Part 59 (2/2)

In giving orders for this meal they had left the ill.u.s.trated weekly behind, and it was now clear from the easy smiles that greeted them that the paper had been looked at and Glory identified. The room was ready, with the table laid, the window closed, and a fire of wood in the dog grate, for the chill of the evening was beginning to be felt. And to make him forget what had happened at the church she put on a look of forced gaiety and talked rapidly, frivolously, and at random. The fresh air had given her such a colour that they would 'fairly eat her to-night.' How tired she was, though! But a cup of tea would exhilarate her ”like a Johnnie's first whisky and soda in bed.”

He looked at her with his grave face; every word was cutting him like a knife. ”So you didn't tell the old folks at Glenfaba about the hospital until later?”

”No. Have a cup of the 'girl'? They call champagne 'the boy' at 'the back,' so I call tea 'the girl,' you know.”

”And when did you tell them about the music hall?”

”Yesterday. 'm.u.f.fins?'” and as she held out the plate she waggled the wrist of her other hand, and mimicked the cry of the m.u.f.fin man.

”Not until yesterday?”

She began to excuse herself. What was the use of taking people by surprise? And then good people were sometimes so easily shocked!

Education and upbringing, and prejudices and even blood----

”Glory,” he said, ”if you are ashamed of this life, believe me it is not a right one.”

”Ashamed? Why should I be ashamed? Everybody is saying how proud I should be.”

She spoke feverishly, and by a sudden impulse she plucked up the paper, but as suddenly let it drop again, for, looking at his grave face, her little fame seemed to shrivel up. ”But give a dog a bad name you know----You were there on Monday night. Did you see anything, now--anything in the performance----”

”I saw the audience, Glory; that was enough for me. It is impossible for a girl to live long in an atmosphere like that and be a good woman. Yes, my child, impossible' G.o.d forbid that I should sit in judgment on any man, still less on any woman!--but the women of the music hall, do they remain good women? Poor souls, they are placed in a position so false that it would require extraordinary virtue not to become false along with it! And the whiter the soul that is dragged through that--that mire, the more the defilement. The audiences at such places don't want the white soul, they don't want the good woman, they want the woman who has tasted of the tree of good and evil. You can see it in their faces, and hear it in their laughter, and measure it in their applause. Oh, I'm only a priest, but I've seen these places all the world over, and I know what I'm saying, and I know it's true and you know it's true, Glory----”

Glory leaped up from the table and her eyes seemed to emit fire. ”I know it's hard and cruel and pitiless, and, since you were there on Monday and saw how kind the audience was to _me_, it's personal and untrue as well.”

But her voice broke and she sat down again and said in another tone: ”But, John, it's nearly a year, you know, since we saw each other last, and isn't it a pity? Tell me, where are you living now? Have you made your plans for the future? Oh, who do you think was with me just before you called yesterday? Polly--Polly Love, you remember! She's grown stout and plainer, poor thing, and I was so sorry----Her brother was in your Brotherhood, wasn't he? Is he as strangely fond of her as ever? Is he?

Eh? Don't you understand? Polly's brother, I mean?”

”He's dead, Glory. Yes, dead. He died a month ago. Poor boy, he died broken-hearted! He had come to hear of his sister's trouble at the hospital. I was to blame for that. He never looked up again.”

There was silence; both were gazing into the fire, and Glory's mouth was quivering. All at once she said: ”John--John Storm, why can't you understand that it's not the same with me as with other women? There seem to be two women in me always. After I left the hospital I went through a good deal. n.o.body will ever know how much I went through. But even at the worst, somehow I seemed to enjoy and rejoice in everything.

Things happened that made me cry, but there was another me that was laughing. And that's how it is with the life I am living now. It is not I myself that go through this--this mire, as you call it, it's only my other self, my lower self, if you like, but I am not touched by it at all. Don't you see that? Don't you, now?”

”There are professions which are a source of temptation, and talents that are a snare, Glory----”

”I see, I see what you mean. There are not many ways a woman can succeed in--that's the cruelty of things. But there are a few, and I've chosen the one I'm fit for. And now, now that I've escaped from all that misery, that meanness, and have brought the eyes of London upon me, and the world is full of smiles for me, and suns.h.i.+ne, and I am happy, you come at last, you that I couldn't find when I wanted you so much--oh, so much!--because you had forgotten me; you come to me out of a darkness like the grave and tell me to give it all up. Yes, yes, yes, that's what you mean--give it all up! Oh, it's cruel!”

She covered her face with her hands and sobbed. He bent over her with a sorrowful face and said, ”My child, if I have come out of a darkness as of the grave it is because I had _not_ forgotten you there, but was thinking of you every day and hour.”

Her sobbing ceased, but the tears still flowed through her fingers.

”Before that poor lad abandoned hope he came out into the world too-stole out-thinking to find his lost one. I told him to look for you first, and he went to the hospital.”

”I saw him.”

”You!”

”It was on New Year's Eve. He pa.s.sed me in the street.”

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