North country.' She laughed again. Setting aside my good looks and yours, I've four thousand a year of my own, and the rents should make it six. That's a match some old cats would lap tea all night to fettle up.'
'It is. Lucky Toots!' said Conroy.
'Ay,' she answered, 'he'll be the luckiest lad in London if I win through. Who's yours?'
'No-no one, dear. I've been in Hell for years. I only want to get out and be alive and-so on. Isn't that reason enough?'
'Maybe, for a man. But I never minded things much till George came. I was all stu-upid like.'
'So was I, but now I think I can live. It ought to be less next month, oughtn't it?' he said.
'I hope so. Ye-es. There's nothing much for a maid except to be married, and I ask no more. Whoever yours is, when you've found her, she shall have a wedding present from Mrs. George Skinner that-'
'But she wouldn't understand it any more than Toots.'
'He doesn't matter-except to me. I can't keep my eyes open, thank God! Good-night, lad.'
Conroy followed her with his eyes. Beauty there was, grace there was, strength, and enough of the rest to drive better men than George Skinner to beat their heads on piano-tops-but for the new-found life of him Conroy could not feel one flutter of instinct or emotion that turned to herward. He put up his feet and fell asleep, dreaming of a joyous, normal world recovered-with interest on arrears. There were many things in it, but no one face of any one woman.
Thrice afterward they took the same train, and each time their trouble shrank and weakened. Miss Henschil talked of Toots, his multiplied calls, the things he had said to his sisters, the much worse things his sisters had replied; of the late (he seemed very dead to them) M. Najdol's gifts for the soul-weary; of shopping, of house rents, and the cost of really artistic furniture and linen.
Conroy explained the exercises in which he delighted-mighty labours of play undertaken against other mighty men, till he sweated and, having bathed, slept. He had visited his mother, too, in Hereford, and he talked something of her and of the home-life, which his body, cut out of all clean life for five years, innocently and deeply enjoyed. Nurse Blaber was a little interested in Conroy's mother, but, as a rule, she smoked her cigarette and read her paper-backed novels in her own compartment.
On their last trip she volunteered to sit with them, and buried herself in The Cloister and the Hearth while they whispered together. On that occasion (it was near Salisbury) at two in the morning, when the Lier-in-Wait brushed them with his wing, it meant no more than that they should cease talk for the instant, and for the instant hold hands, as even utter strangers on the deep may do when their ship rolls underfoot.
'But still,' said Nurse Blaber, not looking up, 'I think your Mr. Skinner might feel jealous of all this.'
'It would be difficult to explain,' said Conroy.
'Then you'd better not be at my wedding,' Miss Henschil laughed.
'After all we've gone through, too. But I suppose you ought to leave me out. Is the day fixed?' he cried.
'Twenty-second of September-in spite of both his sisters. I can risk it now.' Her face was glorious as she flushed.
'My dear chap!' He shook hands unreservedly, and she gave back his grip without flinching. 'I can't tell you how pleased I am!'
'Gracious Heavens!' said Nurse Blaber, in a new voice. 'Oh, I beg your pardon. I forgot I wasn't paid to be surprised.'
'What at? Oh, I see!' Miss Henschil explained to Conroy. 'She expected you were going to kiss me, or I was going to kiss you, or something.'
'After all you've gone through, as Mr. Conroy said,'
'But I couldn't, could you?' said Miss Henschil, with a disgust as frank as that on Conroy's face. 'It would be horrible-horrible. And yet, of course, you're wonderfully handsome. How d'you account for it, Nursey?'
Nurse Blaber shook her head. 'I was hired to cure you of a habit, dear. When you're cured I shall go on to the next case-that senile-decay one at Bourne-mouth I told you about.'
'And I shall be left alone with George! But suppose it isn't cured,' said Miss Henschil of a sudden. Suppose it comes back again. What can I do? I can't send for him in this way when I'm a married woman!' She pointed like an infant.
'I'd come, of course,' Conroy answered. 'But, seriously, that is a consideration.'
They looked at each other, alarmed and anxious, and then toward Nurse Blaber, who closed her book, marked the place, and turned to face them.
'Have you ever talked to your mother as you have to me?' she said.
'No. I might have spoken to dad-but mother's different. What d'you mean?'
'And you've never talked to your mother either, Mr. Conroy?'
'Not till I took Najdolene. Then I told her it was my heart. There's no need to say anything, now that I'm practically over it, is there?'
'Not if it doesn't come back, but-' She beckoned with a stumpy, triumphant linger that drew their heads close together. 'You know I always go in and read a chapter to mother at tea, child.'
'I know you do. You're an angel,' Miss Henschil patted the blue shoulder next her. 'Mother's Church of England now,' she explained. 'But she'll have her Bible with her pikelets at tea every night like the Skinners.'
'It was Naaman and Gehazi last Tuesday that gave me a clue. I said I'd never seen a case of leprosy, and your mother said she'd seen too many.'
'Where? She never told me,' Miss Henschil began.
'A few months before you were born-on her trip to Australia-at Mola or Molo something or other. It took me three evenings to get it all out.'
'Ay-mother's suspicious of questions,' said Miss Henschil to Conroy. 'She'll lock the door of every room she's in, if it's but for five minutes. She was a Tackberry from Jarrow way, yo' see.'
'She described your men to the life-men with faces all eaten away, staring at her over the fence of a lepers' hospital in this Molo Island. They begged from her, and she ran, she told me, all down the street, back to the pier. One touched her and she nearly fainted. She's ashamed of that still.'
'My men? The sand and the fences?' Miss Henschil muttered.
'Yes. You know how tidy she is and how she hates wind. She remembered that the fences were broken-she remembered the wind blowing. Sand-sun-salt wind-fences-faces-I got it all out of her, bit by bit. You don't know what I know! And it all happened three or four months before you were born. There!' Nurse Blaber slapped her knee with her little hand triumphantly.
'Would that account for it?' Miss Henschil shook from head to foot.
'Absolutely. I don't care who you ask! You never imagined the thing. It was laid on you. It happened on earth to you! Quick, Mr. Conroy, she's too heavy for me! I'll get the flask.'
Miss Henschil leaned forward and collapsed, as Conroy told her afterwards, like a factory chimney. She came out of her swoon with teeth that chattered on the cup.
'No-no,' she said, gulping. 'It's not hysterics. Yo' see I've no call to hev 'em any more. No call-no reason whatever. God be praised!
