xiv

By an instinct, Sally turned west, so that she presently found herself in a confusing number of small streets; but when she had extricated herself and had mastered the geography of that part of London she was rewarded by coming out into Park Lane, with the fine breadth of Hyde Park open to her eyes and her impulse towards exploration. She pretended that she knew the Park; but in fact to her older eyes and in its weekday freedom from crowds it looked so different that she could not link it with ancient memories. Thus, for a time, its paths and its greenness and its air of great space gave her unqualified pleasure. She wandered on, observing the fallen leaves, and the few pedestrians; and looked up at the blue sky, and marvelled to herself; and then presently she sat down upon one of the public seats and tried to get some coherence into her thoughts. She sat there for some time, her shabby little toes cocked up on the gravel before her, and she began to feel lonely and tired and restless, as though something further had still to be done. There was the whole day before her. She could not stay here, because although the day was clear and fine there was a chill wind, and she was not warmly clad. Already her hands were feeling numb in the cotton gloves, and her feet were losing the pleasant tired tingle they had had a short time before. The sense of innumerable hours which had to be filled was strong upon Sally, who had never previously had so much time to herself, alone. So she rose briskly from her seat, walked along the broad pathway, and came back to the Marble Arch, where Oxford Street began again. This time she was bent upon looking at the shops, and browsed for a time at the windows of Lewis's, at the end of Orchard Street. And then she had her inspiration. A clock told her it was after half-past eleven. May's words came into her mind: "She might think you was takin' a day off to go to the Zoo."

"Here, where's the Zoo," she suddenly, without a tremor, asked a policeman.

"They got plenty white mice," the policeman said. "No good you a-goin' there."

"Saucy!" rebuked Sally. "Suppose they let you out ... on a chain."

"Quite right," said the policeman. "Didn't want to let me go. Everybody loved little Sammy. But the Police Force wanted me."

"Fancy wanting you!" remarked Sally, witheringly, staring at his good-tempered face, and, under his helmet, at a pair of bright blue eyes. He was a "red" man. "Give 'em a bit of ginger, I suppose."

"As you go by the Marrabon Road, you just cross over and go into Madame Tussaud's. You'll see a lot of old friends and relations there. Charlie Peace, and Mother Dyer...."

"Who's she?" Sally demanded. "Mother Dyer. Never heard of her."

"Mother Dyer? Baby-farmer. Her you used to call 'Nursie.' Go straight along here, and when you've looked at Madame Tussaud's, keep down the Marrabon Road till you come to the Park. See? Regent's Park, that is. And walk along the nice broad road, and you'll find the Zoo on your left. Good morning, my dear.... Don't let 'em keep you, will you?... Cahm alahng, 'ere; cahm alahng, 'ere." He broke off to attend to the traffic, which he addressed in a very different way from that in which he had spoken to Sally; and she, rather cheered by the exchange of badinage, set off towards Baker Street and the Marylebone Road with a new interest in hand. Madame Tussaud's and the Zoo in one day! What a day it would have been by the time she reached the end of it. What a tale she would be able to tell May in the evening!

Apart from the two visits which she made, to the wax-works and the menagerie, both of which took so long that she did not get home until six o'clock, Sally had no other adventure. She had lunch in the Zoo, and arrived back in Holloway with less than five shillings remaining from her windfall. But it had been a day, and it still held marvellous possibilities of an encounter with Toby. Her first thought on reaching home was of him. That was why she was so deaf to her mother's complaining. She did not hear it. And she did not tell her mother of the day's outing. There would be time for that later. If she told her now there would only be trouble, and Sally was tired of trouble. When she had explained to Miss Jubb, and had left Miss Jubb on Saturday week, she would airily say to her mother: "I got a job in the West End, now." See ma jump! Sally was conscious for the first time of a slightly sinking heart. Suppose she didn't suit Madame Gala? Suppose she lost her new job after a week or two? Oh, rubbish.... Rot! Time enough for the gripes when she got the sack!

She could hear no sound at all from the room above. Was Toby not home yet? He used to get home about ten minutes past six, as a rule. It was now a quarter-past. If she did not hear him she would go and meet May, and then call in to tell Mrs. Perce all about the news, and then come home after her mother had gone to bed. She had her tea, turning up her nose at it, and all the time wishing for something better. For some time after the meal she stood about reflecting upon her day and upon the possibilities of the future. Consideringly, she at last said in a matter-of-fact tone:

"One day we'll have jam for tea, ma. And kippers. And fried sausages. And steak and chips."

"Good gracious!" cried Mrs. Minto. "Whatever's put such ideas into your head!"

"And we'll have real coal, and thick blankets, and a new mattress, and new curtains, and a brass fender. And everything in the room'll be a beautiful gray-blue. And you'll sit here, doing nothing."

"I'm sure I shan't," exclaimed Mrs. Minto, fingering her mouth to hide a nervous smile of pleasure.

"Doing nothing. And Elbert, the footman, will come in with the tea and take it away again; and you'll say, Elbert'—mustn't say 'Elbert dear'—you'll say, 'Elbert, just bring me my glass of hot water at ten o'clock.' And he'll say, 'Yes, me lady.' No, he won't. He'll say, 'Yes, meddam ... quite.... Yes, meddam.' That's what he'll say. Lick your shoes, he will, because you're rich."

"Rich!" sighed Mrs. Minto. "Who's to make me rich?"

"I'm going to make us all rich," explained Sally. "You mark my words and wait and see."

"I wouldn't mind not being rich," Mrs. Minto said, "if it wasn't that my poor 'ed...."

"O-oh!" cried Sally, in wrath. Her mood was crushed by this inexorable return to the subject she had been chattering to avert. "Give your old head a rest, ma. Here, come out for a walk with me."

"You're not to go out, Sally. Mrs. Roberson says...."

"That for Mrs. Roberson," said Sally, already on her feet. "You don't suppose I'm going to stick in here and get frozen stiff. There's nothing to do indoors. I got no sewing. Only makes me fret if I stay at home. I'm going to see Mrs. Perce...."

She moved hastily to the door, and closed it quietly after her, for she had heard below her the shutting of the front door, and she thought it might be Toby at last. It was nearly a quarter to seven. Her guess had been right. It was he. Seeming not to have heard him, she ran lightly down the stairs as he heavily mounted them. Her heart was thumping so that she felt quite sick and faint. She could no longer run, but could only totter down towards the inevitable confrontation. It was there, and it was past—a plain, boorish "Evening." She managed the rest of the flight at a run; but when she was out of doors Sally turned to the darkness and could no longer restrain her tears of anguish. This was the end of her day. Laugh in the morning, cry before night. That was the truest proverb that ever was made. She was heartbroken.

xv

There was no question of seeing May or calling upon Mrs. Perce. Sally was beaten. She was full of expostulations and arguments, but all were addressed to Toby, and she could not have borne any other society. So she wandered about the streets for an hour, miserably aware that once or twice she was followed by an aimless strolling youth who did not know how to occupy a lonely evening and who yet was too much of a coward to address her. In her mind she went over every detail of her friendship with Toby. It had become suddenly unreal, like a thing that had happened years before. And yet the throb of pain belonging to her sense of his cruelty was immediate. Every detail was clear to her; and the whole was blurred. He was a stranger; and yet his presence would at once have given life to her memories. They had been written, as it were, in invisible ink, which needed only the warmth of a fire to produce their message vividly once again. Sally sobbed from time to time; but she was no longer crying. Her pain was too deep to be relieved by tears, which with her were the result of weakness, since she was not naturally liquid. And as the memory was exhausted in its evocation she began to think as of old. Her quick brain was recovering its sway. She was no longer an overwrought child. And yet when she strove to plan a discomfiture for Toby, who had so wickedly hurt her, she shrank from that also; so it was still a restless and undetermined Sally who returned home to find her mother dozing by the feeble warmth of a dying fire.

The next day passed in a variety of moods, and in the evening Sally found in herself the determination to call upon Mrs. Perce. She had explained her non-arrival of the previous night to May, and had removed her grievance with a recital of all she had done during the stolen day. She had endured Miss Jubb's sour scrutiny of her hair, which was accomplished without comment. And she had almost, but not quite, told Miss Jubb of her proposed change. At times her courage was very nearly high enough, but it never reached the necessary point, or the opportunity was ruined at the vital moment by some interruption. So Miss Jubb worked innocently, not guessing the blow that was to fall. That it would be a serious blow only Sally suspected. Miss Jubb had never even supposed it possible that Sally would leave her. The three of them spent the day in the little workroom, which managed by the end of the afternoon to be the coldest and the closest room in the neighbourhood, perhaps owing to Miss Jubb's use of a defective stove for heating, and her own radical immunity from chilblains.

After tea Sally went straight to Hornsey Road. In thinking of Toby as she left the house she made a light gesture with her fingers to show that he no longer existed. If she had met him she would have attempted no greeting, for such was her present temper. At the Barrows' she was received with acclamation. Old Perce, who had enjoyed a good deal of four-ale during the day, and had a jugful of it now at his elbow, collapsed at sight of her. He bayed a little, but with an expression of admiring wonder that gave Sally her best tribute. Mrs. Perce, the expert, nodded. She had received a letter in the morning from Madame Gala. So to her all the news was known. All the same, Sally spent a happy couple of hours in the flat, and collected her outdoor clothes with unwillingness. Each time she had been to see Mrs. Perce she had felt more strongly than of old the contrast between her always-cheerless home and their warm, prosperity-laden atmosphere. The recognition acted powerfully upon her. It was the creation in her mind of a standard of physical comfort, as the visit to Madame Gala had created a standard of decorative colour. She was frowning at the new perception as she left the house, and was half-absorbed in her consciousness of it.

The feeling did not prevent her, at first with a sharp tingling of surprise, and then, as she grasped the significance of the fact, a start of emotional disorder, from seeing a familiar figure in the light of the Supply Stores. Her heart jumped, and began to flurry in her breast. The figure she saw was that of Toby. He stood a little to the side of the Stores, watching the doorway from which Sally came. As she flinched, he came across the road. Sally pretended not to notice him, and knew that he was following her. But Toby made no attempt to speak to her while they were in the light of the shops. She saw that he had his cap pulled very low down over his eyes, and that his hands were not in his pockets, but hanging loose. He was dressed in a rough dark tweed suit, and looked like a fighter, but not a professional boxer. His carriage was clumsy, but light. His dark face was marked by a sort of determination—not bravado, not impudence, but a solid resoluteness. His eyes she had never properly seen. His mouth was large, but the lips were thin; the nose was coarse, but not big. He was ugly, but he was very obviously strong. He was not tall, but was very sturdily built, and gave the air of considerable strength. As he followed her she could hardly keep from looking back; it was only with a great effort that she kept her eyes forward, and as she turned into Grove Road she increased her pace. Sally knew quite well what he would do. He would wait until she had passed the block of shops and had come to the comparative darkness of the houses beyond. Then he would walk abreast and speak to her. And while she tried to think what to do her heart was strangling her. She was so excited that her breath was coming almost in sobs. She was excited, but she did not therefore feel at his mercy.

It happened as Sally had foreseen. As soon as she was past the shops she heard his urgent voice at her elbow—"Sally!" For a moment she ignored it. Then she turned, very coldly, and with a slight sneer looked at him. They were side by side now. He was keeping step with her as easily as he could have kept step with a child. "Sally," he repeated. Sally stopped dead.

"What are you following me for?" she asked, viciously. "Why can't you leave me alone? Following me like that! I never heard of such a thing."

"I been waiting outside for you all the time. I've had no grub. I followed you from the house. I saw you start out just as I was getting home."

"Well, what of it? I didn't ask you to follow me, did I?" demanded Sally. But in the darkness of the street her eyes softened. Her heart swelled at the thought that he had waited for her in the Hornsey Road for fully two hours. Toby took her defiance as a matter of course. He was still standing doggedly before her, and as she began once again to walk rapidly in the direction of home he followed her, half a step behind. At the darkest part of the road he put out a hand to check her progress. Sally snatched away her arm, but he had been prepared for that, and caught her immediately. He held her, panting, as she pressed against a big stone gate-post.

"Let me be!" cried Sally, hoarsely and breathlessly. "Let me be." She did not scream. She was too impressed by his exhibition of strength. He continued to hold her, and they stood breast to breast, Sally panting, and Toby with a kind of stolid determination.

"Will you come for a walk quietly?" he asked, jerking his head.

"No," said Sally, "I won't." There was no mercy, no humility. Only a hard defiance.

"Yes, you will." He pulled her towards him, so that Sally could not escape. She was now wholly within the circle of his arm, not struggling, but with her poor thin arms staving him off. Her body was tense. But she made no sound, and if there were any passers they knew that this was only a typical lovers' tiff, common to the neighbourhood, and largely a matter of physical strength and feminine vituperation. "Yes, you will. See? Come on, Sally."

"You let me go," she demanded.

"Say you'll come. I'll let you go the moment you say that."

Sally hesitated, then bowed her head in a slow acquiescence. He released her, and she ran; but he easily overtook her, and she was once again held, still with her back to a pillar. Both were now breathing hard. Sally's head was lowered. She was suffocating. She seemed to be in complete darkness. And she had no sense of what was happening. The mere technique of the row absorbed her. They were almost like two quarrelling cats, both sullen, both glowering and full of resentment rather than burning anger.

"Will you come?" asked Toby. "Just for a walk. Half an hour."

"What d'you want me to come for?"

"Want to talk to you."

"Yes, well, I don't want to talk to you. Understand?" Sally was suddenly trembling with a passionate rage. Her voice quivered as she spoke, and the words tumbled out in a savage incoherence.

"I'm going to talk to you. So you may as well make up your mind to come. You don't want to stand here all night, do you?" He was as savage as she, and more grim. Sally made an attempt to escape, and was further pinned. He was breaking down the defence of her tired arms. One of his knees was against her leg. She was slipping, slipping, and her resolve to fight against him was fading as rapidly in her sense of the physical contact. She burst into tears. For an instant he loosed her, at that, but as she sobbingly began to run away he resumed his former hold, pressing her against him, a broken little girl, and no longer the triumphant Sally of the morning. Her hand was to her eyes, and she was biting her lip to restrain her sobs. Toby put his free hand up and touched hers, held it, drew it away from her wet face.

"Sally," he said. "I want you. Don't cry, Sally."

His arm tightened. His face was close. Although she turned away her head, and tried to wrench herself free, Sally knew his lips were relentlessly following her own. She was conscious of all the joy of surrender, incapable of moving from those strong arms, incapable of avoiding his kiss. Her eyes closed, her heart rose; she was limp in his embrace, not as yet returning his caresses, but accepting them with a feeling of miserable thankfulness. Her hat was tilted back, and she felt his cheek against hers, his body against her own. How long they stood she did not know; but at last she put her hands up, put them round his neck, and feverishly kissed him, welcoming this joy that was half pain.

"D'you love me?" she asked breathlessly.

They were alone in the dark street, in the invisible world; and she had never been so happy. So at last Toby had his way, and they walked about the streets for an hour, until it was long past the time when Sally should have been in bed. Only then did they part, and Sally was half-undressed when she heard Toby passing upon his way upstairs. Her cheeks were burning, her eyes shining, her heart exultant. Sometimes, as she lay wakeful during the long night, she was so happy that she could hardly breathe. But a moment came when happiness seemed overwhelmed in a poignance of emotion that resembled rather a terrible apprehensiveness, and it was then that Sally felt the tears trickling from her eyes. It was only the reaction from excessive joy; but she was deeply affected. She longed again for Toby's arms to be round her, pressing her face into the pillow to comfort herself with the pretence that he was still there. Exhausted, she slept.

xvi

All the next day she could not work for preoccupation with her happiness. She was mad with it, and reckless in her madness. It even, when rebuke came from Miss Jubb, gave her courage to mention Madame Gala. And that was a further cause for delight, since Miss Jubb's mouth dropped open at the news and she could hardly speak to her two girls for the rest of the afternoon. Sally, chuckling to herself, and every now and then grimacing at May Pearcey, abandoned herself to anticipations of the evening. She would see her dear Toby, would show how much she loved him, would feel herself loved, would hear and say all the little secrets they had never spoken until now. She would know at last what it was to be in love, and with the man who loved her. How wonderful it was! What joy! What fun! Sally could not conceal her grin of happiness. Her white face was as if it had become plump, so immediately did happiness transfigure her. And she looked at silly old Miss Jubb, and soppy May, and thought how they had no lovers. May had her boys—she could keep them. Sally had Toby. Toby was not a boy: he was a man. He shaved; she had felt the roughness of his chin. May's boys looked as if they had smooth faces, or if they shaved it made their skins powdery. Miss Jubb had never had a boy at all, she shouldn't think. You couldn't fancy Miss Jubb as a young girl. She must be quite old—as old as Sally's mother—perhaps forty. But ma had been unlucky to strike dad. He had never been any good. Not like Toby. Toby was getting almost a pound a week already, he said; and when he was older he would have lots of money, and never be out of a job, because he worked with his hands, with engines, and a man who understood engines would never want for work. He was twenty, and he kept himself. He just took his meals with his aunt, and lived in his own room the rest of the time. How she would like to see his room. She longed for them both to get older. But she wanted to get on herself, first. She thought: if Toby's out all day, and we just have a little home, I shall be able.... She thought she might be a dressmaker herself, and employ twenty hands, and have a waiting-room that was all grey-blue. She had told Toby about Madame Gala, and how he could come to fetch her Saturdays, and they'd have the afternoons together. Sally was brimming with plans.

In the middle of them there came a knock at Miss Jubb's door. Miss Jubb went, thinking it might be a customer. But she came back again in a minute, with a face even longer than it had been since she heard Sally's news. She could hardly speak, but stood against the dingy door, which she held closed, and swallowed quickly before she could say a word.

"Sally dear, there's a man here from the hospital. Get on your hat and coat, there's a good girl. He says your mother's been taken there. She turned dizzy just now when she was crossing the road, and was knocked down by a van, and run over. She's asking for you, Sally. You're to go. It's not serious, he says. So don't worry about it. You're just to go and see her."

Mother? Ma knocked down by a van! Sally was on her feet in an instant. As Miss Jubb went out again to glean further details from the man, Sally struggled into her hat and coat. She turned with a callousness which showed that she did not in the least realise what might have happened, and addressed the startled and gaping May.

"We may not be princesses," she said with a sort of wild gaiety; "but we do see life!"

xvii

After she had seen her mother in the hospital Sally was again aware of that sinking feeling of having time to fill—a feeling of emptiness of immediate plan,—which she had felt in Hyde Park on the Monday. At seven she was to see Toby outside the house. It was not yet five. What was she to do? Not go back to Miss Jubb's, that was certain! Her mother had been lying in a cot in a big ward, and her arm was bandaged, and she said both her legs felt as though they had red-hot nails in them; but she was conscious, and they had told her she would soon be about again. Sally was to see Mrs. Roberson and tell her the news, and to go to two other places to let them know that Mrs. Minto would not be able to come for a time. And she was to be a good girl, and not worry, but to take the three shillings and ninepence which was in Mrs. Minto's purse, and look after herself, and explain to the landlady what had happened.... She had a host of things to do, and she paid her three calls within ten minutes. So far the question of money had not troubled her. She did not think that three shillings and ninepence was very little to live on for perhaps a month. Her emotions at the moment were so blithe that all she perceived in herself was a sense of liberty. Ma would not be worrying her every minute she was indoors to do this or that, and not to do the other. Ma would not be talking all the time about her head. Ma would not be watching her, asking what she was doing, playing the policeman, grumble, grumble, grumble. It was a fine liberation for Sally. That was the way in which she saw it.

Her first shock was when she arrived home and found her own breakfast dishes still strewn about the table as she had left them, the fire unlighted and the old ashes still lying in the grate and upon the hearth, the bed unmade. She was sobered. She first of all found the oil, filled the lamp, and set a match to it. Then she swept the hearth and carefully made a small fire. The coal-blocks took a long time to catch, as they always did, and they quickly burned dull. Upon them she set a kettle, washed the dishes in cold water, and laid the table for tea. The kettle took a century to boil, and she knelt close to the fire, warming herself and waiting for the first spiral of steam. Everything now made her feel splendid. She invented a game that she was married to Toby, and that she was expecting him home; so that for this evening all her work was thoroughly done. Even the bed was made with care. And when she had finished tea she cleared away, and spread a little old red cloth upon the table, and once more snuggled close to the puny fire. As she did so all her thoughts were for Toby. Already she began to listen for him, although it was long before his time. Thought of her mother's accident did not disturb her at all. Thought of the future was abandoned. Only the sweet delight of being with Toby again was her incessant reverie.

At last she heard him, and started to her feet. Her impulse was to run to the door and whisper to him at once; but on the way thither she checked herself. Some scruple of prudence, lest he should think her too eager for him, made Sally allow the steps to pass on up the stairs. But for all that she watched the clock, and listened almost passionately for any sound from above. The fire died. She put on her coat and hat, standing near the fireplace to catch the last waves of heat, with her foot upon the fender and her eyes fixed upon the purplish glow, so rapidly fading to mauve and to grey. She was tense with expectancy. She had no consciousness of anything but her strained hearing. Tick-tick-tick. The clock raced on, but the hands all the time appeared to remain still, by so much did her eager heart outstrip them.

Then there was a thud upstairs, as of a door closed; and quick steps sounded in Toby's room. He stayed there a few minutes, his feet moving a little, and Sally guessed that he was washing himself. Then, noisily, he came down the stairs and left the house. He was barely past the door when Sally blew out the lamp; but she stood mutely in the darkness for more than a minute afterwards. Only when her own patience was gone did she obey her impulse and follow him, creeping down the stairs in the subdued brown light of the house. Out of doors all was black. She peered for Toby. He was there just under the lamp at a few yards distance, and she saw him move farther away at her approach. That action, and the sense of him, gave Sally the most extraordinary tremor of excitement and happiness, and her cheeks grew warm. She greeted him with the lightest touch of the arm, and felt in return his hand to her elbow. They walked without speech to the end of the road, and by common impulse to a dark turning where at this time of the evening they knew there would be no passers; and there Toby caught her in his arms. There was no moon, and no sound in the street. They were entirely alone, and separated from the rest of mankind by an impassable wall of obsession. They stood pressed close to one another, kissing from time to time, and did not speak. They had at first nothing to say, but there was no shyness between them. They were absorbed in this physical contact. But after some time Sally told him her news, and made him tell her what he had done during the day, and felt a great proprietary interest in him all the while. They spoke in low tones, lovers and amorous lovers even in the middle of humdrum confidences. Toby was shocked about Mrs. Minto—far more shocked than Sally had been or could have been; but she airily reassured him in her first delicious abandonment to a sense of common life. She said "Oo, she's all right. Quite comfortable. More than if she was at home. And it's nicer for me, being alone. See, she grumbles at me—always at it—what Mrs. Roberson says, and about her head, and what I ought to do, and that. 'Tisn't that there's really anything to grumble at; only, you know, it's her nature. I never grumble. That's one thing about me. Doesn't matter what happens, I never ... you know ... keep on at it, like mother does. What's the good? Crying won't do any good, or grumbling either. I shall be happier while she's away—do what I like. Be on my own."

"Won't you be lonely?" Toby asked.

"Not with you. Different if I hadn't got you. But if I get frightened I shall just yell for you; and I shall think of you all the time, upstairs, and wonder if you're thinking of me. Will you be?"

"Course I shall," Toby swore, hugging her until she gasped. "All the time."

"Will you? It's nice to have somebody to ... you know, like you."

"Is it?" he asked gruffly.

"Don't you feel like that?" she asked artfully. Her reward, another choking hug, was immediately forthcoming. "You are strong," Sally went on, and with a sense of daring and ownership and pride felt his arm for muscle. "I'm strong. In a way. Not massive, or anything of that kind. I can stand a lot. Mustn't think I'm weak because I'm small; but.... Well, you know what I mean."

"Strong, but got no strength," suggested Toby. Sally shook him, chuckling proudly at his wit and will to tease. It was like shaking a tree, so immovable was he by the exerted strength of her weak arms.

"Saucy!" she said. "Though I s'pose it's what I meant. Toby, you do like ... you know ... this?" she suddenly asked, not bent upon a caress, but in a sudden doubt. Her arms were warmly about his neck as she spoke. Toby left her no doubt. He was not talkative; he had no ready flow of compliment; but he could speak the language which a young girl in love best understands. He could crush her almost to ecstatic forgetfulness in his vigorous arms. Thus embraced, Sally was in Paradise, and her one desire was to remain there, in a sort of annulment of every other interest; but even in Paradise she found her thoughts irrepressible. So she chattered on, while Toby grunted or did not say anything, or occasionally grew marvellously glib and told something about his work, or an anecdote about himself which she sometimes thought he must have read somewhere. And ever and anon they were lost in silence, and their closeness to one another, and their long breathless kisses, which made Sally lean her forehead against Toby's breast and enjoy exquisitely the sense of being weaker than he and of surrendering all her will to his.

If it had not been so cold they might have stood in this way for the whole evening; but the wind was searching, and presently they began to walk along, he with his arm about her so closely that they walked almost with one motion. Toby smoked his cigarettes, and when he wanted one he put his left hand in his pocket, and drew out a cigarette, and Sally felt for his matches, and struck one, and held it for him, and received smoke in her face, and blew the match out, and received a kiss, Toby all the time never ceasing to hold her within his right arm. She wished there were more cigarettes, so much did she enjoy the sense of intimacy. Sometimes she could not resist the temptation to put her arm round Toby's waist, and give him a little private hug of her own, to show how happy she was. She loved the darkness more and more, because it made her bolder. And the sky was so dark that the lamps were like small nickers, and if anybody passed it was impossible for a face to be seen. And Sally was alone in this dream world with Toby. She wished it might continue like this for ever, night and day, beautifully quiet and secret, with Toby all the time loving her as much as he did now. It was lovely. It was lovely. She was happy. She did not feel tired or cross or mean or worldly any longer; but only happy, and full of love.

At last they heard a clock striking eleven, and Sally gave a jump.

"Mercy! Eleven o'clock. Must go home. Good job mother's not there. Else she'd be asking questions." She laughed as she spoke. "She'd want to know something. I shouldn't half have a time. 'Eleven o'clock: where you been?' I shouldn't mind. I'd take no notice. I don't take any notice of her, because ... you know ... it encourages her if you take any notice. Oo, the way she keeps on. You wouldn't believe. Drive me to drink, it would, if I had it all the time. But she's not there...." Sally hugged Toby. "Isn't it lovely! Nobody to grumble. Nobody to mind what time I get in.... Well, you know what I mean. I must go in now." But when it came to the moment of parting she clung to him. "I don't want to go. I don't want to go," she cried. "It's been so nice, and I've been so happy." To her horror she felt that she had begun to cry. With an effort she pulled herself free. "Well, I suppose I must. And you'll think of me, won't you? Just downstairs. And I'll think of you, and wish you were there.... Oh, fancy me saying that! Toby...." She was passionately serious. "Say you love me!"

"Love you!" said Toby.

She turned and waved to him when she was a few steps away, flew back to his arms, and stayed there for a few minutes. Then, this time with more resolution, she ran towards home, letting herself in with a sense of brazen guilt at her lateness, and treading softly up the stairs. When she was in the room, she shuddered a little, at the cold, and in her excitement. Then she lighted the lamp and looked at herself in the mirror—at her bright, betraying eyes, at her mouth, which was also betraying, and at her hair and cheeks and brows and hands. She was laughing, but not aloud. Her laughter was the mirth of happy excitement. And, still so happy, she began to undress; and then thought she would make herself a cup of tea. So she finished undressing while the kettle boiled, and was sitting up in bed drinking her tea when she heard Toby go upstairs. His movements made her start, and the tea dribbed over the side of the cup. Into her head suddenly came a memory of her own words: "And I'll think of you, and wish you were there."

"And so I do," she suddenly whispered. "So I do. Oh, I'm wicked. I'm wicked!" She was trembling, and forgetting everything, her eyes fixed upon the wall vaguely grey before her, outside the pale ray of the lamp. Mechanically, she sipped again, and the tea ran warmly into her throat. "No, I'm not wicked," Sally argued. "I'm not. 'Tisn't wicked to love any one like I do Toby. It's wonderful. Fancy me in love! And Toby ... well, liking me. Oo, he is strong and big. Wonder if he's brave? I should think so. You couldn't be as strong as him and not be brave. Oh, I love him." She remembered their caresses, unembarrassed and exulting. She knew what it was to be loved. She knew ... she knew everything. Everything that made people love each other and want to be always together. Her mind persistently went on kneading into a general memory the detached memories of the evening, and she was excited and full of longing for Toby. Slowly she drank her tea, without thinking of it at all, but accepting its comfort. Her shoulders began to feel cold, and she shivered as she finished the cup.

Sally slid out of bed to replace the cup and to put out the lamp. As her hand was outstretched she thought she heard a faint noise, but a moment's startled listening reassured her. It had been nothing. She lowered the wick, and blew out the remaining small blue rim of light. Another instant, and she would have been back in bed, snuggled down in the warmth. But at that instant she heard a further sound, this time the turning of the door handle. She froze with sudden dread. In the darkness she could see nothing.

"Who's there?" she whispered.

The door must slightly have opened. She could now see it open in the gloom.

"Sally."

It was Toby. Joy took the place of fear. He was inside the door, and she was in his arms, and the door was closed again behind them.

"My dear," Sally was saying, in a thick little caressing voice. "My dear."

"Had to come," mumbled Toby, hoarsely. "Thought of you all alone. I wanted you. See, I had to come."

"Of course you did," murmured Sally, her spirit leaping up and up in tempestuous excitement. "Toby, you do love me? You do truly love me?"

She had no sense then of anything but her love for him and his love for her. She was carried right past caution and thought. She was in his arms, and she was happy. And Toby, a dim figure of burly strength, was kissing her until she was blinded and choking with excitement beyond all she had ever felt. Everything conspired to affect her—all suppressions, all knowledges, all curiosities and vanities. Nothing but caution could have restrained her, and caution was forgotten. She was vehemently moved and beyond judgment or reflection. Her one desire was to give herself to the man she loved, the man who loved her. And the opportunity was upon them as they were in the first fever of their passion.



BOOK TWO: GAGA

i

Ten days later, Sally began her work with Madame Gala. She arrived punctually, but found Nosey before her, keeping a record of arrivals. She also found one or two other girls, who stared at her in an inquisitive fashion and went on talking among themselves. Only when a forewoman—Miss Summers—arrived did the big room take on any air of being used for work, and within five minutes all the girls were in a state of preparation. Sally saw that they all had sleeved pinafores or overalls; she had none. As she had not a farthing to buy material to make such a thing, and had only a couple of slices of bread and margarine in her coat pocket for lunch, and would have to walk all the way home, Sally could not fight against the chilling of her heart which quick glances about the workroom produced. The girls were of all sorts and sizes, some of them smartly dressed and coiffed; others wearing clothes less expensive even than her own, and with a general air of not knowing how to make the best of themselves. Looking round at the faces she could see none that indicated cleverness or special intelligence. One ferrety-looking little thing seemed as though she might be either sharp or half-witted; a tall dark girl who was rather pretty and had beautiful hair used her hands with assurance; but observation did not make Sally feel ashamed of herself or of her ability. These girls could do almost as they were told, but not quite. But the pinafore was a serious question. Sally had never been used to such a thing. She had not even brought an apron.

While the others settled down, whispering among themselves and looking sharply at Sally, the forewoman, after a greeting, ignored her until she had attended to all that was more important. In her hands was the giving out of work. Sally saw that she was supposed to know what each girl could do. She also saw that some girls were favourites and others not. If she were to make progress here she must be a favourite. She must show quickly that she had the brains and could work well. It took a very short time to make her realise that. For a moment she was inclined to be over-confident; but that mood collapsed before a side glance and a titter from two of the girls. Their instinctive ridicule warned and stiffened Sally. They did not know her. She would have to prove her qualities. She then concentrated upon Miss Summers, watching how she turned, how she smiled and frowned, and how she explained what had to be done to each girl who was receiving new work. Miss Summers was a short stout woman with cat's eyes and a long nose. She licked her lips like a cat. She was inconsistent and short-tempered; but Sally afterwards found that while she was extraordinarily vain she was rarely unkind. But in general she was severe, because severity was the only course to pursue with these chattering girls, who were full of scratches and jealousies, and who would have taken advantage of weakness with rapid unscrupulousness. So the little stout woman, feline and easily exasperated, was a good person to control the room. Her kindness might be part of her vanity, but it was not assumed. She loved her work, and she was always glad to praise good work from the girls, and to encourage it by favouritism to good workers. It was not the pretty ones or the sly ones who were the favourites. It was the workers. Following each girl with her eye, Sally could not observe that at the beginning; but it did not take her long to add it to her now formidable collection of facts.

When at last Sally was called to Miss Summers's side, and questioned, she walked the length of the room feeling as though her legs had no joints, and as though her shoulders were fixed. There were only eleven girls in the room besides herself, but they were all looking at her. And when she stood before Miss Summers in her little black dress she looked so slight, with her slim body and thin pale face, that several of the girls went on with their work again immediately, having lost interest in her. Sally, confronted by Miss Summers's cat-like eyes, which were a gooseberry green, twisted her fingers, and blurted out:

"I'm sorry, I got no pinafore. I didn't know I had to have one."

She was relieved when Miss Summers smiled and licked her lips.

"Well, let's make you one for a start-off. Shall we?"

Sally could have fallen down, so astonished was she at this retort. Still she blurted further:

"I got no money for the material."

Again Miss Summers smiled. She might almost have given a purr. She rubbed her cold nose with the back of her hand, like a cat washing its face.

"That's all right," she said. "We'll find some stuff. It can come off your wages. I want to see what you can do, d'you see? And that's as good a way as any. I shall be able to notice how you do it, and give you a word of advice if you want it. And you won't waste much time, and you won't waste much material. And so why not? Just stand here while I get the length." As she measured the length of Sally's frock, and allowed a few additional inches for the pinafore, she sharply said in a low voice that only Sally could hear: "That's right: never use scent. It's vulgar. From the look of you I was afraid you'd use scent and be saucy. But I'm glad you aren't."

"Oh, no, miss," answered Sally. Quite truthfully, she added: "I've never thought of using scent. I don't like it. Only common girls use it." Unconsciously she was emphasising all her sibilants.

"Well, some of the girls here do," said Miss Summers. "Hold still."

The pinafore was a simple matter for both Miss Summers and Sally; and before the morning was over Miss Summers had visited Madame Gala.

"The new little girl's a quick worker," she said. "Very clever. I think she'll be very useful."

At which Madame Gala raised her straight brows and looked piercingly at Miss Summers. If Sally could have heard and appreciated the speech as Madame Gala did she would have known that she had become a favourite at a bound. She did not even guess it, so absorbed was she in deserving commendation, until the end of the week, when she received her full wages, without deduction. She was tempted. How easy to say nothing, and take the risk of it being remembered! She could easily say she was sorry she had forgotten all about it. Then some strong impulse of honesty made her go up to Miss Summers.

"You haven't taken off the money for the pinafore," she whispered.

"That's all right," said Miss Summers. "Good girl to come to me about it."

Good girl! Sally wondered if she really was such a very good girl.

ii

She was not, morally, being a very good girl; for her mother was still in the hospital, and she and Toby were taking risks. So far there had been no discovery; but they were getting bolder, and only the day before going to Madame Gala's, when his aunt had been out for the afternoon and evening, Toby had had Sally to tea in his aunt's room, and they had sat together over a good fire, and had silently made love to each other for hours. The more love-making they had, the more they wanted, and Sally had been living all the week for the time she spent with Toby. But her mother would be coming home soon, even though she would be unable to work; and both knew that the wild ecstasy would end with her return. It was that, probably, which made them less careful, or, if not less careful, at any rate less cautious in the use of their opportunity. Sally had a dread, which she would not face, and if Toby had any dread he never told her. For all her feeling of intimacy with him, Sally never reached below his manner and his strength; and her ignorance of him it was that gave the whole relation its charm for her. He was mysterious, a compelling strength outside her, a strange man who responded to all her wishes and who loved her as she wished to be loved—brutally and dominatingly. She was dazzled and infatuated. But already, in her first days with Madame Gala, she had recovered sufficient of her old coolness to be set upon definite personal success. This was her strongest impulse. Her love was outside it, a gratification now, and not a torment. She had no sense whatever of wrong-doing; only of hostility to her mother because her mother's return would interrupt the tenour of her life. Once only she said to Toby, secure in her trust of his love and care: "Toby ... if I have a baby, you'll ... you'll marry me, won't you?" And Toby gave her the necessary promise in obvious good faith. Neither, therefore, troubled about the future. They were both too anxious to live only in the exhilarating present.

But at last Mrs. Minto returned, and by that time Sally was living upon money borrowed from Mrs. Perce, her one friend and protector. Mrs. Minto could not work. She wrote to Aunt Emmy, and Aunt Emmy helped her from her prizewinnings, and for several weeks they were thus enabled to stave off want. Once Mrs. Minto was back at home the old order of parsimony was revived, and it cost them very little to keep life going on from day to day. Sally's seven shillings a week helped. And at last Mrs. Minto was allowed to go out, and Mrs. Roberson took her back. Slowly, half-starving, they managed to exist. Sally still had her evenings with Toby, with their glory dimmed; and as the weeks went on she knew that she was safe from the causes of her dread, and carried herself jauntily, and she began to earn a little extra money by working in the evenings for Miss Jubb. This meant that she saw Toby less often, and Toby now had a man friend from the works where he was employed, and was sometimes with this man Jackson. Sally had her seventeenth birthday: her figure had improved, and so had her appearance. She was still meagre, because she had not enough to eat; but some compensation of Nature allowed her to maintain her health and to mature.

One day, when she had gone to practise upon Mrs. Perce's piano, as she had not done all the time they had been away from the flat, Sally attracted Mrs. Perce's attention by singing unusually well. Her friend listened; and then looked into the room.

"What's that you're singing?" she demanded. "Suits you. You'll never be able to play the piano, Sally, because you'd have to practise every day for hours to do that; but you've got a big voice for your body. I suppose your lungs are good. Ever heard me sing? It's like a baby crying. But that song 'The Love Path' suits you. You might do something with your voice. Not much, I expect; but something. You just try and get hold of somebody who knows about such things. Might do a turn on the Halls. You never know. If I come across anybody I'll ask them; but I don't see many people now, and what I do are all in the 'public' line. It's worth thinking about, for a girl like you, with your way to make. Unless you marry, of course; and you say you're not going to do that in a hurry. So there you are. Make the most of yourself, I say; and let the Devil go hang himself if he's a mind to it."

Sally, who had never thought of such a thing, promised. For a time she was flattered by the vision of singing to audiences. But that soon faded. She met nobody outside Madame's, except for one or two young men who spoke to her on the way home; and so she kept to her sewing and machining for Miss Jubb. It pleased her to be able to tell Toby, who, however, frowned, and did not seem pleased.

"Seems to me you're always thinking you'll do something wonderful," he said sourly. "Doesn't seem to come to much, as fur as I can see."

"Oh, doesn't it!" cried Sally. She shook herself free from him, and marched off in anger. And Toby did not follow. It was a tiff. By the next evening both were contrite, and the matter was never spoken of again. All the same, Sally remembered it. She remembered it the more unforgivingly because Toby's remark had been true. Nothing so far had happened to prove definitely that her confidence in exceptional powers was justified. He was jealous of her! Sally laughed almost scornfully. Fancy a big fellow like Toby being jealous of a little thing like her. Men! They were all alike. All right as long as they were playing first fiddle! That was it: Toby didn't want her to have a chance at all. He wanted her always to be number two. Sally shook her head obstinately.

"All right, Master Toby!" she said to herself. There was no more in it than that—a momentary revolt;—but once the notion had arisen it began to revolve in her mind. She could not remember if she had ever told Toby of her plan to be a successful dressmaker; but what would he say to that? Would he like his wife to make money, and to have real ladies coming to her as they did to Madam? It seemed from this that he would not. He preferred to be top dog. Sally was to be nothing upon her own account—merely to fetch and carry, and do what she was told, and husband his paltry little earnings. He'd rather be poor than owe anything to his wife, in case she became bigger than himself. Was that it? Was that Master Toby's idea? If so, it was not Sally's. She suddenly understood that Toby thought of her as his wife, as his chattel; and that she had never ceased, except in the passionate excitement of their early relations, to think of herself as one who belonged to herself and was going to make some sort of life for herself. This came as a shock to Sally. She had never thought of it before. She was beginning to grow up. From that time she first began to criticise Toby. Until then he had been the burly man she loved. Her thoughts of him, as her love for him, had been merely physical. She was now to search more deeply into the needs of life, still crudely, but examiningly. It was not enough, then, to love a man if you were going to have something else to do in life besides love him. The idea was new. It puzzled her. It was something outside the novelettes she had read, and outside her own precocious thoughts. Love was love—all knew that. She loved Toby; she had given herself to him; they were practically married; and now it appeared that something was wrong somewhere. Toby did not want her to be Sally: he wanted her to be just a sort of moon-Toby. Another girl would have wanted nothing better. Sally told herself that she was different. She went out by herself, one evening, instead of working; and walked up to Highgate. And as she went up the hill she sang to herself the ballad "The Love Path." It began:

"When you and I go down the love path together, Birds shall be singing and the day so long,"

and she could play the simple accompaniment to it with very few mistakes. She remembered Mrs. Perce's words. What if she could do something with her voice? Did she sing well? She allowed herself to glimpse another glorious future.

In the middle of the walk Sally stopped dead.

"Oh, doesn't it...." she said aloud. "Well, we'll just see. We'll just see about it. That's all." And having as it were made her formal protest she resumed the journey, and arrived home tired out, ready for bed; and before she had been in bed more than two minutes she was fast asleep, dreaming of motor cars and footmen standing on the pavement with fur rugs in their hands. In her dream she was alone in the cars. Even the chauffeur had no smallest resemblance to Toby. And yet she still loved him with all her heart, and when she was with him she felt that she extraordinarily belonged to him. Love had again at last encountered ambition, and battle was joined.

iii

Dreams of luxurious motor-cars, and footmen with fur capes and long fawn-coloured overcoats, holding fur rugs to cover her knees, were now constant in Sally's mind. She saw such things occasionally in Regent Street, and loved to look in at the windows of motor broughams upholstered in fawn-coloured corduroy, with arm straps and little hanging vases of fresh flowers. The freshness of these cars was her delight. She had no notion of the income it was necessary to have in order to possess such cars, with their attendant footman and chauffeur; but that income, whatever it was, became her ideal. Money! Lots of money! With money you could have comfort. When she said that, and was warned by conventional wiseacres that money did not produce happiness, she sneered at the timid ones. "Bet I'd be happy," she said. "What's happiness?" She wondered what it was. For her it had been oblivion in Toby's arms. It was so no longer. That was not all she desired. It was not by any means all. And she shrank more and more strongly from a life of squalid toil such as her mother had had—such as she would still have had if Mr. Minto had been a sober man. All her life she had slaved and slaved, and now she was worn out with it. Not for Sally! She had other plans. She had gone to the West End, and the West End was in her blood. She was looking round at life with some of her old calculating determination to exploit it. The death of her father, the passion for Toby,—these had distracted her. With increasing confidence in her position at Madam's, and a new sense of what money could actually do in the way of procuring food and clothes and ordinary or extraordinary physical comforts, Sally had returned to her old faith. She began to have a little money to buy things for herself. Once or twice Miss Summers gave her quite good-sized pieces of material, and there were always scraps to be gathered and utilized. And Sally was enabled to dress carefully. She became the smartest of the girls in the room, for she had a natural sense of smartness. The other girls did not like her, but they all envied her and admired her. It was not that she was unpopular; but that they felt in her the hard determination to get on, and were resentful of her manifest ability to achieve what she meant to do.

The other girls were all sorted out in Sally's mind. There was not one of them into whose nature she had not some biting insight. She had become so practised that she knew all their dresses (as of course all the others did, so that a new one was an event), and knew what everything they owned had cost. She could recognise anything that had been dyed, any brooch or adornment, any stockings. She would have made a good house-detective. But she never told tales. If she knew, she knew, and that was all. It was not for Sally to play the policeman. All knowledge went into her memory. It would be devastatingly produced on the occasion of a row, but Sally rarely quarrelled. With her, nothing ever came to a quarrel. There was no need for it to do so. She was neither jealous nor censorious. One does not quarrel with one who neither loves nor blames nor is stupid or too anxious to show cleverness. Sally merely "was," and the other girls knew it. For this reason she was not liked, but neither was she feared or unpopular. They did not hide things from her, but they did not show them eagerly. Sally was Sally. She enjoyed being Sally. She meant always to be Sally.

And at last there came into Sally's life, when she had been at Madame Gala's for about six months, a new interest, and a singular one. One day, when they were all working very hard, and the electric light was on, Madame came into the workroom with another person. And this person was a young man with a grey, thin face, rather tall and stooping, with a hesitating manner, and a general air of weakness. He followed Madame Gala round the room in an idle way, nodding to several of the girls; and Sally thought he had a very attractive smile. She found him looking at herself with a pair of large soft brown eyes, like chocolate which has been in a warm place. It was a rather dumb look. A little nick came between Sally's brows. She was busy making an inventory of the young man visitor's traits, his features, his clothes. He dressed well, and he was not bad-looking. With more stamina he might have been almost handsome; but he was obviously not in good health. The stoop, the vagueness of all his movements, his soft eye, all betokened as much. Sally turned to Muriel Barrett, who worked next to her.

"Who's he?" she asked, indicating the stranger.

"That's Bertram ... Madame's son. Mr. Merrick, his real name is. But we call him Gaga."

"Wodjer call him that for?" asked Sally. "Isn't he right in his head?"

"Oo, well one of the gels—she's gone now, Mary Smith,—made it up. She said he was Mr. Gala, you know. Then she called him Bertie Gaga, for fun; and it got to Gaga. I never spoken to him, so I don't know. Look out, he's looking at us. Oo, I believe he's got a crush on you, Sally."

Presently the young man followed his mother out of the room, and there was a little buzz when they were gone. The girls leaned together, and whispered, laughing among themselves. Muriel Barrett turned again to Sally, and became confidential. She herself was a pink, snub-nosed blonde, with untidy hair, who was always sniffing over her work. She jerked her head at Rose Anstey, the tall dark girl whom Sally had noticed when first she came.

"Rose thought he was in love with her once," Muriel said. "Well, he was, a bit; but not as much as she thought. I mean, he used to look at her, and all that, but he never give her anything, or took her out. I think ... you know ... she's a bit struck on him. That's more like it. She thinks he's a very tall handsome man. Well, he's not my taste. Funny, if you're tall, I s'pose you want a tall man to fall in love with you. It's different, being small, I suppose. My Elf's only about inch taller than me. You can't hardly see there's any difference between us. If I've got my hair frizzed he looks...."

Muriel went on talking. Sally took a glance at Rose, who, with eyes downcast, was sewing rapidly. Sally wished she had known that about Rose and Gaga while he was in the room: then she would have been able to look at Rose and make up her mind about that affair. She did not suppose really that there was anything in it, either way. Muriel was a little fool—like a little pink pig. That was just what she was like. And she chattered like a monkey. She had said that because he looked at her twice Gaga had got a crush on Sally. Well, Sally didn't mind. He could have any old crush he liked, for all she cared. Gaga was dismissed from her immediate attention, although she sometimes recollected a pair of soft brown eyes, that made her want to say "Moo" as if in response to their dumb longing.

The outcome of this visit, which occurred towards the end of May, was a day's outing for the girls at the beginning of June. They all went into the country by train, on a day which at first promised to be typical of all days unfortunately chosen for staff outings, but which cheered up later and became brilliantly fine. Only the girls were there, with Miss Summers and another forewoman, Miss Rapson, to see that nobody fell into mischief. They had a good picnic lunch in woods, and ran or walked or sat about all the afternoon, until it was time for tea. They then trooped into an hotel in which a room had been engaged, and scrimmaged for places round a big table. The tea was an enormous meal: Sally, who had not hitherto enjoyed herself any more than most of the other girls had noisily done, felt herself grown to twice her normal size. It was the biggest meal she had ever eaten, and there were cream and milk and sugar, and there were cakes and lettuce and jam and all sorts of other encouragements to appetite. And every time anybody laughed the sound went up to the varnished rafters, and billowed so much that the two elder women had at last to break in upon a laughter competition. Sally held aloof from the laughter, scornfully regarding the laughers. She had been rather serious all day.

And when the noise and fun were at their height Madam and Gaga and another man and woman came into the room, having motored to the hotel, taken their tea in another room, and determined to join the party. The tea had been so late, and so prolonged, that it was already nearly eight o'clock, and as the sky had grown overcast and the day was drawing to a close the lights suddenly popped up to illumine the faces of both feasters and visitors. A piano was opened at the far end of the room, and the woman who was with Madam sat down at it and began to play. But only one or two of the girls danced: the others had eaten too much to be able to do so. Then Rose sang a song, in which she said that her heart was aching and breaking at somebody's forsaking, and the girls looked at one another significantly; and there were more songs, and the girls sat back in their chairs with flushed faces, and each of them in turn seemed to be doing something to entertain the party. With a bored feeling, Sally was sipping her last cup of tea, when she became aware that Gaga had taken the chair next to her, and with his chocolate eyes was looking pleadingly into her face.

"Don't you sing?" he asked. "I wish you'd sing."

"I got no music," said Sally.

"Mrs. Roach would be able to make an accompaniment. She understands music very well—if you hummed her a song. I wish you'd sing."

Sally rose to her feet. The other girls all watched her with narrowed eyes. She was wearing such a pretty dress of light grey cotton poplin that she looked smarter than ever, they thought—in fact, almost pretty. She went close to the piano, and spoke to the pianist. "Oo, swank!" whispered the girls, when they saw that Sally was to play her own accompaniment. It was a thing none of them could have done.

"'When you and I go down the love path together, Birds shall be singing and the day so long....'"

sang Sally, in her clear voice, and made everybody arch their brows in surprise.

"'Your heart mine, and mine in your keeping, List while I sing to you love's tender song. Ah, love, have done with your repining, See how the day is clear; Heart of my heart, On your fond heart reclining Dear, oh my Dear....'"

She played with care, and struck no false notes. She sang her best. Her voice was the best voice of the afternoon, a mezzo-soprano, but with clear upper register and a fulness that suggested training. It was not a great performance, but it thrilled the others. Sally had triumphed. With one accord the girls clapped.

"My best worker," said Miss Summers, rubbing her cold nose and turning to the accompanist of the afternoon.

"A clever little girl," agreed her neighbour.

But Gaga was stupefied. He had remained in the chair next to Sally's, and when she resumed her place his mouth was still open with delight and admiration. Again he leaned forward, and she met his melting chocolate eyes.

"That was beautiful," he said, in a low tone of commendation. "Beautiful!"

"Glad you liked it," she said, almost brusquely. Instinctively she shot a glance in Rose's direction. Rose, her cheeks mantling, was observing the two with interest. Sally's brain clicked an impression, and she listened to a stammering from Gaga which aroused her contempt. "He's hardly a man at all," she thought. "He's soppy. Rose can have him. I wish her joy of him. She can have him—and twenty like him, if she wants.... I don't know so much about that. Why should she? She's stuck up. Why shouldn't I have some fun, if I want to? It's nothing to do with Rose Anstey what I do, and what Gaga does...."

Her demand was unanswerable, because it was addressed to one who did not habitually withdraw herself lest she should give pain to others. If Rose was jealous, that showed the sort of cat she was. And in any case, who was Rose? Sally was bright in her responses to the soft voice, so that Gaga was pleased; but the girls could all see that her manner was cool, and not the flustered eagerness of a beggar. Rose's neighbour whispered. When the evening was over and Gaga and his mother had gone, and the girls had all piled into two railway compartments, somebody, whose voice was unrecognisable in the darkness, called from the other carriage:

"What price Gaga on the love path? Whey!"

There was great laughter. Even Sally joined in it. Going home, the other girls in her carriage all insisted upon hearing the song again, and as they all had the quick ear of Cockneys they could sing it in chorus by the time the train reached its journey's end. Sally had become, for a time, the heroine of the occasion. Only Rose, in the other carriage, had made her protest against the song and its singer.

"Love path!" she said, in a warm voice of indignation. "She's nothing but a cocket—a white-faced cocket. That's what she is. She nothing but a white-faced cocket, that Sally Minto!"

From that time onward that was Sally's name among the girls—"Cocket," or "White-faced Cocket." Rose had coined the phrase which would stick. When Sally heard her name the next day, through Muriel's indiscretion, she looked over at Rose with pinched nostrils and a little dry smile. She was flattered. The name was the product of Rose's jealousy and injured vanity; but it was life to Sally, for it was a testimony—the first she had ever had—to her charm and her dangerousness.

iv

She did not tell Toby the next night about her singing. She rather carefully refrained from telling him, not out of considerateness, but from a sort of scorn for his jealousy. To herself she said "Anything for a quiet life." Toby never dreamed that such a person as Gaga existed, any more than he guessed at any of Sally's encounters with young men on the way home. Sally had discretion. Had he been a lover, she might have told him; but as he was more to her than that she saw no reason to arouse his jealousy. And really, if a man spoke to her, and looked all right, where was the harm in letting him walk a little way with her? She never made appointments, and after a time, when they found she could take care of herself, and did not want a non-committed male friend, these fellow-pedestrians soon left her alone. For Sally, each of them was practice. To mention them to Toby would have been to give them all too great importance. And he might have made a fuss, and unnecessarily interrupted her fun. "Where ignorance is bliss," thought Sally, "'tis folly to call out the guard." And, further, "Let sleeping dogs lie until the milk is stolen." And so Toby pursued his own path, and never knew a tenth of what went on in Sally's life and mind. Compared with Sally, he knew nothing at all. She grew each day more rusee, more cunning in knowledge of the world. And Toby blundered where he should have been most astute. It was his fate.

Sally told him about the outing, because she saw he was in a gloomy mood on the day—a Sunday—after the girls' treat. She described it at length as they walked in Waterlow Park, hanging on to his arm, and all the time searching his tell-tale face and guessing at the cause of his manifest depression. She told about the picnic and the woods, and the tea, and the journey home; and she saw his mouth slightly open as he grunted. She could see the tiny points of hair that were beginning to make a perceptible blueness upon his chin, and the moulding of his cheek, and a little patch of fine down upon his cheek bone, and the hair at his temples which she had so often kissed. And she knew by his averted eye that something was the matter with him. She began to try drawing him on the subject—his aunt, had he heard from his mother (who had married again when Toby was a baby, and lived with her husband in the North), what had he been doing at the Works? Ah! That was it. Toby had started, and frowned. It was something at the Works. Oh, he was easy for Sally to read!

"What's the matter?" she suddenly asked. Toby flushed and scowled down at her, very dark and ugly in his irritation, his mouth twisted.

"Matter?" he demanded. "What d'you mean? Nothing's the matter."

"That's why you're so cheerful, I suppose," retorted Sally—"At the Works, I mean." Toby gave her a quick, angry look in which there was an admixture of fear and suspicion.

"There's nothing the matter," he said, in a tyrannic voice.

"Have you got the sack?" Sally was merciless. She replied to his tyrannic voice with one as hard and stabbing as a gimlet. "Ah, I thought that was it. What you been doing?"

"Nothing," said Toby. "And anyway, what's it to do with you?"

"Well, I'm out walking with you. See? And I got to do all the talking. See? And if you're going to be surly I'll go home by myself. That's what it's got to do with me. And, besides, it is something to do with me, and don't you forget it. You got no right to keep things from me."

Toby was cowed by her handling of him. He might be strong, but brains are always more potent than muscle in such circumstances. And men are always afraid of the women they love.

"Yes, I got the push," he defiantly said.

"And what's that for?" demanded Sally, with the severity of a mother to her baby. There was no answer. "What's that for?" she repeated. "Come on, Toby, you'll feel better if you tell me about it. Toby, d'you love me? Well, there's nobody about ... quick!" They kissed, and her arms had been round his neck, and Toby was her sheepish, scowling, smiling slave. Sally had a faint consciousness of joy in her power.

"Well, you see...." he began, haltingly. "Jackson and I ... we been ... well, we wanted to make a bit, you see. And—tiddent his fault, but he...."

"Been pinching stuff," said Sally. "Clumsy. Got found out. Well?"

"Well, they found out about me, too."

"What had you been doing?"

"I never took anything; but I found a lot of old things among the rubbish, and I showed them to Jackson. Well, they asked him if anybody had been with him; and he said 'no.'"

"That was all right," Sally said. "I like Jackson."

"But then the man he'd been dealing with said Jackson had talked about his 'mate.' And they knew that was me. And I ... told 'em a tale."

"I bet!" cried Sally, scornfully. "And got caught in it, too. Badly!"

"Well, they fired us both yesterday, and said we was lucky they didn't prosecute."

"Did they pay you? What you going to do now?"

"I dunno." Toby stared stubbornly before him. "Get something else, I suppose. Jackson's going for a sailor. Guess I'll do that, too."

"Go for a sailor?" demanded Sally, with a heart that went dump into her boots. "What d'you want to do that for?"

"I'd be with Jackson, see, if I went for a sailor."

"And what about me?" Sally's voice was no longer hard or dry. "D'you want to leave me? Are you tired of me, Toby? I believe you are. Are you?"

"No, I'm not. And I don't want to leave you. But if I went for a sailor I'd make a bit of money, perhaps, and then after a little while I could come back and begin again. It would get over having no reference. They'd say 'Where you been working?' and I'd say 'Been at sea for the last year.' Then they wouldn't know anything but what I told 'em. I wouldn't go long voyages, Sally. Only just short ones. I'd often come home, and we'd have a spree."

Sally's quick brain was at work. She did not want him to go; but if he went, and if she saw him often, in spite of his being away, perhaps it would not be so bad.

"But suppose you got wrecked?" she exclaimed.

"Rot. D'you suppose every ship gets wrecked? Don't be a fool!"

"No. But yours might get wrecked. How am I to know, supposing there's a storm? It won't not get wrecked because you're on it. Would you come home very often? Would you wear sailor clothes? Wonder how you'd look! Oh, I know—you mean a jersey. Would it have letters across your chest? Where d'you have to go?"

Sally was so interested that she was even making up Toby's mind for him. By the time they went in it was decided that he and Jackson were going to sea, and that Sally should be taken down to visit his ship if it happened to be at the Docks or at Tilbury. She had dancing visions of Toby in a navy blue jersey, with "Queen of the Earth" or "La Marguerite" or "Juanita" across it in white letters. She could see his dark hair blown by the wind, and the veins in his wrists standing out as he hauled a rope. It was rather fun! she thought. "My boy's a sailor." She would be able to touch him for luck. Sailors were lucky. She sang to herself a song one of the workgirls knew:

"Sailors are lads. Sailors are lads. Sailors they make you laugh!"

Before night she was wholly reconciled to the idea that Toby would go to sea. She soon had a dim perception of the fact that it would do him good to go. It would get him away from the atmosphere of the Works, where there seemed to be a lot of stupid larking and work-dodging. Now that he was dismissed she began to realise all this. She was glad he was away from it. She was glad he was going to sea. It would be a complete change. It would do him good. He had been fiddling about too long at the Works, in his overalls and in the grime and oil and general dodginess of the place. The ship would take him about, and show him the way people did things. It would open his eyes and his brains. Electrically, something self-protective within her added the further message: it would keep him out of the way for a time. Sally breathed deeply. An unreadable smile was upon her lips, and no smile at all was in her eyes. Afar off she scented change; but what manner of change she did not as yet recognise. It was her instinct at work, her instinct for turning life to her own advantage. It was an infallible instinct, like that of birds for a coming storm.

v

It was some weeks before Sally again saw Gaga, and this time he came into the premises of Madame Gala one Saturday morning. Sally had taken something in to Madam, and was waiting her judgment, when one door opened and Gaga came in. He was dressed, as usual, in a morning coat and top hat, and his trousers were creased to an inconceivable point of accuracy. Besides which, his tailors had been able to do what most tailors cannot achieve; the creases arrived at the precise centre of Gaga's fawn spats. Sally was not such an expert in male clothing to recognise from this that Gaga's tailors were supermen; but she could tell that he looked like a gentleman of leisure. She was the more astonished, therefore, to see him carrying a parcel of some size under his arm. His mother was evidently quite as astonished.

"What on earth's that, Bertie?" she demanded. Gaga looked at her in a timid way.

"Oh—er—it's ... it's a new fertiliser," he said. "I.... I'm going to take it on to the office after lunch. Goodmayes is coming back then. Perrip says it's wonderful stuff, and I want Goodmayes to go into it. We're going into all that matter—good morning, Miss Minto—this afternoon. I.... I think we may be able to get through quite a lot. You see, as it's Saturday, we shan't be interrupted...."

"That will do, Sally," said Madam, gravely and slowly nodding her head in dismissal.

Sally went with regret. She had been interested in the conversation. She had taken it for granted that Gaga did nothing for a living. Now he talked of going to an office, and of two men whose opinions he evidently valued, and of fertiliser; and although his words and his manner were still those of a hesitating man he did not speak as an absolute fool. Sally felt a stir of curiosity. What sort of business was it that he was in? Fertiliser ... wonderful stuff ... something to do with gardening, would it be? As she was closing the door, Sally looked back and saw mother and son standing together. The likeness was remarkable. Both were tall, grey-faced, and slightly stooping. Gaga was weak-looking for a man, and Madam had more severity; but there were such lines upon her face that she looked like an old woman. A sudden realisation shook Sally. As she went back to Miss Summers with an explanation of Madam's deferred judgment she had this sharp new knowledge about Madame Gala.

"Well she won't live for ever," thought Sally, definitely.

And then she had recourse to her usual informant, Muriel, and asked her Gaga's business. Muriel did not know. Sally was therefore left to conjecture. She forgot all about Madam and Gaga, for Toby was going to meet her after business on his first leave from the "Florence Drake." She was dressed in her most destructive raiment, had searched the skies for rain, and was watching the clock. So fertilisers went the way of all secondary things, and Toby became her dominating thought. He had become the more splendid by his absence. She imagined him standing in the street below, dressed equally in his best clothes, and looking the finest boy on earth. They were going into Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, and he had promised to take her in a boat on the Serpentine, if one could be hired, and somewhere to tea, and at night to the Marlborough Theatre in Holloway Road. It was worth while to lose him for a time in order to recover a Toby more dear, and so much more extravagant on her behalf. He explained his generosity by the fact that he would be drawing his wages that day. Good to be a sailor, and have your money in a lump like that! Sally thought she would not altogether mind if he remained at sea for a time. He could save, and she could get on; and then they would both be happy, with a house somewhere, and a maid, and everything spick and span. No babies. Sally had taken that to heart, and she appreciated the value of old Perce's advice. A girl who wanted to get on did not need babies to drag her down. She wanted freedom.

As the clock slowly crawled to the hour of liberation all the girls began to put away their things, so that a real busyness was observable in the room. Sally was apparently no more eager than the others, and yet she could hardly keep herself from running to the window to see if Toby was in the street below. Sedately she prepared to leave, walking down the stairs slowly instead of rushing at them as she wished to do. She buttoned her little gloves, and set her hat straight, and made herself appear nonchalant. And that was how it happened that Gaga overtook her at the front door, and stood with her for a moment upon the doorstep.

"Lovely day it is," Gaga said, agreeably. "You going to get away?"

"Away? Oh, no, I'm going home," Sally said brightly. Then, looking at him, she saw that there was nothing to disturb the impression that he was a gentleman of leisure. "Oh Mr. Ga— Mr. Bertram ... you haven't got your parcel!" she cried.

He slapped one hand upon the other, with a most dramatic gesture.

"Idiot!" he exclaimed. "Thank you so much, Miss Minto. You've saved my afternoon." And with that, raising his top hat, he went back up the stairs, leaving Sally to congratulate herself upon her memory and her presence of mind. For she knew the rooms would all be locked by Miss Summers before she left.

She looked round for Toby, and saw him, as fine as a bird, upon the opposite path. Crossing over, she took his arm with such pride and delight that Toby, who had been frowning as he greeted her, was almost appeased. She looked so charming in her very pale green dress with the artfully-brimmed hat that he also had looked proud and happy at her first appearance. But Toby had received a shock. Standing there in his dark tweed suit, with a rakish Trilby hat and a fascinating cane, he had felt a fit companion for any girl, and as he was shaven, and his square face was browned with the sun and the sea wind, he had been content. And then Sally, looking like a princess....

"Who the devil's that silly fop?" he demanded, jerking his head.

Sally gave a jump, and a mischievous peep up into Toby's brown face.

"Jealous?" she asked. "That's right: be a man. They're never happy unless they're jealous. That's Gaga. And if you want to know who Gaga is, he's Madam's son. See?"

"Well, he'd better not come fooling around you," growled Toby. "Or he'll get a thick ear. With his top hat and his kid gloves and all."

"Hark at it!" jeered Sally. "Quite the little man! Don't you think he's awfully good-looking, Toby? We're all mad about him. All us girls."

"No, I don't," said Toby, deliberately. "But I expect he's the sort the girls like. Well, he's got a harem there, and no mistake, all fussing round him. Is he there all the time?"

"No. Toby, what's fertilisers?" Sally's curiosity had been revived. "Don't you know? Oh, shut up about Gaga. Anybody'd think he was a devil. He isn't. He's soppy. He wouldn't dare to make love to any of us girls. If I was to look at him he'd run away."

"Yes," said Toby, grimly. "I see he didn't like you looking at him."

"Well, I'll tell you something else, Toby," added Sally, with a persuasively dry candour. "If Madam was to see me looking at him I should get the sack—spiff! See?"

Toby was impressed. More, he was silenced. They spent a happy afternoon and evening, with no further reference to Gaga. Nor did Sally think of Gaga during the whole of the weekend. He might have been mixed and pounded with his own fertiliser for all she cared. For Sally had Toby.

vi

One night Miss Summers and Sally were working late upon a "rush job," and Madam was also in her room. The girls had all gone; but Sally had been chosen by Miss Summers to help her, and Sally was always ready to do this because it meant a small addition to her weekly money. Madam was doing her books, and Gaga was helping her. Sally was sewing busily—beautiful fine work that caused Miss Summers to purr and lick her lips with relish;—and as they worked they exchanged remarks which would have been impossible if they had not been alone. Miss Summers always spoke of the business, which absorbed her, and Sally gleaned innumerable details in this way, without seeming to be doing such a thing. She, on her side, gave Miss Summers a low-toned picture of her own life, concentrating upon domestic circumstances and enhancing Miss Summers' respect for her bravery and her willingness. When they had been silent once for a little while, and Sally had finished the first of her difficult and gratifying tasks, Sally fell into thought, and at last said to Miss Summers:

"Wish I knew about accounts. I don't know anything. Is it hard to learn?"

Miss Summers shook her plump face, and rubbed the tip of her nose with the back of her hand.

"No," she reassuringly said. "It's easy. You know what twice one are? Well, that's all it is. You put down on one side how much you charged, and when you get the money you put it down on the other side, and draw a line to show they balance. And every month or every quarter you go through your books, and see who hasn't paid; and if it isn't anybody special you send them a fresh account. And if it's a real lady you don't worry her. You have to know who's who in a business like this. That's the chief thing."

"Does Gaga—Mr. Bertram know who's who?"

"No!" Miss Summers's tone was conclusive. "But his mother tells him who to write to, or who to send an account to, and he knows book-keeping, and how much is at the bank; and he draws cheques for her to sign, and that sort of thing. Between you and me, Sally—mind, this is quite between ourselves,—I don't think Mr. Bertram's got a very good head for figures. You have to be a bit smarter than he is. Of course, he's very kind and good-looking; but if I wanted good sound common sense I wouldn't go to him. Not a good head for figures. He's not very sharp. Now Madam's as sharp as a needle. It's funny how a really sharp woman sometimes has a son who's—well, not so sharp...."

"Would you say I was sharp?" asked Sally innocently.

"Like a knife," declared Miss Summers, with a quick dart of her feline eyes.

"Really?" Sally was eager. She gave a little chuckle of pleasure at such emphatic praise.

"You'd be able to do the books, but you're better where you are. When you've been here another three months, Sally, you'll be getting more money. It isn't only that you're a good worker, and quick, but you've got more sense than the other girls. I oughtn't to say this to you. I don't generally praise the girls here. But if you want to get on, you've only got to stay where you are. You'll find Madam appreciates you. And so do I."

"You've been awfully good to me," murmured Sally, with downcast eyes. "I'm not just saying that, Miss Summers; I mean it, every word. When I came here I didn't know anything; and now I don't know a lot; but...." She gave a small cluck of her tongue, and a smile to show how much she had learned. It was true. And she was even learning to speak better, through listening to Madam and Miss Summers and at times a customer; and she had enough sense to avoid the extravagant refinements of Nosey. Presently she resumed: "Miss Summers, what does Mr. Bertram do? He's got a business of his own, hasn't he?"

Miss Summers looked across at the door leading to Madam's room, and lowered her voice.

"It's only something Madam put him into. It's a business all to do with farms."

"Farms?" Sally laughed. "Well, he doesn't look much like a farmer."

"No, it isn't exactly farms; but chemical things they use on farms. Now you see there's the soil." Sally nodded, so deeply interested that she ceased her work. "Some soil's good for growing things, and some isn't. Well, when a soil's not good the farmers mix stuff with it, to make it better."

"I know," cried Sally, joyously. "Fertiliser."

"Yes. And then from the good soil they'll get a crop early in the year, and then, by using stuff, they'll get another crop later. All that sort of thing. And if cows have the mange, or the rickets, or whatever it is cows have, Mr. Bertram's got something to give them. D'you see what I mean? And all sorts of chemical things. Stuff to kill weeds, stuff to give chickens to make them have bigger eggs.... He's got an inventor, and a manager, and others who are interested in the business, and he's got a share, and he goes to the office and goes about the country sometimes." Miss Summers screwed up her nose and lips, looking very like an old pussy, and in a whisper added: "Doesn't really do very much." She put her finger to her lips at that, and Sally, resuming her work, reassured her by a glance. "Of course," said Miss Summers, "he's very agreeable, and good-looking, and he's got plenty of money."

Money! Sally's eyelids flickered. She gave a charming grin.

"Wish I'd got plenty money," she said.

"You will have," answered Miss Summers, confidently. "Don't fret. Your time's coming. You're young yet, and all sorts of things might happen to you."

Sally made no response. She fell into silence for a time. She had learnt with the greatest interest about Gaga's business, and about the books. She learned a great deal from Miss Summers, whom she had grown to like very much. She was by no means insensitive to kindness, although she was not sentimental over it. And, as she thought, she came round again to the two workers in the next room.

"D'you think Madam will live long?" she unexpectedly asked.

vii

Within half an hour the job was finished, and Miss Summers took it in to Madam. She closed the door after her, and so Sally could not hear what was said. She stood up, stretching her arms, and looking down into the street, for it was barely growing dusk, and she could see a few men and women walking along in either direction. She yawned slightly, raising her hand to her mouth, her muscles stiff. And as she stood thus she heard the door opened and closed again, and, still yawning, said sleepily:

"Oo, I'm so tired!"

"Are you?" she heard behind her, in a very soft and sympathetic voice. Sally wheeled.

"I thought it was Miss Summers," she cried.

Gaga stood there smiling shyly, and looking at her with his appealing eyes. In this light he looked very handsome, and Sally felt almost sorry to see that he also looked tired. His face was quite grey, and his movements were those of an exceedingly nervous person who would always shrink from roughness.

"I'm so sorry you should have had to work so late," he said.

"Oo, it's nothing," cried Sally. "Do me good. If I was at home I should only be working there," she added, explanatorily. "Work, work, work."