Part 30 (2/2)

It was a lovely morning, sunny and with just a touch of crispness in the air, as if during the night winter had pa.s.sed that way and breathed on the world.

Peg wandered round the West End staring vacantly into shop windows, but her thoughts were far away. It was only when, towards one o'clock, she began to feel hungry the sudden idea came to her that she would go home.

She had only visited her own people twice since she left them at Forrester's request. There was a tingling of excitement in her veins as she climbed on to a city omnibus.

What would they say to her, she wondered. Not that she cared.

Peg had never got on with her mother, who had married again, her second husband being a man named Johnson, employed at Heeler's factory.

There were two small step-brothers, rough, red-haired little boys, too like their father for Peg to care about them. But nevertheless the house in the mean street was the only home she had known, and there was a faintly pleasurable warmth in her heart as she climbed off the bus at the corner of the street and walked the remaining few yards.

The street looked more squalid than usual to-day, she thought, not realizing that the change lay in herself. The door of the house was open, and down the narrow pa.s.sage she could hear her mother's scolding voice and the sound of a well-administered box on the ears, followed by a prolonged howl from one of the boys.

Peg s.h.i.+vered as she walked down the pa.s.sage and pushed open the kitchen door. Had she ever really been happy and contented to live in such surroundings? And fear went through her heart as she realized that before long she might have to return to them again.

The kitchen seemed full of people, though at first she could only distinguish her mother through the mist of steam that was rising from a wash-tub.

”Hullo!” Peg said laconically. She looked round for a chair, but they were all occupied, so she leaned against the door, hands on hips.

The red-haired boy who had had his ears boxed stopped howling to stare at her. Mrs. Johnson deserted the wash-tub and came forward, wiping soapy arms on a not over-clean ap.r.o.n.

”Well, who'd have thought of seeing you?” she said blankly.

Peg nodded carelessly to her stepfather, who had risen awkwardly to offer her a chair.

”Thanks, no--I'll stand; I only looked in for a minute.” Then her face changed a little as she recognized a second man who had been lolling in the background against a crowded dresser.

”Hullo, Ben!” she said, and the colour deepened in her cheeks.

She and Ben Travers had once been very good friends. There had been a time when she had seriously contemplated taking him on trial as a sweetheart, but her friends.h.i.+p with Faith had put an end to it all, though Ben had never forgiven her, and Peg knew it well enough.

The last time she had seen him had been the day when Forrester came to admit his defeat and to ask her to live at his flat, and she realized with a faint sense of discomfort that she and he had grown many miles apart since then.

But he only nodded and said, ”Hullo, Peg,” quite unconcernedly.

There was an awkward silence, broken by Peg's mother.

”Well, you look a fine enough lady now,” she said, a shade of envy in her voice. ”How long's it going to last?”

”As long as I like,” said Peg coolly. She was not going to tell them that already the end of her happiness was in sight.

Mrs. Johnson looked at her daughter uncomfortably.

”You'd best come in the parlour,” she said. ”You'll get all messed up if you stay here.”

But Peg declined to move. She looked at Ben again.

<script>