Part 28 (1/2)

”No, I bet they were your own. You're a great reader, I know.”

Her tone was almost bitter. ”I suppose you think I read nothing but d.i.c.kens and that sort of thing.”

”Well, you might do a good deal worse, you know. There's no one like d.i.c.kens, taking everything together.”

She flushed. You could almost see she was going to say something rude.

”That's a very kind thing to say to uneducated people, Mr. Sabre. It makes them think it isn't education that prevents them enjoying more advanced writers. But I don't suffer from that, as it so happens. I daresay some of my reading would be pretty hard even for you.”

Sabre felt Mabel pluck at his sleeve. He glanced at her. Her face was very angry. Miss Bypa.s.s, delivered of her sharp words, was deeper flushed, her head drawn back. He smiled at her. ”Why, I'm sure it would, Miss Bypa.s.s. I tell you what, we must have a talk about reading one day, shall we? I think it would be rather jolly to exchange ideas.”

An extraordinary and rather alarming change came over Miss Bypa.s.s's hard face. Sabre thought she was going to cry. She said in a thick voice, ”Oh, I don't really read anything particularly good. It's only--Mr.

Sabre, thank you.” She turned abruptly away.

When they were outside, Mabel said, ”How extraordinary you are!”

”Eh? What about?”

”Making up to that girl like that! I never heard such rudeness as the way she spoke to you.” Sabre said, ”Oh, I don't know.”

”Don't know! When you spoke to her so politely and the way she answered you! And then you reply quite pleasantly--”

He laughed. ”You didn't expect me to give her a hard punch in the eye, did you?”

”No, of course I didn't expect you to give her a hard punch in the eye.

But I should have thought you'd have had more sense of your own dignity than to take no notice and invite her to have a talk one day.”

He thought, ”Here we are again!” He said, ”Well, but look, Mabel. I don't think she means it for rudeness. She is rude of course, beastly rude; but, you know, that manner of hers always makes me feel frightfully sorry for her.”

”Sorry!”

”Yes, haven't you noticed many people like her with that defiant sort of way of speaking--people not very well educated, or very badly off, or in rather a dependent position, and most frightfully conscious of it. They think every one is looking down on them, or patronising them, and the result is they're on the defensive all the time. Well, that's awfully pathetic, you know, all your life being on the defensive; back against the wall; can't get away; always making feeble little rushes at the mob.

By Jove, that's pathetic, Mabel.”

She said, ”I'm not listening, you know.”

He was startled. ”Eh?”

”I say I'm not listening. I always know that whenever I say anything about any one I dislike, you immediately start making excuses for them, so I simply don't listen.”

He mastered a sudden feeling within him. ”Well, it wasn't very interesting,” he said.

”No, it certainly wasn't. Pathetic!” She gave her sudden burst of laughter. ”You think such extraordinary things pathetic; I wonder you don't start an orphanage!”

He halted and faced her. ”Look here, I think I'll leave you here. I think I'll go for a bit of a walk.”

Pretty hard, sometimes, not to--

III

At The Precincts the increasing habit of seeing the other side of things was confined, in its increasing exemplifications of how impossible he was to get on with, to the furiously exciting incidents of public affairs; but the result was the same; the result was that, just as, on opening his door on return home at night, he had that chill and rather eerie feeling of stepping into an empty house, so, on entering the office of a morning, he came to have again that sensation that it was a deserted habitation into which he was stepping; no welcome here; no welcome there. He began to look forward with a new desire for the escape and detachment of the bicycle ride; he began to approach its termination at either end with a sense of apprehension, gradually of dismay.