was very depressed this afternoon," she said.
"Were you?" He had not noticed it.
"Yes. They've cut down my price from a pound to seventeen and six." 'They' were the employing bookbinders, and the price was the fixed price for a design—side and back.
He was shocked, and he felt guilty. How was it that he had noticed nothing in her demeanour? He had been full of the misfortune of the firm, and she had made the misfortune her own, keeping silence about the grinding harshness of bookbinders. He was an insensible egotist, and girls were wondrous. At any rate this girl was wondrous. He had an intense desire to atone for his insensibility and his egotism by protecting her, spoiling her, soothing her into forgetfulness of her trouble. … Ah! He understood now what she meant when she had replied to his suggestion as to visiting the cathedral: "It might do me good."
"How rotten!" he exclaimed, expressing his sympathy by means of disgust. "Couldn't you tell them to go to the dickens?"
"You have to take what they'll give," she answered. "Especially when they begin to talk about bad trade and that sort of thing."
"Well, it's absolutely rotten!"
It was not the arbitrary reduction of her earnings that he resented, but the fact of her victimhood. Scandalous, infamous, that this rare and delicate creature should be defenceless against commercial brutes!
The Glazounov ballet music, "The Seasons," started. Knowing himself justified, he surrendered himself to it, to its exoticism, to its Russianism, to its wilful and disconcerting beauty. And there was no composer like Glazounov. Beneath the sensory spell of the music, his memory wandered about through the whole of his life. He recalled days in his mother's boarding-house at Brighton; musical evenings, at which John Orgreave was present, at his stepfather's house in the Five Towns; and in all kinds of scenes at the later home at Ladderedge Hall—scenes in which his mother again predominated, becoming young again and learning sports and horsewomanship as a girl might have learnt them. … And they were all beautiful beneath the music. The music softened; the fountain was heard; the striking of matches was heard. … Still, all was beautiful. Then he touched Marguerite's hand as it rested a little behind her on the ledge. The effect of contact was surprising. With all his other thoughts he had not ceased to think of the idea of shielding and enveloping her. But now this idea utterly possessed him. The music grew louder, and as it were under cover of the music he put his hand round her hand. It was a venturesome act with such a girl; he was afraid. … The hand lay acquiescent within his! He tightened the pressure. The hand lay acquiescent; it accepted. The flashing realization of her compliance overwhelmed him. He was holding the very symbol of wild purity, and there was no effort to be free. None guessed. None could see. They two had the astonishing, the incredible secret between them. He looked at her profile, taking precautions. No sign of alarm or disturbance. Her rapt glance was fixed steadily on the orchestra framed in the arched doorway. … Incredible, the soft, warm delicacy of the cotton glove!
The applause at the end of the number awoke them. He released her hand. She slipped neatly down from the ledge.
"I think I ought to be going back home. … Father … " she murmured. She met his eyes; but his embarrassed eyes would not meet hers.
"Certainly!" he agreed quickly, though they had been in the hall little more than half an hour. He would have agreed to any suggestion from her. It seemed to him that the least he could do at that moment was to fulfil unquestioningly her slightest wish. Then she looked away, and he saw that a deep blush gradually spread over her lovely face. This was the supreme impressive phenomenon. Before the blush he was devotional.
V
They walked down Regent Street almost in silence, enjoying simultaneously the silence and solitude of the curving thoroughfare and the memory of the bright, crowded, triumphant scene which they had left. At Piccadilly Circus George inquired for the new open motor-buses which had just begun to run between the Circus and Putney, passing the Redcliffe Arms. Already, within a year, the time was historically distant when a policeman had refused to allow the automobile of a Member of Parliament to enter Palace Yard, on the ground that there was no precedent for such a desecration. The new motor-buses, however, did not run at night. Human daring had limits, and it was reported that at least one motor-driver, succumbing to the awful nervous strain of guiding these fast expresses through the traffic of the West End, had been taken to the lunatic asylum. George called a hansom, of which there were dozens idling about. Marguerite seemed tacitly to object to this act as the germ of extravagance; but it was the only classic thing to do, and he did it.
The hansom rolled rapidly and smoothly along upon that well-established novelty, india-rubber tyres. Bits of the jingling harness oscillated regularly from side to side. At intervals the whip-thong dragged gently across the horse's back, and the horse lifted and shook its head. The shallow and narrow interior of the hansom was constructed with exactitude to hold two. Neither occupant could move in any direction, and neither desired to move. The splendidly lighted avenues, of which every detail could be discerned as by day, flowed evenly past the vehicle.
"I've never been in a hansom before," said Marguerite timidly—because the situation was so dismaying in its enchantment.
He, from the height of two years of hansom-using, was touched, delighted, even impressed. The staggering fact increased her virginal charm and its protectiveness. He thought upon the simplicity of her existence. Of course she had never been in a hansom! Hansoms were obviously outside her scheme. He said nothing, but he sought for and found her hand beneath the apron. She did not resist. He reflected "Can she resist? She cannot." Her hand was in a living swoon. Her hand was his; it was admittedly his. She could never deny it, now. He touched the button of the glove, and undid it. Then, moving her passive hand, he brought both his to it, and with infinitely delicate and considerate gestures he slowly drew off the glove, and he held her hand ungloved. She did not stir nor speak. Nothing so marvellous as her exquisite and confiding stillness had ever happened. … The hansom turned into Alexandra Grove, and when it stopped he pushed the glove into her hand, which closed on it. As they descended the cabman, accustomed to peer down on loves pure and impure, gave them a beneficent look.
"He's not come in," said Marguerite, glancing through the flap of the front door. She was exceedingly self-conscious, but beneath her self-consciousness could be noticed an indig nant accusation against old Haim. She had rung the bell and knocked.
"Are you sure? Can you see the hat-stand?"
"I can see it enough for that."
"Look here," George suggested, with false lightness, "I expect I could get in through my window." His room was on the ground floor, and not much agility was needed to clamber up to its ledge from the level of the area. He might have searched his pockets again and discovered his latchkey, but he would not. Sooner than admit a deception he would have remained at the door with her all night.
"Think you could?"
"Yes. I could slide the window-catch."
He jumped down the steps and showed her how he could climb. In two minutes he was opening the front door to her from the inside. She moved towards him in the gloom.
"Oh! My portfolio!" She stopped, and bent down to the mat.
Then she busily lighted the little hall-lamp with his matches, and hurried down, taking the matches, to the kitchen. After a few moments George followed her; he was obliged to follow her. She had removed her coat; it lay on the sole chair. The hat and blouse which she wore seemed very vivid in the kitchen—vestiges of past glorious episodes in concert-halls
