refuse the very desirable\nfox-terrier aged ten months that an acquaintance had offered to her.\nSpot's beautiful pink skin could be seen under his disturbed hair; he\nwas exquisitely soft to the touch, and to himself he was loathsome. His\neyes continually peeped forth between corners of the agitated towel,\nand they were full of inquietude and shame.\n\nAmy was assisting at this performance, gravely on the watch to see that\nSpot did not escape into the coal-cellar. She opened the door to Mr.\nCritchlow's knock. Mr. Critchlow entered without any formalities, as\nusual. He did not seem to have changed. He had the same quantity of\nwhite hair, he wore the same long white apron, and his voice (which\nshowed however an occasional tendency to shrillness) had the same\ngrating quality. He stood fairly straight. He was carrying a newspaper\nin his vellum hand.\n\n\"Well, missis!\" he said.\n\n\"That will do, thank you, Amy,\" said Constance, quietly. Amy went\nslowly.\n\n\"So ye're washing him for her!\" said Mr. Critchlow.\n\n\"Yes,\" Constance admitted. Spot glanced sharply at the aged man.\n\n\"An' ye seen this bit in the paper about Sophia?\" he asked, holding the\nSignal for her inspection.\n\n\"About Sophia?\" cried Constance. \"What's amiss?\"\n\n\"Nothing's amiss. But they've got it. It's in the 'Staffordshire day by\nday' column. Here! I'll read it ye.\" He drew a long wooden\nspectacle-case from his waistcoat pocket, and placed a second pair of\nspectacles on his nose. Then he sat down on the sofa, his knees\nsticking out pointedly, and read: \"'We understand that Mrs. Sophia\nScales, proprietress of the famous Pension Frensham in the Rue Lord\nByron, Paris'--it's that famous that nobody in th' Five Towns has ever\nheard of it--'is about to pay a visit to her native town, Bursley,\nafter an absence of over thirty years. Mrs. Scales belonged to the\nwell-known and highly respected family of Baines. She has recently\ndisposed of the Pension Frensham to a limited company, and we are\nbetraying no secret in stating that the price paid ran well into five\nfigures.' So ye see!\" Mr. Critchlow commented.\n\n\"How do those Signal people find out things?\" Constance murmured.\n\n\"Eh, bless ye, I don't know,\" said Mr. Critchlow.\n\nThis was an untruth. Mr. Critchlow had himself given the information to\nthe new editor of the Signal, who had soon been made aware of\nCritchlow's passion for the press, and who knew how to make use of it.\n\n\"I wish it hadn't appeared just to-day,\" said Constance.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Oh! I don't know, I wish it hadn't.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll be touring on, missis,\" said Mr. Critchlow, meaning that he\nwould go.\n\nHe left the paper, and descended the steps with senile deliberation. It\nwas characteristic that he had shown no curiosity whatever as to the\ndetails of Sophia's arrival.\n\nConstance removed her apron, wrapped Spot up in it, and put him in a\ncorner of the sofa. She then abruptly sent Amy out to buy a penny\ntime-table.\n\n\"I thought you were going by tram to Knype,\" Amy observed.\n\n\"I have decided to go by train,\" said Constance, with cold dignity, as\nif she had decided the fate of nations. She hated such observations\nfrom Amy, who unfortunately lacked, in an increasing degree, the\nsupreme gift of unquestioning obedience.\n\nWhen Amy came breathlessly back, she found Constance in her bedroom,\nwithdrawing crumpled balls of paper from the sleeves of her second-best\nmantle. Constance scarcely ever wore this mantle. In theory it was\ndestined for chapel on wet Sundays; in practice it had remained long in\nthe wardrobe, Sundays having been obstinately fine for weeks and weeks\ntogether. It was a mantle that Constance had never really liked. But\nshe was not going to Knype to meet Sophia in her everyday mantle; and\nshe had no intention of donning her best mantle for such an excursion.\nTo make her first appearance before Sophia in the best mantle she\nhad--this would have been a sad mistake of tactics! Not only would it\nhave led to an anti-climax on Sunday, but it would have given to\nConstance the air of being in awe of Sophia. Now Constance was in truth\na little afraid of Sophia; in thirty years Sophia might have grown into\nanything, whereas Constance had remained just Constance. Paris was a\ngreat place; and it was immensely far off. And the mere sound of that\nlimited company business was intimidating. Imagine Sophia having by her\nown efforts created something which a real limited company wanted to\nbuy and had bought! Yes, Constance was afraid, but she did not mean to\nshow her fear in her mantle. After all, she was the elder. And she had\nher dignity too--and a lot of it--tucked away in her secret heart,\nhidden within the mildness of that soft exterior. So she had decided on\nthe second-best mantle, which, being seldom used, had its sleeves\nstuffed with paper to the end that they might keep their shape and\ntheir 'fall.' The little balls of paper were strewed over the bed.\n\n\"There's a train at a quarter to three, gets to Knype at ten minutes\npast.\" said Amy. officiously. \"But supposing it was only three minutes\nlate and the London train was prompt, then you might miss her. Happen\nyou'd better take the two fifteen to be on the safe side.\"\n\n\"Let me look,\" said Constance, firmly. \"Please put all this paper in\nthe wardrobe.\"\n\nShe would have preferred not to follow Amy's suggestion, but it was so\nincontestably wise that she was obliged to accept it.\n\n\"Unless ye go by tram,\" said Amy. \"That won't mean starting quite so\nsoon.\"\n\nBut Constance would not go by tram. If she took the tram she would be\nbound to meet people who had read the Signal, and who would say, with\ntheir stupid vacuity: \"Going to meet your sister at Knype?\" And then\ntiresome conversations would follow. Whereas, in the train, she would\nchoose a compartment, and would be far less likely to encounter\nchatterers.\n\nThere was now not a minute to lose. And the excitement which had been\ngrowing in that house for days past, under a pretence of calm, leapt\nout swiftly into the light of the sun, and was unashamed. Amy had to\nhelp her mistress make herself as comely as she could be made without\nher best dress, mantle, and bonnet. Amy was frankly consulted as to\neffects. The barrier of class was lowered for a space. Many years had\nelapsed since Constance had been conscious of a keen desire to look\nsmart. She was reminded of the days when, in full fig for chapel, she\nwould dash downstairs on a Sunday morning, and, assuming a pose for\ninspection at the threshold of the parlour, would demand of Samuel:\n\"Shall I do?\" Yes, she used to dash downstairs, like a child, and yet\nin those days she had thought herself so sedate and mature! She sighed,\nhalf with lancinating regret, and half in gentle disdain of that\nmercurial creature aged less than thirty. At fifty-one she regarded\nherself as old. And she was old. And Amy had the tricks and manners of\nan old spinster. Thus the excitement in the house was an 'old'\nexcitement, and, like Constance's desire to look smart, it had its\nridiculous side, which was also its tragic side, the side that would\nhave made a boor guffaw, and a hysterical fool cry, and a wise man\nmeditate sadly upon the earth's fashion of renewing itself.\n\nAt half-past one Constance was dressed, with the exception of her\ngloves. She looked at the clock a second time to make sure that she\nmight safely glance round the house without fear of missing the train.\nShe went up into the bedroom on the second-floor, her and Sophia's old\nbedroom, which she had prepared with enormous care for Sophia. The\nairing of that room had been an enterprise of days, for, save by a\nminister during the sittings of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference at\nBursley, it had never been occupied since the era when Maria Insull\nused occasionally to sleep in the house. Cyril clung to his old room on\nhis visits. Constance had an ample supply of solid and stately\nfurniture, and the chamber destined for Sophia was lightened in every\ncorner by the reflections of polished mahogany. It was also fairly\nimpregnated with the odour of furniture paste--an odour of which no\nhousewife need be ashamed. Further, it had been re-papered in a\ndelicate blue, with one of the new 'art' patterns. It was a 'Baines'\nroom. And Constance did not care where Sophia came from, nor what\nSophia had been accustomed to, nor into what limited company Sophia had\nbeen transformed--that room was adequate! It could not have been\nimproved upon. You had only to look at the crocheted mats--even those\non the washstand under the white-and-gold ewer and other utensils. It\nwas folly to expose such mats to the splashings of a washstand, but it\nwas sublime folly. Sophia might remove them if she cared. Constance was\nhouse-proud; house-pride had slumbered within her; now it blazed forth.\n\nA fire brightened the drawing-room, which was a truly magnificent\napartment, a museum of valuables collected by the Baines and the\nMaddack families since the year 1840, tempered by the latest novelties\nin antimacassars and cloths. In all Bursley there could have been few\ndrawing-rooms to compare with Constance's. Constance knew it. She was\nnot afraid of her drawing-room being seen by anybody.\n\nShe passed for an instant into her own bedroom, where Amy was patiently\npicking balls of paper from the bed.\n\n\"Now you quite understand about tea?\" Constance asked.\n\n\"Oh yes, 'm,\" said Amy, as if to say: \"How much oftener are you going\nto ask me that question?\" \"Are you off now, 'm?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Constance. \"Come and fasten the front-door after me.\"\n\nThey descended together to the parlour. A white cloth for tea lay\nfolded on the table. It was of the finest damask that skill could\nchoose and money buy. It was fifteen years old, and had never been\nspread. Constance would not have produced it for the first meal, had\nshe not possessed two other of equal eminence. On the harmonium were\nranged several jams and cakes, a Bursley pork-pie, and some pickled\nsalmon; with the necessary silver. All was there. Amy could not go\nwrong. And crocuses were in the vases on the mantelpiece. Her 'garden,'\nin the phrase which used to cause Samuel to think how extraordinarily\nfeminine she was! It was a long time since she had had a 'garden' on\nthe mantelpiece. Her interest in her chronic sciatica and in her\npalpitations had grown at the expense of her interest in gardens.\nOften, when she had finished the complicated processes by which her\nfurniture and other goods were kept in order, she had strength only to\n'rest.' She was rather a fragile, small, fat woman, soon out of breath,\neasily marred. This business of preparing for the advent of Sophia had\nappeared to her genuinely colossal. However, she had come through it\nvery well. She was in pretty good health; only a little tired, and more\nthan a little anxious and nervous, as she gave the last glance.\n\n\"Take away that apron, do!\" she said to Amy, pointing to the rough\napron in the corner of the sofa. \"By the way, where is Spot?\"\n\n\"Spot, m'm?\" Amy ejaculated.\n\nBoth their hearts jumped. Amy instinctively looked out of the window.\nHe was there, sure enough, in the gutter, studying the\nindescribabilities of King Street. He had obviously escaped when Amy\ncame in from buying the time-table. The woman's face was guilty.\n\n\"Amy, I wonder AT you!\" exclaimed Constance, tragically. She opened the\ndoor.\n\n\"Well, I never did see the like of that dog!\" murmured Amy.\n\n\"Spot!\" his mistress commanded. \"Come here at once. Do you hear me?\"\n\nSpot turned sharply and gazed motionless at Constance. Then with a toss\nof the head he dashed off to the corner of the Square, and gazed\nmotionless again. Amy went forth to catch him. After an age she brought\nhim in, squealing. He was in a state exceedingly offensive to the eye\nand to the nose. He had effectively got rid of the smell of soap, which\nhe loathed. Constance could have wept. It did really appear to her that\nnothing had gone right that day. And Spot had the most innocent,\ntrustful air. Impossible to make him realize that his aunt Sophia was\ncoming. He would have sold his entire family into servitude in order to\nbuy ten yards of King Street gutter.\n\n\"You must wash him in the scullery, that's all there is for it,\" said\nConstance, controlling herself. \"Put that apron on, and don't forget\none of your new aprons when you open the door. Better shut him up in\nMr. Cyril's bedroom when you've dried him.\"\n\nAnd she went, charged with worries, clasping her bag and her umbrella\nand smoothing her gloves, and spying downwards at the folds of her\nmantle.\n\n\"That's a funny way to go to Bursley Station, that is,\" said Amy,\nobserving that Constance was descending King Street instead of crossing\nit into Wedgwood Street. And she caught Spot 'a fair clout on the\nhead,' to indicate to him that she had him alone in the house now.\n\nConstance was taking a round-about route to the station, so that, if\nstopped by acquaintances, she should not be too obviously going to the\nstation. Her feelings concerning the arrival of Sophia, and concerning\nthe town's attitude towards it, were very complex.\n\nShe was forced to hurry. And she had risen that morning with plans\nperfectly contrived for the avoidance of hurry. She disliked hurry\nbecause it always 'put her about.'\n\nII\n\nThe express from London was late, so that Constance had three-quarters\nof an hour of the stony calmness of Knype platform when it is waiting\nfor a great train. At last the porters began to cry, \"Macclesfield,\nStockport, and Manchester train;\" the immense engine glided round the\ncurve, dwarfing the carriages behind it, and Constance had a supreme\ntremor. The calmness of the platform was transformed into a melee.\nLittle Constance found herself left on the fringe of a physically\nagitated crowd which was apparently trying to scale a precipice\nsurmounted by windows and doors from whose apertures looked forth\ndefenders of the train. Knype platform seemed as if it would never be\nreduced to order again. And Constance did not estimate highly the\nchances of picking out an unknown Sophia from that welter. She was very\nseriously perturbed. All the muscles of her face were drawn as her gaze\nwandered anxiously from end to end of the train.\n\nPresently she saw a singular dog. Other people also saw it. It was of\nthe colour of chocolate; it had a head and shoulders richly covered\nwith hair that hung down in thousands of tufts like the tufts of a\nmodern mop such as is bought in shops. This hair stopped suddenly\nrather less than halfway along the length of the dog's body, the\nremainder of which was naked and as smooth as marble. The effect was to\ngive to the inhabitants of the Five Towns the impression that the dog\nhad forgotten an essential part of its attire and was outraging\ndecency. The ball of hair which had been allowed to grow on the dog's\ntail, and the circles of hair which ornamented its ankles, only served\nto intensify the impression of indecency. A pink ribbon round its neck\ncompleted the outrage. The animal had absolutely the air of a decked\ntrollop. A chain ran taut from the creature's neck into the middle of a\nsmall crowd of persons gesticulating over trunks, and Constance traced\nit to a tall and distinguished woman in a coat and skirt with a rather\nstriking hat. A beautiful and aristocratic woman, Constance thought, at\na distance! Then the strange idea came to her: \"That's Sophia!\" She was\nsure.... She was not sure.... She was sure. The woman emerged from the\ncrowd. Her eye fell on Constance. They both hesitated, and, as it were,\nwavered uncertainly towards each other.\n\n\"I should have known you anywhere,\" said Sophia, with apparently\ncareless tranquillity, as she stooped to kiss Constance, raising her\nveil.\n\nConstance saw that this marvellous tranquillity must be imitated, and\nshe imitated it very well. It was a 'Baines' tranquillity. But she\nnoticed a twitching of her sister's lips. The twitching comforted\nConstance, proving to her that she was not alone in foolishness. There\nwas also something queer about the permanent lines of Sophia's mouth.\nThat must be due to the 'attack' about which Sophia had written.\n\n\"Did Cyril meet you?\" asked Constance. It was all that she could think\nof to say.\n\n\"Oh yes!\" said Sophia, eagerly. \"And I went to his studio, and he saw\nme off at Euston. He is a VERY nice boy. I love him.\"\n\nShe said 'I love him' with the intonation of Sophia aged fifteen. Her\ntone and imperious gesture sent Constance flying back to the 'sixties.\n\"She hasn't altered one bit,\" Constance thought with joy. \"Nothing\ncould change Sophia.\" And at the back of that notion was a more general\nnotion: \"Nothing could change a Baines.\" It was true that Constance's\nSophia had not changed. Powerful individualities remain undisfigured by\nno matter what vicissitudes. After this revelation of the original\nSophia, arising as it did out of praise of Cyril, Constance felt\neasier, felt reassured.\n\n\"This is Fossette,\" said Sophia, pulling at the chain.\n\nConstance knew not what to reply. Surely Sophia could not be aware what\nshe did in bringing such a dog to a place where people were so\nparticular as they are in the Five Towns.\n\n\"Fossette!\" She repeated the name in an endearing accent, half stooping\ntowards the dog. After all, it was not the dog's fault. Sophia had\ncertainly mentioned a dog in her letters, but she had not prepared\nConstance for the spectacle of Fossette.\n\nAll that happened in a moment. A porter appeared with two trunks\nbelonging to Sophia. Constance observed that they were superlatively\n'good' trunks; also that Sophia's clothes, though 'on the showy side,'\nwere superlatively 'good.' The getting of Sophia's ticket to Bursley\noccupied them next, and soon the first shock of meeting had worn off.\n\nIn a second-class compartment of the Loop Line train, with Sophia and\nFossette opposite to her, Constance had leisure to 'take in' Sophia.\nShe came to the conclusion that, despite her slenderness and\nstraightness and the general effect of the long oval of her face under\nthe hat, Sophia looked her age. She saw that Sophia must have been\nthrough a great deal; her experiences were damagingly printed in the\ndetails of feature. Seen at a distance, she might have passed for a\nwoman of thirty, even for a girl, but seen across a narrow railway\ncarriage she was a woman whom suffering had aged. Yet obviously her\nspirit was unbroken. Hear her tell a doubtful porter that of course she\nshould take Fossette with her into the carriage! See her shut the\ncarriage door with the expressed intention of keeping other people out!\nShe was accustomed to command. At the same time her face had an almost\nset smile, as though she had said to herself: \"I will die smiling.\"\nConstance felt sorry for her. While recognizing in Sophia a superior in\ncharm, in experience, in knowledge of the world and in force of\npersonality, she yet with a kind of undisturbed, fundamental\nsuperiority felt sorry for Sophia.\n\n\"What do you think?\" said Sophia, absently fingering Fossette. \"A man\ncame up to me at Euston, while Cyril was getting my ticket, and said,\n'Eh, Miss Baines, I haven't seen ye for over thirty years, but I know\nyou're Miss Baines, or WERE--and you're looking bonny.' Then he went\noff. I think it must have been Holl, the grocer.\"\n\n\"Had he got a long white beard?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then it was Mr. Holl. He's been Mayor twice. He's an alderman, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"Really!\" said Sophia. \"But wasn't it queer?\"\n\n\"Eh! Bless us!\" exclaimed Constance. \"Don't talk about queer! It's\nterrible how time flies.\"\n\nThe conversation stopped, and it refused to start again. Two women who\nare full of affectionate curiosity about each other, and who have not\nseen each other for thirty years, and who are anxious to confide in\neach other, ought to discover no difficulty in talking; but somehow\nthese two could not talk. Constance perceived that Sophia was impeded\nby the same awkwardness as herself.\n\n\"Well I never!\" cried Sophia, suddenly. She had glanced out of the\nwindow and had seen two camels and an elephant in a field close to the\nline, amid manufactories and warehouses and advertisements of soap.\n\n\"Oh!\" said Constance. \"That's Barnum's, you know. They have what they\ncall a central depot here, because it's the middle of England.\"\nConstance spoke proudly. (After all, there can be only one middle.) It\nwas on her tongue to say, in her 'tart' manner, that Fossette ought to\nbe with the camels, but she refrained. Sophia hit on the excellent idea\nof noting all the buildings that were new to her and all the landmarks\nthat she remembered. It was surprising how little the district had\naltered.\n\n\"Same smoke!\" said Sophia.\n\n\"Same smoke!\" Constance agreed.\n\n\"It's even worse,\" said Sophia.\n\n\"Do you think so?\" Constance was slightly piqued. \"But they're doing\nsomething now for smoke abatement.\"\n\n\"I must have forgotten how dirty it was!\" said Sophia. \"I suppose\nthat's it. I'd no idea...!\"\n\n\"Really!\" said Constance. Then, in candid admission, \"The fact is, it\nis dirty. You can't imagine what work it makes, especially with\nwindow-curtains.\"\n\nAs the train puffed under Trafalgar Road, Constance pointed to a new\nstation that was being built there, to be called 'Trafalgar Road'\nstation.\n\n\"Won't it be strange?\" said she, accustomed to the eternal sequence of\nLoop Lane stations--Turnhill, Bursley, Bleakridge, Hanbridge, Cauldon,\nKnype, Trent Vale, and Longshaw. A 'Trafalgar Road' inserting itself\nbetween Bleakridge and Hanbridge seemed to her excessively curious.\n\n\"Yes, I suppose it will,\" Sophia agreed.\n\n\"But of course it's not the same to you,\" said Constance, dashed. She\nindicated the glories of Bursley Park, as the train slackened for\nBursley, with modesty. Sophia gazed, and vaguely recognized the slopes\nwhere she had taken her first walk with Gerald Scales.\n\nNobody accosted them at Bursley Station, and they drove to the Square\nin a cab. Amy was at the window; she held up Spot, who was in a plenary\nstate of cleanliness, rivalling the purity of Amy's apron.\n\n\"Good afternoon, m'm,\" said Amy, officiously, to Sophia, as Sophia came\nup the steps.\n\n\"Good afternoon, Amy,\" Sophia replied. She flattered Amy in thus\nshowing that she was acquainted with her name; but if ever a servant\nwas put into her place by mere tone, Amy was put into her place on that\noccasion. Constance trembled at Sophia's frigid and arrogant\npoliteness. Certainly Sophia was not used to being addressed first by\nservants. But Amy was not quite the ordinary servant. She was much\nolder than the ordinary servant, and she had acquired a partial moral\ndominion over Constance, though Constance would have warmly denied it.\nHence Constance's apprehension. However, nothing happened. Amy\napparently did not feel the snub.\n\n\"Take Spot and put him in Mr. Cyril's bedroom,\" Constance murmured to\nher, as if implying: \"Have I not already told you to do that?\" The fact\nwas, she was afraid for Spot's life.\n\n\"Now, Fossette!\" She welcomed the incoming poodle kindly; the poodle\nbegan at once to sniff.\n\nThe fat, red cabman was handling the trunks on the pavement, and Amy\nwas upstairs. For a moment the sisters were alone together in the\nparlour.\n\n\"So here I am!\" exclaimed the tall, majestic woman of fifty. And her\nlips twitched again as she looked round the room--so small to her.\n\n\"Yes, here you are!\" Constance agreed. She bit her lip, and, as a\nmeasure of prudence to avoid breaking down, she bustled out to the\ncabman. A passing instant of emotion, like a fleck of foam on a wide\nand calm sea!\n\nThe cabman blundered up and downstairs with trunks, and saluted\nSophia's haughty generosity, and then there was quietness. Amy was\nalready brewing the tea in the cave. The prepared tea-table in front of\nthe fire made a glittering array.\n\n\"Now, what about Fossette?\" Constance voiced anxieties that had been\ngrowing on her.\n\n\"Fossette will be quite right with me,\" said Sophia, firmly.\n\nThey ascended to the guest's room, which drew Sophia's admiration for\nits prettiness. She hurried to the window and looked out into the\nSquare.\n\n\"Would you like a fire?\" Constance asked, in a rather perfunctory\nmanner. For a bedroom fire, in seasons of normal health, was still\nregarded as absurd in the Square.\n\n\"Oh, no!\" said Sophia; but with a slight failure to rebut the\nsuggestion as utterly ridiculous.\n\n\"Sure?\" Constance questioned.\n\n\"Quite, thank you,\" said Sophia.\n\n\"Well, I'll leave you. I expect Amy will have tea ready directly.\" She\nwent down into the kitchen. \"Amy,\" she said, \"as soon as we've finished\ntea, light a fire in Mrs. Scales's bedroom.\"\n\n\"In the top bedroom, m'm?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nConstance climbed again to her own bedroom, and shut the door. She\nneeded a moment to herself, in the midst of this terrific affair. She\nsighed with relief as she removed her mantle. She thought: \"At any rate\nwe've met, and I've got her here. She's very nice. No, she isn't a bit\naltered.\" She hesitated to admit that to her Sophia was the least in\nthe world formidable. And so she said once more: \"She's very nice. She\nisn't a bit altered.\" And then: \"Fancy her being here! She really is\nhere.\" With her perfect simplicity it did not occur to Constance to\nspeculate as to what Sophia thought of her.\n\nSophia was downstairs first, and Constance found her looking at the\nblank wall beyond the door leading to the kitchen steps.\n\n\"So this is where you had it bricked up?\" said Sophia.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Constance. \"That's the place.\"\n\n\"It makes me feel like people feel when they have tickling in a limb\nthat's been cut off!\" said Sophia.\n\n\"Oh, Sophia!\"\n\nThe tea received a great deal of praise from Sophia, but neither of\nthem ate much. Constance found that Sophia was like herself: she had to\nbe particular about her food. She tasted dainties for the sake of\ntasting, but it was a bird's pecking. Not the twelfth part of the tea\nwas consumed. They dared not indulge caprices. Only their eyes could\nfeed.\n\nAfter tea they went up to the drawing-room, and in the corridor had the\nstartling pleasure of seeing two dogs who scurried about after each\nother in amity. Spot had found Fossette, with the aid of Amy's\nincurable carelessness, and had at once examined her with great\nparticularity. She seemed to be of an amiable disposition, and not\naverse from the lighter distractions. For a long time the sisters sat\nchatting together in the lit drawing-room to the agreeable sound of\nhappy dogs playing in the dark corridor. Those dogs saved the\nsituation, because they needed constant attention. When the dogs dozed,\nthe sisters began to look through photograph albums, of which Constance\nhad several, bound in plush or morocco. Nothing will sharpen the\nmemory, evoke the past, raise the dead, rejuvenate the ageing, and\ncause both sighs and smiles, like a collection of photographs gathered\ntogether during long years of life. Constance had an astonishing\nmenagerie of unknown cousins and their connections, and of townspeople;\nshe had Cyril at all ages; she had weird daguerreotypes of her parents\nand their parents. The strangest of all was a portrait of Samuel Povey\nas an infant in arms. Sophia checked an impulse to laugh at it. But\nwhen Constance said: \"Isn't it funny?\" she did allow herself to laugh.\nA photograph of Samuel in the year before his death was really\nimposing. Sophia stared at it, impressed. It was the portrait of an\nhonest man.\n\n\"How long have you been a widow?\" Constance asked in a low voice,\nglancing at upright Sophia over her spectacles, a leaf of the album\nraised against her finger.\n\nSophia unmistakably flushed. \"I don't know that I am a widow,\" said\nshe, with an air. \"My husband left me in 1870, and I've never seen nor\nheard of him since.\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear!\" cried Constance, alarmed and deafened as by a clap of\nawful thunder. \"I thought ye were a widow. Mr. Peel-Swynnerton said he\nwas told positively ye were a widow. That's why I never....\" She\nstopped. Her face was troubled.\n\n\"Of course I always passed for a widow, over there,\" said Sophia.\n\n\"Of course,\" said Constance quickly. \"I see....\"\n\n\"And I may be a widow,\" said Sophia.\n\nConstance made no remark. This was a blow. Bursley was such a\nparticular place. Doubtless, Gerald Scales had behaved like a\nscoundrel. That was sure!\n\nWhen, immediately afterwards, Amy opened the drawing-room door (having\nfirst knocked--the practice of encouraging a servant to plunge without\nwarning of any kind into a drawing-room had never been favoured in that\nhouse) she saw the sisters sitting rather near to each other at the\nwalnut oval table, Mrs. Scales very upright, and staring into the fire,\nand Mrs. Povey 'bunched up' and staring at the photograph album; both\nseeming to Amy aged and apprehensive; Mrs. Povey's hair was quite grey,\nthough Mrs. Scales' hair was nearly as black as Amy's own. Mrs. Scales\nstarted at the sound of the knock, and turned her head.\n\n\"Here's Mr. and Mrs. Critchlow, m'm,\" announced Amy.\n\nThe sisters glanced at one another, with lifted foreheads. Then Mrs.\nPovey spoke to Amy as though visits at half-past eight at night were a\ncustomary phenomenon of the household. Nevertheless, she trembled to\nthink what outrageous thing Mr. Critchlow might say to Sophia after\nthirty years' absence. The occasion was great, and it might also be\nterrible.\n\n\"Ask them to come up,\" she said calmly.\n\nBut Amy had the best of that encounter. \"I have done,\" she replied, and\ninstantly produced them out of the darkness of the corridor. It was\nprovidential: the sisters had made no remark that the Critchlows might\nnot hear.\n\nThen Maria Critchlow, simpering, had to greet Sophia. Mrs. Critchlow\nwas very agitated, from sheer nervousness. She curvetted; she almost\npranced; and she made noises with her mouth as though she saw some one\neating a sour apple. She wanted to show Sophia how greatly she had\nchanged from the young, timid apprentice. Certainly since her marriage\nshe had changed. As manager of other people's business she had not felt\nthe necessity of being effusive to customers, but as proprietress,\nanxiety to succeed had dragged her out of her capable and mechanical\nindifference. It was a pity. Her consistent dullness had had a sort of\ndignity; but genial, she was merely ridiculous. Animation cruelly\ndisplayed her appalling commonness and physical shabbiness. Sophia's\ndemeanour was not chilly; but it indicated that Sophia had no wish to\nbe eyed over as a freak of nature.\n\nMr. Critchlow advanced very slowly into the room. \"Ye still carry your\nhead on a stiff neck,\" said he, deliberately examining Sophia. Then\nwith great care he put out his long thin arm and took her hand. \"Well,\nI'm rare and glad to see ye!\"\n\nEvery one was thunderstruck at this expression of joy. Mr. Critchlow\nhad never been known to be glad to see anybody.\n\n\"Yes,\" twittered Maria, \"Mr. Critchlow would come in to-night. Nothing\nwould do but he must come in to-night.\"\n\n\"You didn't tell me this afternoon,\" said Constance, \"that you were\ngoing to give us the pleasure of your company like this.\"\n\nHe looked momentarily at Constance. \"No,\" he grated, \"I don't know as I\ndid.\"\n\nHis gaze flattered Sophia. Evidently he treated this experienced and\nsad woman of fifty as a young girl. And in presence of his extreme age\nshe felt like a young girl, remembering the while how as a young girl\nshe had hated him. Repulsing the assistance of his wife, he arranged an\narmchair in front of the fire and meticulously put himself into it.\nAssuredly he was much older in a drawing-room than behind the counter\nof his shop. Constance had noticed that in the afternoon. A live coal\nfell out of the fire. He bent forward, wet his fingers, picked up the\ncoal and threw it back into the fire.\n\n\"Well,\" said Sophia. \"I wouldn't have done that.\"\n\n\"I never saw Mr. Critchlow's equal for picking up hot cinders,\" Maria\ngiggled.\n\nMr. Critchlow deigned no remark. \"When did ye leave this Paris?\" he\ndemanded of Sophia, leaning back, and putting his hands on the arms of\nthe chair.\n\n\"Yesterday morning,\" said Sophia,\n\n\"And what'n ye been doing with yeself since yesterday morning?\"\n\n\"I spent last night in London,\" Sophia replied.\n\n\"Oh, in London, did ye?\"\n\n\"Yes. Cyril and I had an evening together.\"\n\n\"Eh? Cyril! What's yer opinion o' Cyril, Sophia?\"\n\n\"I'm very proud to have Cyril for a nephew,\" said Sophia.\n\n\"Oh! Are ye?\" The old man was obviously ironic.\n\n\"Yes I am,\" Sophia insisted sharply. \"I'm not going to hear a word said\nagainst Cyril.\"\n\nShe proceeded to an enthusiastic laudation of Cyril which rather\noverwhelmed his mother. Constance was pleased; she was delighted. And\nyet somewhere in her mind was an uncomfortable feeling that Cyril,\nhaving taken a fancy to his brilliant aunt, had tried to charm her as\nhe seldom or never tried to charm his mother. Cyril and Sophia had\ndazzled and conquered each other; they were of the same type; whereas\nshe, Constance, being but a plain person, could not glitter.\n\nShe rang the bell and gave instructions to Amy about food--fruit cakes,\ncoffee and hot milk, on a tray; and Sophia also spoke to Amy murmuring\na request as to Fossette.\n\n\"Yes, Mrs. Scales,\" said Amy, with eager deference.\n\nMrs. Critchlow smiled vaguely from a low chair near the curtained\nwindow. Then Constance lit another burner of the chandelier. In doing\nso, she gave a little sigh; it was a sigh of relief. Mr. Critchlow had\nbehaved himself. Now that he and Sophia had met, the worst was over.\nHad Constance known beforehand that he would pay a call, she would have\nbeen agonized by apprehensions, but now that he had actually come she\nwas glad he had come.\n\nWhen he had silently sipped some hot milk, he drew a thick bunch of\npapers, white and blue, from his bulging breast-pocket.\n\n\"Now, Maria Critchlow,\" he called, edging round his chair slightly.\n\"Ye'd best go back home.\"\n\nMaria Critchlow was biting at a bit of walnut cake, while in her right\nhand, all seamed with black lines, she held a cup of coffee.\n\n\"But, Mr. Critchlow----!\" Constance protested.\n\n\"I've got business with Sophia, and I must get it done. I've got for to\nrender an account of my stewardship to Sophia, under her father's will,\nand her mother's will, and her aunt's will, and it's nobody's business\nbut mine and Sophia's, I reckon. Now then,\" he glanced at his wife,\n\"off with ye!\"\n\nMaria rose, half-kittenish and half-ashamed.\n\n\"Surely you don't want to go into all that to-night,\" said Sophia. She\nspoke softly, for she had already fully perceived that Mr. Critchlow\nmust be managed with the tact which the capricious obstinacies of\nadvanced age demanded. \"Surely you can wait a day or two. I'm in no\nhurry.\"\n\n\"HAVEN'T I WAITED LONG ENOUGH?\" he retorted fiercely.\n\nThere was a pause. Maria Critchlow moved.\n\n\"As for you being in no hurry, Sophia,\" the old man went on, \"nobody\ncan say as you've been in a hurry.\"\n\nSophia had suffered a check. She glanced hesitatingly at Constance.\n\n\"Mrs. Critchlow and I will go down into the parlour,\" said Constance,\nquickly. \"There is a bit of fire there.\"\n\n\"Oh no. I won't hear of such a thing!\"\n\n\"Yes, we will, won't we, Mrs. Critchlow?\" Constance insisted,\ncheerfully but firmly. She was determined that in her house Sophia\nshould have all the freedom and conveniences that she could have had in\nher own. If a private room was needed for discussions between Sophia\nand her trustee, Constance's pride was piqued to supply that room.\nFurther, Constance was glad to get Maria out of Sophia's sight. She was\naccustomed to Maria; with her it did not matter; but she did not care\nthat the teeth of Sophia should be set on edge by the ridiculous\ndemeanour of Maria. So those two left the drawing-room, and the old man\nbegan to open the papers which he had been preparing for weeks.\n\nThere was very little fire in the parlour, and Constance, in addition\nto being bored by Mrs. Critchlow's inane and inquisitive remarks, felt\nchilly, which was bad for her sciatica. She wondered whether Sophia\nwould have to confess to Mr. Critchlow that she was not certainly a\nwidow. She thought that steps ought to be taken to ascertain, through\nBirkinshaws, if anything was known of Gerald Scales. But even that\ncourse was set with perils. Supposing that he still lived, an\nunspeakable villain (Constance could only think of him as an\nunspeakable villain), and supposing that he molested Sophia,--what\nscenes! What shame in the town! Such frightful thoughts ran endlessly\nthrough Constance's mind as she bent over the fire endeavouring to keep\nalive a silly conversation with Maria Critchlow.\n\nAmy passed through the parlour to go to bed. There was no other way of\nreaching the upper part of the house.\n\n\"Are you going to bed, Amy?\"\n\n\"Yes'm.\"\n\n\"Where is Fossette?\"\n\n\"In the kitchen, m'm,\" said Amy, defending herself. \"Mrs. Scales told\nme the dog might sleep in the kitchen with Spot, as they was such good\nfriends. I've opened the bottom drawer, and Fossit is lying in that.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Scales has brought a dog with her!\" exclaimed Maria.\n\n\"Yes'm!\" said Amy, drily, before Constance could answer. She implied\neverything in that affirmative.\n\n\"You are a family for dogs,\" said Maria. \"What sort of dog is it?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Constance. \"I don't know exactly what they call it. It's a\nFrench dog, one of those French dogs.\" Amy was lingering at the\nstairfoot. \"Good night, Amy, thank you.\"\n\nAmy ascended, shutting the door.\n\n\"Oh! I see!\" Maria muttered. \"Well, I never!\"\n\nIt was ten o'clock before sounds above indicated that the first\ninterview between trustee and beneficiary was finished.\n\n\"I'll be going on to open our side-door,\" said Maria. \"Say good night\nto Mrs. Scales for me.\" She was not sure whether Charles Critchlow had\nreally meant her to go home, or whether her mere absence from the\ndrawing-room had contented him. So she departed. He came down the\nstairs with the most tiresome slowness, went through the parlour in\nsilence, ignoring Constance, and also Sophia, who was at his heels, and\nvanished.\n\nAs Constance shut and bolted the front-door, the sisters looked at each\nother, Sophia faintly smiling. It seemed to them that they understood\neach other better when they did not speak. With a glance, they\nexchanged their ideas on the subject of Charles Critchlow and Maria,\nand learnt that their ideas were similar. Constance said nothing as to\nthe private interview. Nor did Sophia. At present, on this the first\nday, they could only achieve intimacy by intermittent flashes.\n\n\"What about bed?\" asked Sophia.\n\n\"You must be tired,\" said Constance.\n\nSophia got to the stairs, which received a little light from the\ncorridor gas, before Constance, having tested the window-fastening,\nturned out the gas in the parlour. They climbed the lower flight of\nstairs together.\n\n\"I must just see that your room is all right,\" Constance said.\n\n\"Must you?\" Sophia smiled.\n\nThey climbed the second flight, slowly. Constance was out of breath.\n\n\"Oh, a fire! How nice!\" cried Sophia. \"But why did you go to all that\ntrouble? I told you not to.\"\n\n\"It's no trouble at all,\" said Constance, raising the gas in the\nbedroom. Her tone implied that bedroom fires were a quite ordinary\nincident of daily life in a place like Bursley.\n\n\"Well, my dear, I hope you'll find everything comfortable,\" said\nConstance.\n\n\"I'm sure I shall. Good night, dear.\"\n\n\"Good night, then.\"\n\nThey looked at each other again, with timid affectionateness. They did\nnot kiss. The thought in both their minds was: \"We couldn't keep on\nkissing every day.\" But there was a vast amount of quiet, restrained\naffection, of mutual confidence and respect, even of tenderness, in\ntheir tones.\n\nAbout half an hour later a dreadful hullaballoo smote the ear of\nConstance. She was just getting into bed. She listened intently, in\ngreat alarm. It was undoubtedly those dogs fighting, and fighting to\nthe death. She pictured the kitchen as a battlefield, and Spot slain.\nOpening the door, she stepped out into the corridor.\n\n\"Constance,\" said a low voice above her. She jumped. \"Is that you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, don't bother to go down to the dogs; they'll stop in a moment.\nFossette won't bite. I'm so sorry she's upsetting the house.\"\n\nConstance stared upwards, and discerned a pale shadow. The dogs did\nsoon cease their altercation. This short colloquy in the dark affected\nConstance strangely.\n\nIII\n\nThe next morning, after a night varied by periods of wakefulness not\nunpleasant, Sophia arose and, taking due precautions against cold, went\nto the window. It was Saturday; she had left Paris on the Thursday. She\nlooked forth upon the Square, holding aside the blind. She had\nexpected, of course, to find that the Square had shrunk in size; but\nnevertheless she was startled to see how small it was. It seemed to her\nscarcely bigger than a courtyard. She could remember a winter morning\nwhen from the window she had watched the Square under virgin snow in\nthe lamplight, and the Square had been vast, and the first wayfarer,\ncrossing it diagonally and leaving behind him the irregular impress of\nhis feet, had appeared to travel for hours over an interminable white\nwaste before vanishing past Holl's shop in the direction of the Town\nHall. She chiefly recalled the Square under snow; cold mornings, and\nthe coldness of the oil-cloth at the window, and the draught of cold\nair through the ill-fitting sash (it was put right now)! These visions\nof herself seemed beautiful to her; her childish existence seemed\nbeautiful; the storms and tempests of her girlhood seemed beautiful;\neven the great sterile expanse of tedium when, after giving up a\nscholastic career, she had served for two years in the shop--even this\nhad a strange charm in her memory.\n\nAnd she thought that not for millions of pounds would she live her life\nover again.\n\nIn its contents the Square had not surprisingly changed during the\nimmense, the terrifying interval that separated her from her virginity.\nOn the east side, several shops had been thrown into one, and forced\ninto a semblance of eternal unity by means of a coat of stucco. And\nthere was a fountain at the north end which was new to her. No other\nconstructional change! But the moral change, the sad declension from\nthe ancient proud spirit of the Square--this was painfully depressing.\nSeveral establishments lacked tenants, had obviously lacked tenants for\na long time; 'To let' notices hung in their stained and dirty upper\nwindows, and clung insecurely to their closed shutters. And on the\nsign-boards of these establishments were names that Sophia did not\nknow. The character of most of the shops seemed to have worsened; they\nhad become pettifogging little holes, unkempt, shabby, poor; they had\nno brightness, no feeling of vitality. And the floor of the Square was\nlittered with nondescript refuse. The whole scene, paltry, confined,\nand dull, reached for her the extreme of provinciality. It was what the\nFrench called, with a pregnant intonation, la province. This--being\nsaid, there was nothing else to say. Bursley, of course, was in the\nprovinces; Bursley must, in the nature of things, be typically\nprovincial. But in her mind it had always been differentiated from the\ncommon province; it had always had an air, a distinction, and\nespecially St. Luke's Square! That illusion was now gone. Still, the\nalteration was not wholly in herself; it was not wholly subjective. The\nSquare really had changed for the worse; it might not be smaller, but\nit had deteriorated. As a centre of commerce it had assuredly\napproached very near to death. On a Saturday morning thirty years ago\nit would have been covered with linen-roofed stalls, and chattering\ncountry-folk, and the stir of bargains. Now, Saturday morning was like\nany other morning in the Square, and the glass-roof of St. Luke's\nmarket in Wedgwood Street, which she could see from her window, echoed\nto the sounds of noisy commerce. In that instance business had simply\nmoved a few yards to the east; but Sophia knew, from hints in\nConstance's letters and in her talk, that business in general had moved\nmore than a few yards, it had moved a couple of miles--to arrogant and\npushing Hanbridge, with its electric light and its theatres and its\nbig, advertising shops. The heaven of thick smoke over the Square, the\nblack deposit on painted woodwork, the intermittent hooting of steam\nsyrens, showed that the wholesale trade of Bursley still flourished.\nBut Sophia had no memories of the wholesale trade of Bursley; it meant\nnothing to the youth of her heart; she was attached by intimate links\nto the retail traffic of Bursley, and as a mart old Bursley was done\nfor.\n\nShe thought: \"It would kill me if I had to live here. It's deadening.\nIt weighs on you. And the dirt, and the horrible ugliness! And the--way\nthey talk, and the way they think! I felt it first at Knype station.\nThe Square is rather picturesque, but it's such a poor, poor little\nthing! Fancy having to look at it every morning of one's life! No!\" She\nalmost shuddered.\n\nFor the time being she had no home. To Constance she was 'paying a\nvisit.'\n\nConstance did not appear to realize the awful conditions of dirt,\ndecay, and provinciality in which she was living. Even Constance's\nhouse was extremely inconvenient, dark, and no doubt unhealthy.\nCellar-kitchen, no hall, abominable stairs, and as to hygiene, simply\nmediaeval. She could not understand why Constance had remained in the\nhouse. Constance had plenty of money and might live where she liked,\nand in a good modern house. Yet she stayed in the Square. \"I daresay\nshe's got used to it,\" Sophia thought leniently. \"I daresay I should be\njust the same in her place.\" But she did not really think so, and she\ncould not understand Constance's state of mind.\n\nCertainly she could not claim to have 'added up' Constance yet. She\nconsidered that her sister was in some respects utterly\nprovincial--what they used to call in the Five Towns a 'body.' Somewhat\ntoo diffident, not assertive enough, not erect enough; with curious\nprovincial pronunciations, accents, gestures, mannerisms, and\ninarticulate ejaculations; with a curious narrowness of outlook! But at\nthe same time Constance was very shrewd, and she was often proving by\nsome bit of a remark that she knew what was what, despite her\nprovinciality. In judgments upon human nature they undoubtedly thought\nalike, and there was a strong natural general sympathy between them.\nAnd at the bottom of Constance was something fine. At intervals Sophia\ndiscovered herself secretly patronizing Constance, but reflection would\nalways cause her to cease from patronage and to examine her own\ndefences. Constance, besides being the essence of kindness, was no\nfool. Constance could see through a pretence, an absurdity, as quickly\nas any one. Constance did honestly appear to Sophia to be superior to\nany Frenchwoman that she had ever encountered. She saw supreme in\nConstance that quality which she had recognized in the porters at\nNewhaven on landing--the quality of an honest and naive goodwill, of\npowerful simplicity. That quality presented itself to her as the\ngreatest in the world, and it seemed to be in the very air of England.\nShe could even detect it in Mr. Critchlow, whom, for the rest, she\nliked, admiring the brutal force of his character. She pardoned his\nbrutality to his wife. She found it proper. \"After all,\" she said,\n\"supposing he hadn't married her, what would she have been? Nothing but\na slave! She's infinitely better off as his wife. In fact she's lucky.\nAnd it would be absurd for him to treat her otherwise than he does\ntreat her.\" (Sophia did not divine that her masterful Critchlow had\nonce wanted Maria as one might want a star.)\n\nBut to be always with such people! To be always with Constance! To be\nalways in the Bursley atmosphere, physical and mental!\n\nShe pictured Paris as it would be on that very morning--bright, clean,\nglittering; the neatness of the Rue Lord Byron, and the magnificent\nslanting splendour of the Champs Elysees. Paris had always seemed\nbeautiful to her; but the life of Paris had not seemed beautiful to\nher. Yet now it did seem beautiful. She could delve down into the\nearlier years of her ownership of the Pension, and see a regular,\nplacid beauty in her daily life there. Her life there, even so late as\na fortnight ago, seemed beautiful; sad, but beautiful. It had passed\ninto history. She sighed when she thought of the innumerable interviews\nwith Mardon, the endless formalities required by the English and the\nFrench law and by the particularity of the Syndicate. She had been\nthrough all that. She had actually been through it and it was over. She\nhad bought the Pension for a song and sold it for great riches. She had\ndeveloped from a nobody into the desired of Syndicates. And after long,\nlong, monotonous, strenuous years of possession the day had come, the\nemotional moment had come, when she had yielded up the keys of\nownership to Mr. Mardon and a man from the Hotel Moscow, and had paid\nher servants for the last time and signed the last receipted bill. The\nmen had been very gallant, and had requested her to stay in the Pension\nas their guest until she was ready to leave Paris. But she had declined\nthat. She could not have borne to remain in the Pension under the reign\nof another. She had left at once and gone to a hotel with her few goods\nwhile finally disposing of certain financial questions. And one evening\nJacqueline had come to see her, and had wept.\n\nHer exit from the Pension Frensham struck her now as poignantly\npathetic, in its quickness and its absence of ceremonial. Ten steps,\nand her career was finished, closed. Astonishing with what liquid\ntenderness she turned and looked back on that hard, fighting,\nexhausting life in Paris! For, even if she had unconsciously liked it,\nshe had never enjoyed it. She had always compared France\ndisadvantageously with England, always resented the French temperament\nin business, always been convinced that 'you never knew where you were'\nwith French tradespeople. And now they flitted before her endowed with\na wondrous charm; so polite in their lying, so eager to spare your\nfeelings and to reassure you, so neat and prim. And the French shops,\nso exquisitely arranged! Even a butcher's shop in Paris was a pleasure\nto the eye, whereas the butcher's shop in Wedgwood Street, which she\nremembered of old, and which she had glimpsed from the cab--what a\nbloody shambles! She longed for Paris again. She longed to stretch her\nlungs in Paris. These people in Bursley did not suspect what Paris was.\nThey did not appreciate and they never would appreciate the marvels\nthat she had accomplished in a theatre of marvels. They probably never\nrealized that the whole of the rest of the world was not more or less\nlike Bursley. They had no curiosity. Even Constance was a thousand\ntimes more interested in relating trifles of Bursley gossip than in\nlistening to details of life in Paris. Occasionally she had expressed a\nmild, vapid surprise at things told to her by Sophia; but she was not\nreally impressed, because her curiosity did not extend beyond Bursley.\nShe, like the rest, had the formidable, thrice-callous egotism of the\nprovinces. And if Sophia had informed her that the heads of Parisians\ngrew out of their navels she would have murmured: \"Well, well! Bless\nus! I never heard of such things! Mrs. Brindley's second boy has got\nhis head quite crooked, poor little fellow!\"\n\nWhy should Sophia feel sorrowful? She did not know. She was free; free\nto go where she liked and do what she liked, She had no\nresponsibilities, no cares. The thought of her husband had long ago\nceased to rouse in her any feeling of any kind. She was rich. Mr.\nCritchlow had accumulated for her about as much money as she had\nherself acquired. Never could she spend her income! She did not know\nhow to spend it. She lacked nothing that was procurable. She had no\ndesires except the direct desire for happiness. If thirty thousand\npounds or so could have bought a son like Cyril, she would have bought\none for herself. She bitterly regretted that she had no child. In this,\nshe envied Constance. A child seemed to be the one commodity worth\nhaving. She was too free, too exempt from responsibilities. In spite of\nConstance she was alone in the world. The strangeness of the hazards of\nlife overwhelmed her. Here she was at fifty, alone.\n\nBut the idea of leaving Constance, having once rejoined her, did not\nplease Sophia. It disquieted her. She could not see herself living away\nfrom Constance. She was alone--but Constance was there.\n\nShe was downstairs first, and she had a little conversation with Amy.\nAnd she stood on the step of the front-door while Fossette made a\npreliminary inspection of Spot's gutter. She found the air nipping.\n\nConstance, when she descended, saw stretching across one side of the\nbreakfast-table an umbrella, Sophia's present to her from Paris. It was\nan umbrella such that a better could not be bought. It would have\nimpressed even Aunt Harriet. The handle was of gold, set with a circlet\nof opalines. The tips of the ribs were also of gold. It was this detail\nwhich staggered Constance. Frankly, this development of luxury had been\nunknown and unsuspected in the Square. That the tips of the ribs should\nmatch the handle ... that did truly beat everything! Sophia said calmly\nthat the device was quite common. But she did not conceal that the\numbrella was strictly of the highest class and that it might be shown\nto queens without shame. She intimated that the frame (a 'Fox's\nParagon'), handle, and tips, would outlast many silks. Constance was\nchildish with pleasure.\n\nThey decided to go out marketing together. The unspoken thought in\ntheir minds was that as Sophia would have to be introduced to the town\nsooner or later, it might as well be sooner. Constance looked at the\nsky. \"It can't possibly rain,\" she said. \"I shall take my umbrella.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTOWARDS HOTEL LIFE\n\nI\n\n\nSOPHIA wore list slippers in the morning. It was a habit which she had\nformed in the Rue Lord Byron--by accident rather than with an intention\nto utilize list slippers for the effective supervision of servants.\nThese list slippers were the immediate cause of important happenings in\nSt. Luke's Square. Sophia had been with Constance one calendar\nmonth--it was, of course, astonishing how quickly the time had\npassed!--and she had become familiar with the house. Restraint had\ngradually ceased to mark the relations of the sisters. Constance, in\nparticular, hid nothing from Sophia, who was made aware of the minor\nand major defects of Amy and all the other creakings of the household\nmachine. Meals were eaten off the ordinary tablecloths, and on the days\nfor 'turning out' the parlour, Constance assumed, with a little laugh,\nthat Sophia would excuse Amy's apron, which she had not had time to\nchange. In brief, Sophia was no longer a stranger, and nobody felt\nbound to pretend that things were not exactly what they were. In spite\nof the foulness and the provinciality of Bursley, Sophia enjoyed the\nintimacy with Constance. As for Constance, she was enchanted. The\ninflections of their voices, when they were talking to each other very\nprivately, were often tender, and these sudden surprising tendernesses\nsecretly thrilled both of them.\n\nOn the fourth Sunday morning Sophia put on her dressing-gown and those\nlist slippers very early, and paid a visit to Constance's bedroom. She\nwas somewhat concerned about Constance, and her concern was pleasurable\nto her. She made the most of it. Amy, with her lifelong carelessness\nabout doors, had criminally failed to latch the street-door of the\nparlour on the previous morning, and Constance had only perceived the\nomission by the phenomenon of frigidity in her legs at breakfast. She\nalways sat with her back to the door, in her mother's fluted\nrocking-chair; and Sophia on the spot, but not in the chair, occupied\nby John Baines in the forties, and in the seventies and later by Samuel\nPovey. Constance had been alarmed by that frigidity. \"I shall have a\nreturn of my sciatica!\" she had exclaimed, and Sophia was startled by\nthe apprehension in her tone. Before evening the sciatica had indeed\nrevisited Constance's sciatic nerve, and Sophia for the first time\ngained an idea of what a pulsating sciatica can do in the way of\ntorturing its victim. Constance, in addition to the sciatica, had\ncaught a sneezing cold, and the act of sneezing caused her the most\nacute pain. Sophia had soon stopped the sneezing. Constance was got to\nbed. Sophia wished to summon the doctor, but Constance assured her that\nthe doctor would have nothing new to advise. Constance suffered\nangelically. The weak and exquisite sweetness of her smile, as she lay\nin bed under the stress of twinging pain amid hot-water bottles, was\namazing to Sophia. It made her think upon the reserves of Constance's\ncharacter, and upon the variety of the manifestations of the Baines'\nblood.\n\nSo on the Sunday morning she had arisen early, just after Amy.\n\nShe discovered Constance to be a little better, as regards the\nneuralgia, but exhausted by the torments of a sleepless night. Sophia,\nthough she had herself not slept well, felt somehow conscience-stricken\nfor having slept at all.\n\n\"You poor dear!\" she murmured, brimming with sympathy. \"I shall make\nyou some tea at once, myself.\"\n\n\"Oh, Amy will do it,\" said Constance.\n\nSophia repeated with a resolute intonation: \"I shall make it myself.\"\nAnd after being satisfied that there was no instant need for a renewal\nof hot-water bottles, she went further downstairs in those list\nslippers.\n\nAs she was descending the dark kitchen steps she heard Amy's voice in\npettish exclamation: \"Oh, get out, YOU!\" followed by a yelp from\nFossette. She had a swift movement of anger, which she controlled. The\nrelations between her and Fossette were not marked by transports, and\nher rule over dogs in general was severe; even when alone she very\nseldom kissed the animal passionately, according to the general habit\nof people owning dogs. But she loved Fossette. And, moreover, her love\nfor Fossette had been lately sharpened by the ridicule which Bursley\nhad showered upon that strange beast. Happily for Sophia's amour\npropre, there was no means of getting Fossette shaved in Bursley, and\nthus Fossette was daily growing less comic to the Bursley eye. Sophia\ncould therefore without loss of dignity yield to force of circumstances\nwhat she would not have yielded to popular opinion. She guessed that\nAmy had no liking for the dog, but the accent which Amy had put upon\nthe 'you' seemed to indicate that Amy was making distinctions between\nFossette and Spot, and this disturbed Sophia much more than Fossette's\nyelp.\n\nSophia coughed, and entered the kitchen.\n\nSpot was lapping his morning milk out of a saucer, while Fossette stood\nwistfully, an amorphous mass of thick hair, under the table.\n\n\"Good morning, Amy,\" said Sophia, with dreadful politeness.\n\n\"Good morning, m'm,\" said Amy, glumly.\n\nAmy knew that Sophia had heard that yelp, and Sophia knew that she\nknew. The pretence of politeness was horrible. Both the women felt as\nthough the kitchen was sanded with gunpowder and there were lighted\nmatches about. Sophia had a very proper grievance against Amy on\naccount of the open door of the previous day. Sophia thought that,\nafter such a sin, the least Amy could do was to show contrition and\namiability and an anxiety to please: which things Amy had not shown.\nAmy had a grievance against Sophia because Sophia had recently thrust\nupon her a fresh method of cooking green vegetables. Amy was a strong\nopponent of new or foreign methods. Sophia was not aware of this\ngrievance, for Amy had hidden it under her customary cringing\npoliteness to Sophia.\n\nThey surveyed each other like opposing armies.\n\n\"What a pity you have no gas-stove here! I want to make some tea at\nonce for Mrs. Povey,\" said Sophia, inspecting the just-born fire.\n\n\"Gas-stove, m'm?\" said Amy, hostilely. It was Sophia's list slippers\nwhich had finally decided Amy to drop the mask of deference.\n\nShe made no effort to aid Sophia; she gave no indication as to where\nthe various necessaries for tea were to be found. Sophia got the\nkettle, and washed it out. Sophia got the smallest tea-pot, and, as the\ntea-leaves had been left in it, she washed out the teapot also, with\nexaggerated noise and meticulousness. Sophia got the sugar and the\nother trifles, and Sophia blew up the fire with the bellows. And Amy\ndid nothing in particular except encourage Spot to drink.\n\n\"Is that all the milk you give to Fossette?\" Sophia demanded coldly,\nwhen it had come to Fossette's turn. She was waiting for the water to\nboil. The saucer for the bigger dog, who would have made two of Spot,\nwas not half full.\n\n\"It's all there is to spare, m'm,\" Amy rasped.\n\nSophia made no reply. Soon afterwards she departed, with the tea\nsuccessfully made. If Amy had not been a mature woman of over forty she\nwould have snorted as Sophia went away. But Amy was scarcely the\nordinary silly girl.\n\nSave for a certain primness as she offered the tray to her sister,\nSophia's demeanour gave no sign whatever that the Amazon in her was\naroused. Constance's eager trembling pleasure in the tea touched her\ndeeply, and she was exceedingly thankful that Constance had her,\nSophia, as a succour in time of distress.\n\nA few minutes later, Constance, having first asked Sophia what time it\nwas by the watch in the watch-case on the chest of drawers (the Swiss\nclock had long since ceased to work), pulled the red tassel of the\nbell-cord over her bed. A bell tinkled far away in the kitchen.\n\n\"Anything I can do?\" Sophia inquired.\n\n\"Oh no, thanks,\" said Constance. \"I only want my letters, if the\npostman has come. He ought to have been here long ago.\" Sophia had\nlearned during her stay that Sunday morning was the morning on which\nConstance expected a letter from Cyril. It was a definite arrangement\nbetween mother and son that Cyril should write on Saturdays, and\nConstance on Sundays. Sophia knew that Constance set store by this\nletter, becoming more and more preoccupied about Cyril as the end of\nthe week approached. Since Sophia's arrival Cyril's letter had not\nfailed to come, but once it had been naught save a scribbled line or\ntwo, and Sophia gathered that it was never a certainty, and that\nConstance was accustomed, though not reconciled, to disappointments.\nSophia had been allowed to read the letters. They left a faint\nimpression on her mind that her favourite was perhaps somewhat\nnegligent in his relations with his mother.\n\nThere was no reply to the bell. Constance rang again without effect.\n\nWith a brusque movement Sophia left the bedroom by way of Cyril's room.\n\n\"Amy,\" she called over the banisters, \"do you not hear your mistress's\nbell?\"\n\n\"I'm coming as quick as I can, m'm.\" The voice was still very glum.\n\nSophia murmured something inarticulate, staying till assured that Amy\nreally was coming, and then she passed back into Cyril's bedroom. She\nwaited there, hesitant, not exactly on the watch, not exactly unwilling\nto assist at an interview between Amy and Amy's mistress; indeed, she\ncould not have surely analyzed her motive for remaining in Cyril's\nbedroom, with the door ajar between that room and Constance's.\n\nAmy reluctantly mounted the stairs and went into her mistress's bedroom\nwith her chin in the air. She thought that Sophia had gone up to the\nsecond storey, where she 'belonged.' She stood in silence by the bed,\nshowing no sympathy with Constance, no curiosity as to the\nindisposition. She objected to Constance's attack of sciatica, as being\na too permanent reproof of her carelessness as to doors.\n\nConstance also waited, for the fraction of a second, as if expectant.\n\n\"Well, Amy,\" she said at length in her voice weakened by fatigue and\npain. \"The letters?\"\n\n\"There ain't no letters,\" said Amy, grimly. \"You might have known, if\nthere'd been any, I should have brought 'em up. Postman went past\ntwenty minutes agone. I'm always being interrupted, and it isn't as if\nI hadn't got enough to do--now!\"\n\nShe turned to leave, and was pulling the door open.\n\n\"Amy!\" said a voice sharply. It was Sophia's.\n\nThe servant jumped, and in spite of herself obeyed the implicit,\nimperious command to stop.\n\n\"You will please not speak to your mistress in that tone, at any rate\nwhile I'm here,\" said Sophia, icily. \"You know she is ill and weak. You\nought to be ashamed of yourself.\"\n\n\"I never----\" Amy began.\n\n\"I don't want to argue,\" Sophia said angrily. \"Please leave the room.\"\n\nAmy obeyed. She was cowed, in addition to being staggered.\n\nTo the persons involved in it, this episode was intensely dramatic.\nSophia had surmised that Constance permitted liberties of speech to\nAmy; she had even guessed that Amy sometimes took licence to be rude.\nBut that the relations between them were such as to allow the bullying\nof Constance by an Amy downright insolent--this had shocked and wounded\nSophia, who suddenly had a vision of Constance as the victim of a reign\nof terror. \"If the creature will do this while I'm here,\" said Sophia\nto herself, \"what does she do when they are alone together in the\nhouse?\"\n\n\"Well,\" she exclaimed, \"I never heard of such goings-on! And you let\nher talk to you in that style! My dear Constance!\"\n\nConstance was sitting up in bed, the small tea-tray on her knees. Her\neyes were moist. The tears had filled them when she knew that there was\nno letter. Ordinarily the failure of Cyril's letter would not have made\nher cry, but weakness had impaired her self-control. And the tears\nhaving once got into her eyes, she could not dismiss them. There they\nwere!\n\n\"She's been with me such a long time,\" Constance murmured. \"She takes\nliberties. I've corrected her once or twice.\"\n\n\"Liberties!\" Sophia repeated the word. \"Liberties!\"\n\n\"Of course I really ought not to allow it,\" said Constance. \"I ought to\nhave put a stop to it long since.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Sophia, rather relieved by this symptom of Constance's\nsecret mind, \"I do hope you won't think I'm meddlesome, but truly it\nwas too much for me. The words were out of my mouth before I----\" She\nstopped.\n\n\"You were quite right, quite right,\" said Constance, seeing before her\nin the woman of fifty the passionate girl of fifteen.\n\n\"I've had a good deal of experience of servants,\" said Sophia.\n\n\"I know you have,\" Constance put in.\n\n\"And I'm convinced that it never pays to stand any sauce. Servants\ndon't understand kindness and forbearance. And this sort of thing grows\nand grows till you can't call your soul your own.\"\n\n\"You are quite right,\" Constance said again, with even more\npositiveness.\n\nNot merely the conviction that Sophia was quite right, but the desire\nto assure Sophia that Sophia was not meddlesome, gave force to her\nutterance. Amy's allusion to extra work shamed Amy's mistress as a\nhostess, and she was bound to make amends.\n\n\"Now as to that woman,\" said Sophia in a lower voice, as she sat down\nconfidentially on the edge of the bed. And she told Constance about Amy\nand the dogs, and about Amy's rudeness in the kitchen. \"I should never\nhave DREAMT of mentioning such things,\" she finished. \"But under the\ncircumstances I feel it right that you should know. I feel you ought to\nknow.\"\n\nAnd Constance nodded her head in thorough agreement. She did not\ntrouble to go into articulate apologies to her guest for the actual\nmisdeeds of her servant. The sisters were now on a plane of intimacy\nwhere such apologies would have been supererogatory. Their voices fell\nlower and lower, and the case of Amy was laid bare and discussed to the\nminutest detail.\n\nGradually they realized that what had occurred was a crisis. They were\nboth very excited, apprehensive, and rather too consciously defiant. At\nthe same time they were drawn very close to each other, by Sophia's\ngenerous indignation and by Constance's absolute loyalty.\n\nA long time passed before Constance said, thinking about something else:\n\n\"I expect it's been delayed in the post.\"\n\n\"Cyril's letter? Oh, no doubt! If you knew the posts in France, my\nword!\"\n\nThen they determined, with little sighs, to face the crisis cheerfully.\n\nIn truth it was a crisis, and a great one. The sensation of the crisis\naffected the atmosphere of the entire house. Constance got up for tea\nand managed to walk to the drawing-room. And when Sophia, after an\nabsence in her own room, came down to tea and found the tea all served,\nConstance whispered:\n\n\"She's given notice! And Sunday too!\"\n\n\"What did she say?\"\n\n\"She didn't say much,\" Constance replied vaguely, hiding from Sophia\nthat Amy had harped on the too great profusion of mistresses in that\nhouse. \"After all, it's just as well. She'll be all right. She's saved\na good bit of money, and she has friends.\"\n\n\"But how foolish of her to give up such a good place!\"\n\n\"She simply doesn't care,\" said Constance, who was a little hurt by\nAmy's defection. \"When she takes a thing into her head she simply\ndoesn't care. She's got no common sense. I've always known that.\"\n\n\"So you're going to leave, Amy?\" said Sophia that evening, as Amy was\npassing through the parlour on her way to bed. Constance was already\narranged for the night.\n\n\"I am, m'm,\" answered Amy, precisely.\n\nHer tone was not rude, but it was firm. She had apparently reconnoitred\nher position in calmness.\n\n\"I'm sorry I was obliged to correct you this morning,\" said Sophia,\nwith cheerful amicableness, pleased in spite of herself with the\nwoman's tone. \"But I think you will see that I had reason to.\"\n\n\"I've been thinking it over, m'm,\" said Amy, with dignity, \"and I see\nas I must leave.\"\n\nThere was a pause.\n\n\"Well, you know best.... Good night, Amy.\"\n\n\"Good night, m'm.\"\n\n\"She's a decent woman,\" thought Sophia, \"but hopeless for this place\nnow.\"\n\nThe sisters were fronted with the fact that Constance had a month in\nwhich to find a new servant, and that a new servant would have to be\ntrained in well-doing and might easily prove disastrous. Both Constance\nand Amy were profoundly disturbed by the prospective dissolution of a\nbond which dated from the seventies. And both were decided that there\nwas no alternative to the dissolution. Outsiders knew merely that Mrs.\nPovey's old servant was leaving. Outsiders merely saw Mrs. Povey's\nadvertisement in the Signal for a new servant. They could not read\nhearts. Some of the younger generation even said superiorly that\nold-fashioned women like Mrs. Povey seemed to have servants on the\nbrain, etc., etc.\n\nII\n\n\"Well, have you got your letter?\" Sophia demanded cheerfully of\nConstance when she entered the bedroom the next morning.\n\nConstance merely shook her head. She was very depressed. Sophia's\ncheerfulness died out. As she hated to be insincerely optimistic, she\nsaid nothing. Otherwise she might have remarked: \"Perhaps the afternoon\npost will bring it.\" Gloom reigned. To Constance particularly, as Amy\nhad given notice and as Cyril was 'remiss,' it seemed really that the\ntime was out of joint and life unworth living. Even the presence of\nSophia did not bring her much comfort. Immediately Sophia left the room\nConstance's sciatica began to return, and in a severe form. She had\nregretted this, less for the pain than because she had just assured\nSophia, quite honestly, that she was not suffering; Sophia had been\nsceptical. After that it was of course imperative that Constance should\nget up as usual. She had said that she would get up as usual. Besides,\nthere was the immense enterprise of obtaining a new servant! Worries\nloomed mountainous. Suppose Cyril were dangerously ill, and unable to\nwrite! Suppose something had happened to him! Supposing she never did\nobtain a new servant!\n\nSophia, up in her room, was endeavouring to be philosophical, and to\nsee the world brightly. She was saying to herself that she must take\nConstance in hand, that what Constance lacked was energy, that\nConstance must be stirred out of her groove. And in the cavernous\nkitchen Amy, preparing the nine-o'clock breakfast, was meditating upon\nthe ingratitude of employers and wondering what the future held for\nher. She had a widowed mother in the picturesque village of Sneyd,\nwhere the mortal and immortal welfare of every inhabitant was watched\nover by God's vicegerent, the busy Countess of Chell; she possessed\nabout two hundred pounds of her own; her mother for years had been\nbegging Amy to share her home free of expense. But nevertheless Amy's\nmind was black with foreboding and vague dejection. The house was a\nhouse of sorrow, and these three women, each solitary, the devotees of\nsorrow. And the two dogs wandered disconsolate up and down, aware of\nthe necessity for circumspection, never guessing that the highly\npeculiar state of the atmosphere had been brought about by nothing but\na half-shut door and an incorrect tone.\n\nAs Sophia, fully dressed this time, was descending to breakfast, she\nheard Constance's voice, feebly calling her, and found the convalescent\nstill in bed. The truth could not be concealed. Constance was once more\nin great pain, and her moral condition was not favourable to fortitude.\n\n\"I wish you had told me, to begin with,\" Sophia could not help saying,\n\"then I should have known what to do.\"\n\nConstance did not defend herself by saying that the pain had only\nrecurred since their first interview that morning. She just wept.\n\n\"I'm very low!\" she blubbered.\n\nSophia was surprised. She felt that this was not 'being a Baines.'\n\nDuring the progress of that interminable April morning, her\nacquaintance with the possibilities of sciatica as an agent destructive\nof moral fibre was further increased. Constance had no force at all to\nresist its activity. The sweetness of her resignation seemed to melt\ninto nullity. She held to it that the doctor could do nothing for her.\n\nAbout noon, when Sophia was moving anxiously around her, she suddenly\nscreamed.\n\n\"I feel as if my leg was going to burst!\" she cried.\n\nThat decided Sophia. As soon as Constance was a little easier she went\ndownstairs to Amy.\n\n\"Amy,\" she said, \"it's a Doctor Stirling that your mistress has when\nshe's ill, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes, m'm.\"\n\n\"Where is his surgery?\"\n\n\"Well, m'm, he did live just opposite, with Dr. Harrop, but latterly\nhe's gone to live at Bleakridge.\"\n\n\"I wish you would put your things on, and run up there and ask him to\ncall as soon as he can.\"\n\n\"I will, m'm,\" said Amy, with the greatest willingness. \"I thought I\nheard missis cry out.\" She was not effusive. She was better than\neffusive: kindly and helpful with a certain reserve.\n\n\"There's something about that woman I like,\" said Sophia, to herself.\nFor a proved fool, Amy was indeed holding her own rather well.\n\nDr. Stirling drove down about two o'clock. He had now been established\nin the Five Towns for more than a decade, and the stamp of success was\non his brow and on the proud forehead of his trotting horse. He had, in\nthe phrase of the Signal, 'identified himself with the local life of\nthe district.' He was liked, being a man of broad sympathies. In his\nrich Scotch accent he could discuss with equal ability the flavour of\nwhisky or of a sermon, and he had more than sufficient tact never to\ndiscuss either whiskies or sermons in the wrong place. He had made a\nspeech (responding for the learned professions) at the annual dinner of\nthe Society for the Prosecution of Felons, and this speech (in which\npraise of red wine was rendered innocuous by praise of books--his fine\nlibrary was notorious) had classed him as a wit with the American\nconsul, whose post-prandial manner was modelled on Mark Twain's. He was\nthirty-five years of age, tall and stoutish, with a chubby boyish face\nthat the razor left chiefly blue every morning.\n\nThe immediate effect of his arrival on Constance was miraculous. His\npresence almost cured her for a moment, just as though her malady had\nbeen toothache and he a dentist. Then, when he had finished his\nexamination, the pain resumed its sway over her.\n\nIn talking to her and to Sophia, he listened very seriously to all that\nthey said; he seemed to regard the case as the one case that had ever\naroused his genuine professional interest; but as it unfolded itself,\nin all its difficulty and urgency, so he seemed, in his mind, to be\ndiscovering wondrous ways of dealing with it; these mysterious\ndiscoveries seemed to give him confidence, and his confidence was\ncommunicated to the patient by means of faint sallies of humour. He was\na highly skilled doctor. This fact, however, had no share in his\npopularity; which was due solely to his rare gift of taking a case very\nseriously while remaining cheerful.\n\nHe said he would return in a quarter of an hour, and he returned in\nthirteen minutes with a hypodermic syringe, with which he attacked the\npain in its central strongholds.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Constance, breathing gratitude for the relief.\n\nHe paused, looking at her roguishly from under lowered eyelids.\n\n\"I'd better not tell ye,\" he said. \"It might lead ye into mischief.\"\n\n\"Oh, but you must tell me, doctor,\" Constance insisted, anxious that he\nshould live up to his reputation for Sophia's benefit.\n\n\"It's hydrochloride of cocaine,\" he said, and lifted a finger. \"Beware\nof the cocaine habit. It's ruined many a respectable family. But if I\nhadn't had a certain amount of confidence in yer strength of character,\nMrs. Povey, I wouldn't have risked it.\"\n\n\"He will have his joke, will the doctor!\" Constance smiled, in a\nbrighter world.\n\nHe said he should come again about half-past five, and he arrived about\nhalf-past six, and injected more cocaine. The special importance of the\ncase was thereby established. On this second visit, he and Sophia soon\ngrew rather friendly. When she conducted him downstairs again he\nstopped chatting with her in the parlour for a long time, as though he\nhad nothing else on earth to do, while his coachman walked the horse to\nand fro in front of the door.\n\nHis attitude to her flattered Sophia, for it showed that he took her\nfor no ordinary woman. It implied a continual assumption that she must\nbe a mine of interest for any one who was privileged to delve into her\nmemory. So far, among Constance's acquaintance, Sophia had met no one\nwho showed more than a perfunctory curiosity as to her life. Her return\nwas accepted with indifference. Her escapade of thirty years ago had\nentirely lost its dramatic quality. Many people indeed had never heard\nthat she had run away from home to marry a commercial traveller; and to\nthose who remembered, or had been told, it seemed a sufficiently banal\nexploit--after thirty years! Her fear, and Constance's, that the town\nwould be murmurous with gossip was ludicrously unfounded. The effect of\ntime was such that even Mr. Critchlow appeared to have forgotten even\nthat she had been indirectly responsible for her father's death. She\nhad nearly forgotten it herself; when she happened to think of it she\nfelt no shame, no remorse, seeing the death as purely accidental, and\nnot altogether unfortunate. On two points only was the town\ninquisitive: as to her husband, and as to the precise figure at which\nshe had sold the pension. The town knew that she was probably not a\nwidow, for she had been obliged to tell Mr. Critchlow, and Mr.\nCritchlow in some hour of tenderness had told Maria. But nobody had\ndared to mention the name of Gerald Scales to her. With her fashionable\nclothes, her striking mien of command, and the legend of her wealth,\nshe inspired respect, if not awe, in the townsfolk. In the doctor's\nattitude there was something of amaze; she felt it. Though the dull\napathy of the people she had hitherto met was assuredly not without its\nadvantageous side for her tranquillity of mind, it had touched her\nvanity, and the gaze of the doctor soothed the smart. He had so\nobviously divined her interestingness; he so obviously wanted to enjoy\nit.\n\n\"I've just been reading Zola's 'Downfall,'\" he said.\n\nHer mind searched backwards, and recalled a poster.\n\n\"Oh!\" she replied. \"'La Debacle'?\"\n\n\"Yes. What do ye think of it?\" His eyes lighted at the prospect of a\ntalk. He was even pleased to hear her give him the title in French.\n\n\"I haven't read it,\" she said, and she was momentarily sorry that she\nhad not read it, for she could see that he was dashed. The doctor had\nsupposed that residence in a foreign country involved a knowledge of\nthe literature of that country. Yet he had never supposed that\nresidence in England involved a knowledge of English literature. Sophia\nhad read practically nothing since 1870; for her the latest author was\nCherbuliez. Moreover, her impression of Zola was that he was not at all\nnice, and that he was the enemy of his race, though at that date the\nworld had scarcely heard of Dreyfus. Dr. Stirling had too hastily\nassumed that the opinions of the bourgeois upon art differ in different\ncountries.\n\n\"And ye actually were in the siege of Paris?\" he questioned, trying\nagain.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"AND the commune?\"\n\n\"Yes, the commune too.\"\n\n\"Well!\" he exclaimed. \"It's incredible! When I was reading the\n'Downfall' the night before last, I said to myself that you must have\nbeen through a lot of all that. I didn't know I was going to have the\npleasure of a chat with ye so soon.\"\n\nShe smiled. \"But how did you know I was in the siege of Paris?\" she\nasked, curious.\n\n\"How do I know? I know because I've seen that birthday card ye sent to\nMrs. Povey in 1871, after it was over. It's one of her possessions,\nthat card is. She showed it me one day when she told me ye were coming.\"\n\nSophia started. She had quite forgotten that card. It had not occurred\nto her that Constance would have treasured all those cards that she had\ndespatched during the early years of her exile. She responded as well\nas she could to his eagerness for personal details concerning the siege\nand the commune. He might have been disappointed at the prose of her\nanswers, had he not been determined not to be disappointed.\n\n\"Ye seem to have taken it all very quietly,\" he observed.\n\n\"Eh yes!\" she agreed, not without pride. \"But it's a long time since.\"\n\nThose events, as they existed in her memory, scarcely warranted the\ntremendous fuss subsequently made about them. What were they, after\nall? Such was her secret thought. Chirac himself was now nothing but a\nfaint shadow. Still, were the estimate of those events true or false,\nshe was a woman who had been through them, and Dr. Stirling's high\nappreciation of that fact was very pleasant to her. Their friendliness\napproached intimacy. Night had fallen. Outside could be heard the\nchamping of a bit.\n\n\"I must be getting on,\" he said at last; but he did not move.\n\n\"Then there is nothing else I am to do for my sister?\" Sophia inquired.\n\n\"I don't think so,\" said he. \"It isn't a question of medicine.\"\n\n\"Then what is it a question of?\" Sophia demanded bluntly.\n\n\"Nerves,\" he said. \"It's nearly all nerves. I know something about Mrs.\nPovey's constitution now, and I was hoping that your visit would do her\ngood.\"\n\n\"She's been quite well--I mean what you may call quite well--until the\nday before yesterday, when she sat in that draught. She was better last\nnight, and then this morning I find her ever so much worse.\"\n\n\"No worries?\" The doctor looked at her confidentially.\n\n\"What CAN she have in the way of worries?\" exclaimed Sophia. \"That's to\nsay--real worries.\"\n\n\"Exactly!\" the doctor agreed.\n\n\"I tell her she doesn't know what worry is,\" said Sophia.\n\n\"So do I!\" said the doctor, his eyes twinkling.\n\n\"She was a little upset because she didn't receive her usual Sunday\nletter from Cyril yesterday. But then she was weak and low.\"\n\n\"Clever youth, Cyril!\" mused the doctor.\n\n\"I think he's a particularly nice boy,\" said Sophia, eagerly,\n\n\"So you've seen him?\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Sophia, rather stiffly. Did the doctor suppose that\nshe did not know her own nephew? She went back to the subject of her\nsister. \"She is also a little bothered, I think, because the servant is\ngoing to leave.\"\n\n\"Oh! So Amy is going to leave, is she?\" He spoke still lower. \"Between\nyou and me, it's no bad thing.\"\n\n\"I'm so glad you think so.\"\n\n\"In another few years the servant would have been the mistress here.\nOne can see these things coming on, but it's so difficult to do\nanything. In fact ye can't do anything.\"\n\n\"I did something,\" said Sophia, sharply. \"I told the woman straight\nthat it shouldn't go on while I was in the house. I didn't suspect it\nat first--but when I found it out ... I can tell you!\" She let the\ndoctor imagine what she could tell him.\n\nHe smiled. \"No,\" he said. \"I can easily understand that ye didn't\nsuspect anything at first. When she's well and bright Mrs. Povey could\nhold her own--so I'm told. But it was certainly slowly getting worse.\"\n\n\"Then people talk about it?\" said Sophia, shocked.\n\n\"As a native of Bursley, Mrs. Scales,\" said the doctor, \"ye ought to\nknow what people in Bursley do!\" Sophia put her lips together. The\ndoctor rose, smoothing his waistcoat. \"What does she bother with\nservants at all for?\" he burst out. \"She's perfectly free. She hasn't\ngot a care in the world, if she only knew it. Why doesn't she go out\nand about, and enjoy herself? She wants stirring up, that's what your\nsister wants.\"\n\n\"You're quite right,\" Sophia burst out in her turn. \"That's precisely\nwhat I say to myself; precisely! I was thinking it over only this\nmorning. She wants stirring up. She's got into a rut.\"\n\n\"She needs to be jolly. Why doesn't she go to some seaside place, and\nlive in a hotel, and enjoy herself? Is there anything to prevent her?\"\n\n\"Nothing whatever.\"\n\n\"Instead of being dependent on a servant! I believe in enjoying one's\nself--when ye've got the money to do it with! Can ye imagine anybody\nliving in Bursley, for pleasure? And especially in St. Luke's Square,\nright in the thick of it all! Smoke! Dirt! No air! No light! No\nscenery! No amusements! What does she do it for? She's in a rut.\"\n\n\"Yes, she's in a rut,\" Sophia repeated her own phrase, which he had\ncopied.\n\n\"My word!\" said the doctor. \"Wouldn't I clear out and enjoy myself if I\ncould! Your sister's a young woman.\"\n\n\"Of course she is!\" Sophia concurred, feeling that she herself was even\nyounger. \"Of course she is!\"\n\n\"And except that she's nervously organized, and has certain\npredispositions, there's nothing the matter with her. This sciatica--I\ndon't say it would be cured, but it might be, by a complete change and\nthrowing off all these ridiculous worries. Not only does she live in\nthe most depressing conditions, but she suffers tortures for it, and\nthere's absolutely no need for her to be here at all.\"\n\n\"Doctor,\" said Sophia, solemnly, impressed, \"you are quite right. I\nagree with every word you say.\"\n\n\"Naturally she's attached to the place,\" he continued, glancing round\nthe room. \"I know all about that. After living here all her life! But\nshe's got to break herself of her attachment. It's her duty to do so.\nShe ought to show a little energy. I'm deeply attached to my bed in the\nmorning, but I have to leave it.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Sophia, in an impatient tone, as though disgusted\nwith every person who could not perceive, or would not subscribe to,\nthese obvious truths that the doctor was uttering. \"Of course!\"\n\n\"What she needs is the bustle of life in a good hotel, a good hydro,\nfor instance. Among jolly people. Parties! Games! Excursions! She\nwouldn't be the same woman. You'd see. Wouldn't I do it, if I could?\nStrathpeffer. She'd soon forget her sciatica. I don't know what Mrs.\nPovey's annual income is, but I expect that if she took it into her\nhead to live in the dearest hotel in England, there would be no reason\nwhy she shouldn't.\"\n\nSophia lifted her head and smiled in calm amusement. \"I expect so,\" she\nsaid superiorly.\n\n\"A hotel--that's the life. No worries. If ye want anything ye ring a\nbell. If a waiter gives notice, it's some one else who has the worry,\nnot you. But you know all about that, Mrs. Scales.\"\n\n\"No one better,\" murmured Sophia.\n\n\"Good evening,\" he said abruptly, sticking out his hand. \"I'll be down\nin the morning.\"\n\n\"Did you ever mention this to my sister?\" Sophia asked him, rising.\n\n\"Yes,\" said he. \"But it's no use. Oh yes, I've told her. But she does\nreally think it's quite impossible. She wouldn't even hear of going to\nlive in London with her beloved son. She won't listen.\"\n\n\"I never thought of that,\" said Sophia. \"Good night.\"\n\nTheir hand-grasp was very intimate and mutually comprehending. He was\npleased by the quick responsiveness of her temperament, and the\nmasterful vigour which occasionally flashed out in her replies. He\nnoticed the hardly perceptible distortion of her handsome, worn face,\nand he said to himself: \"She's been through a thing or two,\" and:\n\"She'll have to mind her p's and q's.\" Sophia was pleased because he\nadmired her, and because with her he dropped his bedside jocularities,\nand talked plainly as a sensible man will talk when he meets an\nuncommonly wise woman, and because he echoed and amplified her own\nthoughts. She honoured him by standing at the door till he had driven\noff.\n\nFor a few moments she mused solitary in the parlour, and then, lowering\nthe gas, she went upstairs to her sister, who lay in the dark. Sophia\nstruck a match.\n\n\"You've been having quite a long chat with the doctor,\" said Constance.\n\"He's very good company, isn't he? What did he talk about this time?\"\n\n\"He wanted to know about Paris and so on,\" Sophia answered.\n\n\"Oh! I believe he's a rare student.\"\n\nLying there in the dark, the simple Constance never suspected that\nthose two active and strenuous ones had been arranging her life for\nher, so that she should be jolly and live for twenty years yet. She did\nnot suspect that she had been tried and found guilty of sinful\nattachments, and of being in a rut, and of lacking the elements of\nordinary sagacity. It had not occurred to her that if she was worried\nand ill, the reason was to be found in her own blind and stupid\nobstinacy. She had thought herself a fairly sensible kind of creature.\n\nIII\n\nThe sisters had an early supper together in Constance's bedroom.\nConstance was much easier. Having a fancy that a little movement would\nbe beneficial, she had even got up for a few moments and moved about\nthe room. Now she sat ensconced in pillows. A fire burned in the\nold-fashioned ineffectual grate. From the Sun Vaults opposite came the\nsound of a phonograph singing an invitation to God to save its gracious\nqueen. This phonograph was a wonderful novelty, and filled the Sun\nnightly. For a few evenings it had interested the sisters, in spite of\nthemselves, but they had soon sickened of it and loathed it. Sophia\nbecame more and more obsessed by the monstrous absurdity of the simple\nfact that she and Constance were there, in that dark inconvenient\nhouse, wearied by the gaiety of public-houses, blackened by smoke,\nsurrounded by mud, instead of being luxuriously installed in a\nbeautiful climate, amid scenes of beauty and white cleanliness.\nSecretly she became more and more indignant.\n\nAmy entered, bearing a letter in her coarse hand. As Amy\nunceremoniously handed the letter to Constance, Sophia thought: \"If she\nwas my servant she would hand letters on a tray.\" (An advertisement had\nalready been sent to the Signal.)\n\nConstance took the letter trembling. \"Here it is at last,\" she cried.\n\nWhen she had put on her spectacles and read it, she exclaimed:\n\n\"Bless us! Here's news! He's coming down! That's why he didn't write on\nSaturday as usual.\"\n\nShe gave the letter to Sophia to read. It ran--\n\n\"Sunday midnight.\n\n\"DEAR MOTHER,\n\n\"Just a line to say I am coming down to Bursley on Wednesday, on\nbusiness with Peels. I shall get to Knype at 5.28, and take the Loop.\nI've been very busy, and as I was coming down I didn't write on\nSaturday. I hope you didn't worry. Love to yourself and Aunt Sophia.\n\n\"Yours, C.\"\n\n\"I must send him a line,\" said Constance, excitedly.\n\n\"What? To-night?\"\n\n\"Yes. Amy can easily catch the last post with it. Otherwise he won't\nknow that I've got his letter.\"\n\nShe rang the bell.\n\nSophia thought: \"His coming down is really no excuse for his not\nwriting on Saturday. How could she guess that he was coming down? I\nshall have to put in a little word to that young man. I wonder\nConstance is so blind. She is quite satisfied now that his letter has\ncome.\" On behalf of the elder generation she rather resented\nConstance's eagerness to write in answer.\n\nBut Constance was not so blind. Constance thought exactly as Sophia\nthought. In her heart she did not at all justify or excuse Cyril. She\nremembered separately almost every instance of his carelessness in her\nregard. \"Hope I didn't worry, indeed!\" she said to herself with a faint\ntouch of bitterness, apropos of the phrase in his letter.\n\nNevertheless she insisted on writing at once. And Amy had to bring the\nwriting materials.\n\n\"Mr. Cyril is coming down on Wednesday,\" she said to Amy with great\ndignity.\n\nAmy's stony calmness was shaken, for Mr. Cyril was a great deal to Amy.\nAmy wondered how she would be able to look Mr. Cyril in the face when\nhe knew that she had given notice.\n\nIn the middle of writing, on her knee, Constance looked up at Sophia,\nand said, as though defending herself against an accusation: \"I didn't\nwrite to him yesterday, you know, or to-day.\"\n\n\"No,\" Sophia murmured assentingly.\n\nConstance rang the bell yet again, and Amy was sent out to the post.\n\nSoon afterwards the bell was rung for a fourth time, and not answered.\n\n\"I suppose she hasn't come back yet. But I thought I heard the door.\nWhat a long time she is!\"\n\n\"What do you want?\" Sophia asked.\n\n\"I just want to speak to her,\" said Constance.\n\nWhen the bell had been rung seven or eight times, Amy at length\nre-appeared, somewhat breathless.\n\n\"Amy,\" said Constance, \"let me examine those sheets, will you?\"\n\n\"Yes'm,\" said Amy, apparently knowing what sheets, of all the various\nand multitudinous sheets in that house.\n\n\"And the pillow-cases,\" Constance added as Amy left the room.\n\nSo it continued. The next day the fever heightened. Constance was up\nearly, before Sophia, and trotting about the house like a girl.\nImmediately after breakfast Cyril's bedroom was invested and\nrevolutionized; not till evening was order restored in that chamber.\nAnd on the Wednesday morning it had to be dusted afresh. Sophia watched\nthe preparations, and the increasing agitation of Constance's\ndemeanour, with an astonishment which she had real difficulty in\nconcealing. \"Is the woman absolutely mad?\" she asked herself. The\nspectacle was ludicrous: or it seemed so to Sophia, whose career had\nnot embraced much experience of mothers. It was not as if the\nmanifestations of Constance's anxiety were dignified or original or\nsplendid. They were just silly, ordinary fussinesses; they had no sense\nin them. Sophia was very careful to make no observation. She felt that\nbefore she and Constance were very much older she had a very great deal\nto do, and that a subtle diplomacy and wary tactics would be necessary.\nMoreover, Constance's angelic temper was slightly affected by the\nstrain of expectation. She had a tendency to rasp. After the high-tea\nwas set she suddenly sprang on to the sofa and lifted down the 'Stag at\nEve' engraving. The dust on the top of the frame incensed her.\n\n\"What are you going to do?\" Sophia asked, in a final marvel.\n\n\"I'm going to change it with that one,\" said Constance, pointing to\nanother engraving opposite the fireplace. \"He said the effect would be\nvery much better if they were changed. And his lordship is very\nparticular.\"\n\nConstance did not go to Bursley station to meet her son. She explained\nthat it upset her to do so, and that also Cyril preferred her not to\ncome.\n\n\"Suppose I go to meet him,\" said Sophia, at half-past five. The idea\nhad visited her suddenly. She thought: \"Then I could talk to him before\nany one else.\"\n\n\"Oh, do!\" Constance agreed.\n\nSophia put her things on with remarkable expedition. She arrived at the\nstation a minute before the train came in. Only a few persons emerged\nfrom the train, and Cyril was not among them. A porter said that there\nwas not supposed to be any connection between the Loop Line trains and\nthe main line expresses, and that probably the express had missed the\nLoop. She waited thirty-five minutes for the next Loop, and Cyril did\nnot emerge from that train either.\n\nConstance opened the front-door to her, and showed a telegram--\n\n\"Sorry prevented last moment. Writing. CYRIL.\"\n\nSophia had known it. Somehow she had known that it was useless to wait\nfor the second train. Constance was silent and calm; Sophia also.\n\n\"What a shame! What a shame!\" thumped Sophia's heart.\n\nIt was the most ordinary episode. But beneath her calm she was furious\nagainst her favourite. She hesitated.\n\n\"I'm just going out a minute,\" she said.\n\n\"Where?\" asked Constance. \"Hadn't we better have tea? I suppose we must\nhave tea.\"\n\n\"I shan't be long. I want to buy something.\"\n\nSophia went to the post-office and despatched a telegram. Then,\npartially eased, she returned to the arid and painful desolation of the\nhouse.\n\nIV\n\nThe next evening Cyril sat at the tea-table in the parlour with his\nmother and his aunt. To Constance his presence there had something of\nthe miraculous in it. He had come, after all! Sophia was in a rich\nrobe, and for ornament wore an old silver-gilt neck-chain, which was\nclasped at the throat, and fell in double to her waist, where it was\ncaught in her belt. This chain interested Cyril. He referred to it once\nor twice, and then he said: \"Just let me have a LOOK at that chain,\"\nand put out his hand; and Sophia leaned forward so that he could handle\nit. His fingers played with it thus for some seconds; the picture\nstrikingly affected Constance. At length he dropped it, and said:\n\"H'm!\" After a pause he said: \"Louis Sixteenth, eh?\" and Sophia said:\n\n\"They told me so. But it's nothing; it only cost thirty francs, you\nknow.\" And Cyril took her up sharply:\n\n\"What does that matter?\" Then after another pause he asked: \"How often\ndo you break a link of it?\"\n\n\"Oh, often,\" she said. \"It's always getting shorter.\"\n\nAnd he murmured mysteriously: \"H'm!\"\n\nHe was still mysterious, withdrawn within himself extraordinarily\nuninterested in his physical surroundings. But that evening he talked\nmore than he usually did. He was benevolent, and showed a particular\nbenevolence towards his mother, apparently exerting himself to answer\nher questions with fullness and heartiness, as though admitting frankly\nher right to be curious. He praised the tea; he seemed to notice what\nhe was eating. He took Spot on his knee, and gazed in admiration at\nFossette.\n\n\"By Jove!\" he said, \"that's a dog, that is! ... All the same....\" And\nhe burst out laughing.\n\n\"I won't have Fossette laughed at,\" Sophia warned him.\n\n\"No, seriously,\" he said, in his quality of an amateur of dogs; \"she is\nvery fine.\" Even then he could not help adding: \"What you can see of\nher!\"\n\nWhereupon Sophia shook her head, deprecating such wit. Sophia was very\nlenient towards him. Her leniency could be perceived in her eyes, which\nfollowed his movements all the time. \"Do you think he is like me,\nConstance?\" she asked.\n\n\"I wish I was half as good-looking,\" said Cyril, quickly; and Constance\nsaid:\n\n\"As a baby he was very like you. He was a handsome baby. He wasn't at\nall like you when he was at school. These last few years he's begun to\nbe like you again. He's very much changed since he left school; he was\nrather heavy and clumsy then.\"\n\n\"Heavy and clumsy!\" exclaimed Sophia. \"Well, I should never have\nbelieved it!\"\n\n\"Oh, but he was!\" Constance insisted.\n\n\"Now, mater,\" said Cyril, \"it's a pity you don't want that cake cutting\ninto. I think I could have eaten a bit of that cake. But of course if\nit's only for show...!\"\n\nConstance sprang up, seizing a knife.\n\n\"You shouldn't tease your mother,\" Sophia told him. \"He doesn't really\nwant any, Constance; he's regularly stuffed himself.\"\n\nAnd Cyril agreed, \"No, no, mater, don't cut it; I really couldn't. I\nwas only gassing.\"\n\nBut Constance could never clearly see through humour of that sort. She\ncut three slices of cake, and she held the plate towards Cyril.\n\n\"I tell you I really couldn't!\" he protested.\n\n\"Come!\" she said obstinately. \"I'm waiting! How much longer must I hold\nthis plate?\"\n\nAnd he had to take a slice. So had Sophia. When she was roused, they\nboth of them had to yield to Constance.\n\nWith the dogs, and the splendour of the tea-table under the gas, and\nthe distinction of Sophia and Cyril, and the conversation, which on the\nwhole was gay and free, rising at times to jolly garrulity, the scene\nin her parlour ought surely to have satisfied Constance utterly. She\nought to have been quite happy, as her sciatica had raised the siege\nfor a space. But she was not quite happy. The circumstances of Cyril's\narrival had disturbed her; they had in fact wounded her, though she\nwould scarcely admit the wound. In the morning she had received a brief\nletter from Cyril to say that he had not been able to come, and vaguely\npromising, or half-promising, to run down at a later date. That letter\nhad the cardinal defects of all Cyril's relations with his mother; it\nwas casual, and it was not candid. It gave no hint of the nature of the\nobstacle which had prevented him from coming. Cyril had always been too\nsecretive. She was gravely depressed by the letter, which she did not\nshow to Sophia, because it impaired her dignity as a mother, and\ndisplayed her son in a bad light. Then about eleven o'clock a telegram\nhad come for Sophia.\n\n\"That's all right,\" Sophia had said, on reading it. \"He'll be here this\nevening!\" And she had handed over the telegram, which read--\n\n\"Very well. Will come same train to-day.\"\n\nAnd Constance learned that when Sophia had rushed out just before tea\non the previous evening, it was to telegraph to Cyril.\n\n\"What did you say to him?\" Constance asked.\n\n\"Oh!\" said Sophia, with a careless air, \"I told him I thought he ought\nto come. After all, you're more important than any business, Constance!\nAnd I don't like him behaving like that. I was determined he should\ncome!\"\n\nSophia had tossed her proud head.\n\nConstance had pretended to be pleased and grateful. But the existence\nof a wound was incontestable. Sophia, then, could do more with Cyril\nthan she could! Sophia had only met him once, and could simply twist\nhim round her little finger. He would never have done so much for his\nmother. A fine sort of an obstacle it must have been, if a single\ntelegram from Sophia could overcome it...! And Sophia, too, was\nsecretive. She had gone out and had telegraphed, and had not breathed a\nword until she got the reply, sixteen hours later. She was secretive,\nand Cyril was secretive. They resembled one another. They had taken to\none another. But Sophia was a curious mixture. When Constance had asked\nher if she should go to the station again to meet Cyril, she had\nreplied scornfully: \"No, indeed! I've done going to meet Cyril. People\nwho don't arrive must not expect to be met.\"\n\nWhen Cyril drove up to the door, Sophia had been in attendance. She\nhurried down the steps. \"Don't say anything about my telegram,\" she had\nrapidly whispered to Cyril; there was no time for further explanation.\nConstance was at the top of the steps. Constance had not heard the\nwhisper, but she had seen it; and she saw a guilty, puzzled look on\nCyril's face, afterwards an ineffectively concealed conspiratorial look\non both their faces. They had 'something between them,' from which she,\nthe mother, was shut out! Was it not natural that she should be\nwounded? She was far too proud to mention the telegrams. And as neither\nCyril nor Sophia mentioned them, the circumstances leading to Cyril's\nchange of plan were not referred to at all, which was very curious.\nThen Cyril was more sociable than he had ever been; he was different,\nunder his aunt's gaze. Certainly he treated his mother faultlessly. But\nConstance said to herself: \"It is because she is here that he is so\nspecially nice to me.\"\n\nWhen tea was finished and they were going upstairs to the drawing-room,\nshe asked him, with her eye on the 'Stag at Eve' engraving:\n\n\"Well, is it a success?\"\n\n\"What?\" His eye followed hers. \"Oh, you've changed it! What did you do\nthat for, mater?\"\n\n\"You said it would be better like that,\" she reminded him.\n\n\"Did I?\" He seemed genuinely surprised. \"I don't remember. I believe it\nis better, though,\" he added. \"It might be even better still if you\nturned it the other way up.\"\n\nHe pulled a face to Sophia, and screwed up his shoulders, as if to\nindicate: \"I've done it, this time!\"\n\n\"How? The other way up?\" Constance queried. Then as she comprehended\nthat he was teasing her, she said: \"Get away with you!\" and pretended\nto box his ears. \"You were fond enough of that picture at one time!\"\nshe said ironically.\n\n\"Yes, I was, mater,\" he submissively agreed. \"There's no getting over\nthat.\" And he pressed her cheeks between his hands and kissed her.\n\nIn the drawing-room he smoked cigarettes and played the piano--waltzes\nof his own composition. Constance and Sophia did not entirely\ncomprehend those waltzes. But they agreed that all were wonderful and\nthat one was very pretty indeed. (It soothed Constance that Sophia's\nopinion coincided with hers.) He said that that waltz was the worst of\nthe lot. When he had finished with the piano, Constance informed him\nabout Amy. \"Oh! She told me,\" he said, \"when she brought me my water. I\ndidn't mention it because I thought it would be rather a sore subject.\"\nBeneath the casualness of his tone there lurked a certain curiosity, a\nwillingness to hear details. He heard them.\n\nAt five minutes to ten, when Constance had yawned, he threw a bomb\namong them on the hearthrug.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"I've got an appointment with Matthew at the\nConservative Club at ten o'clock. I must go. Don't wait up for me.\"\n\nBoth women protested, Sophia the more vivaciously. It was Sophia now\nwho was wounded.\n\n\"It's business,\" he said, defending himself. \"He's going away early\nto-morrow, and it's my only chance.\" And as Constance did not brighten\nhe went on: \"Business has to be attended to. You mustn't think I've got\nnothing to do but enjoy myself.\"\n\nNo hint of the nature of the business! He never explained. As to\nbusiness, Constance knew only that she allowed him three hundred a\nyear, and paid his local tailor. The sum had at first seemed to her\nenormous, but she had grown accustomed to it.\n\n\"I should have preferred you to see Mr. Peel-Swynnerton here,\" said\nConstance. \"You could have had a room to yourselves. I do not like you\ngoing out at ten o'clock at night to a club.\"\n\n\"Well, good night, mater,\" he said, getting up. \"See you to-morrow. I\nshall take the key out of the door. It's true my pocket will never be\nthe same again.\"\n\nSophia saw Constance into bed, and provided her with two hot-water\nbottles against sciatica. They did not talk much.\n\nV\n\nSophia sat waiting on the sofa in the parlour. It appeared to her that,\nthough little more than a month had elapsed since her arrival in\nBursley, she had already acquired a new set of interests and anxieties.\nParis and her life there had receded in the strangest way. Sometimes\nfor hours she would absolutely forget Paris. Thoughts of Paris were\ndisconcerting; for either Paris or Bursley must surely be unreal! As\nshe sat waiting on the sofa Paris kept coming into her mind. Certainly\nit was astonishing that she should be just as preoccupied with her\nschemes for the welfare of Constance as she had ever been preoccupied\nwith schemes for the improvement of the Pension Frensham. She said to\nherself: \"My life has been so queer--and yet every part of it\nseparately seemed ordinary enough--how will it end?\"\n\nThen there were footfalls on the steps outside, and a key was put into\nthe door, which she at once opened.\n\n\"Oh!\" exclaimed Cyril, startled, and also somewhat out of countenance.\n\"You're still up! Thanks.\" He came in, smoking the end of a cigar.\n\"Fancy having to cart that about!\" he murmured, holding up the great\nold-fashioned key before inserting it in the lock on the inside.\n\n\"I stayed up,\" said Sophia, \"because I wanted to talk to you about your\nmother, and it's so difficult to get a chance.\"\n\nCyril smiled, not without self-consciousness, and dropped into his\nmother's rocking-chair, which he had twisted round with his feet to\nface the sofa.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"I was wondering what was the real meaning of your\ntelegram. What was it?\" He blew out a lot of smoke and waited for her\nreply.\n\n\"I thought you ought to come down,\" said Sophia, cheerfully but firmly.\n\"It was a fearful disappointment to your mother that you didn't come\nyesterday. And when she's expecting a letter from you and it doesn't\ncome, it makes her ill.\"\n\n\"Oh, well!\" he said. \"I'm glad it's no worse. I thought from your\ntelegram there was something seriously wrong. And then when you told me\nnot to mention it--when I came in...!\"\n\nShe saw that he failed to realize the situation, and she lifted her\nhead challengingly.\n\n\"You neglect your mother, young man,\" she said.\n\n\"Oh, come now, auntie!\" he answered quite gently. \"You mustn't talk\nlike that. I write to her every week. I've never missed a week. I come\ndown as often as----\"\n\n\"You miss the Sunday sometimes,\" Sophia interrupted him.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" he said doubtfully. \"But what----\"\n\n\"Don't you understand that she simply lives for your letters? And if\none doesn't come, she's very upset indeed--can't eat! And it brings on\nher sciatica, and I don't know what!\"\n\nHe was taken aback by her boldness, her directness.\n\n\"But how silly of her! A fellow can't always----\"\n\n\"It may be silly. But there it is. You can't alter her. And, after all,\nwhat would it cost you to be more attentive, even to write to her twice\na week? You aren't going to tell me you're so busy as all that! I know\na great deal more about young men than your mother does.\" She smiled\nlike an aunt.\n\nHe answered her smile sheepishly.\n\n\"If you'll only put yourself in your mother's place...!\"\n\n\"I expect you're quite right,\" he said at length. \"And I'm much obliged\nto you for telling me. How was I to know?\" He threw the end of the\ncigar, with a large sweeping gesture, into the fire.\n\n\"Well, anyhow, you know now!\" she said curtly; and she thought: \"You\nOUGHT to have known. It was your business to know.\" But she was pleased\nwith the way in which he had accepted her criticism, and the gesture\nwith which he threw away the cigar-end struck her as very distinguished.\n\n\"That's all right!\" he said dreamily, as if to say: \"That's done with.\"\nAnd he rose.\n\nSophia, however, did not stir.\n\n\"Your mother's health is not what it ought to be,\" she went on, and\ngave him a full account of her conversation with the doctor.\n\n\"Really!\" Cyril murmured, leaning on the mantel-piece with his elbow\nand looking down at her. \"Stirling said that, did he? I should have\nthought she would have been better where she is, in the Square.\"\n\n\"Why better in the Square?\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't know!\"\n\n\"Neither do I!\"\n\n\"She's always been here.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" said Sophia, \"she's been here a great deal too long.\"\n\n\"What do YOU suggest?\" Cyril asked, with impatience in his voice\nagainst this new anxiety that was being thrust upon him.\n\n\"Well,\" said Sophia, \"what should you say to her coming to London and\nliving with you?\"\n\nCyril started back. Sophia could see that he was genuinely shocked. \"I\ndon't think that would do at all,\" he said.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Oh! I don't think it would. London wouldn't suit her. She's not that\nsort of woman. I really thought she was quite all right down here. She\nwouldn't like London.\" He shook his head, looking up at the gas; his\neyes had a dangerous glare.\n\n\"But supposing she said she did?\"\n\n\"Look here,\" Cyril began in a new and brighter tone. \"Why don't you and\nshe keep house together somewhere? That would be the very--\"\n\nHe turned his head sharply. There was a noise on the staircase, and the\nstaircase door opened with its eternal creak.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Sophia. \"The Champs Elysees begins at the Place de la\nConcorde, and ends----. Is that you, Constance?\"\n\nThe figure of Constance filled the doorway. Her face was troubled. She\nhad heard Cyril in the street, and had come down to see why he remained\nso long in the parlour. She was astounded to find Sophia with him.\nThere they were, as intimate as cronies, chattering about Paris!\nUndoubtedly she was jealous! Never did Cyril talk like that to her!\n\n\"I thought you were in bed and asleep, Sophia,\" she said weakly. \"It's\nnearly one o'clock.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Sophia. \"I didn't seem to feel like going to bed; and then\nCyril happened to come in.\"\n\nBut neither she nor Cyril could look innocent. And Constance glanced\nfrom one to the other apprehensively.\n\nThe next morning Cyril received a letter which, he said--with no\nfurther explanation--forced him to leave at once. He intimated that\nthere had been danger in his coming just then, and that matters had\nturned out as he had feared.\n\n\"You think over what I said,\" he whispered to Sophia when they were\nalone for an instant, \"and let me know.\"\n\nVI\n\nA week before Easter the guests of the Rutland Hotel in the Broad Walk,\nBuxton, being assembled for afternoon tea in the \"lounge\" of that\nestablishment, witnessed the arrival of two middle-aged ladies and two\ndogs. Critically to examine newcomers was one of the amusements of the\noccupants of the lounge. This apartment, furnished \"in the oriental\nstyle,\" made a pretty show among the photographs in the illustrated\nbrochure of the hotel, and, though draughty, it was of all the public\nrooms the favourite. It was draughty because only separated from the\nstreet (if the Broad Walk can be called a street) by two pairs of\nswinging-doors--in charge of two page-boys. Every visitor entering the\nhotel was obliged to pass through the lounge, and for newcomers the\npassage was an ordeal; they were made to feel that they had so much to\nlearn, so much to get accustomed to; like passengers who join a ship at\na port of call, they felt that the business lay before them of creating\na niche for themselves in a hostile and haughty society. The two ladies\nproduced a fairly favourable impression at the outset by reason of\ntheir two dogs. It is not every one who has the courage to bring dogs\ninto an expensive private hotel; to bring one dog indicates that you\nare not accustomed to deny yourself small pleasures for the sake of a\nfew extra shillings; to bring two indicates that you have no fear of\nhotel-managers and that you are in the habit of regarding your own whim\nas nature's law. The shorter and stouter of the two ladies did not\nimpose herself with much force on the collective vision of the Rutland;\nshe was dressed in black, not fashionably, though with a certain\nunpretending richness; her gestures were timid and nervous; evidently\nshe relied upon her tall companion to shield her in the first trying\ncontacts of hotel life. The tall lady was of a different stamp.\nHandsome, stately, deliberate, and handsomely dressed in colours, she\nhad the assured hard gaze of a person who is thoroughly habituated to\nthe inspection of strangers. She curtly asked one of the page-boys for\nthe manager, and the manager's wife tripped rapidly down the stairs in\nresponse, and was noticeably deferential--Her voice was quiet and\ncommanding, the voice of one who gives orders that are obeyed. The\nopinion of the lounge was divided as to whether or not they were\nsisters.\n\nThey vanished quietly upstairs in convoy of the manager's wife, and\nthey did not re-appear for the lounge tea, which in any case would have\nbeen undrinkably stewed. It then became known, by the agency of one of\nthose guests, to be found in every hotel, who acquire all the secrets\nof the hotel by the exercise of unabashed curiosity on the personnel,\nthat the two ladies had engaged two bedrooms, Nos. 17 and 18, and the\nsumptuous private parlour with a balcony on the first floor, styled \"C\"\nin the nomenclature of rooms. This fact definitely established the\nposition of the new arrivals in the moral fabric of the hotel. They\nwere wealthy. They had money to throw away. For even in a select hotel\nlike the Rutland it is not everybody who indulges in a private\nsitting-room; there were only four such apartments in the hotel, as\nagainst fifty bedrooms.\n\nAt dinner they had a small table to themselves in a corner. The short\nlady wore a white shawl over her shoulders. Her almost apologetic\nmanner during the meal confirmed the view that she must be a very\nsimple person, unused to the world and its ways. The other continued to\nbe imperial. She ordered half-a-bottle of wine and drank two glasses.\nShe stared about her quite self-unconsciously, whereas the little woman\ndivided her glances between her companion and her plate. They did not\ntalk much. Immediately after dinner they retired. \"Widows in easy\ncircumstances\" was the verdict; but the contrast between the pair held\npuzzles that piqued the inquisitive.\n\nSophia had conquered again. Once more Sophia had resolved to accomplish\na thing and she had accomplished it. Events had fallen out thus. The\nadvertisement for a general servant in the Signal had been a\ndisheartening failure. A few answers were received, but of an entirely\nunsatisfactory character. Constance, a great deal more than Sophia, had\nbeen astounded by the bearing and the demands of modern servants.\nConstance was in despair. If Constance had not had an immense pride she\nwould have been ready to suggest to Sophia that Amy should be asked to\n'stay on.' But Constance would have accepted a modern impudent wench\nfirst. It was Maria Critchlow who got Constance out of her difficulty\nby giving her particulars of a reliable servant who was about to leave\na situation in which she had stayed for eight years. Constance did not\nimagine that a servant recommended by Maria Critchlow would suit her,\nbut, being in a quandary, she arranged to see the servant, and both she\nand Sophia were very pleased with the girl--Rose Bennion by name. The\nmischief was that Rose would not be free until about a month after Amy\nhad left. Rose would have left her old situation, but she had a fancy\nto go and spend a fortnight with a married sister at Manchester before\nsettling into new quarters. Constance and Sophia felt that this caprice\nof Rose's was really very tiresome and unnecessary. Of course Amy might\nhave been asked to 'stay on' just for a month. Amy would probably have\nvolunteered to do so had she been aware of the circumstances. She was\nnot, however, aware of the circumstances. And Constance was determined\nnot to be beholden to Amy for anything. What could the sisters do?\nSophia, who conducted all the interviews with Rose and other\ncandidates, said that it would be a grave error to let Rose slip.\nBesides, they had no one to take her place, no one who could come at\nonce.\n\nThe dilemma was appalling. At least, it seemed appalling to Constance,\nwho really believed that no mistress had ever been so 'awkwardly\nfixed.' And yet, when Sophia first proposed her solution, Constance\nconsidered it to be a quite impossible solution. Sophia's idea was that\nthey should lock up the house and leave it on the same day as Amy left\nit, to spend a few weeks in some holiday resort. To begin with, the\nidea of leaving the house empty seemed to Constance a mad idea. The\nhouse had never been left empty. And then--going for a holiday in\nApril! Constance had never been for a holiday except in the month of\nAugust. No! The project was beset with difficulties and dangers which\ncould not be overcome nor provided against. For example, \"We can't come\nback to a dirty house,\" said Constance. \"And we can't have a strange\nservant coming here before us.\" To which Sophia had replied: \"Then what\nSHALL you do?\" And Constance, after prodigious reflection on the\nfrightful pass to which destiny had brought her, had said that she\nsupposed she would have to manage with a charwoman until Rose's advent.\nShe asked Sophia if she remembered old Maggie. Sophia, of course,\nperfectly remembered. Old Maggie was dead, as well as the drunken,\namiable Hollins, but there was a young Maggie (wife of a bricklayer)\nwho went out charing in the spare time left from looking after seven\nchildren. The more Constance meditated upon young Maggie, the more was\nshe convinced that young Maggie would meet the case. Constance felt she\ncould trust young Maggie.\n\nThis expression of trust in Maggie was Constance's undoing. Why should\nthey not go away, and arrange with Maggie to come to the house a few\ndays before their return, to clean and ventilate? The weight of reason\noverbore Constance. She yielded unwillingly, but she yielded. It was\nthe mention of Buxton that finally moved her. She knew Buxton. Her old\nlandlady at Buxton was dead, and Constance had not visited the place\nsince before Samuel's death; nevertheless its name had a reassuring\nsound to her ears, and for sciatica its waters and climate were\nadmitted to be the best in England. Gradually Constance permitted\nherself to be embarked on this perilous enterprise of shutting up the\nhouse for twenty-five days. She imparted the information to Amy, who\nwas astounded. Then she commenced upon her domestic preparations. She\nwrapped Samuel's Family Bible in brown paper; she put Cyril's\nstraw-framed copy of Sir Edwin Landseer away in a drawer, and she took\nten thousand other precautions. It was grotesque; it was farcical; it\nwas what you please. And when, with the cab at the door and the luggage\non the cab, and the dogs chained together, and Maria Critchlow waiting\non the pavement to receive the key, Constance put the key into the door\non the outside, and locked up the empty house, Constance's face was\ntragic with innumerable apprehensions. And Sophia felt that she had\nperformed a miracle. She had.\n\nOn the whole the sisters were well received in the hotel, though they\nwere not at an age which commands popularity. In the criticism which\nwas passed upon them--the free, realistic and relentless criticism of\nprivate hotels--Sophia was at first set down as overbearing. But in a\nfew days this view was modified, and Sophia rose in esteem. The fact\nwas that Sophia's behaviour changed after forty-eight hours. The\nRutland Hotel was very good. It was so good as to disturb Sophia's\nprofound beliefs that there was in the world only one truly high-class\npension, and that nobody could teach the creator of that unique pension\nanything about the art of management. The food was excellent; the\nattendance in the bedrooms was excellent (and Sophia knew how difficult\nof attainment was excellent bedroom attendance); and to the eye the\ninterior of the Rutland presented a spectacle far richer than the\nPension Frensham could show. The standard of comfort was higher. The\nguests had a more distinguished appearance. It is true that the prices\nwere much higher. Sophia was humbled. She had enough sense to adjust\nher perspective. Further, she found herself ignorant of many matters\nwhich by the other guests were taken for granted and used as a basis\nfor conversation. Prolonged residence in Paris would not justify this\nignorance; it seemed rather to intensify its strangeness. Thus, when\nsomeone of cosmopolitan experience, having learnt that she had lived in\nParis for many years, asked what had been going on lately at the\nComedie Francaise, she had to admit that she had not been in a French\ntheatre for nearly thirty years. And when, on a Sunday, the same person\nquestioned her about the English chaplain in Paris, lo! she knew\nnothing but his name, had never even seen him. Sophia's life, in its\nway, had been as narrow as Constance's. Though her experience of human\nnature was wide, she had been in a groove as deep as Constance's. She\nhad been utterly absorbed in doing one single thing.\n\nBy tacit agreement she had charge of the expedition. She paid all the\nbills. Constance protested against the expensiveness of the affair\nseveral times, but Sophia quietened her by sheer force of\nindividuality. Constance had one advantage over Sophia. She knew Buxton\nand its neighbourhood intimately, and she was therefore in a position\nto show off the sights and to deal with local peculiarities. In all\nother respects Sophia led.\n\nThey very soon became acclimatized to the hotel. They moved easily\nbetween Turkey carpets and sculptured ceilings; their eyes grew used to\nthe eternal vision of themselves and other slow-moving dignities in\ngilt mirrors, to the heaviness of great oil-paintings of picturesque\nscenery, to the indications of surreptitious dirt behind massive\nfurniture, to the grey-brown of the shirt-fronts of the waiters, to the\nlitter of trays, boots and pails in long corridors; their ears were\nalways awake to the sounds of gongs and bells. They consulted the\nbarometer and ordered the daily carriage with the perfunctoriness of\nhabit. They discovered what can be learnt of other people's needlework\nin a hotel on a wet day. They performed co-operative outings with\nfellow-guests. They invited fellow-guests into their sitting-room. When\nthere was an entertainment they did not avoid it. Sophia was determined\nto do everything that could with propriety be done, partly as an outlet\nfor her own energy (which since she left Paris had been accumulating),\nbut more on Constance's account. She remembered all that Dr. Stirling\nhad said, and the heartiness of her own agreement with his opinions. It\nwas a great day when, under tuition of an aged lady and in the privacy\nof their parlour, they both began to study the elements of Patience.\nNeither had ever played at cards. Constance was almost afraid to touch\ncards, as though in the very cardboard there had been something\nunrighteous and perilous. But the respectability of a luxurious private\nhotel makes proper every act that passes within its walls. And\nConstance plausibly argued that no harm could come from a game which\nyou played by yourself. She acquired with some aptitude several\nvarieties of Patience. She said: \"I think I could enjoy that, if I kept\nat it. But it does make my head whirl.\"\n\nNevertheless Constance was not happy in the hotel. She worried the\nwhole time about her empty house. She anticipated difficulties and even\ndisasters. She wondered again and again whether she could trust the\nsecond Maggie in her house alone, whether it would not be better to\nreturn home earlier and participate personally in the cleaning. She\nwould have decided to do so had it not been that she hesitated to\nsubject Sophia to the inconvenience of a house upside down. The matter\nwas on her mind, always. Always she was restlessly anticipating the day\nwhen they would leave. She had carelessly left her heart behind in St.\nLuke's Square. She had never stayed in a hotel before, and she did not\nlike it. Sciatica occasionally harassed her. Yet when it came to the\npoint she would not drink the waters. She said she never had drunk\nthem, and seemed to regard that as a reason why she never should.\nSophia had achieved a miracle in getting her to Buxton for nearly a\nmonth, but the ultimate grand effect lacked brilliance.\n\nThen came the fatal letter, the desolating letter, which vindicated\nConstance's dark apprehensions. Rose Bennion calmly wrote to say that\nshe had decided not to come to St. Luke's Square. She expressed regret\nfor any inconvenience which might possibly be caused; she was polite.\nBut the monstrousness of it! Constance felt that this actually and\ntruly was the deepest depth of her calamities. There she was, far from\na dirty home, with no servant and no prospect of a servant! She bore\nherself bravely, nobly; but she was stricken. She wanted to return to\nthe dirty home at once.\n\nSophia felt that the situation created by this letter would demand her\nhighest powers of dealing with situations, and she determined to deal\nwith it adequately. Great measures were needed, for Constance's health\nand happiness were at stake. She alone could act. She knew that she\ncould not rely upon Cyril. She still had an immense partiality for\nCyril; she thought him the most charming young man she had ever known;\nshe knew him to be industrious and clever; but in his relations with\nhis mother there was a hardness, a touch of callousness. She explained\nit vaguely by saying that 'they did not get on well together'; which\nwas strange, considering Constance's sweet affectionateness. Still,\nConstance could be a little trying--at times. Anyhow, it was soon clear\nto Sophia that the idea of mother and son living together in London was\nentirely impracticable. No! If Constance was to be saved from herself,\nthere was no one but Sophia to save her.\n\nAfter half a morning spent chiefly in listening to Constance's hopeless\ncomments on the monstrous letter, Sophia said suddenly that she must\ntake the dogs for an airing. Constance did not feel equal to walking\nout, and she would not drive. She did not want Sophia to 'venture,'\nbecause the sky threatened. However, Sophia did venture, and she\nreturned a few minutes late for lunch, full of vigour, with two happy\ndogs. Constance was moodily awaiting her in the dining-room. Constance\ncould not eat. But Sophia ate, and she poured out cheerfulness and\nenergy as from a source inexhaustible. After lunch it began to rain.\nConstance said she thought she should retire directly to the\nsitting-room. \"I'm coming too,\" said Sophia, who was still wearing her\nhat and coat and carried her gloves in her hand. In the pretentious and\nbanal sitting-room they sat down on either side the fire. Constance put\na little shawl round her shoulders, pushed her spectacles into her grey\nhair, folded her hands, and sighed an enormous sigh: \"Oh, dear!\" She\nwas the tragic muse, aged, and in black silk.\n\n\"I tell you what I've been thinking,\" said Sophia, folding up her\ngloves.\n\n\"What?\" asked Constance, expecting some wonderful solution to come out\nof Sophia's active brain.\n\n\"There's no earthly reason why you should go back to Bursley. The house\nwon't run away, and it's costing nothing but the rent. Why not take\nthings easy for a bit?\"\n\n\"And stay here?\" said Constance, with an inflection that enlightened\nSophia as to the intensity of her dislike of the existence at the\nRutland.\n\n\"No, not here,\" Sophia answered with quick deprecation. \"There are\nplenty of other places we could go to.\"\n\n\"I don't think I should be easy in my mind,\" said Constance. \"What with\nnothing being settled, the house----\"\n\n\"What does it matter about the house?\"\n\n\"It matters a great deal,\" said Constance, seriously, and slightly\nhurt. \"I didn't leave things as if we were going to be away for a long\ntime. It wouldn't do.\"\n\n\"I don't see that anything could come to any harm, I really don't!\"\nsaid Sophia, persuasively. \"Dirt can always be cleaned, after all. I\nthink you ought to go about more. It would do you good--all the good in\nthe world. And there is no reason why you shouldn't go about. You are\nperfectly free. Why shouldn't we go abroad together, for instance, you\nand I? I'm sure you would enjoy it very much.\"\n\n\"Abroad?\" murmured Constance, aghast, recoiling from the proposition as\nfrom a grave danger.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Sophia, brightly and eagerly. She was determined to take\nConstance abroad. \"There are lots of places we could go to, and live\nvery comfortably among nice English people.\" She thought of the resorts\nshe had visited with Gerald in the sixties. They seemed to her like\ncities of a dream. They came back to her as a dream recurs.\n\n\"I don't think going abroad would suit me,\" said Constance.\n\n\"But why not? You don't know. You've never tried, my dear.\" She smiled\nencouragingly. But Constance did not smile. Constance was inclined to\nbe grim.\n\n\"I don't think it would,\" said she, obstinately. \"I'm one of your\nstay-at-homes. I'm not like you. We can't all be alike,\" she added,\nwith her 'tart' accent.\n\nSophia suppressed a feeling of irritation. She knew that she had a\nstronger individuality than Constance's.\n\n\"Well, then,\" she said, with undiminished persuasiveness, \"in England\nor Scotland. There are several places I should like to visit--Torquay,\nTunbridge Wells. I've always under-stood that Tunbridge Wells is a very\nnice town indeed, with very superior people, and a beautiful climate.\"\n\n\"I think I shall have to be getting back to St. Luke's Square,\" said\nConstance, ignoring all that Sophia had said. \"There's so much to be\ndone.\"\n\nThen Sophia looked at Constance with a more serious and resolute air;\nbut still kindly, as though looking thus at Constance for Constance's\nown good.\n\n\"You are making a mistake, Constance,\" she said, \"if you will allow me\nto say so.\"\n\n\"A mistake!\" exclaimed Constance, startled.\n\n\"A very great mistake,\" Sophia insisted, observing that she was\ncreating an effect.\n\n\"I don't see how I can be making a mistake,\" Constance said, gaining\nconfidence in herself, as she thought the matter over.\n\n\"No,\" said Sophia, \"I'm sure you don't see it. But you are. You know,\nyou are just a little apt to let yourself be a slave to that house of\nyours. Instead of the house existing for you, you exist for the house.\"\n\n\"Oh! Sophia!\" Constance muttered awkwardly. \"What ideas you do have, to\nbe sure!\" In her nervousness she rose and picked up some embroidery,\nadjusting her spectacles and coughing. When she sat down she said: \"No\none could take things easier than I do as regards housekeeping. I can\nassure you I let dozens of little matters go, rather than bother\nmyself.\"\n\n\"Then why do you bother now?\" Sophia posed her.\n\n\"I can't leave the place like that.\" Constance was hurt.\n\n\"There's one thing I can't understand,\" said Sophia, raising her head\nand gazing at Constance again, \"and that is, why you live in St. Luke's\nSquare at all.\"\n\n\"I must live somewhere. And I'm sure it's very pleasant.\"\n\n\"In all that smoke! And with that dirt! And the house is very old.\"\n\n\"It's a great deal better built than a lot of those new houses by the\nPark,\" Constance sharply retorted. In spite of herself she resented any\ncriticism of her house. She even resented the obvious truth that it was\nold.\n\n\"You'll never get a servant to stay in that cellar-kitchen, for one\nthing,\" said Sophia, keeping calm.\n\n\"Oh! I don't know about that! I don't know about that! That Bennion\nwoman didn't object to it, anyway. It's all very well for you, Sophia,\nto talk like that. But I know Bursley perhaps better than you do.\" She\nwas tart again. \"And I can assure you that my house is looked upon as a\nvery good house indeed.\"\n\n\"Oh! I don't say it isn't; I don't say it isn't. But you would be\nbetter away from it. Every one says that.\"\n\n\"Every one?\" Constance looked up, dropping her work. \"Who? Who's been\ntalking about me?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Sophia, \"the doctor, for instance.\"\n\n\"Dr. Stirling? I like that! He's always saying that Bursley is one of\nthe healthiest climates in England. He's always sticking up for\nBursley.\"\n\n\"Dr. Stirling thinks you ought to go away more--not stay always in that\ndark house.\" If Sophia had sufficiently reflected she would not have\nused the adjective 'dark.' It did not help her cause.\n\n\"Oh, does he!\" Constance fairly snorted. \"Well, if it's of any interest\nto Dr. Stirling, I like my dark house.\"\n\n\"Hasn't he ever told you you ought to go away more?\" Sophia persisted.\n\n\"He may have mentioned it,\" Constance reluctantly admitted.\n\n\"When he was talking to me he did a good deal more than mention it. And\nI've a good mind to tell you what he said.\"\n\n\"Do!\" said Constance, politely.\n\n\"You don't realize how serious it is, I'm afraid,\" said Sophia. \"You\ncan't see yourself.\" She hesitated a moment. Her blood being stirred by\nConstance's peculiar inflection of the phrase 'my dark house,' her\njudgment was slightly obscured. She decided to give Constance a fairly\nfull version of the conversation between herself and the doctor.\n\n\"It's a question of your health,\" she finished. \"I think it's my duty\nto talk to you seriously, and I have done. I hope you'll take it as\nit's meant.\"\n\n\"Oh, of course!\" Constance hastened to say. And she thought: \"It isn't\nyet three months that we've been together, and she's trying already to\nget me under her thumb.\"\n\nA pause ensued. Sophia at length said: \"There's no doubt that both your\nsciatica and your palpitations are due to nerves. And you let your\nnerves get into a state because you worry over trifles. A change would\ndo you a tremendous amount of good. It's just what you need. Really,\nyou must admit, Constance, that the idea of living always in a place\nlike St. Luke's Square, when you are perfectly free to do what you like\nand go where you like--you must admit it's rather too much.\"\n\nConstance put her lips together and bent over her embroidery.\n\n\"Now, what do you say?\" Sophia gently entreated.\n\n\"There's some of us like Bursley, black as it is!\" said Constance. And\nSophia was surprised to detect tears in her sister's voice.\n\n\"Now, my dear Constance,\" she remonstrated.\n\n\"It's no use!\" cried Constance, flinging away her work, and letting her\ntears flow suddenly. Her face was distorted. She was behaving just like\na child. \"It's no use! I've got to go back home and look after things.\nIt's no use. Here we are pitching money about in this place. It's\nperfectly sinful. Drives, carriages, extras! A shilling a day extra for\neach dog. I never heard of such goings-on. And I'd sooner be at home.\nThat's it. I'd sooner be at home.\" This was the first reference that\nConstance had made for a long time to the question of expense, and\nincomparably the most violent. It angered Sophia.\n\n\"We will count it that you are here as my guest,\" said Sophia, loftily,\n\"if that is how you look at it.\"\n\n\"Oh no!\" said Constance. \"It isn't the money I grudge. Oh no, we\nwon't.\" And her tears were falling thick.\n\n\"Yes, we will,\" said Sophia, coldly. \"I've only been talking to you for\nyour own good. I--\"\n\n\"Well,\" Constance interrupted her despairingly, \"I wish you wouldn't\ntry to domineer over me!\"\n\n\"Domineer!\" exclaimed Sophia, aghast. \"Well, Constance, I do think--\"\n\nShe got up and went to her bedroom, where the dogs were imprisoned.\nThey escaped to the stairs. She was shaking with emotion. This was what\ncame of trying to help other people! Imagine Constance...! Truly\nConstance was most unjust, and quite unlike her usual self! And Sophia\nencouraged in her breast the feeling of injustice suffered. But a voice\nkept saying to her: \"You've made a mess of this. You've not conquered\nthis time. You're beaten. And the situation is unworthy of you, of both\nof you. Two women of fifty quarreling like this! It's undignified.\nYou've made a mess of things.\" And to strangle the voice, she did her\nbest to encourage the feeling of injustice suffered.\n\n'Domineer!'\n\nAnd Constance was absolutely in the wrong. She had not argued at all.\nShe had merely stuck to her idea like a mule! How difficult and painful\nwould be the next meeting with Constance, after this grievous\nmiscarriage!\n\nAs she was reflecting thus the door burst open, and Constance stumbled,\nas it were blindly, into the bedroom. She was still weeping.\n\n\"Sophia!\" she sobbed, supplicatingly, and all her fat body was\ntrembling. \"You mustn't kill me ... I'm like that--you can't alter me.\nI'm like that. I know I'm silly. But it's no use!\" She made a piteous\nfigure.\n\nSophia was aware of a lump in her throat.\n\n\"It's all right, Constance; it's all right. I quite understand. Don't\nbother any more.\"\n\nConstance, catching her breath at intervals, raised her wet, worn face\nand kissed her.\n\nSophia remembered the very words, 'You can't alter her,' which she had\nused in remonstrating with Cyril. And now she had been guilty of\nprecisely the same unreason as that with which she had reproached\nCyril! She was ashamed, both for herself and for Constance. Assuredly\nit had not been such a scene as women of their age would want to go\nthrough often. It was humiliating. She wished that it could have been\nblotted out as though it had never happened. Neither of them ever\nforgot it. They had had a lesson. And particularly Sophia had had a\nlesson. Having learnt, they left the Rutland, amid due ceremonies, and\nreturned to St. Luke's Square.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nEND OF SOPHIA\n\nI\n\n\nThe kitchen steps were as steep, dark, and difficult as ever. Up those\nsteps Sophia Scales, nine years older than when she had failed to\npersuade Constance to leave the Square, was carrying a large basket,\nweighted with all the heaviness of Fossette. Sophia, despite her age,\nclimbed the steps violently, and burst with equal violence into the\nparlour, where she deposited the basket on the floor near the empty\nfireplace. She was triumphant and breathless. She looked at Constance,\nwho had been standing near the door in the attitude of a shocked\nlistener.\n\n\"There!\" said Sophia. \"Did you hear how she talked?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Constance. \"What shall you do?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Sophia. \"I had a very good mind to order her out of the\nhouse at once. But then I thought I would take no notice. Her time will\nbe up in three weeks. It's best to be indifferent. If once they see\nthey can upset you.... However, I wasn't going to leave Fossette down there\nto her tender mercies a moment longer. She's simply not looked after\nher at all.\"\n\nSophia went on her knees to the basket, and, pulling aside the dog's\nhair, round about the head, examined the skin. Fossette was a sick dog\nand behaved like one. Fossette, too, was nine years older, and her\nsenility was offensive. She was to no sense a pleasant object.\n\n\"See here,\" said Sophia.\n\nConstance also knelt to the basket.\n\n\"And here,\" said Sophia. \"And here.\"\n\nThe dog sighed, the insincere and pity-seeking sigh of a spoilt animal.\nFossette foolishly hoped by such appeals to be spared the annoying\ntreatment prescribed for her by the veterinary surgeon.\n\nWhile the sisters were coddling her, and protecting her from her own\npaws, and trying to persuade her that all was for the best, another\naged dog wandered vaguely into the room: Spot. Spot had very few teeth,\nand his legs were stiff. He had only one vice, jealousy. Fearing that\nFossette might be receiving the entire attention of his mistresses, he\nhad come to inquire into the situation. When he found the justification\nof his gloomiest apprehensions, he nosed obstinately up to Constance,\nand would not be put off. In vain Constance told him at length that he\nwas interfering with the treatment. In vain Sophia ordered him sharply\nto go away. He would not listen to reason, being furious with jealousy.\nHe got his foot into the basket.\n\n\"Will you!\" exclaimed Sophia angrily, and gave him a clout on his old\nhead. He barked snappishly, and retired to the kitchen again,\ndisillusioned, tired of the world, and nursing his terrific grievance.\n\"I do declare,\" said Sophia, \"that dog gets worse and worse.\"\n\nConstance said nothing.\n\nWhen everything was done that could be done for the aged virgin in the\nbasket, the sisters rose from their knees, stiffly; and they began to\nwhisper to each other about the prospects of obtaining a fresh servant.\nThey also debated whether they could tolerate the criminal\neccentricities of the present occupant of the cave for yet another\nthree weeks. Evidently they were in the midst of a crisis. To judge\nfrom Constance's face every imaginable woe had been piled on them by\ndestiny without the slightest regard for their powers of resistance.\nHer eyes had the permanent look of worry, and there was in them also\nsomething of the self-defensive. Sophia had a bellicose air, as though\nthe creature in the cave had squarely challenged her, and she was\ndecided to take up the challenge. Sophia's tone seemed to imply an\naccusation of Constance. The general tension was acute.\n\nThen suddenly their whispers expired, and the door opened and the\nservant came in to lay the supper. Her nose was high, her gaze cruel,\nradiant, and conquering. She was a pretty and an impudent girl of about\ntwenty-three. She knew she was torturing her old and infirm mistresses.\nShe did not care. She did it purposely. Her motto was: War on\nemployers, get all you can out of them, for they will get all they can\nout of you. On principle--the sole principle she possessed--she would\nnot stay in a place more than six months. She liked change. And\nemployers did not like change. She was shameless with men. She ignored\nall orders as to what she was to eat and what she was not to eat. She\nlived up to the full resources of her employers. She could be to the\nlast degree slatternly. Or she could be as neat as a pin, with an apron\nthat symbolized purity and propriety, as to-night. She could be idle\nduring a whole day, accumulating dirty dishes from morn till eve. On\nthe other hand she could, when she chose, work with astonishing\ncelerity and even thoroughness. In short, she was born to infuriate a\nmistress like Sophia and to wear out a mistress like Constance. Her\nstrongest advantage in the struggle was that she enjoyed altercation;\nshe revelled in a brawl; she found peace tedious. She was perfectly\ncalculated to convince the sisters that times had worsened, and that\nthe world would never again be the beautiful, agreeable place it once\nhad been.\n\nHer gestures as she laid the table were very graceful, in the pert\nstyle. She dropped forks into their appointed positions with disdain;\nshe made slightly too much noise; when she turned she manoeuvred her\nswelling hips as though for the benefit of a soldier in a handsome\nuniform.\n\nNothing but the servant had been changed in that house. The harmonium\non which Mr. Povey used occasionally to play was still behind the door;\nand on the harmonium was the tea-caddy of which Mrs. Baines used to\ncarry the key on her bunch. In the corner to the right of the fireplace\nstill hung the cupboard where Mrs. Baines stored her pharmacopoeia. The\nrest of the furniture was arranged as it had been arranged when the\ndeath of Mrs. Baines endowed Mr. and Mrs. Povey with all the treasures\nof the house at Axe. And it was as good as ever; better than ever. Dr.\nStirling often expressed the desire for a corner cupboard like Mrs.\nBaines's corner cupboard. One item had been added: the 'Peel' compote\nwhich Matthew Peel-Swynnerton had noticed in the dining-room of the\nPension Frensham. This majestic piece, which had been reserved by\nSophia in the sale of the pension, stood alone on a canterbury in the\ndrawingroom. She had stored it, with a few other trifles, in Paris, and\nwhen she sent for it and the packing-case arrived, both she and\nConstance became aware that they were united for the rest of their\nlives. Of worldly goods, except money, securities, and clothes, that\ncompote was practically all that Sophia owned. Happily it was a\nfirst-class item, doing no shame to the antique magnificence of the\ndrawing-room.\n\nIn yielding to Constance's terrible inertia, Sophia had meant\nnevertheless to work her own will on the interior of the house. She had\nmeant to bully Constance into modernizing the dwelling. She did bully\nConstance, but the house defied her. Nothing could be done to that\nhouse. If only it had had a hall or lobby a complete transformation\nwould have been possible. But there was no access to the upper floor\nexcept through the parlour. The parlour could not therefore be turned\ninto a kitchen and the basement suppressed, and the ladies of the house\ncould not live entirely on the upper floor. The disposition of the\nrooms had to remain exactly as it had always been. There was the same\ndraught under the door, the same darkness on the kitchen stairs, the\nsame difficulties with tradesmen in the distant backyard, the same\ntwist in the bedroom stairs, the same eternal ascending and descending\nof pails. An efficient cooking-stove, instead of the large and\ncapacious range, alone represented the twentieth century in the\nfixtures of the house.\n\nBuried at the root of the relations between the sisters was Sophia's\ngrudge against Constance for refusing to leave the Square. Sophia was\nloyal. She would not consciously give with one hand while taking away\nwith the other, and in accepting Constance's decision she honestly\nmeant to close her eyes to its stupidity. But she could not entirely\nsucceed. She could not avoid thinking that the angelic Constance had\nbeen strangely and monstrously selfish in refusing to quit the Square.\nShe marvelled that a woman of Constance's sweet and calm disposition\nshould be capable of so vast and ruthless an egotism. Constance must\nhave known that Sophia would not leave her, and that the habitation of\nthe Square was a continual irk to Sophia. Constance had never been able\nto advance a single argument for remaining in the Square. And yet she\nwould not budge. It was so inconsistent with the rest of Constance's\nbehaviour. See Sophia sitting primly there by the table, a woman\napproaching sixty, with immense experience written on the fine hardness\nof her worn and distinguished face! Though her hair is not yet all\ngrey, nor her figure bowed, you would imagine that she would, in her\npassage through the world, have learnt better than to expect a\ncharacter to be consistent. But no! She was ever disappointed and hurt\nby Constance's inconsistency! And see Constance, stout and bowed,\nlooking more than her age with hair nearly white and slightly trembling\nhands! See that face whose mark is meekness and the spirit of\nconciliation, the desire for peace--you would not think that that\nplacid soul could, while submitting to it, inly rage against the\nimposed weight of Sophia's individuality. \"Because I wouldn't turn out\nof my house to please her,\" Constance would say to herself, \"she\nfancies she is entitled to do just as she likes.\" Not often did she\nsecretly rebel thus, but it occurred sometimes. They never quarrelled.\nThey would have regarded separation as a disaster. Considering the\ndifference of their lives, they agreed marvellously in their judgment\nof things. But that buried question of domicile prevented a complete\nunity between, them. And its subtle effect was to influence both of\nthem to make the worst, instead of the best, of the trifling mishaps\nthat disturbed their tranquillity. When annoyed, Sophia would meditate\nupon the mere fact that they lived in the Square for no reason\nwhatever, until it grew incredibly shocking to her. After all it was\nscarcely conceivable that they should be living in the very middle of a\ndirty, ugly, industrial town simply because Constance mulishly declined\nto move. Another thing that curiously exasperated both of them upon\noccasion was that, owing to a recurrence of her old complaint of\ndizziness after meals, Sophia had been strictly forbidden to drink tea,\nwhich she loved. Sophia chafed under the deprivation, and Constance's\npleasure was impaired because she had to drink it alone.\n\nWhile the brazen and pretty servant, mysteriously smiling to herself,\ndropped food and utensils on to the table, Constance and Sophia\nattempted to converse with negligent ease upon indifferent topics, as\nthough nothing had occurred that day to mar the beauty of ideal\nrelations between employers and employed. The pretence was ludicrous.\nThe young wench saw through it instantly, and her mysterious smile\ndeveloped almost into a laugh.\n\n\"Please shut the door after you, Maud,\" said Sophia, as the girl picked\nup her empty tray.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am,\" replied Maud, politely.\n\nShe went out and left the door open.\n\nIt was a defiance, offered from sheer, youthful, wanton mischief.\n\nThe sisters looked at each other, their faces gravely troubled, aghast,\nas though they had glimpsed the end of civilized society, as though\nthey felt that they had lived too long into an age of decadence and\nopen shame. Constance's face showed despair--she might have been about\nto be pitched into the gutter without a friend and without a\nshilling--but Sophia's had the reckless courage that disaster breeds.\n\nSophia jumped up, and stepped to the door. \"Maud,\" she called out.\n\nNo answer.\n\n\"Maud, do you hear me?\"\n\nThe suspense was fearful.\n\nStill no answer.\n\nSophia glanced at Constance. \"Either she shuts this door, or she leaves\nthis house at once, even if I have to fetch a policeman!\"\n\nAnd Sophia disappeared down the kitchen steps. Constance trembled with\npainful excitement. The horror of existence closed in upon her. She\ncould imagine nothing more appalling than the pass to which they had\nbeen brought by the modern change in the lower classes.\n\nIn the kitchen, Sophia, conscious that the moment held the future of at\nleast the next three weeks, collected her forces.\n\n\"Maud,\" she said, \"did you not hear me call you?\"\n\nMaud looked up from a book--doubtless a wicked book.\n\n\"No, ma'am.\"\n\n\"You liar!\" thought Sophia. And she said: \"I asked you to shut the\nparlour door, and I shall be obliged if you will do so.\"\n\nNow Maud would have given a week's wages for the moral force to disobey\nSophia. There was nothing to compel her to obey. She could have\ntrampled on the fragile and weak Sophia. But something in Sophia's gaze\ncompelled her to obey. She flounced; she bridled; she mumbled; she\nunnecessarily disturbed the venerable Spot; but she obeyed. Sophia had\nrisked all, and she had won something.\n\n\"And you should light the gas in the kitchen,\" said Sophia\nmagnificently, as Maud followed her up the steps. \"Your young eyes may\nbe very good now, but you are not going the way to preserve them. My\nsister and I have often told you that we do not grudge you gas.\"\n\nWith stateliness she rejoined Constance, and sat down to the cold\nsupper. And as Maud clicked the door to, the sisters breathed relief.\nThey envisaged new tribulations, but for a brief instant there was\nsurcease.\n\nYet they could not eat. Neither of them, when it came to the point,\ncould swallow. The day had been too exciting, too distressing. They\nwere at the end of their resources. And they did not hide from each\nother that they were at the end of their resources. The illness of\nFossette, without anything else, had been more than enough to ruin\ntheir tranquillity. But the illness of Fossette was as nothing to the\ningenious naughtiness of the servant. Maud had a sense of temporary\ndefeat, and was planning fresh operations; but really it was Maud who\nhad conquered. Poor old things, they were in such a 'state' that they\ncould not eat!\n\n\"I'm not going to let her think she can spoil my appetite!\" said\nSophia, dauntless. Truly that woman's spirit was unquenchable.\n\nShe cut a couple of slices off the cold fowl; she cut a tomato into\nslices; she disturbed the butter; she crumbled bread on the cloth, and\nrubbed bits of fowl over the plates, and dirtied knives and forks. Then\nshe put the slices of fowl and bread and tomato into a piece of tissue\npaper, and silently went upstairs with the parcel and came down again a\nmoment afterwards empty-handed.\n\nAfter an interval she rang the bell, and lighted the gas.\n\n\"We've finished, Maud. You can clear away.\"\n\nConstance thirsted for a cup of tea. She felt that a cup of tea was the\none thing that would certainly keep her alive. She longed for it\npassionately. But she would not demand it from Maud. Nor would she\nmention it to Sophia, lest Sophia, flushed by the victory of the door,\nshould incur new risks. She simply did without. On empty stomachs they\ntried pathetically to help each other in games of Patience. And when\nthe blithe Maud passed through the parlour on the way to bed, she saw\ntwo dignified and apparently calm ladies, apparently absorbed in a\ndelightful game of cards, apparently without a worry in the world. They\nsaid \"Good night, Maud,\" cheerfully, politely, and coldly. It was a\nheroic scene. Immediately afterwards Sophia carried Fossette up to her\nown bedroom.\n\nII\n\nThe next afternoon the sisters, in the drawing-room, saw Dr. Stirling's\nmotor-car speeding down the Square. The doctor's partner, young Harrop,\nhad died a few years before at the age of over seventy, and the\npractice was much larger than it had ever been, even in the time of old\nHarrop. Instead of two or three horses, Stirling kept a car, which was\na constant spectacle in the streets of the district.\n\n\"I do hope he'll call in,\" said Mrs. Povey, and sighed.\n\nSophia smiled to herself with a little scorn. She knew that Constance's\ndesire for Dr. Stirling was due simply to the need which she felt of\ntelling some one about the great calamity that had happened to them\nthat morning. Constance was utterly absorbed by it, in the most\nprovincial way. Sophia had said to herself at the beginning of her\nsojourn in Bursley, and long afterwards, that she should never get\naccustomed to the exasperating provinciality of the town, exemplified\nby the childish preoccupation of the inhabitants with their own\ntwo-penny affairs. No characteristic of life in Bursley annoyed her\nmore than this. None had oftener caused her to yearn in a brief madness\nfor the desert-like freedom of great cities. But she had got accustomed\nto it. Indeed, she had almost ceased to notice it. Only occasionally,\nwhen her nerves were more upset than usual, did it strike her.\n\nShe went into Constance's bedroom to see whether the doctor's car\nhalted in King Street. It did.\n\n\"He's here,\" she called out to Constance.\n\n\"I wish you'd go down, Sophia,\" said Constance. \"I can't trust that\nminx----\"\n\nSo Sophia went downstairs to superintend the opening of the door by the\nminx.\n\nThe doctor was radiant, according to custom.\n\n\"I thought I'd just see how that dizziness was going on,\" said he as he\ncame up the steps.\n\n\"I'm glad you've come,\" said Sophia, confidentially. Since the first\ndays of their acquaintanceship they had always been confidential.\n\"You'll do my sister good to-day.\"\n\nJust as Maud was closing the door a telegraph-boy arrived, with a\ntelegram addressed to Mrs. Scales. Sophia read it and then crumpled it\nin her hand.\n\n\"What's wrong with Mrs. Povey to-day?\" the doctor asked, when the\nservant had withdrawn.\n\n\"She only wants a bit of your society,\" said Sophia. \"Will you go up?\nYou know the way to the drawing-room. I'll follow.\"\n\nAs soon as he had gone she sat down on the sofa, staring out of the\nwindow. Then with a grunt: \"Well, that's no use, anyway!\" she went\nupstairs after the doctor. Already Constance had begun upon her recital.\n\n\"Yes,\" Constance was saying. \"And when I went down this morning to keep\nan eye on the breakfast, I thought Spot was very quiet--\" She paused.\n\"He was dead in the drawer. She pretended she didn't know, but I'm sure\nshe did. Nothing will convince me that she didn't poison that dog with\nthe mice-poison we had last year. She was vexed because Sophia took her\nup sharply about Fossette last night, and she revenged herself on the\nother dog. It would just be like her. Don't tell me! I know. I should\nhave packed her off at once, but Sophia thought better not. We couldn't\nprove anything, as Sophia says. Now, what do you think of it, doctor?\"\n\nConstance's eyes suddenly filled with tears.\n\n\"Ye'd had Spot a long time, hadn't ye?\" he said sympathetically.\n\nShe nodded. \"When I was married,\" said she, \"the first thing my husband\ndid was to buy a fox-terrier, and ever since we've always had a\nfox-terrier in the house.\" This was not true, but Constance was firmly\nconvinced of its truth.\n\n\"It's very trying,\" said the doctor. \"I know when my Airedale died, I\nsaid to my wife I'd never have another dog--unless she could find me\none that would live for ever. Ye remember my Airedale?\"\n\n\"Oh, quite well!\"\n\n\"Well, my wife said I should be bound to have another one sooner or\nlater, and the sooner the better. She went straight off to Oldcastle\nand bought me a spaniel pup, and there was such a to-do training it\nthat we hadn't too much time to think about Piper.\"\n\nConstance regarded this procedure as somewhat callous, and she said so,\ntartly. Then she recommenced the tale of Spot's death from the\nbeginning, and took it as far as his burial, that afternoon, by Mr.\nCritchlow's manager, in the yard. It had been necessary to remove and\nreplace paving-stones.\n\n\"Of course,\" said Dr. Stirling, \"ten years is a long time. He was an\nold dog. Well, you've still got the celebrated Fossette.\" He turned to\nSophia.\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said Constance, perfunctorily. \"Fossette's ill. The fact is\nthat if Fossette hadn't been ill, Spot would probably have been alive\nand well now.\"\n\nHer tone exhibited a grievance. She could not forget that Sophia had\nharshly dismissed Spot to the kitchen, thus practically sending him to\nhis death. It seemed very hard to her that Fossette, whose life had\nonce been despaired of, should continue to exist, while Spot, always\nhealthy and unspoilt, should die untended, and by treachery. For the\nrest, she had never liked Fossette. On Spot's behalf she had always\nbeen jealous of Fossette.\n\n\"Probably alive and well now!\" she repeated, with a peculiar accent.\n\nObserving that Sophia maintained a strange silence, Dr. Stirling\nsuspected a slight tension in the relations of the sisters, and he\nchanged the subject. One of his great qualities was that he refrained\nfrom changing a subject introduced by a patient unless there was a\nprofessional reason for changing it.\n\n\"I've just met Richard Povey in the town,\" said he. \"He told me to tell\nye that he'll be round in about an hour or so to take you for a spin.\nHe was in a new car, which he did his best to sell to me, but he didn't\nsucceed.\"\n\n\"It's very kind of Dick,\" said Constance. \"But this afternoon really\nwe're not--\"\n\n\"I'll thank ye to take it as a prescription, then,\" replied the doctor.\n\"I told Dick I'd see that ye went. Splendid June weather. No dust after\nall that rain. It'll do ye all the good in the world. I must exercise\nmy authority. The truth is, I've gradually been losing all control over\nye. Ye do just as ye like.\"\n\n\"Oh, doctor, how you do run on!\" murmured Constance, not quite well\npleased to-day by his tone.\n\nAfter the scene between Sophia and herself at Buxton, Constance had\nalways, to a certain extent, in the doctor's own phrase, 'got her knife\ninto him.' Sophia had, then, in a manner betrayed him. Constance and\nthe doctor discussed that matter with frankness, the doctor humorously\naccusing her of being 'hard' on him. Nevertheless the little cloud\nbetween them was real, and the result was often a faint captiousness on\nConstance's part in judging the doctor's behaviour.\n\n\"He's got a surprise for ye, has Dick!\" the doctor added.\n\nDick Povey, after his father's death and his own partial recovery, had\nset up in Hanbridge as a bicycle agent. He was permanently lamed, and\nhe hopped about with a thick stick. He had succeeded with bicycles and\nhad taken to automobiles, and he was succeeding with automobiles.\nPeople were at first startled that he should advertise himself in the\nFive Towns. There was an obscure general feeling that because his\nmother had been a drunkard and his father a murderer, Dick Povey had no\nright to exist. However, when it had recovered from the shock of seeing\nDick Povey's announcement of bargains in the Signal, the district most\nsensibly decided that there was no reason why Dick Povey should not\nsell bicycles as well as a man with normal parents. He was now supposed\nto be acquiring wealth rapidly. It was said that he was a marvellous\nchauffeur, at once daring and prudent. He had one day, several years\npreviously, overtaken the sisters in the rural neighbourhood of Sneyd,\nwhere they had been making an afternoon excursion. Constance had\npresented him to Sophia, and he had insisted on driving the ladies\nhome. They had been much impressed by his cautious care of them, and\ntheir natural prejudice against anything so new as a motorcar had been\nconquered instantly. Afterwards he had taken them out for occasional\nruns. He had a great admiration for Constance, founded on gratitude to\nSamuel Povey; and as for Sophia, he always said to her that she would\nbe an ornament to any car.\n\n\"You haven't heard his latest, I suppose?\" said the doctor, smiling.\n\n\"What is it?\" Sophia asked perfunctorily.\n\n\"He wants to take to ballooning. It seems he's been up once.\"\n\nConstance made a deprecating noise with her lips.\n\n\"However, that's not his surprise,\" the doctor added, smiling again at\nthe floor. He was sitting on the music-stool, and saying to himself,\nbehind his mask of effulgent good-nature: \"It gets more and more uphill\nwork, cheering up these two women. I'll try them on Federation.\"\n\nFederation was the name given to the scheme for blending the Five Towns\ninto one town, which would be the twelfth largest town in the kingdom.\nIt aroused fury in Bursley, which saw in the suggestion nothing but the\nextinction of its ancient glory to the aggrandizement of Hanbridge.\nHanbridge had already, with the assistance of electric cars that\nwhizzed to and fro every five minutes, robbed Bursley of two-thirds of\nits retail trade--as witness the steady decadence of the Square!--and\nBursley had no mind to swallow the insult and become a mere ward of\nHanbridge. Bursley would die fighting. Both Constance and Sophia were\nbitter opponents of Federation. They would have been capable of putting\nFederationists to the torture. Sophia in particular, though so long\nabsent from her native town, had adopted its cause with characteristic\nvigour. And when Dr. Stirling wished to practise his curative treatment\nof taking the sisters 'out of themselves,' he had only to start the\nhare of Federation and the hunt would be up in a moment. But this\nafternoon he did not succeed with Sophia, and only partially with\nConstance. When he stated that there was to be a public meeting that\nvery night, and that Constance as a ratepayer ought to go to it and\nvote, if her convictions were genuine, she received his chaff with a\nmere murmur to the effect that she did not think she should go. Had the\nman forgotten that Spot was dead? At length he became grave, and\nexamined them both as to their ailments, and nodded his head, and\nlooked into vacancy while meditating upon each case. And then, when he\nhad inquired where they meant to go for their summer holidays, he\ndeparted.\n\n\"Aren't you going to see him out?\" Constance whispered to Sophia, who\nhad shaken hands with him at the drawingroom door. It was Sophia who\ndid the running about, owing to the state of Constance's sciatic nerve.\nConstance had, indeed, become extraordinarily inert, leaving everything\nto Sophia.\n\nSophia shook her head. She hesitated; then approached Constance,\nholding out her hand and disclosing the crumpled telegram.\n\n\"Look at that!\" said she.\n\nHer face frightened Constance, who was always expectant of new\nanxieties and troubles. Constance straightened out the paper with\ndifficulty, and read--\n\n\"Mr. Gerald Scales is dangerously ill here. Boldero, 49, Deansgate,\nManchester.\"\n\nAll through the inexpressibly tedious and quite unnecessary call of Dr.\nStirling--(Why had he chosen to call just then? Neither of them was\nill)--Sophia had held that telegram concealed in her hand and its\ninformation concealed in her heart. She had kept her head up, offering\na calm front to the world. She had given no hint of the terrible\nexplosion--for an explosion it was. Constance was astounded at her\nsister's self-control, which entirely passed her comprehension.\nConstance felt that worries would never cease, but would rather go on\nmultiplying until death ended all. First, there had been the frightful\nworry of the servant; then the extremely distressing death and burial\nof Spot--and now it was Gerald Scales turning up again! With what\nviolence was the direction of their thoughts now shifted! The\nwickedness of maids was a trifle; the death of pets was a trifle. But\nthe reappearance of Gerald Scales! That involved the possibility of\nconsequences which could not even be named, so afflictive was the mere\nprospect to them. Constance was speechless, and she saw that Sophia was\nalso speechless.\n\nOf course the event had been bound to happen. People do not vanish\nnever to be heard of again. The time surely arrives when the secret is\nrevealed. So Sophia said to herself--now!\n\nShe had always refused to consider the effect of Gerald's reappearance.\nShe had put the idea of it away from her, determined to convince\nherself that she had done with him finally and for ever. She had\nforgotten him. It was years since he had ceased to disturb her\nthoughts--many years. \"He MUST be dead,\" she had persuaded herself. \"It\nis inconceivable that he should have lived on and never come across me.\nIf he had been alive and learnt that I had made money, he would\nassuredly have come to me. No, he must be dead!\"\n\nAnd he was not dead! The brief telegram overwhelmingly shocked her. Her\nlife had been calm, regular, monotonous. And now it was thrown into an\nindescribable turmoil by five words of a telegram, suddenly, with no\nwarning whatever. Sophia had the right to say to herself: \"I have had\nmy share of trouble, and more than my share!\" The end of her life\npromised to be as awful as the beginning. The mere existence of Gerald\nScales was a menace to her. But it was the simple impact of the blow\nthat affected her supremely, beyond ulterior things. One might have\npictured fate as a cowardly brute who had struck this ageing woman full\nin the face, a felling blow, which however had not felled her. She\nstaggered, but she stuck on her legs. It seemed a shame--one of those\ncrude, spectacular shames which make the blood boil--that the gallant,\ndefenceless creature should be so maltreated by the bully, destiny.\n\n\"Oh, Sophia!\" Constance moaned. \"What trouble is this?\"\n\nSophia's lip curled with a disgusted air. Under that she hid her\nsuffering.\n\nShe had not seen him for thirty-six years. He must be over seventy\nyears of age, and he had turned up again like a bad penny, doubtless a\ndisgrace! What had he been doing in those thirty-six years? He was an\nold, enfeebled man now! He must be a pretty sight! And he lay at\nManchester, not two hours away!\n\nWhatever feelings were in Sophia's heart, tenderness was not among\nthem. As she collected her wits from the stroke, she was principally\naware of the sentiment of fear. She recoiled from the future.\n\n\"What shall you do?\" Constance asked. Constance was weeping.\n\nSophia tapped her foot, glancing out of the window.\n\n\"Shall you go to see him?\" Constance continued.\n\n\"Of course,\" said Sophia. \"I must!\"\n\nShe hated the thought of going to see him. She flinched from it. She\nfelt herself under no moral obligation to go. Why should she go? Gerald\nwas nothing to her, and had no claim on her of any kind. This she\nhonestly believed. And yet she knew that she must go to him. She knew\nit to be impossible that she should not go.\n\n\"Now?\" demanded Constance.\n\nSophia nodded.\n\n\"What about the trains? ... Oh, you poor dear!\" The mere idea of the\njourney to Manchester put Constance out of her wits, seeming a business\nof unparalleled complexity and difficulty.\n\n\"Would you like me to come with you?\"\n\n\"Oh no! I must go by myself.\"\n\nConstance was relieved by this. They could not have left the servant in\nthe house alone, and the idea of shutting up the house without notice\nor preparation presented itself to Constance as too fantastic.\n\nBy a common instinct they both descended to the parlour.\n\n\"Now, what about a time-table? What about a time-table?\" Constance\nmumbled on the stairs. She wiped her eyes resolutely. \"I wonder\nwhatever in this world has brought him at last to that Mr. Boldero's in\nDeansgate?\" she asked the walls.\n\nAs they came into the parlour, a great motor-car drove up before the\ndoor, and when the pulsations of its engine had died away, Dick Povey\nhobbled from the driver's seat to the pavement. In an instant he was\nhammering at the door in his lively style. There was no avoiding him.\nThe door had to be opened. Sophia opened it. Dick Povey was over forty,\nbut he looked considerably younger. Despite his lameness, and the fact\nthat his lameness tended to induce corpulence, he had a dashing air,\nand his face, with its short, light moustache, was boyish. He seemed to\nbe always upon some joyous adventure.\n\n\"Well, aunties,\" he greeted the sisters, having perceived Constance\nbehind Sophia; he often so addressed them. \"Has Dr. Stirling warned you\nthat I was coming? Why haven't you got your things on?\"\n\nSophia observed a young woman in the car.\n\n\"Yes,\" said he, following her gaze, \"you may as well look. Come down,\nmiss. Come down, Lily. You've got to go through with it.\" The young\nwoman, delicately confused and blushing, obeyed. \"This is Miss Lily\nHoll,\" he went on. \"I don't know whether you would remember her. I\ndon't think you do. It's not often she comes to the Square. But, of\ncourse, she knows you by sight. Granddaughter of your old neighbour,\nAlderman Holl! We are engaged to be married, if you please.\"\n\nConstance and Sophia could not decently pour out their griefs on the\ntop of such news. The betrothed pair had to come in and be\ncongratulated upon their entry into the large realms of mutual love.\nBut the sisters, even in their painful quandary, could not help\nnoticing what a nice, quiet, ladylike girl Lily Holl was. Her one fault\nappeared to be that she was too quiet. Dick Povey was not the man to\npass time in formalities, and he was soon urging departure.\n\n\"I'm sorry we can't come,\" said Sophia. \"I've got to go to Manchester\nnow. We are in great trouble.\"\n\n\"Yes, in great trouble,\" Constance weakly echoed.\n\nDick's face clouded sympathetically. And both the affianced began to\nsee that to which the egotism of their happiness had blinded them. They\nfelt that long, long years had elapsed since these ageing ladies had\nexperienced the delights which they were feeling.\n\n\"Trouble? I'm sorry to hear that!\" said Dick.\n\n\"Can you tell me the trains to Manchester?\" asked Sophia.\n\n\"No,\" said Dick, quickly, \"But I can drive you there quicker than any\ntrain, if it's urgent. Where do you want to go to?\"\n\n\"Deansgate,\" Sophia faltered.\n\n\"Look here,\" said Dick, \"it's half-past three. Put yourself in my\nhands; I'll guarantee at Deansgate you shall be before half-past five.\nI'll look after you.\"\n\n\"But----\"\n\n\"There isn't any 'but.' I'm quite free for the afternoon and evening.\"\n\nAt first the suggestion seemed absurd, especially to Constance. But\nreally it was too tempting to be declined. While Sophia made ready for\nthe journey, Dick and Lily Holl and Constance conversed in low, solemn\ntones. The pair were waiting to be enlightened as to the nature of the\ntrouble; Constance, however, did not enlighten them. How could\nConstance say to them: \"Sophia has a husband that she hasn't seen for\nthirty-six years, and he's dangerously ill, and they've telegraphed for\nher to go?\" Constance could not. It did not even occur to Constance to\norder a cup of tea.\n\nIII\n\nDick Povey kept his word. At a quarter-past five he drew up in front of\nNo. 49, Deansgate, Manchester. \"There you are!\" he said, not without\npride. \"Now, we'll come back in about a couple of hours or so, just to\ntake your orders, whatever they are.\" He was very comforting, with his\nsuggestion that in him Sophia had a sure support in the background.\n\nWithout many words Sophia went straight into the shop. It looked like a\njeweller's shop, and a shop for bargains generally. Only the\nconventional sign over a side-entrance showed that at heart it was a\npawnbroker's. Mr. Till Boldero did a nice business in the Five Towns,\nand in other centres near Manchester, by selling silver-ware\nsecond-hand, or nominally second hand, to persons who wished to make\npresents to other persons or to themselves. He would send anything by\npost on approval. Occasionally he came to the Five Towns, and he had\nonce, several years before, met Constance. They had talked. He was the\nson of a cousin of the late great and wealthy Boldero, sleeping partner\nin Birkinshaws, and Gerald's uncle. It was from Constance that he had\nlearnt of Sophia's return to Bursley. Constance had often remarked to\nSophia what a superior man Mr. Till Boldero was.\n\nThe shop was narrow and lofty. It seemed like a menagerie for trapped\nsilver-ware. In glass cases right up to the dark ceiling silver vessels\nand instruments of all kinds lay confined. The top of the counter was a\nglass prison containing dozens of gold watches, together with\nsnuff-boxes, enamels, and other antiquities. The front of the counter\nwas also glazed, showing vases and large pieces of porcelain. A few\npictures in heavy gold frames were perched about. There was a case of\numbrellas with elaborate handles and rich tassels. There were a couple\nof statuettes. The counter, on the customers' side, ended in a glass\nscreen on which were the words 'Private Office.' On the seller's side\nthe prospect was closed by a vast safe. A tall young man was fumbling\nin this safe. Two women sat on customers' chairs, leaning against the\ncrystal counter. The young man came towards them from the safe, bearing\na tray.\n\n\"How much is that goblet?\" asked one of the women, raising her parasol\ndangerously among such fragility and pointing to one object among many\nin a case high up from the ground.\n\n\"That, madam?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Thirty-five pounds.\"\n\nThe young man disposed his tray on the counter. It was packed with more\ngold watches, adding to the extraordinary glitter and shimmer of the\nshop. He chose a small watch from the regiment.\n\n\"Now, this is something I can recommend,\" he said. \"It's made by\nCuthbert Butler of Blackburn. I can guarantee you that for five years.\"\nHe spoke as though he were the accredited representative of the Bank of\nEngland, with calm and absolute assurance.\n\nThe effect upon Sophia was mysteriously soothing. She felt that she was\namong honest men. The young man raised his head towards her with a\nquestioning, deferential gesture.\n\n\"Can I see Mr. Boldero?\" she asked. \"Mrs. Scales.\"\n\nThe young man's face changed instantly to a sympathetic comprehension.\n\n\"Yes, madam. I'll fetch him at once,\" said he, and he disappeared\nbehind the safe. The two customers discussed the watch. Then the door\nopened in the glass screen, and a portly, middle-aged man showed\nhimself. He was dressed in blue broad-cloth, with a turned-down collar\nand a small black tie. His waistcoat displayed a plain but heavy gold\nwatch-chain, and his cuff-links were of plain gold. His eye-glasses\nwere gold-rimmed. He had grey hair, beard and moustache, but on the\nbacks of his hands grew a light brown hair. His appearance was\nstrangely mild, dignified, and confidence-inspiring. He was, in fact,\none of the most respected tradesmen in Manchester.\n\nHe peered forward, looking over his eye-glasses, which he then took\noff, holding them up in the air by their short handle. Sophia had\napproached him.\n\n\"Mrs. Scales?\" he said, in a very quiet, very benevolent voice. Sophia\nnodded. \"Please come this way.\" He took her hand, squeezing it\ncommiseratingly, and drew her into the sanctum. \"I didn't expect you so\nsoon,\" he said. \"I looked up th' trains, and I didn't see how you could\nget here before six.\"\n\nSophia explained.\n\nHe led her further, through the private office, into a sort of parlour,\nand asked her to sit down. And he too sat down. Sophia waited, as it\nwere, like a suitor.\n\n\"I'm afraid I've got bad news for you, Mrs. Scales,\" he said, still in\nthat mild, benevolent voice.\n\n\"He's dead?\" Sophia asked.\n\nMr. Till Boldero nodded. \"He's dead. I may as well tell you that he had\npassed away before I telegraphed. It all happened very, very suddenly.\"\nHe paused. \"Very, very suddenly!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Sophia, weakly. She was conscious of a profound sadness\nwhich was not grief, though it resembled grief. And she had also a\nfeeling that she was responsible to Mr. Till Boldero for anything\nuntoward that might have occurred to him by reason of Gerald.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Till Boldero, deliberately and softly. \"He came in last\nnight just as we were closing. We had very heavy rain here. I don't\nknow how it was with you. He was wet, in a dreadful state, simply\ndreadful. Of course, I didn't recognize him. I'd never seen him before,\nso far as my recollection goes. He asked me if I was the son of Mr.\nTill Boldero that had this shop in 1866. I said I was. 'Well,' he says,\n'you're the only connection I've got. My name's Gerald Scales. My\nmother was your father's cousin. Can you do anything for me?' he says.\nI could see he was ill. I had him in here. When I found he couldn't eat\nnor drink I thought I'd happen better send for th' doctor. The doctor\ngot him to bed. He passed away at one o'clock this afternoon. I was\nvery sorry my wife wasn't here to look after things a bit better. But\nshe's at Southport, not well at all.\"\n\n\"What was it?\" Sophia asked briefly.\n\nMr. Boldero indicated the enigmatic. \"Exhaustion, I suppose,\" he\nreplied.\n\n\"He's here?\" demanded Sophia, lifting her eyes to possible bedrooms.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Boldero. \"I suppose you would wish to see him?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Sophia.\n\n\"You haven't seen him for a long time, your sister told me?\" Mr.\nBoldero murmured, sympathetically.\n\n\"Not since 'seventy,\" said Sophia.\n\n\"Eh, dear! Eh, dear!\" ejaculated Mr. Boldero. \"I fear it's been a sad\nbusiness for ye, Mrs. Scales. Not since 'seventy!\" He sighed. \"You must\ntake it as well as you can. I'm not one as talks much, but I\nsympathize, with you. I do that! I wish my wife had been here to\nreceive you.\"\n\nTears came into Sophia's eyes.\n\n\"Nay, nay!\" he said. \"You must bear up now!\"\n\n\"It's you that make me cry,\" said Sophia, gratefully. \"You were very\ngood to take him in. It must have been exceedingly trying for you.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" he protested, \"you mustn't talk like that. I couldn't leave a\nBoldero on the pavement, and an old man at that! ... Oh, to think that\nif he'd only managed to please his uncle he might ha' been one of the\nrichest men in Lancashire. But then there'd ha' been no Boldero\nInstitute at Strangeways!\" he added.\n\nThey both sat silent a moment.\n\n\"Will you come now? Or will you wait a bit?\" asked Mr. Boldero, gently.\n\"Just as you wish. I'm sorry as my wife's away, that I am!\"\n\n\"I'll come now,\" said Sophia, firmly. But she was stricken.\n\nHe conducted her up a short, dark flight of stairs, which gave on a\npassage, and at the end of the passage was a door ajar. He pushed the\ndoor open. \"I'll leave you for a moment,\" he said, always in the same\nvery restrained tone. \"You'll find me downstairs, there, if you want\nme.\" And he moved away with hushed, deliberate tread.\n\nSophia went into the room, of which the white blind was drawn. She\nappreciated Mr. Boldero's consideration in leaving her. She was\ntrembling. But when she saw, in the pale gloom, the face of an aged man\npeeping out from under a white sheet on a naked mattress, she started\nback, trembling no more--rather transfixed into an absolute rigidity.\nThat was no conventional, expected shock that she had received. It was\na genuine unforeseen shock, the most violent that she had ever had. In\nher mind she had not pictured Gerald as a very old man. She knew that\nhe was old; she had said to herself that he must be very old, well over\nseventy. But she had not pictured him. This face on the bed was\npainfully, pitiably old. A withered face, with the shiny skin all drawn\ninto wrinkles! The stretched skin under the jaw was like the skin of a\nplucked fowl. The cheek-bones stood up, and below them were deep\nhollows, almost like egg-cups. A short, scraggy white beard covered the\nlower part of the face. The hair was scanty, irregular, and quite\nwhite; a little white hair grew in the ears. The shut mouth obviously\nhid toothless gums, for the lips were sucked in. The eyelids were as if\npasted down over the eyes, fitting them like kid. All the skin was\nextremely pallid; it seemed brittle. The body, whose outlines were\nclear under the sheet, was very small, thin, shrunk, pitiable as the\nface. And on the face was a general expression of final fatigue, of\ntragic and acute exhaustion; such as made Sophia pleased that the\nfatigue and exhaustion had been assuaged in rest, while all the time\nshe kept thinking to herself horribly: \"Oh! how tired he must have\nbeen!\"\n\nSophia then experienced a pure and primitive emotion, uncoloured by any\nmoral or religious quality. She was not sorry that Gerald had wasted\nhis life, nor that he was a shame to his years and to her. The manner\nof his life was of no importance. What affected her was that he had\nonce been young, and that he had grown old, and was now dead. That was\nall. Youth and vigour had come to that. Youth and vigour always came to\nthat. Everything came to that. He had ill-treated her; he had abandoned\nher; he had been a devious rascal; but how trivial were such\naccusations against him! The whole of her huge and bitter grievance\nagainst him fell to pieces and crumbled. She saw him young, and proud,\nand strong, as for instance when he had kissed her lying on the bed in\nthat London hotel--she forgot the name--in 1866; and now he was old,\nand worn, and horrible, and dead. It was the riddle of life that was\npuzzling and killing her. By the corner of her eye, reflected in the\nmirror of a wardrobe near the bed, she glimpsed a tall, forlorn woman,\nwho had once been young and now was old; who had once exulted in\nabundant strength, and trodden proudly on the neck of circumstance, and\nnow was old. He and she had once loved and burned and quarrelled in the\nglittering and scornful pride of youth. But time had worn them out.\n\"Yet a little while,\" she thought, \"and I shall be lying on a bed like\nthat! And what shall I have lived for? What is the meaning of it?\" The\nriddle of life itself was killing her, and she seemed to drown in a sea\nof inexpressible sorrow.\n\nHer memory wandered hopelessly among those past years. She saw Chirac\nwith his wistful smile. She saw him whipped over the roof of the Gare\ndu Nord at the tail of a balloon. She saw old Niepce. She felt his\nlecherous arm round her. She was as old now as Niepce had been then.\nCould she excite lust now? Ah! the irony of such a question! To be\nyoung and seductive, to be able to kindle a man's eye--that seemed to\nher the sole thing desirable. Once she had been so! ... Niepce must\ncertainly have been dead for years. Niepce, the obstinate and hopeful\nvoluptuary, was nothing but a few bones in a coffin now!\n\nShe was acquainted with affliction in that hour. All that she had\npreviously suffered sank into insignificance by the side of that\nsuffering.\n\nShe turned to the veiled window and idly pulled the blind and looked\nout. Huge red and yellow cars were swimming in thunder along Deansgate;\nlorries jolted and rattled; the people of Manchester hurried along the\npavements, apparently unconscious that all their doings were vain.\nYesterday he too had been in Deansgate, hungry for life, hating the\nidea of death! What a figure he must have made! Her heart dissolved in\npity for him. She dropped the blind.\n\n\"My life has been too terrible!\" she thought. \"I wish I was dead. I\nhave been through too much. It is monstrous, and I cannot stand it. I\ndo not want to die, but I wish I was dead.\"\n\nThere was a discreet knock on the door.\n\n\"Come in,\" she said, in a calm, resigned, cheerful voice. The sound had\nrecalled her with the swiftness of a miracle to the unconquerable\ndignity of human pride.\n\nMr. Till Boldero entered.\n\n\"I should like you to come downstairs and drink a cup of tea,\" he said.\nHe was a marvel of tact and good nature. \"My wife is unfortunately not\nhere, and the house is rather at sixes and sevens; but I have sent out\nfor some tea.\"\n\nShe followed him downstairs into the parlour. He poured out a cup of\ntea.\n\n\"I was forgetting,\" she said. \"I am forbidden tea. I mustn't drink it.\"\n\nShe looked at the cup, tremendously tempted. She longed for tea. An\noccasional transgression could not harm her. But no! She would not\ndrink it.\n\n\"Then what can I get you?\"\n\n\"If I could have just milk and water,\" she said meekly.\n\nMr. Boldero emptied the cup into the slop basin, and began to fill it\nagain.\n\n\"Did he tell you anything?\" she asked, after a considerable silence.\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Mr. Boldero in his low, soothing tones. \"Nothing except\nthat he had come from Liverpool. Judging from his shoes I should say he\nmust have walked a good bit of the way.\"\n\n\"At his age!\" murmured Sophia, touched.\n\n\"Yes,\" sighed Mr. Boldero. \"He must have been in great straits. You\nknow, he could scarcely talk at all. By the way, here are his clothes.\nI have had them put aside.\"\n\nSophia saw a small pile of clothes on a chair. She examined the suit,\nwhich was still damp, and its woeful shabbiness pained her. The linen\ncollar was nearly black, its stud of bone. As for the boots, she had\nnoticed such boots on the feet of tramps. She wept now. These were the\nclothes of him who had once been a dandy living at the rate of fifty\npounds a week.\n\n\"No luggage or anything, of course?\" she muttered.\n\n\"No,\" said Mr. Boldero. \"In the pockets there was nothing whatever but\nthis.\"\n\nHe went to the mantelpiece and picked up a cheap, cracked letter case,\nwhich Sophia opened. In it were a visiting card--'Senorita Clemenzia\nBorja'--and a bill-head of the Hotel of the Holy Spirit, Concepcion del\nUruguay, on the back of which a lot of figures had been scrawled.\n\n\"One would suppose,\" said Mr. Boldero, \"that he had come from South\nAmerica.\"\n\n\"Nothing else?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\nGerald's soul had not been compelled to abandon much in the haste of\nits flight.\n\nA servant announced that Mrs. Scales's friends were waiting for her\noutside in the motor-car. Sophia glanced at Mr. Till Boldero with an\nexacerbated anxiety on her face.\n\n\"Surely they don't expect me to go back with them tonight!\" she said.\n\"And look at all there is to be done!\"\n\nMr. Till Boldero's kindness was then redoubled. \"You can do nothing for\nHIM now,\" he said. \"Tell me your wishes about the funeral. I will\narrange everything. Go back to your sister to-night. She will be\nnervous about you. And return tomorrow or the day after.... No! It's no\ntrouble, I assure you!\"\n\nShe yielded.\n\nThus towards eight o'clock, when Sophia had eaten a little under Mr.\nBoldero's superintendence, and the pawnshop was shut up, the motor-car\nstarted again for Bursley, Lily Holl being beside her lover and Sophia\nalone in the body of the car. Sophia had told them nothing of the\nnature of her mission. She was incapable of talking to them. They saw\nthat she was in a condition of serious mental disturbance. Under cover\nof the noise of the car, Lily said to Dick that she was sure Mrs.\nScales was ill, and Dick, putting his lips together, replied that he\nmeant to be in King Street at nine-thirty at the latest. From time to\ntime Lily surreptitiously glanced at Sophia--a glance of apprehensive\ninspection, or smiled at her silently; and Sophia vaguely responded to\nthe smile.\n\nIn half an hour they had escaped from the ring of Manchester and were\non the county roads of Cheshire, polished, flat, sinuous. It was the\nseason of the year when there is no night--only daylight and twilight;\nwhen the last silver of dusk remains obstinately visible for hours. And\nin the open country, under the melancholy arch of evening, the sadness\nof the earth seemed to possess Sophia anew. Only then did she realize\nthe intensity of the ordeal through which she was passing.\n\nTo the south of Congleton one of the tyres softened, immediately after\nDick had lighted his lamps. He stopped the car and got down again. They\nwere two miles Astbury, the nearest village. He had just, with the\nresignation of experience, reached for the tool-bag, when Lily\nexclaimed: \"Is she asleep, or what?\" Sophia was not asleep, but she was\napparently not conscious.\n\nIt was a difficult and a trying situation for two lovers. Their voices\nchanged momentarily to the tone of alarm and consternation, and then\ngrew firm again. Sophia showed life but not reason. Lily could feel the\npoor old lady's heart.\n\n\"Well, there's nothing for it!\" said Dick, briefly, when all their\nefforts failed to rouse her.\n\n\"What--shall you do?\"\n\n\"Go straight home as quick as I can on three tyres. We must get her\nover to this side, and you must hold her. Like that we shall keep the\nweight off the other side.\"\n\nHe pitched back the tool-bag into its box. Lily admired his decision.\n\nIt was in this order, no longer under the spell of the changing beauty\nof nocturnal landscapes, that they finished the journey. Constance had\nopened the door before the car came to a stop in the gloom of King\nStreet. The young people considered that she bore the shock well,\nthough the carrying into the house of Sophia's inert, twitching body,\nwith its hat forlornly awry, was a sight to harrow a soul sturdier than\nConstance.\n\nWhen that was done, Dick said curtly: \"I'm off. You stay here, of\ncourse.\"\n\n\"Where are you going?\" asked Lily.\n\n\"Doctor!\" snapped Dick, hobbling rapidly down the steps.\n\nIV\n\nThe extraordinary violence of the turn in affairs was what chiefly\nstruck Constance, though it did not overwhelm her. Less than twelve\nhours before--nay, scarcely six hours before--she and Sophia had been\nliving their placid and monotonous existence, undisturbed by anything\nworse than the indisposition or death of dogs, or the perversity of a\nservant. And now, the menacing Gerald Scales having reappeared,\nSophia's form lay mysterious and affrightening on the sofa; and she and\nLily Holl, a girl whom she had not met till that day, were staring at\nSophia side by side, intimately sharing the same alarm. Constance rose\nto the crisis. She no longer had Sophia's energy and decisive\nperemptoriness to depend on, and the Baines in her was awakened. All\nher daily troubles sank away to their proper scale of unimportance.\nNeither the young woman nor the old one knew what to do. They could\nloosen clothes, vainly offer restoratives to the smitten mouth: that\nwas all. Sophia was not unconscious, as could be judged from her eyes;\nbut she could not speak, nor make signs; her body was frequently\nconvulsed. So the two women waited, and the servant waited in the\nbackground. The sight of Sophia had effected an astonishing\ntransformation in Maud. Maud was a changed girl. Constance could not\nrecognize, in her eager deferential anxiety to be of use, the pert\nnaughtiness of the minx. She was altered as a wanton of the middle ages\nwould have been altered by some miraculous visitation. It might have\nbeen the turning-point in Maud's career!\n\nDoctor Stirling arrived in less than ten minutes. Dick Povey had had\nthe wit to look for him at the Federation meeting in the Town Hall. And\nthe advent of the doctor and Dick, noisily, at breakneck speed in the\ncar, provided a second sensation. The doctor inquired quickly what had\noccurred. Nobody could tell him anything. Constance had already\nconfided to Lily Holl the reason of the visit to Manchester; but that\nwas the extent of her knowledge. Not a single person in Bursley, except\nSophia, knew what had happened in Manchester. But Constance conjectured\nthat Gerald Scales was dead--or Sophia would never have returned so\nsoon. Then the doctor suggested that on the contrary Gerald Scales\nmight be out of danger. And all then pictured to themselves this\ntroubling Gerald Scales, this dark and sinister husband that had caused\nsuch a violent upheaval.\n\nMeanwhile the doctor was at work. He sent Dick Povey to knock up\nCritchlow's, if the shop should be closed, and obtain a drug. Then,\nafter a time, he lifted Sophia, just as she was, like a bundle on his\nshoulder, and carried her single-handed upstairs to the second floor.\nHe had recently been giving a course of instruction to enthusiasts of\nthe St. John's Ambulance Association in Bursley. The feat had an air of\nthe superhuman. Above all else it remained printed on Constance's mind:\nthe burly doctor treading delicately and carefully on the crooked,\ncreaking stairs, his precautions against damaging Sophia by brusque\ncontacts, his stumble at the two steps in the middle of the corridor;\nSophia's horribly limp head and loosened hair; and then the tender\nplacing of her on the bed, and the doctor's long breath and flourish of\nhis large handkerchief, all that under the crude lights and shadows of\ngas jets! The doctor was nonplussed. Constance gave him a second-hand\naccount of Sophia's original attack in Paris, roughly as she had heard\nit from Sophia. He at once said that it could not have been what the\nFrench doctor had said it was. Constance shrugged her shoulders. She\nwas not surprised. For her there was necessarily something of the\ncharlatan about a French doctor. She said she only knew what Sophia had\ntold her. After a time Dr. Stirling determined to try electricity, and\nDick Povey drove him up to the surgery to fetch his apparatus. The\nwomen were left alone again. Constance was very deeply impressed by\nLily Holl's sensible, sympathetic attitude. \"Whatever I should have\ndone without Miss Lily I don't know!\" she used to exclaim afterwards.\nEven Maud was beyond praise. It seemed to be the middle of the night\nwhen Dr. Stirling came back, but it was barely eleven o'clock, and\npeople were only just returning from Hanbridge Theatre and Hanbridge\nMusic Hall. The use of the electrical apparatus was a dead spectacle.\nSophia's inertness under it was agonizing. They waited, as it were,\nbreathless for the result. And there was no result. Both injections and\nelectricity had entirely failed to influence the paralysis of Sophia's\nmouth and throat. Everything had failed. \"Nothing to do but wait a\nbit!\" said the doctor quietly. They waited in the chamber. Sophia\nseemed to be in a kind of coma. The distortion of her handsome face was\nmore marked as time passed. The doctor spoke now and then in a low\nvoice. He said that the attack had ultimately been determined by cold\nproduced by rapid motion in the automobile. Dick Povey whispered that\nhe must run over to Hanbridge and let Lily's parents know that there\nwas no cause for alarm on her account, and that he would return at\nonce. He was very devoted. On the landing out-side the bedroom, the\ndoctor murmured to him: \"U.P.\" And Dick nodded. They were great friends.\n\nAt intervals the doctor, who never knew when he was beaten, essayed new\nmethods of dealing with Sophia's case. New symptoms followed. It was\nhalf-past twelve when, after gazing with prolonged intensity at the\npatient, and after having tested her mouth and heart, he rose slowly\nand looked at Constance.\n\n\"It's over?\" said Constance.\n\nAnd he very slightly moved his head. \"Come downstairs, please,\" he\nenjoined her, in a pause that ensued. Constance was amazingly\ncourageous. The doctor was very solemn and very kind; Constance had\nnever before seen him to such heroic advantage. He led her with\ninfinite gentleness out of the room. There was nothing to stay for;\nSophia had gone. Constance wanted to stay by Sophia's body; but it was\nthe rule that the stricken should be led away, the doctor observed this\nclassic rule, and Constance felt that he was right and that she must\nobey. Lily Holl followed. The servant, learning the truth by the\nintuition accorded to primitive natures, burst into loud sobs, yelling\nthat Sophia had been the most excellent mistress that servant ever had.\nThe doctor angrily told her not to stand blubbering there, but to go\ninto her kitchen and shut the door if she couldn't control herself. All\nhis accumulated nervous agitation was discharged on Maud like a\nthunderclap. Constance continued to behave wonderfully. She was the\nadmiration of the doctor and Lily Holl. Then Dick Povey came back. It\nwas settled that Lily should pass the night with Constance. At last the\ndoctor and Dick departed together, the doctor undertaking the mortuary\narrangements. Maud was hunted to bed.\n\nEarly in the morning Constance rose up from her own bed. It was five\no'clock, and there had been daylight for two hours already. She moved\nnoiselessly and peeped over the foot of the bed at the sofa. Lily was\nquietly asleep there, breathing with the softness of a child. Lily\nwould have deemed that she was a very mature woman, who had seen life\nand much of it. Yet to Constance her face and attitude had the\nexquisite quality of a child's. She was not precisely a pretty girl,\nbut her features, the candid expression of her disposition, produced an\nimpression that was akin to that of beauty. Her abandonment was\ncomplete. She had gone through the night unscathed, and was now\nrenewing herself in calm, oblivious sleep. Her ingenuous girlishness\nwas apparent then. It seemed as if all her wise and sweet behaviour of\nthe evening could have been nothing but so many imitative gestures. It\nseemed impossible that a being so young and fresh could have really\nexperienced the mood of which her gestures had been the expression. Her\nstrong virginal simplicity made Constance vaguely sad for her.\n\nCreeping out of the room, Constance climbed to the second floor in her\ndressing-gown, and entered the other chamber. She was obliged to look\nagain upon Sophia's body. Incredible swiftness of calamity! Who could\nhave foreseen it? Constance was less desolated than numbed. She was as\nyet only touching the fringe of her bereavement. She had not begun to\nthink of herself. She was drenched, as she gazed at Sophia's body, not\nby pity for herself, but by compassion for the immense disaster of her\nsister's life. She perceived fully now for the first time the greatness\nof that disaster. Sophia's charm and Sophia's beauty--what profit had\nthey been to their owner? She saw pictures of Sophia's career,\ndistorted and grotesque images formed in her untravelled mind from\nSophia's own rare and compressed recitals. What a career! A brief\npassion, and then nearly thirty years in a boarding-house! And Sophia\nhad never had a child; had never known either the joy or the pain of\nmaternity. She had never even had a true home till, in all her sterile\nsplendour, she came to Bursley. And she had ended--thus! This was the\npiteous, ignominious end of Sophia's wondrous gifts of body and soul.\nHers had not been a life at all. And the reason? It is strange how fate\npersists in justifying the harsh generalizations of Puritan morals, of\nthe morals in which Constance had been brought up by her stern parents!\nSophia had sinned. It was therefore inevitable that she should suffer.\nAn adventure such as she had in wicked and capricious pride undertaken\nwith Gerald Scales, could not conclude otherwise than it had concluded.\nIt could have brought nothing but evil. There was no getting away from\nthese verities, thought Constance. And she was to be excused for\nthinking that all modern progress and cleverness was as naught, and\nthat the world would be forced to return upon its steps and start again\nin the path which it had left.\n\nUp to within a few days of her death people had been wont to remark\nthat Mrs. Scales looked as young as ever, and that she was as bright\nand as energetic as ever. And truly, regarding Sophia from a little\ndistance--that handsome oval, that erect carriage of a slim body, that\nchallenging eye!--no one would have said that she was in her sixtieth\nyear. But look at her now, with her twisted face, her sightless orbs,\nher worn skin--she did not seem sixty, but seventy! She was like\nsomething used, exhausted, and thrown aside! Yes, Constance's heart\nmelted in an anguished pity for that stormy creature. And mingled with\nthe pity was a stern recognition of the handiwork of divine justice. To\nConstance's lips came the same phrase as had come to the lips of Samuel\nPovey on a different occasion: God is not mocked! The ideas of her\nparents and her grandparents had survived intact in Constance. It is\ntrue that Constance's father would have shuddered in Heaven could he\nhave seen Constance solitarily playing cards of a night. But in spite\nof cards, and of a son who never went to chapel, Constance, under the\nvarious influences of destiny, had remained essentially what her father\nhad been. Not in her was the force of evolution manifest. There are\nthousands such.\n\nLily, awake, and reclothed with that unreal mien of a grown and\ncomprehending woman, stepped quietly into the room, searching for the\npoor old thing, Constance. The layer-out had come.\n\nBy the first post was delivered a letter addressed to Sophia by Mr.\nTill Boldero. From its contents the death of Gerald Scales was clear.\nThere seemed then to be nothing else for Constance to do. What had to\nbe done was done for her. And stronger wills than hers put her to bed.\nCyril was telegraphed for. Mr. Critchlow called, Mrs. Critchlow\nfollowing--a fussy infliction, but useful in certain matters. Mr.\nCritchlow was not allowed to see Constance. She could hear his high\ngrating voice in the corridor. She had to lie calm, and the sudden\ntranquillity seemed strange after the feverish violence of the night.\nOnly twenty-four hours since, and she had been worrying about the death\nof a dog! With a body crying for sleep, she dozed off, thoughts of the\nmystery of life merging into the incoherence of dreams.\n\nThe news was abroad in the Square before nine o'clock. There were\npersons who had witnessed the arrival of the motorcar, and the transfer\nof Sophia to the house. Untruthful rumours had spread as to the manner\nof Gerald Scales's death. Some said that he had dramatically committed\nsuicide. But the town, though titillated, was not moved as it would\nhave been moved by a similar event twenty years, or even ten years\nearlier. Times had changed in Bursley. Bursley was more sophisticated\nthan in the old days.\n\nConstance was afraid lest Cyril, despite the seriousness of the\noccasion, might exhibit his customary tardiness in coming. She had long\nsince learnt not to rely upon him. But he came the same evening. His\nbehaviour was in every way perfect. He showed quiet but genuine grief\nfor the death of his aunt, and he was a model of consideration for his\nmother. Further, he at once assumed charge of all the arrangements, in\nregard both to Sophia and to her husband. Constance was surprised at\nthe ease which he displayed in the conduct of practical affairs, and\nthe assurance with which he gave orders. She had never seen him direct\nanything before. He said, indeed, that he had never directed anything\nbefore, but that there appeared to him to be no difficulties. Whereas\nConstance had figured a tiresome series of varied complications. As to\nthe burial of Sophia, Cyril was vigorously in favour of an absolutely\nprivate funeral; that is to say, a funeral at which none but himself\nshould be present. He seemed to have a passionate objection to any sort\nof parade. Constance agreed with him. But she said that it would be\nimpossible not to invite Mr. Critchlow, Sophia's trustee, and that if\nMr. Critchlow were invited certain others must be invited. Cyril asked:\n\"Why impossible?\" Constance said: \"Because it would be impossible.\nBecause Mr. Critchlow would be hurt.\" Cyril asked: \"What does it matter\nif he is hurt?\" and suggested that Mr. Critchlow would get over his\ndamage. Constance grew more serious. The discussion threatened to be\nwarm. Suddenly Cyril yielded. \"All right, Mrs. Plover, all right! It\nshall be exactly as you choose,\" he said, in a gentle, humouring tone.\nHe had not called her 'Mrs. Plover' for years. She thought the hour\nbadly chosen for verbal pleasantry, but he was so kind that she made no\ncomplaint. Thus there were six people at Sophia's funeral, including\nMr. Critchlow. No refreshments were offered. The mourners separated at\nthe church. When both funerals were accomplished Cyril sat down and\nplayed the harmonium softly, and said that it had kept well in tune. He\nwas extraordinarily soothing.\n\nHe had now reached the age of thirty-three. His habits were as\nindustrious as ever, his preoccupation with his art as keen. But he had\nachieved no fame, no success. He earned nothing, living in comfort on\nan allowance from his mother. He seldom spoke of his plans and never of\nhis hopes. He had in fact settled down into a dilletante, having learnt\ngently to scorn the triumphs which he lacked the force to win. He\nimagined that industry and a regular existence were sufficient\njustification in themselves for any man's life. Constance had dropped\nthe habit of expecting him to astound the world. He was rather grave\nand precise in manner, courteous and tepid, with a touch of\ncondescension towards his environment; as though he were continually\npermitting the perspicacious to discern that he had nothing to\nlearn--if the truth were known! His humour had assumed a modified form.\nHe often smiled to himself. He was unexceptionable.\n\nOn the day after Sophia's funeral he set to work to design a simple\nstone for his aunt's tomb. He said he could not tolerate the ordinary\ngravestone, which always looked, to him, as if the wind might blow it\nover, thus negativing the idea of solidity. His mother did not in the\nleast understand him. She thought the lettering of his tombstone\naffected and finicking. But she let it pass without comment, being\nsecretly very flattered that he should have deigned to design a stone\nat all.\n\nSophia had left all her money to Cyril, and had made him the sole\nexecutor of her will. This arrangement had been agreed with Constance.\nThe sisters thought it was the best plan. Cyril ignored Mr. Critchlow\nentirely, and went to a young lawyer at Hanbridge, a friend of his and\nof Matthew Peel-Swynnerton's. Mr. Critchlow, aged and unaccustomed to\ninterference, had to render accounts of his trusteeship to this young\nman, and was incensed. The estate was proved at over thirty-five\nthousand pounds. In the main, Sophia had been careful, and had even\nbeen parsimonious. She had often told Constance that they ought to\nspend money much more freely, and she had had a few brief fits of\nextravagance. But the habit of stern thrift, begun in 1870 and\npractised without any intermission till she came to England in 1897,\nhad been too strong for her theories. The squandering of money pained\nher. And she could not, in her age, devise expensive tastes.\n\nCyril showed no emotion whatever on learning himself the inheritor of\nthirty-five thousand pounds. He did not seem to care. He spoke of the\nsum as a millionaire might have spoken of it. In justice to him it is\nto be said that he cared nothing for wealth, except in so far as wealth\ncould gratify his eye and ear trained to artistic voluptuousness. But,\nfor his mother's sake, and for the sake of Bursley, he might have\naffected a little satisfaction. His mother was somewhat hurt. His\nbehaviour caused her to revert in meditation again and again to the\nfutility of Sophia's career, and the waste of her attributes. She had\ngrown old and hard in joyless years in order to amass this money which\nCyril would spend coldly and ungratefully, never thinking of the\nimmense effort and endless sacrifice which had gone to its collection.\nHe would spend it as carelessly as though he had picked it up in the\nstreet. As the days went by and Constance realized her own grief, she\nalso realized more and more the completeness of the tragedy of Sophia's\nlife. Headstrong Sophia had deceived her mother, and for the deception\nhad paid with thirty years of melancholy and the entire frustration of\nher proper destiny.\n\nAfter haunting Bursley for a fortnight in elegant black, Cyril said,\nwithout any warning, one night: \"I must go the day after to-morrow,\nmater.\" And he told her of a journey to Hungary which he had long since\ndefinitely planned with Matthew Peel-Swynnerton, and which could not be\npostponed, as it comprised 'business.' He had hitherto breathed no word\nof this. He was as secretive as ever. As to her holiday, he suggested\nthat she should arrange to go away with the Holls and Dick Povey. He\napproved of Lily Holl and of Dick Povey. Of Dick Povey he said: \"He's\none of the most remarkable chaps in the Five Towns.\" And he had the air\nof having made Dick's reputation. Constance, knowing there was no\nappeal, accepted the sentence of loneliness. Her health was singularly\ngood.\n\nWhen he was gone she said to herself: \"Scarcely a fortnight and Sophia\nwas here at this table!\" She would remember every now and then, with a\nfaint shock, that poor, proud, masterful Sophia was dead.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nEND OF CONSTANCE\n\nI\n\n\nWhen, on a June afternoon about twelve months later, Lily Holl walked\ninto Mrs. Povey's drawing-room overlooking the Square, she found a\ncalm, somewhat optimistic old lady--older than her years--which were\nlittle more than sixty--whose chief enemies were sciatica and\nrheumatism. The sciatica was a dear enemy of long standing, always\naffectionately referred to by the forgiving Constance as 'my sciatica';\nthe rheumatism was a new-comer, unprivileged, spoken of by its victim\napprehensively and yet disdainfully as 'this rheumatism.' Constance was\nnow very stout. She sat in a low easy-chair between the oval table and\nthe window, arrayed in black silk. As the girl Lily came in, Constance\nlifted her head with a bland smile, and Lily kissed her, contentedly.\nLily knew that she was a welcome visitor. These two had become as\nintimate as the difference between their ages would permit; of the two,\nConstance was the more frank. Lily as well as Constance was in\nmourning. A few months previously her aged grandfather, 'Holl, the\ngrocer,' had died. The second of his two sons, Lily's father, had then\nleft the business established by the brothers at Hanbridge in order to\nmanage, for a time, the parent business in St. Luke's Square. Alderman\nHoll's death had delayed Lily's marriage. Lily took tea with Constance,\nor at any rate paid a call, four or five times a week. She listened to\nConstance.\n\nEverybody considered that Constance had 'come splendidly through' the\ndreadful affair of Sophia's death. Indeed, it was observed that she was\nmore philosophic, more cheerful, more sweet, than she had been for many\nyears. The truth was that, though her bereavement had been the cause of\na most genuine and durable sorrow, it had been a relief to her. When\nConstance was over fifty, the energetic and masterful Sophia had burst\nin upon her lethargic tranquillity and very seriously disturbed the\nflow of old habits. Certainly Constance had fought Sophia on the main\npoint, and won; but on a hundred minor points she had either lost or\nhad not fought. Sophia had been 'too much' for Constance, and it had\nbeen only by a wearying expenditure of nervous force that Constance had\nsucceeded in holding a small part of her own against the unconscious\ndomination of Sophia. The death of Mrs. Scales had put an end to all\nthe strain, and Constance had been once again mistress in Constance's\nhouse. Constance would never have admitted these facts, even to\nherself; and no one would ever have dared to suggest them to her. For\nwith all her temperamental mildness she had her formidable side.\n\nShe was slipping a photograph into a plush-covered photograph album.\n\n\"More photographs?\" Lily questioned. She had almost exactly the same\nbenignant smile that Constance had. She seemed to be the\npersonification of gentleness--one of those feather-beds that some\ncapricious men occasionally have the luck to marry. She was capable,\nwith a touch of honest, simple stupidity. All her character was\ndisplayed in the tone in which she said: \"More photographs?\" It showed\nan eager responsive sympathy with Constance's cult for photographs,\nalso a slight personal fondness for photographs, also a dim perception\nthat a cult for photographs might be carried to the ridiculous, and a\nkind desire to hide all trace of this perception. The voice was thin,\nand matched the pale complexion of her delicate face.\n\nConstance's eyes had a quizzical gleam behind her spectacles as she\nsilently held up the photograph for Lily's inspection.\n\nLily, sitting down, lowered the corners of her soft lips when she\nbeheld the photograph, and nodded her head several times, scarce\nperceptibly.\n\n\"Her ladyship has just given it to me,\" whispered Constance.\n\n\"Indeed!\" said Lily, with an extraordinary accent.\n\n'Her ladyship' was the last and best of Constance's servants, a really\nexcellent creature of thirty, who had known misfortune, and who must\nassuredly have been sent to Constance by the old watchful Providence.\nThey 'got on together' nearly perfectly. Her name was Mary. After ten\nyears of turmoil, Constance in the matter of servants was now at rest.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Constance. \"She's named it to me several times--about\nhaving her photograph taken, and last week I let her go. I told you,\ndidn't I? I always consider her in every way, all her little fancies\nand everything. And the copies came to-day. I wouldn't hurt her\nfeelings for anything. You may be sure she'll take a look into the\nalbum next time she cleans the room.\"\n\nConstance and Lily exchanged a glance agreeing that Constance had\naffably stretched a point in deciding to put the photograph of a\nservant between the same covers with photographs of her family and\nfriends. It was doubtful whether such a thing had ever been done before.\n\nOne photograph usually leads to another, and one photograph album to\nanother photograph album.\n\n\"Pass me that album on the second shelf of the Canterbury; my dear,\"\nsaid Constance.\n\nLily rose vivaciously, as though to see the album on the second shelf\nof the Canterbury had been the ambition of her life.\n\nThey sat side by side at the table, Lily turning over the pages.\nConstance, for all her vast bulk, continually made little nervous\nmovements. Occasionally she would sniff and occasionally a mysterious\nnoise would occur in her chest; she always pretended that this noise\nwas a cough, and would support the pretence by emitting a real cough\nimmediately after it.\n\n\"Why!\" exclaimed Lily. \"Have I seen that before?\"\n\n\"I don't know, my dear,\" said Constance. \"HAVE you?\"\n\nIt was a photograph of Sophia taken a few years previously by 'a very\nnice gentleman,' whose acquaintance the sisters had made during a\nholiday at Harrogate. It portrayed Sophia on a knoll, fronting the\nweather.\n\n\"It's Mrs. Scales to the life--I can see that,\" said Lily.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Constance. \"Whenever there was a wind she always stood like\nthat, and took long deep breaths of it.\"\n\nThis recollection of one of Sophia's habits recalled the whole woman to\nConstance's memory, and drew a picture of her character for the girl\nwho had scarcely known her.\n\n\"It's not like ordinary photographs. There's something special about\nit,\" said Lily, enthusiastically. \"I don't think I ever saw a\nphotograph like that.\"\n\n\"I've got another copy of it in my bedroom,\" said Constance. \"I'll give\nyou this one.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mrs. Povey! I couldn't think--!\"\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" said Constance, removing the photograph from the page.\n\n\"Oh, THANK you!\" said Lily.\n\n\"And that reminds me,\" said Constance, getting up with great difficulty\nfrom her chair.\n\n\"Can I find anything for you?\" Lily asked.\n\n\"No, no!\" said Constance, leaving the room.\n\nShe returned in a moment with her jewel-box, a receptacle of ebony with\nivory ornamentations.\n\n\"I've always meant to give you this,\" said Constance, taking from the\nbox a fine cameo brooch. \"I don't seem to fancy wearing it myself. And\nI should like to see you wearing it. It was mother's. I believe they're\ncoming into fashion again. I don't see why you shouldn't wear it while\nyou're in mourning. They aren't half so strict now about mourning as\nthey used to be.\"\n\n\"Truly!\" murmured Lily, ecstatically. They kissed. Constance seemed to\nbreathe out benevolence, as with trembling hands she pinned the brooch\nat Lily's neck. She lavished the warm treasure of her heart on Lily,\nwhom she regarded as an almost perfect girl, and who had become the\nidol of her latter years.\n\n\"What a magnificent old watch!\" said Lily, as they delved together in\nthe lower recesses of the box. \"AND the chain to it!\"\n\n\"That was father's,\" said Constance. \"He always used to swear by it.\nWhen it didn't agree with the Town Hall, he used to say: 'Then th' Town\nHall's wrong.' And it's curious, the Town Hall WAS wrong. You know the\nTown Hall clock has never been a good timekeeper. I've been thinking of\ngiving that watch and chain to Dick.\"\n\n\"HAVE you?\" said Lily.\n\n\"Yes. It's just as good as it was when father wore it. My husband never\nwould wear it. He preferred his own. He had little fancies like that.\nAnd Cyril takes after his father.\" She spoke in her 'dry' tone. \"I've\nalmost decided to give it to Dick--that is, if he behaves himself. Is\nhe still on with this ballooning?\"\n\nLily Smiled guiltily: \"Oh yes!\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Constance, \"I never heard the like! If he's been up and\ncome down safely, that ought to be enough for him. I wonder you let him\ndo it, my dear.\"\n\n\"But how can I stop him? I've no control over him.\"\n\n\"But do you mean to say that he'd still do it if you told him seriously\nyou didn't want him to?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Lily; and added: \"So I shan't tell him.\"\n\nConstance nodded her head, musing over the secret nature of men. She\nremembered too well the cruel obstinacy of Samuel, who had nevertheless\nloved her. And Dick Povey was a thousand times more bizarre than\nSamuel. She saw him vividly, a little boy, whizzing down King Street on\na boneshaker, and his cap flying off. Afterwards it had been\nmotor-cars! Now it was balloons! She sighed. She was struck by the\nprofound instinctive wisdom just enunciated by the girl.\n\n\"Well,\" she said, \"I shall see. I've not made up my mind yet. What's\nthe young man doing this afternoon, by the way?\"\n\n\"He's gone to Birmingham to try to sell two motor-lorries. He won't be\nback home till late. He's coming over here to-morrow.\"\n\nIt was an excellent illustration of Dick Povey's methods that at this\nvery moment Lily heard in the Square the sound of a motor-car, which\nhappened to be Dick's car. She sprang up to look.\n\n\"Why!\" she cried, flushing. \"Here he is now!\"\n\n\"Bless us, bless us!\" muttered Constance, closing the box.\n\nWhen Dick, having left his car in King Street, limped tempestuously\ninto the drawing-room, galvanizing it by his abundant vitality into a\nnew life, he cried joyously: \"Sold my lorries! Sold my lorries!\" And he\nexplained that by a charming accident he had disposed of them to a\nchance buyer in Hanbridge, just before starting for Birmingham. So he\nhad telephoned to Birmingham that the matter was 'off,' and then, being\n'at a loose end,' he had come over to Bursley in search of his\nbetrothed. At Holl's shop they had told him that she was with Mrs.\nPovey. Constance glanced at him, impressed by his jolly air of success.\nHe seemed exactly like his breezy and self-confident advertisements in\nthe Signal. He was absolutely pleased with himself. He triumphed over\nhis limp--that ever-present reminder of a tragedy. Who would dream, to\nlook at his blond, laughing, scintillating face, astonishingly young\nfor his years, that he had once passed through such a night as that on\nwhich his father had killed his mother while he lay immovable and\ncursing, with a broken knee, in bed? Constance had heard all about that\nscene from her husband, and she paused in wonder at the contrasting\nhazards of existence.\n\nDick Povey brought his hands together with a resounding smack, and then\nrubbed them rapidly.\n\n\"AND a good price, too!\" he exclaimed blithely. \"Mrs. Povey, I don't\nmind telling you that I've netted seventy pounds odd this afternoon.\"\n\nLily's eyes expressed her proud joy.\n\n\"I hope pride won't have a fall,\" said Constance, with a calm smile out\nof which peeped a hint of a rebuke. \"That's what I hope. I must just go\nand see about tea.\"\n\n\"I can't stay for tea--really,\" said Dick.\n\n\"Of course you can,\" said Constance, positively. \"Suppose you'd been at\nBirmingham? It's weeks since you stayed to tea.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, thanks!\" Dick yielded, rather snubbed.\n\n\"Can't I save you a journey, Mrs. Povey?\" Lily asked, eagerly\nthoughtful.\n\n\"No, thank you, my dear. There are one or two little things that need\nmy attention.\" And Constance departed with her jewel-box.\n\nDick, having assured himself that the door was closed, assaulted Lily\nwith a kiss.\n\n\"Been here long?\" he inquired.\n\n\"About an hour and a half.\"\n\n\"Glad to see me?\"\n\n\"Oh, Dick!\" she protested.\n\n\"Old lady's in one of her humours, eh?\"\n\n\"No, no! Only she was just talking about balloons--you know. She's very\nmuch up in arms.\"\n\n\"You ought to keep her off balloons. Balloons may be the ruin of her\nwedding-present to us, my child.\"\n\n\"Dick! How can you talk like that? ... It's all very well saying I\nought to keep her off balloons. You try to keep her off balloons when\nonce she begins, and see!\"\n\n\"What started her?\"\n\n\"She said she was thinking of giving you old Mr. Baines's gold watch\nand chain--if you behaved yourself.\"\n\n\"Thank you for nothing!\" said Dick. \"I don't want it.\"\n\n\"Have you seen it?\"\n\n\"Have I seen it? I should say I had seen it. She's mentioned it once or\ntwice before.\"\n\n\"Oh! I didn't know.\"\n\n\"I don't see myself carting that thing about. I much prefer my own.\nWhat do you think of it?\"\n\n\"Of course it is rather clumsy,\" said Lily. \"But if she offered it to\nyou, you couldn't refuse it, and you'd simply have to wear it.\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" said Dick, \"I must try to behave myself just badly enough\nto keep off the watch, but not badly enough to upset her notions about\nwedding-presents.\"\n\n\"Poor old thing!\" Lily murmured, compassionately.\n\nThen Lily put her hand silently to her neck.\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"She's just given it to me.\"\n\nDick approached very near to examine the cameo brooch. \"Hm!\" he\nmurmured. It was an adverse verdict. And Lily coincided with it by a\nlift of the eyebrows.\n\n\"And I suppose you'll have to wear that!\" said Dick.\n\n\"She values it as much as anything she's got, poor old thing!\" said\nLily. \"It belonged to her mother. And she says cameos are coming into\nfashion again. It really is rather good, you know.\"\n\n\"I wonder where she learnt that!\" said Dick, drily. \"I see you've been\nsuffering from the photographs again.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Lily, \"I much prefer the photographs to helping her to\nplay Patience. The way she cheats herself--it's too silly! I--\"\n\nShe stopped. The door which had after all not been latched, was pushed\nopen, and the antique Fossette introduced herself painfully into the\nroom. Fossette had an affection for Dick Povey.\n\n\"Well, Methusaleh!\" he greeted the animal loudly. She could scarcely\nwag her tail, nor shake the hair out of her dim eyes in order to look\nup at him. He stooped to pat her.\n\n\"That dog does smell,\" said Lily, bluntly.\n\n\"What do you expect? What she wants is the least dose of prussic acid.\nShe's a burden to herself.\"\n\n\"It's funny that if you venture to hint to Mrs. Povey that the dog is\noffensive she gets quite peppery,\" said Lily.\n\n\"Well, that's very simple,\" said Dick. \"Don't hint, that's all! Hold\nyour nose and your tongue too.\"\n\n\"Dick, I do wish you wouldn't be so absurd.\"\n\nConstance returned into the room, cutting short the conversation.\n\n\"Mrs. Povey,\" said Dick, in a voice full of gratitude, \"Lily has just\nbeen showing me her brooch--\"\n\nHe noticed that she paid no heed to him, but passed hurriedly to the\nwindow.\n\n\"What's amiss in the Square?\" Constance exclaimed. \"When I was in the\nparlour just now I saw a man running along Wedgwood Street, and I said\nto myself, what's amiss?\"\n\nDick and Lily joined her at the window.\n\nSeveral people were hurrying down the Square, and then a man came\nrunning with a doctor from the market-place. All these persons\ndisappeared from view under the window of Mrs. Povey's drawing-room,\nwhich was over part of Mrs. Critchlow's shop. As the windows of the\nshop projected beyond the walls of the house it was impossible, from\nthe drawing-room window, to see the pavement in front of the shop.\n\n\"It must be something on the pavement--or in the shop!\" murmured\nConstance.\n\n\"Oh, ma'am!\" said a startled voice behind the three. It was Mary,\noriginal of the photograph, who had run unperceived into the\ndrawing-room. \"They say as Mrs. Critchlow has tried to commit suicide!\"\n\nConstance started back. Lily went towards her, with an instinctive\ngesture of supporting consolation.\n\n\"Maria Critchlow tried to commit suicide!\" Constance muttered.\n\n\"Yes, ma'am! But they say she's not done it.\"\n\n\"By Jove! I'd better go and see if I can help, hadn't I?\" cried Dick\nPovey, hobbling off, excited and speedy. \"Strange, isn't it?\" he\nexclaimed afterwards, \"how I manage to come in for things? Sheer chance\nthat I was here to-day! But it's always like that! Somehow something\nextraordinary is always happening where I am.\" And this too ministered\nto his satisfaction, and to his zest for life.\n\nII\n\nWhen, in the evening, after all sorts of comings and goings, he finally\nreturned to the old lady and the young one, in order to report the\nupshot, his demeanour was suitably toned to Constance's mood. The old\nlady had been very deeply disturbed by the tragedy, which, as she said,\nhad passed under her very feet while she was calmly talking to Lily.\n\nThe whole truth came out in a short space of time. Mrs. Critchlow was\nsuffering from melancholia. It appeared that for long she had been\ndepressed by the failing trade of the shop, which was none of her\nfault. The state of the Square had steadily deteriorated. Even the\n'Vaults' were not what they once were. Four or five shops had been shut\nup, as it were definitely, the landlords having given up hope of\ndiscovering serious tenants. And, of those kept open, the majority were\nstruggling desperately to make ends meet. Only Holl's and a new upstart\ndraper, who had widely advertised his dress-making department, were\nreally flourishing. The confectionery half of Mr. Brindley's business\nwas disappearing. People would not go to Hanbridge for their bread or\nfor their groceries, but they would go for their cakes. These electric\ntrams had simply carried to Hanbridge the cream, and much of the milk,\nof Bursley's retail trade. There were unprincipled tradesmen in\nHanbridge ready to pay the car-fares of any customer who spent a crown\nin their establishments. Hanbridge was the geographical centre of the\nFive Towns, and it was alive to its situation. Useless for Bursley to\ncompete! If Mrs. Critchlow had been a philosopher, if she had known\nthat geography had always made history, she would have given up her\nenterprise a dozen years ago. But Mrs. Critchlow was merely Maria\nInsull. She had seen Baines's in its magnificent prime, when Baines's\nalmost conferred a favour on customers in serving them. At the time\nwhen she took over the business under the wing of her husband, it was\nstill a good business. But from that instant the tide had seemed to\nturn. She had fought, and she kept on fighting, stupidly. She was not\naware that she was fighting against evolution, not aware that evolution\nhad chosen her for one of its victims! She could understand that all\nthe other shops in the Square should fail, but not that Baines's should\nfail! She was as industrious as ever, as good a buyer, as good a\nseller, as keen for novelties, as economical, as methodical! And yet\nthe returns dropped and dropped.\n\nShe naturally had no sympathy from Charles, who now took small interest\neven in his own business, or what was left of it, and who was coldly\ndisgusted at the ultimate cost of his marriage. Charles gave her no\nmoney that he could avoid giving her. The crisis had been slowly\napproaching for years. The assistants in the shop had said nothing, or\nhad only whispered among themselves, but now that the crisis had\nflowered suddenly in an attempted self-murder, they all spoke at once,\nand the evidences were pieced together into a formidable proof of the\nstrain which Mrs. Critchlow had suffered. It appeared that for many\nmonths she had been depressed and irritable, that sometimes she would\nsit down in the midst of work and declare, with every sign of\nexhaustion, that she could do no more. Then with equal briskness she\nwould arise and force herself to labour. She did not sleep for whole\nnights. One assistant related how she had complained of having had no\nsleep whatever for four nights consecutively. She had noises in the\nears and a chronic headache. Never very plump, she had grown thinner\nand thinner. And she was for ever taking pills: this information came\nfrom Charles's manager. She had had several outrageous quarrels with\nthe redoubtable Charles, to the stupefaction of all who heard or saw\nthem.... Mrs. Critchlow standing up to her husband! Another strange\nthing was that she thought the bills of several of the big Manchester\nfirms were unpaid, when as a fact they had been paid. Even when shown\nthe receipts she would not be convinced, though she pretended to be\nconvinced. She would recommence the next day. All this was sufficiently\ndisconcerting for female assistants in the drapery. But what could they\ndo?\n\nThen Maria Critchlow had gone a step further. She had summoned the\neldest assistant to her corner and had informed her, with all the\nsolemnity of a confession made to assuage a conscience which has been\ntortured too long, that she had on many occasions been guilty of sexual\nirregularity with her late employer, Samuel Povey. There was no truth\nwhatever in this accusation (which everybody, however, took care not to\nmention to Constance); it merely indicated, perhaps, the secret\naspirations of Maria Insull, the virgin. The assistant was properly\nscandalized, more by the crudity of Mrs. Critchlow's language than by\nthe alleged sin buried in the past. Goodness knows what the assistant\nwould have done! But two hours later Maria Critchlow tried to commit\nsuicide by stabbing herself with a pair of scissors. There was blood in\nthe shop.\n\nWith as little delay as possible she had been driven away to the\nasylum. Charles Critchlow, enveloped safely in the armour of his senile\negotism, had shown no emotion, and very little activity. The shop was\nclosed. And as a general draper's it never opened again. That was the\nend of Baines's. Two assistants found themselves without a livelihood.\nThe small tumble with the great.\n\nConstance's emotion was more than pardonable; it was justified. She\ncould not eat and Lily could not persuade her to eat. In an unhappy\nmoment Dick Povey mentioned--he never could remember how,\nafterwards--the word Federation! And then Constance, from a passive\nfigure of grief became a menace. She overwhelmed Dick Povey with her\nanathema of Federation, for Dick was a citizen of Hanbridge, where this\ndetestable movement for Federation had had its birth. All the\nmisfortunes of St. Luke's Square were due to that great, busy,\ngrasping, unscrupulous neighbour. Had not Hanbridge done enough,\nwithout wanting to merge all the Five Towns into one town, of which of\ncourse itself would be the centre? For Constance, Hanbridge was a\nborough of unprincipled adventurers, bent on ruining the ancient\n'Mother of the Five Towns' for its own glory and aggrandizement. Let\nConstance hear no more of Federation! Her poor sister Sophia had been\ndead against Federation, and she had been quite right! All really\nrespectable people were against it! The attempted suicide of Mrs.\nCritchlow sealed the fate of Federation and damned it for ever, in\nConstance's mind. Her hatred of the idea of it was intensified into\nviolent animosity; insomuch that in the result she died a martyr to the\ncause of Bursley's municipal independence.\n\nIII\n\nIt was on a muddy day in October that the first great battle for and\nagainst Federation was fought in Bursley. Constance was suffering\nseverely from sciatica. She was also suffering from disgust with the\nmodern world.\n\nUnimaginable things had happened in the Square. For Constance, the\nreputation of the Square was eternally ruined. Charles Critchlow, by\nthat strange good fortune which always put him in the right when fairly\nhe ought to have been in the wrong, had let the Baines shop and his own\nshop and house to the Midland Clothiers Company, which was establishing\nbranches throughout Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and\nadjacent counties. He had sold his own chemist's stock and gone to live\nin a little house at the bottom of Kingstreet. It is doubtful whether\nhe would have consented to retire had not Alderman Holl died earlier in\nthe year, thus ending a long rivalry between the old men for the\npatriarchate of the Square. Charles Critchlow was as free from\nsentiment as any man, but no man is quite free from it, and the ancient\nwas in a position to indulge sentiment had he chosen. His business was\nnot a source of loss, and he could still trust his skinny hands and\npeering eyes to make up a prescription. However, the offer of the\nMidland Clothiers Company tempted him, and as the undisputed 'father'\nof the Square he left the Square in triumph.\n\nThe Midland Clothiers Company had no sense of the proprieties of trade.\nTheir sole idea was to sell goods. Having possessed themselves of one\nof the finest sites in a town which, after all was said and done,\ncomprised nearly forty thousand inhabitants, they set about to make the\nbest of that site. They threw the two shops into one, and they caused\nto be constructed a sign compared to which the spacious old 'Baines'\nsign was a postcard. They covered the entire frontage with posters of a\ntheatrical description--coloured posters! They occupied the front page\nof the Signal, and from that pulpit they announced that winter was\napproaching, and that they meant to sell ten thousand overcoats at\ntheir new shop in Bursley at the price of twelve and sixpence each. The\ntailoring of the world was loudly and coarsely defied to equal the\nvalue of those overcoats. On the day of opening they arranged an\norchestra or artillery of phonographs upon the leads over the window of\nthat part of the shop which had been Mr. Critchlow's. They also\ncarpeted the Square with handbills, and flew flags from their upper\nstoreys. The immense shop proved to be full of overcoats; overcoats\nwere shown in all the three great windows; in one window an overcoat\nwas disposed as a receptacle for water, to prove that the Midland\ntwelve-and-sixpenny overcoats were impermeable by rain. Overcoats\nflapped in the two doorways. These devices woke and drew the town, and\nthe town found itself received by bustling male assistants very\nenergetic and rapid, instead of by demure anaemic virgins. At moments\ntowards evening the shop was populous with custom; the number of\novercoats sold was prodigious. On another day the Midland sold trousers\nin a like manner, but without the phonographs. Unmistakably the Midland\nhad shaken the Square and demonstrated that commerce was still possible\nto fearless enterprise.\n\nNevertheless the Square was not pleased. The Square was conscious of\nshame, of dignity departed. Constance was divided between pain and\nscornful wrath. For her, what the Midland had done was to desecrate a\nshrine. She hated those flags, and those flaring, staring posters on\nthe honest old brick walls, and the enormous gilded sign, and the\nwindows all filled with a monotonous repetition of the same article,\nand the bustling assistants. As for the phonographs, she regarded them\nas a grave insult; they had been within twenty feet of her drawing-room\nwindow! Twelve-and-sixpenny overcoats! It was monstrous, and equally\nmonstrous was the gullibility of the people. How could an overcoat at\ntwelve and sixpence be 'good.' She remembered the overcoats made and\nsold in the shop in the time of her father and her husband, overcoats\nof which the inconvenience was that they would not wear out! The\nMidland, for Constance, was not a trading concern, but something\nbetween a cheap-jack and a circus. She could scarcely bear to walk down\nthe Square, to such a degree did the ignoble frontage of the Midland\noffend her eye and outrage her ancestral pride. She even said that she\nwould give up her house.\n\nBut when, on the twenty-ninth of September, she received six months'\nnotice, signed in Critchlow's shaky hand, to quit the house--it was\nwanted for the Midland's manager, the Midland having taken the premises\non condition that they might eject Constance if they chose--the blow\nwas an exceedingly severe one. She had sworn to go--but to be turned\nout, to be turned out of the house of her birth and out of her father's\nhome, that was different! Her pride, injured as it was, had a great\ndeal to support. It became necessary for her to recollect that she was\na Baines. She affected magnificently not to care. But she could not\nrefrain from telling all her acquaintances that she was being turned\nout of her house, and asking them what they thought of THAT; and when\nshe met Charles Critchlow in the street she seared him with the heat of\nher resentment. The enterprise of finding a new house and moving into\nit loomed before her gigantic, terrible, the idea of it was alone\nsufficient to make her ill.\n\nMeanwhile, in the matter of Federation, preparations for the pitched\nbattle had been going forward, especially in the columns of the Signal,\nwhere the scribes of each one of the Five Towns had proved that all the\nother towns were in the clutch of unscrupulous gangs of self-seekers.\nAfter months of argument and recrimination, all the towns except\nBursley were either favourable or indifferent to the prospect of\nbecoming a part of the twelfth largest town in the United Kingdom. But\nin Bursley the opposition was strong, and the twelfth largest town in\nthe United Kingdom could not spring into existence without the consent\nof Bursley. The United Kingdom itself was languidly interested in the\npossibility of suddenly being endowed with a new town of a quarter of a\nmillion inhabitants. The Five Towns were frequently mentioned in the\nLondon dailies, and London journalists would write such sentences as:\n\"The Five Towns, which are of course, as everybody knows, Hanbridge,\nBursley, Knype, Longshaw, and Turnhill....\" This was renown at last,\nfor the most maligned district in the country! And then a Cabinet\nMinister had visited the Five Towns, and assisted at an official\ninquiry, and stated in his hammering style that he meant personally to\ndo everything possible to accomplish the Federation of the Five Towns:\nan incautious remark, which infuriated, while it flattered, the\nopponents of Federation in Bursley. Constance, with many other\nsensitive persons, asked angrily what right a Cabinet Minister had to\ntake sides in a purely local affair. But the partiality of the official\nworld grew flagrant. The Mayor of Bursley openly proclaimed himself a\nFederationist, though there was a majority on the Council against him.\nEven ministers of religion permitted themselves to think and to express\nopinions. Well might the indignant Old Guard imagine that the end of\npublic decency had come! The Federationists were very ingenious\nindividuals. They contrived to enrol in their ranks a vast number of\nleading men. Then they hired the Covered Market, and put a platform in\nit, and put all these leading men on the platform, and made them all\nspeak eloquently on the advantages of moving with the times. The\nmeeting was crowded and enthusiastic, and readers of the Signal next\nday could not but see that the battle was won in advance, and that\nanti-Federation was dead. In the following week, however, the\nanti-Federationists held in the Covered Market an exactly similar\nmeeting (except that the display of leading men was less brilliant),\nand demanded of a floor of serried heads whether the old Mother of the\nFive Towns was prepared to put herself into the hands of a crew of\nhighly-paid bureaucrats at Hanbridge, and was answered by a wild\ndefiant \"No,\" that could be heard on Duck Bank. Readers of the Signal\nnext day were fain to see that the battle had not been won in advance.\nBursley was lukewarm on the topics of education, slums, water, gas,\nelectricity. But it meant to fight for that mysterious thing, its\nidentity. Was the name of Bursley to be lost to the world? To ask the\nquestion was to give the answer.\n\nThen dawned the day of battle, the day of the Poll, when the burgesses\nwere to indicate plainly by means of a cross on a voting paper whether\nor not they wanted Federation. And on this day Constance was almost\nincapacitated by sciatica. It was a heroic day. The walls of the town\nwere covered with literature, and the streets dotted with motor-cars\nand other vehicles at the service of the voters. The greater number of\nthese vehicles bore large cards with the words, \"Federation this time.\"\nAnd hundreds of men walked briskly about with circular cards tied to\ntheir lapels, as though Bursley had been a race-course, and these cards\ntoo had the words, \"Federation this time.\" (The reference was to a\nlight poll which had been taken several years before, when no interest\nhad been aroused and the immature project yet defeated by a six to one\nmajority.) All partisans of Federation sported a red ribbon; all\nAnti-Federationists sported a blue ribbon. The schools were closed and\nthe Federationists displayed their characteristic lack of scruple in\nappropriating the children. The Federationists, with devilish skill,\nhad hired the Bursley Town Silver Prize Band, an organization of\nterrific respectability, and had set it to march playing through the\ntown followed by wagonettes crammed with children, who sang:\n\nVote, vote, vote for Federation, Don't be stupid, old and slow, We are\nsure that it will be Good for the communitie, So vote, vote, vote, and\nmake it go.\n\nHow this performance could affect the decision of grave burgesses at\nthe polls was not apparent; but the Anti-Federationists feared that it\nmight, and before noon was come they had engaged two bands and had\ncomposed in committee, the following lyric in reply to the first one:\n\nDown, down, down, with Federation, As we are we'd rather stay; When the\nvote on Saturday's read Federation will be dead, Good old Bursley's\nsure to win the day.\n\nThey had also composed another song, entitled \"Dear old Bursley,\"\nwhich, however, they made the fatal error of setting to the music of\n\"Auld Lang Syne.\" The effect was that of a dirge, and it perhaps\ninfluenced many voters in favour of the more cheerful party. The\nAnti-Federationists, indeed, never regained the mean advantage filched\nby unscrupulous Federationists with the help of the Silver Prize Band\nand a few hundred infants. The odds were against the\nAnti-Federationists. The mayor had actually issued a letter to the\ninhabitants accusing the Anti-Federationists of unfair methods! This\nwas really too much! The impudence of it knocked the breath out of its\nvictims, and breath is very necessary in a polling contest. The\nFederationists, as one of their prominent opponents admitted, 'had it\nall their own way,' dominating both the streets and the walls. And\nwhen, early in the afternoon, Mr. Dick Povey sailed over the town in a\nballoon that was plainly decorated with the crimson of Federation, it\nwas felt that the cause of Bursley's separate identity was for ever\nlost. Still, Bursley, with the willing aid of the public-houses,\nmaintained its gaiety.\n\nIV\n\nTowards dusk a stout old lady, with grey hair, and a dowdy bonnet, and\nan expensive mantle, passed limping, very slowly, along Wedgwood Street\nand up the Cock Yard towards the Town Hall. Her wrinkled face had an\nanxious look, but it was also very determined. The busy, joyous\nFederationists and Anti-Federationists who knew her not saw merely a\nstout old lady fussing forth, and those who knew her saw merely Mrs.\nPovey and greeted her perfunctorily, a woman of her age and gait being\nrather out of place in that feverish altercation of opposed principles.\nBut it was more than a stout old lady, it was more than Mrs. Povey that\nwaddled with such painful deliberation through the streets--it was a\nmiracle.\n\nIn the morning Constance had been partially incapacitated by her\nsciatica; so much so, at any rate, that she had perceived the\nadvisability of remaining on the bedroom floor instead of descending to\nthe parlour. Therefore Mary had lighted the drawing-room fire, and\nConstance had ensconced herself by it, with Fossette in a basket. Lily\nHoll had called early, and had been very sympathetic, but rather vague.\nThe truth was that she was concealing the imminent balloon ascent which\nDick Povey, with his instinct for the picturesque, had somehow\narranged, in conjunction with a well-known Manchester aeronaut, for the\nvery day of the poll. That was one of various matters that had to be\n'kept from' the old lady. Lily herself was much perturbed about the\nballoon ascent. She had to run off and see Dick before he started, at\nthe Football Ground at Bleakridge, and then she had to live through the\nhours till she should receive a telegram to the effect that Dick had\ncome down safely or that Dick had broken his leg in coming down, or\nthat Dick was dead. It was a trying time for Lily. She had left\nConstance after a brief visit, with a preoccupied unusual air, saying\nthat as the day was a special day, she should come in again 'if she\ncould.' And she did not forget to assure Constance that Federation\nwould beyond any question whatever be handsomely beaten at the poll;\nfor this was another matter as to which it was deemed advisable to keep\nthe old lady 'in the dark,' lest the foolish old lady should worry and\ncommit indiscretions.\n\nAfter that Constance had been forgotten by the world of Bursley, which\ncould pay small heed to sciatical old ladies confined to sofas and\nfiresides. She was in acute pain, as Mary could see when at intervals\nshe hovered round her. Assuredly it was one of Constance's bad days,\none of those days on which she felt that the tide of life had left her\nstranded in utter neglect. The sound of the Bursley Town Silver Prize\nBand aroused her from her mournful trance of suffering. Then the high\ntreble of children's voices startled her. She defied her sciatica, and,\ngrimacing, went to the window. And at the first glimpse she could see\nthat the Federation Poll was going to be a much more exciting affair\nthan she had imagined. The great cards swinging from the wagonettes\nshowed her that Federation was at all events still sufficiently alive\nto make a formidable impression on the eye and the ear. The Square was\ntransformed by this clamour in favour of Federation; people cheered,\nand sang also, as the procession wound down the Square. And she could\ndistinctly catch the tramping, martial syllables, \"Vote, vote, vote.\"\nShe was indignant. The pother, once begun, continued. Vehicles flashed\nfrequently across the Square, most of them in the crimson livery.\nLittle knots and processions of excited wayfarers were a recurring\nfeature of the unaccustomed traffic, and the large majority of them\nflaunted the colours of Federation. Mary, after some errands of\nshopping, came upstairs and reported that 'it was simply \"Federation\"\neverywhere,' and that Mr. Brindley, a strong Federationist, was 'above\na bit above himself'; further, that the interest in the poll was\ntremendous and universal. She said there were 'crowds and crowds' round\nthe Town Hall. Even Mary, generally a little placid and dull, had\ncaught something of the contagious vivacity.\n\nConstance remained at the window till dinner, and after dinner she went\nto it again. It was fortunate that she did not think of looking up into\nthe sky when Dick's balloon sailed westwards; she would have guessed\ninstantly that Dick was in that balloon, and her grievances would have\nbeen multiplied. The vast grievance of the Federation scheme weighed on\nher to the extremity of her power to bear. She was not a politician;\nshe had no general ideas; she did not see the cosmic movement in large\ncurves. She was incapable of perceiving the absurdity involved in\nperpetuating municipal divisions which the growth of the district had\nrendered artificial, vexatious, and harmful. She saw nothing but\nBursley, and in Bursley nothing but the Square. She knew nothing except\nthat the people of Bursley, who once shopped in Bursley, now shopped in\nHanbridge, and that the Square was a desert infested by cheap-jacks.\nAnd there were actually people who wished to bow the neck to Hanbridge,\nwho were ready to sacrifice the very name of Bursley to the greedy\nhumour of that pushing Chicago! She could not understand such people.\nDid they know that poor Maria Critchlow was in a lunatic asylum because\nHanbridge was so grasping? Ah, poor Maria was al-ready forgotten! Did\nthey know that, as a further indirect consequence, she, the daughter of\nBursley's chief tradesman, was to be thrown out of the house in which\nshe was born? She wished, bitterly, as she stood there at the window,\nwatching the triumph of Federation, that she had bought the house and\nshop at the Mericarp sale years ago. She would have shown them, as\nowner, what was what! She forgot that the property which she already\nowned in Bursley was a continual annoyance to her, and that she was\nalways resolving to sell it at no matter what loss.\n\nShe said to herself that she had a vote, and that if she had been 'at\nall fit to stir out' she would certainly have voted. She said to\nherself that it had been her duty to vote. And then by an illusion of\nher wrought nerves, tightened minute by minute throughout the day, she\nbegan to fancy that her sciatica was easier. She said: \"If only I could\ngo out!\" She might have a cab, of any of the parading vehicles would be\nglad to take her to the Town Hall, and, perhaps, as a favour, to bring\nher back again. But no! She dared not go out. She was afraid, really\nafraid that even the mild Mary might stop her. Otherwise, she could\nhave sent Mary for a cab. And supposing that Lily returned, and caught\nher going out or coming in! She ought not to go out. Yet her sciatica\nwas strangely better. It was folly to think of going out. Yet...! And\nLily did not come. She was rather hurt that Lily had not paid her a\nsecond visit. Lily was neglecting her.... She would go out. It was not\nfour minutes' walk for her to the Town Hall, and she was better. And\nthere had been no shower for a long time, and the wind was drying the\nmud in the roadways. Yes, she would go.\n\nLike a thief she passed into her bedroom and put on her things; and\nlike a thief she crept downstairs, and so, without a word to Mary, into\nthe street. It was a desperate adventure. As soon as she was in the\nstreet she felt all her weakness, all the fatigue which the effort had\nalready cost her. The pain returned. The streets were still wet and\nfoul, the wind cold, and the sky menacing. She ought to go back. She\nought to admit that she had been a fool to dream of the enterprise. The\nTown Hall seemed to be miles off, at the top of a mountain. She went\nforward, however, steeled to do her share in the killing of Federation.\nEvery step caused her a gnashing of her old teeth. She chose the Cock\nYard route, because if she had gone up the Square she would have had to\npass Holl's shop, and Lily might have spied her.\n\nThis was the miracle that breezy politicians witnessed without being\naware that it was a miracle. To have impressed them, Constance ought to\nhave fainted before recording her vote, and made herself the centre of\na crowd of gapers. But she managed, somehow, to reach home again on her\nown tortured feet, and an astounded and protesting Mary opened the door\nto her. Rain was descending. She was frightened, then, by the hardihood\nof her adventure, and by its atrocious results on her body. An\nappalling exhaustion rendered her helpless. But the deed was done.\n\nV\n\nThe next morning, after a night which she could not have described,\nConstance found herself lying flat in bed, with all her limbs stretched\nout straight. She was conscious that her face was covered with\nperspiration. The bell-rope hung within a foot of her head, but she had\ndecided that, rather than move in order to pull it, she would prefer to\nwait for assistance until Mary came of her own accord. Her experiences\nof the night had given her a dread of the slightest movement; anything\nwas better than movement. She felt vaguely ill, with a kind of subdued\npain, and she was very thirsty and somewhat cold. She knew that her\nleft arm and leg were extraordinarily tender to the touch. When Mary at\nlength entered, clean and fresh and pale in all her mildness, she found\nthe mistress the colour of a duck's egg, with puffed features, and a\nstrangely anxious expression.\n\n\"Mary,\" said Constance, \"I feel so queer. Perhaps you'd better run up\nand tell Miss Holl, and ask her to telephone for Dr. Stirling.\"\n\nThis was the beginning of Constance's last illness. Mary most\nimpressively informed Miss Holl that her mistress had been out on the\nprevious afternoon in spite of her sciatica, and Lily telephoned the\nfact to the Doctor. Lily then came down to take charge of Constance.\nBut she dared not upbraid the invalid.\n\n\"Is the result out?\" Constance murmured.\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said Lily, lightly. \"There's a majority of over twelve\nhundred against Federation. Great excitement last night! I told you\nyesterday morning that Federation was bound to be beaten.\"\n\nLily spoke as though the result throughout had been a certainty; her\ntone to Constance indicated: \"Surely you don't imagine that I should\nhave told you untruths yesterday morning merely to cheer you up!\" The\ntruth was, however, that towards the end of the day nearly every one\nhad believed Federation to be carried. The result had caused great\nsurprise. Only the profoundest philosophers had not been surprised to\nsee that the mere blind, deaf, inert forces of reaction, with faulty\norganization, and quite deprived of the aid of logic, had proved far\nstronger than all the alert enthusiasm arrayed against them. It was a\nnotable lesson to reformers.\n\n\"Oh!\" murmured Constance, startled. She was relieved; but she would\nhave liked the majority to be smaller. Moreover, her interest in the\nquestion had lessened. It was her limbs that pre-occupied her now.\n\n\"You look tired,\" she said feebly to Lily.\n\n\"Do I?\" said Lily, shortly, hiding the fact that she had spent half the\nnight in tending Dick Povey, who, in a sensational descent near\nMacclesfield, had been dragged through the tops of a row of elm trees\nto the detriment of an elbow-joint; the professional aeronaut had\nbroken a leg.\n\nThen Dr. Stirling came.\n\n\"I'm afraid my sciatica's worse, Doctor,\" said Constance,\napologetically.\n\n\"Did you expect it to be better?\" said he, gazing at her sternly. She\nknew then that some one had saved her the trouble of confessing her\nescapade.\n\nHowever, her sciatica was not worse. Her sciatica had not behaved\nbasely. What she was suffering from was the preliminary advances of an\nattack of acute rheumatism. She had indeed selected the right month and\nweather for her escapade! Fatigued by pain, by nervous agitation, and\nby the immense moral and physical effort needed to carry her to the\nTown Hall and back, she had caught a chill, and had got her feet damp.\nIn such a subject as herself it was enough. The doctor used only the\nphrase 'acute rheumatism.' Constance did not know that acute rheumatism\nwas precisely the same thing as that dread disease, rheumatic fever,\nand she was not informed. She did not surmise for a considerable period\nthat her case was desperately serious. The doctor explained the\nsummoning of two nurses, and the frequency of his own visits, by saying\nthat his chief anxiety was to minimise the fearful pain as much as\npossible, and that this end could only be secured by incessant\nwatchfulness. The pain was certainly formidable. But then Constance was\nwell habituated to formidable pain. Sciatica, at its most active,\ncannot be surpassed even by rheumatic fever. Constance had been in\nnearly continuous pain for years. Her friends, however sympathetic,\ncould not appreciate the intensity of her torture. They were just as\nused to it as she was. And the monotony and particularity of her\ncomplaints (slight though the complaints were in comparison with their\ncause) necessarily blunted the edge of compassion. \"Mrs. Povey and her\nsciatica again! Poor thing, she really is a little tedious!\" They were\napt not to realise that sciatica is even more tedious than complaints\nabout sciatica.\n\nShe asked one day that Dick should come to see her. He came with his\narm in a sling, and told her charily that he had hurt his elbow through\ndropping his stick and slipping downstairs.\n\n\"Lily never told me,\" said Constance, suspiciously.\n\n\"Oh, it's simply nothing!\" said Dick. Not even the sick room could\nchasten him of his joy in the magnificent balloon adventure.\n\n\"I do hope you won't go running any risks!\" said Constance.\n\n\"Never you fear!\" said he. \"I shall die in my bed.\"\n\nAnd he was absolutely convinced that he would, and not as the result of\nany accident, either! The nurse would not allow him to remain in the\nroom.\n\nLily suggested that Constance might like her to write to Cyril. It was\nonly in order to make sure of Cyril's correct address. He had gone on a\ntour through Italy with some friends of whom Constance knew nothing.\nThe address appeared to be very uncertain; there were several\naddresses, poste restante in various towns. Cyril had sent postcards to\nhis mother. Dick and Lily went to the post-office and telegraphed to\nforeign parts. Though Constance was too ill to know how ill she was,\nthough she had no conception of the domestic confusion caused by her\nillness, her brain was often remarkably clear, and she could reflect in\nlong, sane meditations above the uneasy sea of her pain. In the earlier\nhours of the night, after the nurses had been changed, and Mary had\ngone to bed exhausted with stair-climbing, and Lily Holl was recounting\nthe day to Dick up at the grocer's, and the day-nurse was already\nasleep, and the night-nurse had arranged the night, then, in the\nfaintly-lit silence of the chamber, Constance would argue with herself\nfor an hour at a time. She frequently thought of Sophia. In spite of\nthe fact that Sophia was dead she still pitied Sophia as a woman whose\nlife had been wasted. This idea of Sophia's wasted and sterile life,\nand of the far-reaching importance of adhering to principles, recurred\nto her again and again. \"Why did she run away with him? If only she had\nnot run away!\" she would repeat. And yet there had been something so\nfine about Sophia! Which made Sophia's case all the more pitiable!\nConstance never pitied herself. She did not consider that Fate had\ntreated her very badly. She was not very discontented with herself. The\ninvincible commonsense of a sound nature prevented her, in her best\nmoments, from feebly dissolving in self-pity. She had lived in honesty\nand kindliness for a fair number of years, and she had tasted\ntriumphant hours. She was justly respected, she had a position, she had\ndignity, she was well-off. She possessed, after all, a certain amount\nof quiet self-conceit. There existed nobody to whom she would 'knuckle\ndown,' or could be asked to 'knuckle down.' True, she was old! So were\nthousands of other people in Bursley. She was in pain. So there were\nthousands of other people. With whom would she be willing to exchange\nlots? She had many dissatisfactions. But she rose superior to them.\nWhen she surveyed her life, and life in general, she would think, with\na sort of tart but not sour cheerfulness: \"Well, that is what life is!\"\nDespite her habit of complaining about domestic trifles, she was, in\nthe essence of her character, 'a great body for making the best of\nthings.' Thus she did not unduly bewail her excursion to the Town Hall\nto vote, which the sequel had proved to be ludicrously supererogatory.\n\"How was I to know?\" she said.\n\nThe one matter in which she had gravely to reproach herself was her\nindulgent spoiling of Cyril after the death of Samuel Povey. But the\nend of her reproaches always was: \"I expect I should do the same again!\nAnd probably it wouldn't have made any difference if I hadn't spoiled\nhim!\" And she had paid tenfold for the weakness. She loved Cyril, but\nshe had no illusions about him; she saw both sides of him. She\nremembered all the sadness and all the humiliations which he had caused\nher. Still, her affection was unimpaired. A son might be worse than\nCyril was; he had admirable qualities. She did not resent his being\naway from England while she lay ill. \"If it was serious,\" she said, \"he\nwould not lose a moment.\" And Lily and Dick were a treasure to her. In\nthose two she really had been lucky. She took great pleasure in\ncontemplating the splendour of the gift with which she would mark her\nappreciation of them at their approaching wedding. The secret attitude\nof both of them towards her was one of good-natured condescension,\nexpressed in the tone in which they would say to each other, 'the old\nlady.' Perhaps they would have been startled to know that Constance\nlovingly looked down on both of them. She had unbounded admiration for\ntheir hearts; but she thought that Dick was a little too brusque, a\nlittle too clownish, to be quite a gentleman. And though Lily was\nperfectly ladylike, in Constance's opinion she lacked backbone, or\ngrit, or independence of spirit. Further, Constance considered that the\ndisparity of age between them was excessive. It is to be doubted\nwhether, when all was said, Constance had such a very great deal to\nlearn from the self-confident wisdom of these young things.\n\nAfter a period of self-communion, she would sometimes fall into a\nshallow delirium. In all her delirium she was invariably wandering to\nand fro, lost, in the long underground passage leading from the\nscullery past the coal-cellar and the cinder-cellar to the backyard.\nAnd she was afraid of the vast-obscure of those regions, as she had\nbeen in her infancy.\n\nIt was not acute rheumatism, but a supervening pericarditis that in a\nfew days killed her. She died in the night, alone with the night-nurse.\nBy a curious chance the Wesleyan minister, hearing that she was\nseriously ill, had called on the previous day. She had not asked for\nhim; and this pastoral visit, from a man who had always said that the\nheavy duties of the circuit rendered pastoral visits almost impossible,\nmade her think. In the evening she had requested that Fossette should\nbe brought upstairs.\n\nThus she was turned out of her house, but not by the Midland Clothiers\nCompany. Old people said to one another: \"Have you heard that Mrs.\nPovey is dead? Eh, dear me! There'll be no one left soon.\" These old\npeople were bad prophets. Her friends genuinely regretted her, and\nforgot the tediousness of her sciatica. They tried, in their\nsympathetic grief, to picture to themselves all that she had been\nthrough in her life. Possibly they imagined that they succeeded in this\nimaginative attempt. But they did not succeed. No one but Constance\ncould realize all that Constance had been through, and all that life\nhad meant to her.\n\nCyril was not at the funeral. He arrived three days later. (As he had\nno interest in the love affairs of Dick and Lily, the couple were\nrobbed of their wedding-present. The will, fifteen years old, was in\nCyril's favour.) But the immortal Charles Critchlow came to the\nfuneral, full of calm, sardonic glee, and without being asked. Though\nfabulously senile, he had preserved and even improved his faculty for\nenjoying a catastrophe. He now went to funerals with gusto, contentedly\nabsorbed in the task of burying his friends one by one. It was he who\nsaid, in his high, trembling, rasping, deliberate voice: \"It's a pity\nher didn't live long enough to hear as Federation is going on after\nall! That would ha' worritted her.\" (For the unscrupulous advocates of\nFederation had discovered a method of setting at naught the decisive\nresult of the referendum, and that day's Signal was fuller than ever of\nFederation.)\n\nWhen the short funeral procession started, Mary and the infirm Fossette\n(sole relic of the connection between the Baines family and Paris) were\nleft alone in the house. The tearful servant prepared the dog's dinner\nand laid it before her in the customary soup-plate in the customary\ncorner. Fossette sniffed at it, and then walked away and lay down with\na dog's sigh in front of the kitchen fire. She had been deranged in her\nhabits that day; she was conscious of neglect, due to events which\npassed her comprehension. And she did not like it. She was hurt, and\nher appetite was hurt. However, after a few minutes, she began to\nreconsider the matter. She glanced at the soup-plate, and, on the\nchance that it might after all contain something worth inspection, she\nawkwardly balanced herself on her old legs and went to it again.\n\n\n\nTHE END"