Part 99 (2/2)

When she went in that day, Arthur uttered an exclamation.

”Do you mean to say you've had your hair cut short?” he asked, speaking to her almost roughly. ”Are you going to join the uns.e.xed crew that shriek on platforms?”

”I don't know any uns.e.xed crew that shriek on platforms,” she answered, ”and I am surprised to hear you taking the tone of cheap journalism. There has been nothing in the woman movement to uns.e.x women except the brutalities of the men who oppose them.”

He coloured somewhat, but said no more--only sat looking into the fire with an expression on his face that cut Beth to the quick. It was the first cloud that had come to overshadow the perfect sympathy of their intercourse. She was getting his tea at the moment, and, when it was ready, she put it beside him and retired to his attic, which she occupied, and looked at herself in the gla.s.s for the first time since she had sacrificed her pretty hair. At the first glance, she laughed; then her eyes filled with tears, and she threw herself on the bed and sobbed silently--not because she regretted her hair, but because he was hurt, and for once she had no comfort to give him.

Just after she left him, an artist friend of his, Gresham Powell, came in casually to look him up, and was surprised to find he had been so ill.

”I missed you about,” he said, ”but I thought you had shut yourself up to work. Who's been looking after you?”

Brock gave him the history of his illness.

Powell shook his head when he heard of Beth's devotion.

”Take care, my boy,” he said. ”The girls you find knocking about town in these sort of places are not desirable a.s.sociates for a promising young man. They're worse than the regular bad ones--more likely to trap you, you know, especially when you're shorn of your strength and have good reason to be grateful. You might think you were rewarding her by marrying her; but you'll find your mistake. Look at Simpson!

Could a man have done a girl a worse turn than he did when he married Florrie Crone? They haven't a thought in common except when he's ill and she nurses him; but a man can't be always getting ill in order to keep in touch with his wife. I don't know, of course, what this girl's like; but half of them are adventuresses bent on marrying gentlemen.

Is she a clergyman's daughter, by any chance?”

”I know nothing about her but her name,” Brock answered coldly. ”She has never tried to excite sympathy in any way.”

”Well, they are of all kinds, of course,” said Powell temperately.

”But you'd better break away in any case. Nothing will set you up so soon as a change. Come with me. I'm going into the country to see the spring come in, and the fruit trees flower, and to hear the nightingales. I know a lovely spot. Come!”

”I'll think about it, and let you know,” Arthur Brock answered to get rid of him.

When he had gone Beth appeared. To please Arthur, she had covered her cropped head with a white muslin mob-cap bound round with a pale pink ribbon, and put on a high ruffle and a large white ap.r.o.n, in which she looked pretty and prim, like a sweet little Puritan, in spite of the pale pink vanity; and Arthur smiled when he saw her, but afterwards grumbled: ”Why did you cut your pretty hair off? I shouldn't have thought you could do such a tasteless thing.”

Beth knelt down beside his chair to mend the fire, and then she began to tidy the hearth.

”Am I not the same person?” she asked.

”No, not quite,” he answered. ”You have set up a doubt where all was settled certainty.”

She had taken off the gloves she wore to do the grate, and was about to pull herself up from her knees by the arm of his chair when he spoke, but paused to ponder his words. It was with her left hand that she had grasped the arm of his chair, and he happened to notice it particularly as it rested there.

”You wear a wedding-ring, I see,” he remarked. ”Do you find it a protection?”

”I never looked at it in that light,” she answered. ”In this vale of tears I have a husband. That is why I wear it.”

There was a perceptible pause, then he asked with an effort, ”Where is your husband?”

”At home, I suppose,” said Beth, her voice growing strident with dislike of the subject. ”We do not correspond. He wishes to divorce me.”

”And what shall you do if he tries?” Brock asked.

”Nothing,” she replied, and was for leaving him to draw his own conclusions, but changed her mind. ”Shall I tell you the story,” she said after a while.

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