asked her advice. "I like that one," she would say; "I wouldn't trust that man a yard," she would decide. Then one day Albert Edward came. There was no doubt about him at all. He was almost as good as the late lamented James. Handsome, although short—but Fanny liked the "stocky" kind, and with such a laugh! Fanny delighted in his jet-black hair cut tight about his head, his smiling black eyes, his round, rosy cheeks. She admired him quite in the abstract. He was far too grand for any personal feeling. … At once, when he had been in the place two days, she allotted him to Mrs. Mellish's maid, Annette, such a handsome girl, so bold and clever! They were made for one another.
Albert Edward was valet on the second floor; he shared that floor with Bacon. Fanny did not like Bacon, the one mistake she thought that Mr. Nix had made.
Well, just before Christmas the wonderful hour arrived.
"Fanny," said Mr. Nix one evening. "Do you realise that you're the only woman left in a man's job?"
"Yes," said Fanny, her heart beating horribly.
"Well," said Mr. Nix, "you're going to continue to be the only woman unless you've any objection."
"Oh, Mr. Nix," said Fanny, "I'm sure I've always tried——"
"Yes, I know," said Mr. Nix, "that's why I want you to stay—for ever if you like—or at any rate so long as I'm here."
"Oh, Mr. Nix," said Fanny again. Tears were in her eyes; the familiar green staircase, the palm and the grandfather's clock swam before her eyes.
It was Aggie, of course, who killed her happiness almost as soon as it was born.
"And what about the demobilised men?" Aggie had asked with her cold, acid smile. "I should have thought that if there were any jobs going a patriotic girl like you would have been the first to stand aside."
Fanny's heart seemed to leap into the air and then fall—stone dead at her feet. Men! Demobilised men! She had not thought of that. But for the moment the only thing she could see was Aggie's spite—her old, eternal spite. … She felt the tears rising. In a moment they would break out.
"You would like to spoil it if you could!" she cried. "Yes, you would. It's what you've always done—spoilt everything. Yes, you have—since we were children. Any little bit of happiness. … "
"Happiness!" interrupted Aggie; "that's what you call it? Selfishness! cruel selfishness, that's what some would name it."
"You don't care," cried Fanny, her words now choked with sobs. "You don't care as long as I'm hurt and wounded—that's all you mind! … always … tried to hurt me … always!" The tears had conquered her. She rushed from the room.
She escaped—but she was haunted. It was not because Aggie had said it that she minded—no, she did not care for Aggie—it was because there was truth in what Aggie had said. Fanny was precisely the girl to feel such a charge, as Aggie well knew. All her life her conscience had been her trouble, acute, vivid, lifting its voice when there was no need, never satisfied with the prizes and splendours thrown it. In ordinary times Fanny surrendered at once to its hideous demands—this time she fought.
Aggie herself helped in the fight. Having succeeded in making Fanny miserable, it was by no means her intention that the silly child should really surrender the job. That did not at all suit her own idle selfishness. So she mocked at her for staying where she was, but made it plain that having given her word, she must stick to it. "You've made your bed and must lie on it," was her phrase.
Fanny said nothing. The light had gone from her eyes, the colour from her cheeks. She was fighting the sternest battle of her life. Everywhere she saw, or fancied she saw, demobilised men. Every man in the street with a little shining disc fastened to his coat was in her eyes a demobilised man starving and hungry because she was so wicked. And yet why should she give it up? She had proved her worth—shown that she was better than a man in that particular business. Would Mr. Nix have kept her had she not been better? Kind though he was, he was not a philanthropist. … And to give it up, to be tied for life to Aggie, to be idle, to be unwanted, to see no more of Hortons, to see no more—of Albert Edward. Yes, the secret was out. She loved Albert Edward. Not with any thought of herself—dear me, no. … She knew that she was far too plain, too dull. She need only compare herself for an instant with Mrs. Mellish's Annette, and she could see where she stood. No, romance was not for her. But she liked his company. He was so kind to her. He would stand, again and again, in her little hutch and chatter, laughing and making silly jokes.
She amused him, and he admired her capacity for business. "You are a one!" was his way of putting it. "You'd be something like running a restaurant—business side, you know."
How proud she was when he said these things! After all, everybody had something. Annette, for all her bows and ribbons, was probably poor at business.
However, she included Albert Edward in the general life of Hortons, and refused to look any closer. So day and night the struggle continued. She could not sleep, she could not eat, everyone told her that she was looking ill and needed a holiday. She was most truly a haunted woman, and her ghosts were on every side of her, pressing in upon her, reproaching her with starving, dark-rimmed eyes. She struggled, she fought, she clung with bleeding hands to the stones and rafters and walls of Hortons.
Conscience had her way—Fanny was beaten. The decision was taken one night after a horrible dream—a dream in which she had been pursued by a menacing, sinister procession of men, some without arms and legs, who floated about her, beating her in the face with their soft boneless hands. …
She awoke screaming. Next morning she went to Mr. Nix.
"I'm afraid I must give you my notice, Mr. Nix," she said.
Of course he laughed at her when she offered her reason. But she was firm.
"You've been terribly good to me, Mr. Nix," she said, "but I must go."
She was firm. It was all that she could do not to cry. He submitted, saying that he would leave her a day or so to reconsider it.
She went into her hut and stared in front of her, in stony wretchedness. That was the worst day of her life. She felt like a dead woman. Worst of all was the temptation to run back to Mr. Nix and tell him that it was not true, that she had reconsidered it. …
All day she saw Aggie in her green stuff dress, her eyes close to the paper, the room so close, so close. …
In the afternoon, about five, she felt that she could bear it no longer.
She would get the hall-boy to take her place and would go home.
Albert Edward came in for a chat. She told him what she had done.
"Well," he said, "that's fine."
She stared at him.
"I want you to marry me," he said; "I've been wanting it a long time. I like you. You're just the companion for me, sense of humour and all that. And a business head. I'm past the sentimental stuff. What I want is a pal. What do you say to the little restaurant?"
The grandfather's clock rose up and struck Fanny in the face. She could have endured that had not the green and white staircase done the same. So strange was the world that she was compelled to put her hand on Albert Edward's arm.
Behind the swimming, dazzling splendour
