Part 29 (1/2)

”You!” she exclaimed. The door opened wider to her hand. ”Come in.”

He took off his hat and stepped in. His manner was strange. He knew it was strange; he understood the look of question in her eyes as she stared at him--it reflected the look in his own mind.

”Are you alone?” he asked.

She nodded her head.

”My aunt is staying with me,” she explained, ”but she's gone to bed.

She's got my bedroom. The mater's gone to bed. I'm sleeping on the floor in the drawing-room. I was sitting there. Come in.”

He followed her into the drawing-room. There was her bed upon the floor--a mattress, sheets and blanket. That was all.

”You're sleeping there?” he said.

She said--”hm” with a little jerk of the head, in the most natural way in the world. If he thought he knew what it was to be poor, he flattered himself. He had been without meals, but he had never slept on the floor.

”Isn't it hard?” he questioned. ”Do you go to sleep at all?”

She laughed gently under her breath.

”Good heavens, yes! I'm used to it. But what have you come for?”

She sat down in a heap, like a journeyman tailor, upon her bed, and gazed up at him. At first, he did not know how to say it. Then he blurted it out.

”I want you to come back again to see me in Fetter Lane.”

She smiled with pride. Her mind reached for its box of bricks. He had sent her away from Fetter Lane. That was all over--past--done with.

”That's rather unexpected--isn't it?”

”I can't help that,” he exclaimed, with a moment of wildness.

”But after all you've said?”

”I can't help what I've said. It holds good no longer. I take it all back. It means nothing.”

She knelt up quickly on her knees. Dignity comes often before humanity with a woman, but pity will always outride the two. Something had happened to him. He was in trouble. The old appeal he had once made to her rose out of the pity that she felt. She stretched up her hands to his shoulders.

”What's happened?” she asked--”tell me what's happened.”

He dropped on to the mattress on the floor. He told her everything. He told her how far his ideals had fallen in those last few days. He stripped the whole of his mind for her to lash if she chose; he stripped it, like a child undressing for a whipping.

When he had finished, she sat back again in her former position. She stared into the empty grate.

”I wonder,” said she--”I wonder does the man exist who can bear disappointment without becoming like that.”

That was the only lash that fell from her. And she did not direct it upon him, but it whipped across the nakedness of his mind with a stinging blow. He winced under it. It made him long to be that man.

Yet still, there was his desire; still there was the fear, that circ.u.mstance would balk him of his oblivion.

”Why do you say that?” he asked.