dismissed, and Leonora waited for the bursting of the storm. It was Millicent who drew it down.
'I think I shall go down to Burgesses, after all, mamma. It's quite light,' she said with audacious pertness.
Her father looked at her.
'What were you doing this afternoon, Milly?'
'I went out for a walk, pa.'
'Who with?'
'No one.'
'Didn't I see you on the canal-side with young Ryley?'
'Yes, father. He was going back to the works after dinner, and he just happened to overtake me.'
Milly and Ethel exchanged a swift glance.
'Happened to overtake you! I saw you as I was driving past, over the canal bridge. You little thought that I saw you.'
'Well, father, I couldn't help him overtaking me. Besides——'
'Besides!' he took her up. 'You had your hand on his shoulder. How do you explain that?'
Millicent was silent.
'I'm ashamed of you, regularly ashamed … You with your hand on his shoulder in full sight of the works! And on your mother's birthday too!'
Leonora involuntarily stirred, For more than twenty years it had been his custom to give her a kiss and a ten-pound note before breakfast on her birthday, but this year he had so far made no mention whatever of the anniversary.
'I'm going to put my foot down,' he continued with grieved majesty. 'I don't want to, but you force me to it. I'll have no goings-on with Fred Ryley. Understand that. And I'll have no more idling about. You girls—at least you two—are bone-idle. Ethel shall begin to go to the works next Monday. I want a clerk. And you, Milly, must take up the housekeeping. Mother, you'll see to that.'
Leonora reflected that whereas Ethel showed a marked gift for housekeeping, Milly was instinctively averse to everything merely domestic. But with her acquired fatalism she accepted the ukase.
'You understand,' said John to his pert youngest.
'Yes, papa.'
'No more carrying-on with Fred Ryley—or any one else.'
'No, papa.'
'I've got quite enough to worry me without being bothered by you girls.'
Rose left the table, consciously innocent both of sloth and of light behaviour.
'What are you going to do now, Rose?' He could not let her off scot-free.
'Read my chemistry, father.'
'You'll do no such thing.'
'I must, if I'm to pass at Christmas,' she said firmly. 'It's my weakest subject.'
'Christmas or no Christmas,' he replied, 'I'm not going to let you kill yourself. Look at your face! I wonder your mother——'
'Run into the garden for a while, my dear,' said Leonora softly, and the girl moved to obey.
'Rose,' he called her back sharply as his exasperation became fidgetty. 'Don't be in such a hurry. Open the window—an inch.'
Ethel and Millicent disappeared after the manner of young fox-terriers; they did not visibly depart; they were there, one looked away, they were gone. In the bedroom which they shared, the door well locked, they threw oft all restraints, conventions, pretences, and discussed the world, and their own world, with terrible candour. This sacred and untidy apartment, where many of the habits of childhood still lingered, was a retreat, a sanctuary from the law, and the fastness had been ingeniously secured against surprise by the peculiar position of the bedstead in front of the doorway.
'Father is a donkey!' said Ethel.
'And ma never says a word!' said Milly.
'I could simply have smacked him when he brought in mother's birthday,' Ethel continued, savagely.
'So could I.'
'Fancy him thinking it's you. What a lark!'
'Yes. I don't mind,' said Milly.
'You are a brick, Milly. And I didn't think you were, I didn't really.'
'What a horrid pig you are, Eth!' Milly protested, and Ethel laughed.
'Did you give Fred my note all right?' Ethel demanded.
'Yes,' answered Milly. 'I suppose he's coming up to-night?'
'I asked him to.'
'There'll be a frantic row one day. I'm sure there will,' Milly said meditatively, after a pause.
'Oh! there's bound to be!' Ethel assented, and she added: 'Mother does trust us. Have a choc?'
Milly said yes, and Ethel drew a box of bonbons from her pocket.
They seemed to contemplate with a fearful joy the probable exposure of that life of flirtations and chocolate which ran its secret course side by side with the other life of demure propriety acted out for the benefit of the older generation. If these innocent and inexperienced souls had been accused of leading a double life, they would have denied the charge with genuine indignation. Nevertheless, driven by the universal longing, and abetted by parental apathy and parental lack of imagination, they did lead a double life. They chafed bitterly under the code to which they were obliged ostensibly to submit. In their moods of revolt, they honestly believed their parents to be dull and obstinate creatures who had lost the appetite for romance and ecstasy and were determined to mortify this appetite in others. They desired heaps of money and the free, informal companionship of very young men. The latter—at the cost of some intrigue and subterfuge—they contrived to get. But money they could not get. Frequently they said to each other with intense earnestness that they would do anything for money; and they repeated passionately, 'anything.'
'Just look at that stuck-up thing!' said Milly laughing. They stood together at the window, and Milly pointed her finger at Rose, who was walking conscientiously to and fro across the garden in the gathering dusk.
Ethel rapped on the pane, and the three sisters exchanged friendly smiles.
'Rosie will never pass her exam, not if she lives to be a hundred,' said Ethel. 'And can you imagine father making me go to the works? Can you imagine the sense of it?'
'He won't let you walk up with Fred at nights,' said Milly, 'so you needn't think.'
'And your housekeeping!' Ethel exclaimed. 'What a treat father will have at meals!'
'Oh! I can easily get round mother,' said Milly with confidence. 'I can't housekeep, and ma knows that perfectly well.'
'Well, father will forget all about it in a week or two, that's one comfort,' Ethel concluded the matter. 'Are you going down to Burgesses to see Harry?' she inquired, observing Milly put on her
