"It's funny!" whispered Sally, exultingly. "Never seen anything like it."

"I.... I've never seen one ... so ... so clean," stammered Gaga.

Near them a conceited young man with a hard voice and small eyes was talking impressively to an untidy-looking girl in green with a mauve chiffon scarf. While he talked, the girl smoked his cigarettes, and interjected remarks of superior quality. Sally heard her say "Ah," in sign of agreement, and once "Oh, yes, of course Flaubert...."

"What's Flaubert?" she asked Gaga. He appeared startled.

"Er ... I don't know," he answered. "What put it into your head?"

"That girl said it. Listen." They listened. The young man was arguing about something. He was arguing about something of which neither Sally nor Gaga could discover the purport. Sally said: "They're both woolly. Woolly-wits, they are. Both got maggots. What's 'art,' anyway? Pitchers? And all that about values?"

Gaga was buried. He had a sudden inspiration.

"Don't listen to them," he said. "It's something they ... they understand."

"I bet they don't," remarked Sally. "You don't talk about things you understand."

"Well, let's talk about what we don't understand...." He was beseeching in his tone, and his soft eyes glowed. The waitress approached, bearing two large plates piled high with spaghetti.

"Golly!" ejaculated Sally. "Howjer eat it? Fingers?"

They had little time to talk while they were engaged with the capers of this surprising food; but when both were tired of playing with the spaghetti they turned their attention to the straw-covered bottle of Chianti which had been brought. Sally made a wry mouth at her first venture. She had yet to learn that the wine was heavier than any she had yet drunk. She strained her ears to catch more of what the fascinatingly conceited young man was saying about his inexhaustible topic. Good-looking boy, if he cut his hair and shaved his moustache off. She saw Gaga look anxiously and wonderingly across at her, with a kind of hunger; and she was shaken by a mischievous notion. She had never done such a thing before, but she put her foot forward so that it touched one of his, and smiled right into Gaga's chocolate eyes. The slow red crept up under his skin, and they had no need to talk. Sally was laughing to herself, and eating some beautifully cooked veal, and she knew that Gaga was glowing with contentment. She at last observed the two talkers slouch out of the restaurant, the man in very baggy-kneed trousers and a loose coat, and the girl in a dress of home make. A quick wrinkle showed in Sally's grimacing nose as she brought her professional eye to bear; and then the two talkers were gone and were forgotten. Sally and Gaga were quite alone at their end of the room, in a corner, favorably remote for intimate conversation from the remaining diners.

"Funny us not knowing what they were talking about," mused Sally. "You don't, you know. It's very hard to know what anybody talks about. To understand it, I mean. Hard to know anybody, too."

"I shouldn't have thought I was hard to know," ventured Gaga.

"I wasn't thinking about you," said Sally, with unconscious cruelty. "I was thinking.... I've forgotten. Isn't this wine sour! No, I'm getting used to it—getting to like it. Hasn't half— I mean, it's got a nice smooth way of going down." As Sally checked herself she realised that she was now so much at ease with Gaga that she no longer worried about her pronunciation or her words when she was with him. Worry? Sally's conceitedness soared into the air and frowned down upon the faltering Gaga with something like scorn. Poor Gaga! thought Sally. Instantly her hardness returned, and she looked at his lined face and the pale lips that hung a little away from his teeth in sign of ill-health. She saw his dark grey morning coat, and the slip inside the waistcoat, and his sober tie. And it seemed to Sally that she saw right into the simple mind of Gaga. He was so simple, like the hire purchase system. He was about the simplest man she had ever seen, for his tongue could hardly utter more than the tamest of words and phrases, and he never seemed to Sally to keep anything back.

"And yet, you know," she went on, following Gaga's remark and this train of thought, "there's lots more to know about people than just what you see—and what they do and say. If you know them ever so well, you only know a bit of them. You don't know me. You think I'm a little girl in the workroom, and a worker, and all that."

"I think you're a marvel!" ejaculated Gaga.

"Yes, well, when you've got to the end of thinking I'm a marvel, what happens? You don't know me any better. I might be a poisoner, or a ... or a...." Sally's invention failed her. "I might keep a shop, or serve a bar, or be an actress," she went on, recovering fertility. "I mean, in the evenings."

"Yes," said Gaga, dubiously. "I suppose you might." He was struck with a rather superfine notion. "But you're not," he concluded. He enjoyed a manifest triumph.

"No." Sally raised a declamatory finger. "But if I was, you wouldn't know it."

They had reached an impassable spot in their talk. Sally had confounded Gaga. Neither he nor she was quite as mentally alert as they had both been when hungry; and the Chianti was beginning to make them drowsy and rather slow-witted. But having embarked upon the question of possible knowledge of character they could not, in consideration of their slight heaviness, be expected to relinquish a topic so circular and so suggestive of personal intimacy. As the wine acted more powerfully upon them it was more and more to themselves that their thoughts and speeches turned.

"I feel sometimes that I'm a great fool," confessed Gaga. "But I'm not really a fool. I see a lot, and ... I don't seem able to act on it. D'you understand what I mean?"

"Weak," Sally vouchsafed, wine-candid. Gaga glanced quickly at her.

"I don't think I'm weak. I...." His thoughts strayed. "See, I've never had much of a chance to show what I can do. My mother's such a much stronger character than I am."

Sally nodded, and sipped again at the thick glass from which she was drinking.

"I'm strong," she said. "I'm hard ... tough. If I make up my mind...."

"Yes. I'm like that," insisted Gaga. It was so preposterous that Sally could only look measuringly at him with a puzzled contempt that might have been read.

"I'm stronger'n you are," she answered. "I'm small; but I don't mind what I do. You're a good boy. I'm not. I'm bad. I'm ... you don't know what goes on in my head." Suddenly exasperated, she went on: "That's what I meant. You think I'm just a quiet little thing. I'm not. You don't know what I think about. I want to do all sorts of things. I want to be rich, and have a good time, and have lots of ... lots of power. I want to get on. If anybody gets in my way I push 'em out of it. If anybody gets in your way you stand aside."

"I don't. I get my own way, but not by fighting," Gaga said.

"Oho! I don't fight," retorted Sally. "They're afraid to fight me."

Gaga smiled.

"They're afraid of hurting you," he suggested. "But I know just what you mean." His confidence was unshakable.

"I kick 'em in the stomach," Sally asserted. "Anywhere."

"Yes. They wouldn't take liberties with you."

"Not unless I wanted them to," said Sally, abruptly sober. "They wouldn't try it on. None of the girls ever worry me. When I first came they did. They were saucy. I soon stopped that. I got a tongue, and they found it out. Now Miss Summers——"

"Don't let's talk about the business," pleaded Gaga. Sally was arrested.

"Funny!" she exclaimed. "We haven't, have we!"

"It's so much nicer being ... friends."

One of Gaga's hands was stretched across the table. With a sense of mischief Sally allowed him to take her own hand. Then she moved it quickly.

"They're looking at us," she whispered to him. "Those waitress girls." Instantly she was free. She had the thought that a real man would have held her hand for a moment longer. All the same, she enjoyed her power over Gaga. The little unreadable smile that so excited him was upon her face, and the knowledge of power was in her heart.

They sat for a little while over coffee; and then Sally began to put on her gloves. A few minutes later they were out in the dark street, and pausing to discover the points of the compass. As they stood, a great gust of wind came sweeping along from the southeast, and at its onset the two became strangely embraced, Gaga's arm being round Sally, and the brim of her hat against his breast. They both laughed, and Sally stood upright; but she did not move so violently that Gaga must withdraw his arm. She was amused and elated at contact with him. Gaga, encouraged, drew her closer.

"Oo!" murmured Sally. She let him see her laughing face.

Gaga, very excited, lowered his head. Sally jerked her own head upon one side with lightning speed, and felt his lips clumsily upon her ear. Twice he kissed her convulsively hugging her to his side. Then Sally, rather breathless, but not at all discomposed, pulled herself away.

"Now, now; that's enough," she said. They were both grinning; but of the two only Sally was cool. She could tell that Gaga was trembling slightly, and when a little later they parted he held her hand for a long time, and sought timidly to draw her to him again for another kiss. Sally, however, ignored the pressure, and left him standing in the yellow shop and street lights, while she rode securely homeward in her omnibus. Her last glimpse was of newspaper bills lying upon the pavement, and of men and women in motion against the lights, and Gaga standing watching her out of sight. Then she looked round the omnibus, at some other girls, and an old man who wore two waistcoats, and the conductor; and her face again puckered into a smile.

"Doesn't half think he's a devil," she thought, demurely.

Then other thoughts of Gaga arose, and Sally frowned a little. She had a sudden feeling that she was on difficult ground. She was not afraid, not nervous; but her imaginings darted swiftly here and there at the bidding of a knowledge that she must not at this juncture make any false step.

xvii

All the way home Sally had the one subject, the one series of speculations, hammering at her attention. She was again sensible; she was shrewd and perceptive. Gaga was a funny old stick, she thought; funny and weak and nice. She could play upon him with ease. A touch, and he was thrilled; a kiss, and he was beside himself. And yet what did he want—what did he think he wanted? And what did Sally herself want? She did not know. She felt at a loss, excited and almost wanton. Yet so much depended upon all this that she dared not make a mistake. Gaga's good-will was of enormous importance. In his hands lay some of her future. If she could help him, earn rewards, understand the business, she could master everything. And Madam—what if Madam died? Supposing she suddenly died, and left Gaga in control of the business, what would happen? Sally hoisted her shoulders in doubt. Gaga might sell the whole thing. He might run it himself. He would keep Miss Summers....

"Oh, I wish I was older!" cried Sally, impatiently. "I could do it, but they wouldn't let me. They'd think I couldn't. I could! Not all at once, but in a little while. If he'd hold on. Supposing he ... wants me...." Her thoughts flitted away. She had a quick picture of Gaga as a lover, of herself managing everything by keeping him at her side with cajolery and parsimoniously-yielded delights. But he might grow tired of her; and then where would she be? Sally did not trust men now; she too clearly saw that once they were no longer tantalised they were liable to become sated and uneager. She was face to face with that speculation here. It all depended upon Gaga, upon the strength of her hold upon him. Could she so play that she reaped all the advantage she needed without giving anything at all? She was desperately tempted. She so greatly craved the power which only Gaga could give her. Well, what did he want? It was not enough that she should recognise her power to excite him: she needed much more than a few odd favours. And she was afraid to do anything to force him to grant whatever he could. In any case, what could he give her? She was too observant to be deceived as to his powerlessness. She saw him as a cypher; but as one who might one day—perhaps quite soon—own the whole business. Who else was there to make him do anything with it? There was nobody. Sally knew her own strength. What she could not guess was the best means of using it to her own advantage.

She arrived home to find her mother in bed, with her short grey hair scantily bedecking the pillow. At Sally's entrance, Mrs. Minto opened weary eyes, and looked at her with a sort of hatred. Sally knew the expression: it was full of suspicion and dread and solicitude, the result of Mrs. Minto's lonely evening of speculation.

"Hullo, ma!" she cried, recklessly. "Here I am. And I haven't been working. And there's nothing to fuss about. And that's all about that."

"Where you been?" sternly demanded Mrs. Minto.

"Well," began Sally, "if you must know, Madam's worse. She's ill. Think she's going to die. And I been talking to Mr. Bertram, and giving him good advice. I'm a mother to that man. What he'd do without me I can't think."

"Oo, Mr. Bertram!" It was clearly a warning cry. "Mr. Bertram! Oo, Sally!"

"Soppy, ma. We call him 'Gaga.' He's weak, you know. Cries over his work, like a kid. Wants somebody to give him a bit of backbone."

"Confidence," suggested Mrs. Minto, intrigued by the picture. She said no more, but rolled over and stared at the dim wall until sleep crept upon her and annulled her reflections.

Sally was struck by the word. Confidence! That was what Gaga needed! Half the time he was afraid of his own shadow. Quickly her brain refashioned the meal she had had with Gaga. Poor lamb, he hadn't got any confidence! Madam had kept him down. He wanted rousing. Once get his blood up, and he might do something really.... For the first time Sally was genuinely interested in Gaga. She had never honestly thought of helping him for his own sake. All she had thought of was her own future. And now her mother had put Gaga in a new light. Sally almost thought well of him. He might be rather bigger than she had supposed. What if he were?

Yes, but what did Gaga want of Sally? You don't kiss a girl because she is anything but a girl. It was a profundity. Gaga had kissed Sally because....

Sally turned away to hide from any glance of her sleeping mother the gleeful smile which had made her face radiant. She had been kissed because she had encouraged Gaga to kiss her; but he was so timid that he would never have done it if he had not very greatly desired to kiss her. She wondered what he thought about her. He talked of their being "friends"; he was half silly about her; he had kissed her and had wanted to kiss her again. Having begun, he would want to go on kissing her. And then, what? He would be afraid to kiss her at their next meeting; but he would all the time be watching his opportunity to do so. Was Sally going to give him his opportunity? Was she going to give him the confidence necessary for the task of using his opportunity? She was still gay, still amused and self-confident; but there was a doubt in her eyes. She wanted to know more. She wanted to know all that was still hidden from her. All the same, during the whole of her questioning of Gaga's ultimate aspirations, she never once lost the consciousness that the next step lay with herself. Was she going to give him that necessary confidence?

"Oh, I think so," thought Sally, deliberately; and smiled almost to laughter as she lay with her face upon the pillow and was aware of the whole of her warm body, from the tip of her nose to her round heels and the eager fingers bunched close to her breast. "I think so...." she repeated, with more humorousness. She had a vision of Gaga with his chocolate eyes glowing into her own as the result of the wine and his proximity to herself. She saw his thin lips stretched, and the faint red under his grey cheeks, and his thin hair. She felt his lips clumsily kissing her ear, the nervous clutching of his arms. Sally was pleased. She knew that sleep was almost upon her, and heard Mrs. Minto's deep breathing a foot away from the back of her head. Yawningly, she snuggled more comfortably into her pillow, and as consciousness slipped away a distant murmur seemed to repeat: "Yes ... yes.... I ... think so." In a mood of expectant triumph she slept, sure for the moment of the course of future events.

xviii

All the next day Sally's nerves were on edge. She had slept heavily, and had awakened unrefreshed. She had made her way to Madame Gala's in a tame morning mood, once again self-distrustful, very much waiting upon events. The sight of Nosey checking the times of arrival, and still more the gloomy aspect of a half-empty workroom, chilled her. Miss Summers looked spiteful, Rose Anstey was sniffling with a cold, the others were listless and tired. It was a muggy morning, and all spirits were low. Sally's were lower than any others in the room. She began to work with only half her ordinary attentiveness, broke her cotton, snapped a needle, fidgetted. Her eyelids were hot, and she felt a headache begin to throb faintly in promise of greater effort later in the day. She was restless and wretched, looking at the door which probably hid Gaga. Even the memory of last night's kisses was stale and unsatisfactory. As she drew her breath in a half-sob, Sally longed suddenly for Toby. She longed for his strong arms, his possessive air, his muscular strength. And as she thought of Toby a tear came to her eye, and she felt that life was not worth living. A consciousness of childish need for support destroyed all her confidence at a blow. How she hated all these stupid girls! How she longed for something—she could not imagine what—which should take her out of their company. Complaint filled her mind. Why should she have to work, to go backwards and forwards between the workroom and that miserable home where her mother stewed incessantly and followed the course of her monotonous days? It was a mood of pure reaction, but it made Sally desperate. Her head began to ache more noticeably. She was almost crying.

That, perhaps, was the condition of them all. None of the girls spoke, and all looked black and miserable as they bent over their work, or slacked and glanced around them. Outside, the rain began to fall, and the sky was grey with cloud. The lights had to be switched on, and they cast a deceptive glow upon all work, and idiotic shadows of the moving fingers of the girls. Miss Summers glowered and rubbed the tip of her nose; and at each crack or rustle of a chair or a piece of material she glanced sharply up, as though she were fighting with an impulse to scream. Sally felt that if Miss Summers had screamed they would all have screamed. She herself was tempted to scream first, so as to see what would happen. She thought that all work would be instantly thrown down, and that everybody would answer her cry, and then begin noisily to sob. Even miserable as she was, the thought of this avalanche of feminine excitability made Sally snuffle with amusement. She pictured Gaga running out of his room, distraught, looking yellow and bilious, his eyes staring wildly out of his head, as do the eyes of prawns. And then? And then Rose Anstey would fall bellowing into his arms, and Sally would tear her away, and claim Gaga before them all....

How astounded he would be! But anything would be better than this wretched suppressed exasperation which was making the atmosphere of the workroom unbearable. Fortunately a girl finished the work she was doing, and took it to Miss Summers.

"Very bad!" snapped Miss Summers. "It's not even straight! You must do it again. Naughty girl, to waste that silk like this!"

The girl began weakly to cry. All the others stared viciously at her, gloating over her distress, hating her, and thankful to have some object at which to discharge their suppressed venom. They would have liked to beat her. Savagery shone in their malignant eyes. All became sadistic in their enjoyment of the weeping girl as she crept back to her place. Only Miss Summers grew rather red, and swallowed quickly, and was ashamed.

"Nancy!" she called. "What is it? Aren't you well?"

Nancy put her head upon her outstretched arms, and they could hear the long dreadful sobs that shook her body. Upon every face Sally read the same message; the curled lips, the pinched nostrils, all indicated the general strain.

"We're all like that this morning, Miss Summers," she said, almost with defiance. "It's the weather. That's what it is."

The other girls all turned from Nancy and transferred to Sally their mounting malevolence. They would have liked to see her swept from her place. They could have scratched and bitten her with fury. And yet, a moment or two after she had spoken, there was a perceptible relief. Nancy stole out of the room, to finish her cry and bathe her face, and one of the girls—her friend—went after her. There was a pause in work. A window was opened, and some air lightened the oppression. Sally remained seated, while the others crowded to the window, and slowly recovered her own composure. And then, in five minutes, when everybody resumed, it was found that things were not so bad after all, and Nancy's work was rectified, and Rose Anstey blew her nose and looked disagreeable, and some of them talked; so that presently all became more animated, and the sky lightened, and the day was less trying. Only Sally's head continued to ache, and her spirits to falter. But she no longer sighed for Toby. A curious dread of him came into her consciousness, which she could not understand. She was afraid. She felt defensive towards him, and explanatory. Under her attention all sorts of impulses were at work. Pictures of Toby in different circumstances began to flash into her mind, always blurring in an instant; while the memory of her dinner with Gaga grew stronger and more remarkable. Not knowing what she was doing, Sally pushed her work away, and sat in a brown study, until she became aware that she was under observation.

Sally met these cruel stares with immediately assumed equanimity, and she once more drew the work towards her; and in a few moments the girls forgot Sally, and chattered a little together. And by the time their attention was withdrawn wholly it was the luncheon interval which meant more to all of them than usual, since it once more gave the girls an opportunity for standing up and moving about. They grouped, and went slowly towards the room where they always ate; and Sally was able to open the other door for an instant, only to discover that Madam's room was empty. With a sinking heart she followed the others, again beset by a loss of confidence.

In the afternoon she was sent out by Miss Summers to match some silk, and this gave Sally relief without which she must have ended the day feeling ill. As it was she came back just as they were making tea, and her own cup of tea sent the headache away. For the first time that day, Sally heard herself laughing. She was telling Muriel of a fight between two dogs, and how a man had been overthrown in the mud through trying to part the dogs; and when Muriel laughed Sally laughed also, which made the other girls prick up their ears and grow more lively. There was a great change in the general atmosphere after tea. The constraint disappeared, and everybody became more normal. Needles were more adroitly used; the light improved; a general air of contentment arose. Sally no longer thought of Toby, or of Gaga. She was making a dream for herself, out of a motor car she had seen, and a handsome soldier, and the way a commissionaire had stepped out of her way. She needed few materials for her dream, and was a fine lady for the rest of the afternoon.

Dreaming, however, has its penalties; and for this occasion Sally was punished by having to stay rather late in order to finish what she was doing. The other girls began to go home; but Sally and Miss Summers remained at their tasks. The delay produced a strange experience for Sally, because when they were alone together Miss Summers began abruptly to talk. She hummed a little at first, and then broke into a long speech which had been seething all day in her mind.

"I hope you don't think I was nasty to Nancy this morning, Sally. She's a funny girl. She's in love, you know; and thinks of nothing but this man. And he's a married man, too, and not a good man, Sally. He'd think nothing of leading a girl like Nancy into doing wrong, and leaving her to get on as well as she can. Well, that's not right, Sally." Miss Summers felt for her handkerchief, and Sally noticed with astonishment that there were tears in her eyes. "You see, when a man's married he ought to be careful what he does. Now once, when I was a girl, I'd got my head full of the sort of things that young girls have—not you, Sally; you're too sensible;—and I met a man, and thought he was the ... well, I thought he was the finest man in the world. He wasn't. He'd got a poor wretched wife that he neglected, and he drank, and when he ran away they found he'd been betting with money that didn't belong to him. And he very nearly took me with him. Fortunately, I didn't go. I was afraid to go—though I didn't know about his wife. He said he'd marry me when we got away. Well, I thought it was funny. I said, 'Why not before?' and he said, 'You don't understand. What if we didn't suit each other?' I said, 'Why shouldn't we? Other people get married.' And all that sort of thing I said. Well, I wanted to go, and wanted to go; and at last I didn't, and I was thankful afterwards. Now Nancy's man is a shopwalker somewhere. He's got no money, but he's good-looking, you know, and girls think a lot of that when they're young; and also he's one of those men who give a girl the idea that he can have twenty others if he wants them. That's what upsets a girl. She thinks she's got to make her mind up in a hurry, or lose him, d'you see?"

"More fool she," remarked Sally. "Pooh!"

"So I say. Mind, in Nancy's case, she's just in love. He may not want her. She doesn't know. And it's the uncertainty that keeps her like this. Far better if she married some steady young fellow who'd make her a good husband. But girls don't think of that. They don't like steady fellows, any more than young fellows like steady girls."

"That's true," said Sally, thoughtfully. "They want a bit of ginger."

"Well, sometimes I think nobody ought to marry until they're well on in life."

"They'd miss a lot," Sally murmured.

"Eh? Well, it's a puzzle to me. Look at Nancy. What is it she wants? She's got forty or fifty years more to live."

"But you don't think like that," breathed Sally. "It's love."

Miss Summers gave a great sigh, and rubbed the tip of her nose with the back of her forefinger. She was seriously perplexed at the interruption from one so sagacious.

"You'll think twice before you marry for just love, and nothing else," said she.

Sally's little white face was turned away. She was apparently concentrated upon her work.

"Perhaps I shall," she admitted. "You never know what you'll do till the time comes."

"You can make up your mind to be careful," said Miss Summers. "It's not the first man who makes the best husband."

Sally crouched in her place. Her heart was beating so fast that she felt as though she were suffocating. Miss Summers could not appreciate the effect of her words, because she had gone back again to the subject of Nancy and her married shopwalker.

"You ought to have seen that child's work to-day!"

"Perhaps she's going to have a baby?" suggested Sally. It gave Miss Summers a great shock.

"Oh! D'you think so?" she exclaimed, her eyes wide open with horror. "Oh, no!"

"You'd have thought they were all going to have 'em, the way the girls all looked and acted this morning. They were all potty. Silly fools."

Miss Summers gave a sigh of relief, and then she laughed a little.

"We were all rather grumpy this morning," she admitted. "It's the weather. Always upsets people. Doctor Johnson said it didn't."

"Who's he? Doctors don't know anything at all. Only take advantage of other people's ignorance. They frighten people, you know, looking wise, and making you put out your tongue, and all."

"I don't know what we should do without them," sighed Miss Summers. "Of course, there's always the patent medicines; but I never found anything that cured my indigestion."

"Only chewing prop'ly," grimly suggested Sally.

Miss Summers abruptly rolled up her work at this unsympathetic remark, and took off her pinafore. She stood uncertainly by the window.

"I've been keeping you," she said. "But I am worried about that child. I do hope she hasn't been silly. At her age they've got no sense at all. They can't see an inch before their nose. You coming now, Sally? All right, slam the door after you.... Don't stay too late."

Ten minutes afterwards Miss Summers had gone. Sally waited a little while, to give her time to reach the street and remember anything that might bring her back. Then, very quietly, she took off her own pinafore, and stole across the room and listened at Gaga's door. She could hear nothing. Sharply, she tapped, and listened again.

"Come in!" said a voice.

Sally opened the door, standing there in her grey dress, with her hair brilliant, and her whole face smiling. And Gaga, looking up from his work, saw her thus as a vision, a happy vision for tired eyes. He smiled in return and Sally advanced, without any shyness or assumed shyness, into the room.

"Wondered if you were here," she said cheerfully. "Everybody else has gone. Miss Summers and all. I'm working on something. Oo, hasn't it been a day! The girls all had the fidgets. I've been quite ill all day."

"Ill?" demanded Gaga. "Not ... not really ill? Oh, I'm.... I'm so sorry. Poor Sally!"

"Headache," mentioned Sally, rather lugubriously, so as to encourage his pity.

"Headache? Oh, poor little girl! So have I."

Sally gave a little laugh. It contained all sorts of provocative shades of meaning.

"Hn," she said. "Funny us both having headaches. You still got yours?"

Gaga nodded. She went farther towards him, hesitated, and then still nearer.

"Very bad," groaned Gaga, and Sally could see the heaviness round his eyes.

"I'm so sorry," she said in a soft voice. Then: "My hand's cool. Shall I?" She put her hand to Gaga's forehead, and felt how burning it was. She felt him grow rigid at the contact, and saw his face betray his sensitiveness to her touch. Sally's smile deepened in mischief. She was playing with him, playing with fire and Gaga at the same time, and only lightly amused at her employment. But she was still apart from him, standing erect, with her right arm outstretched. There was not yet any intimacy in her attitude. Nor could she see his face very plainly without peeping over her arm.

"That better?" she asked.

"Beautiful." Gaga tried to move his head. Failing, he put his hand to her wrist, pulled it down, and pressed his lips to her fingers.

"Now, now!" warned Sally. "I'm curing your headache."

Mildly he permitted the withdrawal of her hand and its replacement upon his brow. But in a moment Sally, perhaps growing more daring, exchanged her right hand for her left; and this meant approaching Gaga more closely, and the partial encirclement of his head with her arm. She was quite near him, as Gaga must have known; but he did not dare to put his arm round her, as he might easily have done. Sally, so experienced, guessed at his temptation, at his fear, and relished both. She was also aware of a singular tenderness towards him, a protective, superior wisdom that made Gaga seem to be a child in his trepidation. To her an embrace meant so much less than it meant to him, and she knew quite well that a flirtatious man would have recognised the game that was in progress and risked a rebuff because of the successive return. Sally was still so far from deliberately exploiting Gaga that she did not feel impatient at his slowness. She savoured it, appreciating the fact that he shrank, knowing that when she wanted him to do anything she could always manage Gaga with the lightest touch. And that was why, in a moment, she allowed herself contact with his shoulder. Gaga's arm mechanically rose, and was about her waist, quite unpossessively. His face was moved with a conflict of emotions. Sally recognised temptation and self-consciousness, and also with amusement, a sense of his own incomparable daring.

"You are a devil, aren't you!" she whispered. Instantly she knew that she had made a mistake. His arm relaxed. It was only when she drew his aching head to her breast that she recovered her mastery of him. It was the only mistake she had made, and it was at that time the last, for she learnt at once that he was sensitive to ridicule. She had stepped too far, and had thereby, for a moment, endangered her sport. She was smiling again, but she had breathed quickly, at the knowledge of danger.

"How's the head?" she asked. "My hand's getting hot."

"Very bad," answered Gaga, dreading her withdrawal.

"Let me get a wet handkerchief."

"No, no. Don't move. I.... I don't want you to move."

Unconsciously, Sally gave a little sigh. It was all so easy, so much a question of his being content with whatever she gave, that the adventure was fading. It was ceasing to amuse her.

"That's enough," she said. "Now I'm going home." She did not move, and Gaga's clasp tightened.

"No," he murmured entreatingly. "Not yet."

"Must go." She took her hand away from his forehead, lingeringly. Gaga held her to him with rigidity. "Let me go." He took no notice, and Sally's hand rested gently upon his shoulder. At last: "Well?" said she.

"Don't go."

There was the slightest struggle, and Sally was free. Gaga's face was quite red. She stood looking down at him, on her lips that same quizzical smile. Gaga could not bear it. He rose quickly, and at her flight followed breathlessly. She was again lightly imprisoned, her head to his breast, and his arms giving small convulsive pressures as he sought to retain her. She could tell his physical weakness, and his feeble, excited desire for her, and she felt his face pressed to her hair. Again Gaga kissed Sally, but she continued to withhold her lips, so that he approached no nearer than her cheek.

"You ... you must know I love you," breathed Gaga.

"Do I?" asked Sally, coolly. "I don't. Why should I?"

"Can't you tell?" He was speaking directly into her ear, so that she felt his breath. "I love you ... like this!" He held her with all his strength, and gave her cheek a fevered, gnawing kiss. "D'you see, Sally? I love you."

"How's your headache?" asked Sally.

"I ... oh, Sally. Better ... better. But Sally! I love you. Don't you love me a little? Sally!" There was a long silence. Consideringly, Sally looked down, faintly excited, but unemotional. He vainly sought to achieve a mutual kiss; but she kept her head turned away. Strange! Her brain was perfectly clear! She was aware of every contact with him, knew his every wish; and was unmoved. How different it was from when she was with Toby! Gaga's voice resumed: "I think you ... love me a little, Sally, my dear, my angel."

"Angel! Good lord!" ejaculated Sally. She put her hands to his breast, forcing him a little away. "D'you think I'm an angel?"

"Yes!" came defiantly from Gaga.

"You're mad!" cried Sally, with contempt. "You don't know what you're talking about. And even if you are in love with me, as you say, what does it mean? You'd soon get tired of me. You'd begin to think I wasn't an angel. What's the good of it all?"

Gaga looked astounded.

"But if you love me," he stammered.

Sally's face was darkened. She had tears in her eyes, and her mouth was thin and hard. There was altogether a hardness in her expression that terrified Gaga.

"Even if I did," she said in a grim voice.

"But we could be married," he urged.

Married! Sally's heart gave a jump. Her cheeks were suffused. Married! She could hardly conceal her amazement. He had flown right past her expectation by that single word. Sally was aghast, forced to exercise all her self-control to prevent him from seeing how staggered she was.

"Married!" she said, deprecatingly. "What would you want to marry a girl like me for?" But as she spoke she no longer meant the words which had been conceived in honesty. A storm of temptation was upon her. Married to Gaga! Why, nothing could stop her! Married to him, she would be unassailable. It was not to be believed.

"Because I love you. Sally, do say 'yes.'" He was beseeching. His grey face was flushed, his lips eagerly parted, his eyes radiant. Gaga seemed transfigured. And his embrace was strengthened each instant by his vehement desire for her.

"You love me?" Sally's voice had become thick and stupid as she struggled to maintain her clearness of judgment in face of this overwhelming proposal.

"Say 'yes,'" urged Gaga. "Say 'yes.' It would be so wonderful. Sally, I've never ... never been in love before. I've ... never wanted a girl like this. You're so...."

"What am I?" Sally's voice was tender, lingering. The tears came again to her eyes, so touched was she by his earnestness and his gentleness, so puzzled by the unforeseen situation.

"So lovely," Gaga breathed. His lips came nearer, and she did not withdraw. He kissed her mouth at last, and again; and at her response the kiss became long and possessive. "You lovely girl," he went on. "We'll be married ... and ... and so happy."

"I don't know," cried Sally. "I don't know."

"Dear!" he begged.

"I'm not sure. Perhaps you'll be sorry to-morrow that you asked me. Will you? Sorry? Such things have been known to happen." Her voice was quite hard, because her temptation was so great.

"I'll never change. I love you."

"I wonder." Sally shook her head. "I'll tell you to-morrow." She was still dubious, suspicious.

"Let me get a license."

Sally's heart jumped again. He had once more surprised her, and she had supposed herself altogether beyond surprise. A license! Her quick glance could fathom no deceit, no inconceivable sportiveness in Gaga.

"Oh! You are in a hurry!" she exclaimed, delayingly. "Frightened you will change."

"I'm frightened of losing you."

Sally laughed a little, held up her face, and kissed him. Still she was puzzled.

"To-morrow. But you'll be sorry by then. I won't promise."

She found it not unpleasant to be loved in this fervid, nervous fashion. It amused her. But she was curiously unmoved, and when he had put her into her omnibus Sally breathed almost with relief. Strange to feel that relief after parting from the man you might be going to marry! Sally jerked her head. She remembered suddenly that Miss Summers had said earlier in the day. "You'll think twice before you marry for just love, and nothing else," Miss Summers had said. "You're right, my dear," thought Sally. And then there came galloping into her memory a recollection that made Sally blanch. "It's not the first man who makes the best husband," Miss Summers had said. Not the first man! The reason for Sally's fear was explained. She had known all along why she was afraid and had pressed back the knowledge from her attention, so that it should not interfere with her actions. The first man was Toby; and it was of Toby that she was afraid—of Toby and his love for her; and, more than all, of her strangely smouldering love for Toby.

xix

What had she been doing to forget Toby? Had she forgotten him at all? Somehow Toby had a little faded from her mind in these days, because he was on a voyage longer than usual, and she had not heard from him. Toby, her lover! Only when she had been a little frightened or distressed had she longed for his protective arms. Otherwise he had slipped into a sure place in her self-knowledge. He was the man she loved, strong and rough, the first to capture her heart, and until now the only man to hold her imagination. At the thought of deserting him Sally shrank. She belonged to Toby. Toby belonged to her. She had been going to marry him. If she had not loved Toby she would ruthlessly have shouldered him aside; but she could not do that, because he was her lover. And she was afraid. If once she betrayed him, Toby might kill her. She became terrified at the idea. Men killed their girls for jealousy's sake. She had often read in the papers of what were called "love tragedies."

Sally did not want to die. She wanted to rise to power, to riches. And Gaga offered her the way to attain her ambition. Married to him she could have all, or almost all, she wanted. If she refused him she might lose everything. She might lose her place with Madame Gala, she might.... How harassed she was! It was such a temptation! Gaga, with money, and everything that he could offer; and Toby, with love that she craved, and years of waiting, and a poky house, and his opposition to all she might want to do upon her own account. She had a vision of his lowering face, his savage mouth. She remembered all her joys in his arms. A shudder shook Sally at thought of his vengefulness, his fierce strength. And then, when she was married to Gaga, she would be mistress of so much that she desired. It was a desperate problem. The more she thought of it, the more tormented Sally became.

She was still in active distress when she reached home; and her headache of the morning had returned. Bright colour showed in her pale cheeks, and her eyes were brilliant with excitement. She was at high tension. The first sight of their room, and her mother's squalid figure, produced a violent effect upon Sally's thoughts. Anything to escape from this! Anything! But what of Toby? His strong hands could crush the life out of her. His jealousy would be so unmeasured.... He would kill Gaga. He would kill her. Sally was carried to an extreme pitch of fear. Life was so precious to her. And she loved Toby.

Did she still love him? Did he still love her? They were both older; separation had made each of them less dependent upon the other than they had been at first, and even although her love was jubilant when Toby returned on leave she was no longer the rapturous girl of even a year before. Long and long Sally remained torn between her two desires. She did not sleep at all, but lay turning from side to side and longing for oblivion or the daylight. She had never been so confronted with great temptation and great fear. Her head ached more and more. She could not cry, or sleep, or forget. She lay with open eyes, watching the window for the dawn. And when the morning broke she was still undetermined. The choice was too difficult.

Breakfast was uneatable; her journey to work was a dream. She shrank from going into the workroom, from seeing Gaga. All her confidence had disappeared. She was a bewildered little girl—not eighteen, but a child still without sense of direction. At one minute Toby seemed the only choice to make, but principally because she was afraid of what he might do if she married Gaga; and when she forgot her fear she no longer hesitated between love and ambition. She argued that she no longer loved Toby. She never once considered her feeling for Gaga. She hardly thought of him, or of what marriage to him might mean. Her eye was all to the consequences. It was so throughout, whether she thought of Toby or his new rival. All her thoughts were anticipations.

As she sat at work she began to lose fear of Toby. She felt she could always manage him, explain to him. She pretended that they would be friends; though the thought of Toby married to another girl gave her a sharp horror. If she married, it was different. She did not imagine what Toby might feel—only what he might do. She was thus the complete egoist. Not Toby's happiness or unhappiness was implicated; but only her own dominant desire. If she had still been unsatisfied in her love for Toby, she might have valued him more; but she knew all that he could teach her of love, and already her strong eagerness for him was becoming old and accustomed. The one restraint she had was fear of what he might do; and that fear was beginning to decline in face of stronger impulses towards the opportunity which marriage with Gaga would produce. And just in this crucial stage of her reflections came a most striking fresh influence. It was brought by Miss Summers, who returned from the telephone with a solemn expression upon her face.

"Sally," she said. "Come here." When Sally approached her, Miss Summers pretended to give some instructions; but in reality, under her breath, she murmured: "Sally, don't tell the other girls; but Madam's worse this morning. Her temperature's 103." Her warning frown emphasised the meaning of the words. It made Sally's heart begin to beat fast. Madam ... Madam....

With her head low, Sally bent over her work. But that frown had brought decision to her mind. She would marry Gaga. It was so important that she should not miss this chance that she would marry him at once. She must do so. It was essential. What if he had grown frightened?

That was her new spur of fear. Toby was forgotten. She was on fire for the marriage. It had now become the only conclusion to her doubts. She must take the earliest opportunity of seeing Gaga, of conveying her acceptance, of making sure of him. Her fingers trembled, so important did time now seem to Sally. Her one anxiety was lest she should have to kindle his eagerness anew. Troubled but resolute, she tried in vain to work. Every sound made her start. All her attention was distracted from the sewing and concentrated upon the possibility of an interview with Gaga. Yet a shyness made her afraid to leave her place and go into Madam's room. The other girls would notice. What if they did? They would soon know that they could not treat her with anything but humility. She would have untold power over them. Sally almost recoiled from the knowledge of what power she would wield in the business once she was Gaga's wife. It seemed to her incredible. Her mind strayed to Miss Summers, Miss Rapson, the jealous Rose.... How would they like it? What would they do? Sally imagined the news reaching them, imagined their fear of her, their jealousy, their cutting remarks about herself. And she laughed, knowing that she would be out of reach of any of the harm that they might wish her.

While she was thus contemplating a development, the door of Gaga's room opened, and he came quickly into the workroom. Sally's heart seemed to stop beating. She felt sick with dread. He wore a flower in his buttonhole. His first glance was for Sally, as her own lightning scrutiny showed. He was white, but he smiled. His eagerness of inquiry was manifest. Sally could not help smiling in return, although she was trembling, and knew that he too must be trembling. She gave the faintest possible nod, and saw the colour start to his cheek. Gaga was checked for an instant in his progress. His smile broadened, his head was thrown back. At that moment he looked almost like a determined man, so vividly did Sally's nod cause a new ichor of confidence to run in his veins.

xx

On a bright morning about ten days later, Sally lay in bed watching her mother prepare the breakfast upon their oil stove. Although the year was in its last months it was still warm and sunny, and Mrs. Minto clambered about the room half-dressed, with her grey hair hanging behind in ragged tails. With her bodice off she looked more than ever meagre, her thin face sharper and greyer than of old, and her movements more uncertain. As Sally watched her mother she realised that the unsightly walls and battered furniture were just of a piece with the creeping figure. What she did not understand was that Mrs. Minto was so used to the furniture, which she had known during the whole of her married life, that she did not recognise its dilapidation. But Sally had no time for thought of her mother. She was excited. Her tongue came out between her teeth, and she looked at the ceiling. At last, in a laconic voice, she said:

"Ma!" Mrs. Minto glanced wearily at her. Sally considered her speech with a further smile, so that Mrs. Minto became irritated, and went on with her preparations in a rather indignant way. "Ma," resumed Sally, relishingly, "I shan't be home to-night."

Mrs. Minto started. She became instantly alert.

"Oh yes you will, my girl," she cried sternly. "None o' that!"

"Yes, I shan't be home to-night," repeated Sally. "Nor to-morrow night, either."

Mrs. Minto left her work and came to the bedside. She was like a snarling bitch, savage over her threatened young.

"Sally!" she exclaimed, in a rough voice. "What you doing! What d'you mean? Of course you'll be home. You're not going to play any tricks with me, my gel."

"I shan't be coming home," continued Sally. "Not ever. I'm getting married to-day."

Mrs. Minto sat down upon the bed.

"Married!" she screamed. "Married! Why, who you going to marry! What d'you mean? Silly girl, trying to frighten me!"

"Don't get excited, ma. I'm going to look after you. The fact is, I'm ... well, you'll be all right. Nothing to worry about."

"Who is he?" demanded Mrs. Minto. "Who is he?" She was desperately agitated. "Sally, I'm your mother.... Oh, you bad girl! You been hiding.... I knew you was hiding something. I knew where them fast frocks was leading you!"

Sally was enjoying the scene. But she suddenly checked herself.

"Ma, I'm marrying a rich man. I'm marrying Madam's son."

"Madam's son!"

"Yes." She was complacent. "Those fast frocks lead to the registry office."

"Reg.... Not in church? It's.... Sally!"

"What I say," cried Sally.

"A rich man!"

"Mr. Bertram. And what's more he loves me. And you won't have to do any more charing. Only sit here and gorge yourself on the police news, like a lady, and...."

"Married!" gasped Mrs. Minto. She gave a foolish giggling laugh, and the tears ran down her cheeks. "Is it true, Sally?"

Sally held up her left hand, brought it blazing from under the bedclothes. Mrs. Minto seized the hand, squeezed it hard, and pored over the brilliants.

"Well!" she exclaimed. Then she shook her head, and wiped the tears from her cheeks. A great sobriety appeared in her expression. Anxiety was her dominating concern. "D'you love him, Sally? You ought to have told me. I ought to have seen him. He hasn't asked for you. He ought to have come and asked your mother."

"Madam's ill. I told him I'd tell you. You got to give your consent, 'cause I'm so young. He's got no time to get away. I'm very fond of him, and he thinks I'm...." Sally hoisted her shoulders. She had spoken very deliberately.

"You said he was soppy."

Sally turned a cold eye upon her mother.

"You got too good a memory," she remarked. "What I've said to you.... Well, I knew you'd worry about him, and think I was going to get into trouble, and.... Anyway, we're getting married this morning, and going for our honeymoon this afternoon."

"Where you going?"

"In the country. Penterby. It's on the river, near the sea. You get to the sea in no time. Ga— Bertram— Bert says it's lovely. Quiet, and ... you know, you can get about."

"Married! I can't believe it!"

"I'll show you my certificate, when I get it. Don't you believe me?"

Mrs. Minto sat quite still upon the bed for a minute, her face intensely pale. She seemed unable to say anything more. Then, very slowly indeed, she recovered the power of motion, and rose wearily to her feet. She did not look at Sally, but kept her eyes away. She stood upright, and took two or three steps. But as she paused again her emotion became overwhelming, and she clutched feebly at the bedrail. With her head resting upon both thin arms she began to cry aloud—great turbulent sobs which shook her whole body.

"My baby! My baby!" she wailed noisily. "Oh, what shall I do! My baby!"

Sally's lips quivered. She tried to smile. Slowly she crept out of bed, and put her arms round her mother.

"Sh! Sh!" she whispered. "Ma! Ma! You're making me blubber, too. You old fool! It's not a funeral!"

Strange emotion shook Sally as well as her mother. But they were different. A thoughtful pucker came between her brows, and she had a smile that was almost contemptuous.

"Ma!" she repeated, as the sobs remained vehement. "Shut up, ma! Oh, what an old image! Talk about a noise! Anybody'd think it was you who was getting married!"

She had recovered her own nerve. She could not see the future; but her head was cool, and she stared over her mother's shoulder at the sunlight bleaching the outer grime of the neighbouring roofs. In her thin nightgown she looked like a child, and her face was so impish that she seemed to regard her marriage as one more in a long series of good jokes. Her eyes were wide open, and her lips smiling.



BOOK THREE: CONSEQUENCES

i

The Merricks—Sally and Bertram—went for their honeymoon to Penterby, a little South of England town near the sea but not actually upon the coast. The honeymoon was to be a short one, the barest weekend, and so they could not go far from London; and for some reason Gaga could not stand the sea itself. Strong air made him ill, and even sight of rolling waves made him feel sick. Sally, still elated and not as yet very confident or assertive, immediately agreed when he suggested this country town; but she had no real notion of what was in store for her. She was all half-amused trepidation. The scuffled marriage-ceremony, after which the registrar's clerk hurried to call for her for the first time by her new name, was fun to her. It meant nothing: "I, Sarah, Margaret Minto, call on these present...." It was all a part of a game, a rather exciting game; and Gaga was no more to her after the ceremony than he had been before it. He was a tall agitated grey creature, very tremulous and muffled in his speech, and nothing like a husband. What was a husband? How did one feel towards a husband? All Sally knew was that her husband was a stranger. He was one man out of millions of men, no more and no less than the others. The thought that she was binding herself to him for life did not trouble her. It did not enter her head.

Nevertheless, she felt triumph at her wedding ring, and clutched Gaga's arm as they came out of the register office with their two casually-acquired witnesses. They were instantly alone, and walking along the street together in the autumn sunshine, married and excited, but merely two strangers on their way to lunch. And yet that was not quite all, because when they were seated at lunch Sally felt the slightest sensation of flurry at Gaga's possessive stare. She returned it boldly, quite unembarrassed; but across her mind flitted a knowledge which came there of its own accord. He was a weak man, weak in his possessiveness as he had been weak in his stammering; and the possessiveness (which in a strong man might have excited her) gave Sally an uncomfortable sense that Gaga might bother her. She had never realised this. She saw in this instant that he would be jealous, exacting, amorous. She did not love him, and the amorousness of the unloved is a bore. Sally knew she could always deal with Gaga; but she did not want a profusion of excited caresses from him. It was this realisation that gave her a jerk of dismay. It was not that she shrank from him. It was that with her cold little brain she imagined him in a fever about her, fretful, tantalised by her coolness, rebuffed, sulky, ineffably tedious.... As she knew all this her eyes darkened. It was all very well to play with Gaga; but he was now her husband, and that meant an association so constant that in future, so far from tempting him, she would forever be engaged in battles with his exasperating, petty claims to her person and her attention. He would not ever be able to understand her wish to be alone, or to be self-engrossed. Febrile himself, he would be dumfounded at her reserve, which he would take for hostility.

The knowledge came to Sally so unexpectedly that she did not respond to Gaga's unspoken appeals. The frown in her eyes deepened. All round her were the gilded mirrors of the Rezzonico, and the general noise and movement of a busy restaurant. Opposite was Gaga, smiling with a sort of joy which made his long face appear to shine. She could tell that he was almost beside himself with excitement. And she was cool. There was no current of understanding between them. They had neither physical nor spiritual rapport. Slowly Sally's gaze took in all that was revealed in Gaga's face and his nervously extended hands. Slowly a little cruel smile played round her small mouth. She had married him. She was sure of him. But there was a price. He would be a nuisance, a futile nuisance to her. He would demand kisses, he would pry, would watch her, would fuss. He would be a lover with all the empty ardour of the neurotic man. Sally's heart sank. She did not want a restrained lover, because she was young and high-spirited; but this singular trembling possessiveness would soon be intolerable. He would be a nuisance. Again and again the threat pressed itself upon Sally's consciousness.

Men! That was what Sally thought. She had no deliberate mental process. All her intuitions were summarised in the one word. Men! Toby.... Gaga! Gravely, she looked round the restaurant. There were fat men and thin men, dark and fair, ugly and good-looking and negligible. And as she looked at them in turn, puzzled, Sally shrugged her shoulders. She came back to Gaga. She gave him a false, alluring smile, secure in her power to excite him still further; but her gravity was constant. She had glimpsed for the first time a thing which she could not have known before marriage. It was that one married for different reasons, but that one had to endure the disadvantages accompanying any choice. She was not afraid, but she was ruffled. She was ruffled by that exulting possessiveness which shone from Gaga. Had she loved him, her joy might have been comparable with his. If she had loved him and he had seemed not to desire her, Sally's happiness would have been undermined. But in her present coolness, the sense that Gaga was personally inescapable was enough to depress her. He would be a nuisance.

She found it so when they were in the taxicab on their way to Victoria. Her smallness made her unable to stem the torrent of his excited caresses. For a time she submitted to them, still entirely serious. Then a kind of petulant composure enabled her to chill him. Gaga laughed in a sort of giggle, holding Sally's hands, and looking adoringly into her eyes, and trying to kiss her. Instead of giving him kisses, instead of wishing him to kiss her, Sally found herself aware already of a slight repugnance. As she looked forward to spending days and nights with him her heart sank. She was not shocked. She was not afraid. She knew that there would come a time when, after boring her, Gaga's kisses would become troublesome. And it was too late now to withdraw. She was too deeply into her new scheme of life. But this feverish, insatiably amorous, weak Gaga would get on her nerves. So this was what marriage might be. Sally's jaw stiffened. Yes, if she allowed it to be so. But Sally was Sally. Kisses should presently be favours. Gaga should learn his place. A hardness showed. She pushed aside the clinging arms, and sat erect.

"No," cried Sally, sharply, at his convulsive motion of return. "Not now. We're.... People looking at us...."

She did not want to be hard. She did not want to grow hard and bitter. She had seen women who were both, and she disliked them. But with Gaga she would have to be hard. Otherwise he would bore her to desperation. So there was at this moment no longer any softness in Sally's heart towards Gaga. She resented him. As they pushed through the crowd at Victoria, Sally had a sudden impulse to run away. A shudder fled through her. A girl with less resolute will, or perhaps of greater delicacy, would have made some movement. But Sally merely stood with her head lowered, and considered the position. It was not his love that she minded; it was his hysterical possessiveness, the sense that he would always be there and claiming convulsively those small incessant intimacies which accompany marriage. Sally could not put her perception into coherent terms; but she was assured of the fact. Gaga would want too much, and that not in an adorably masterful way, but with exacting and pertinacious excitement bred from his weakness and neurotic avidity. The domination of the weak man would be a tyranny, as it always is. Sally thought: "He'll be a nuisance. I shall want to do him in by the time we get back. Oh, Lor! You done for yourself, Sally, my gel! You come a mucker! Look at your husband! Look at him!" She could see Gaga in the distance, moving agitatedly about a porter and the guard, and tripping over luggage, and interrupting other eager passengers, and stretching his long arm over their shoulders in order to touch the guard. "That's your husband, that is! Man who's lost his head. Man they all love. Fancy living with it for fifty years! Oh, Lor! A whole lifetime. Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days in the year, too. All day, every day! Makes you start thinking!" And she watched Gaga speeding exultantly towards her.

"All right. We've got a first," he panted, quite out of breath. "To ourselves. I've tipped the guard. It's ... it's all right. Come along. This way. Come along!"

"Oo!" cried Sally, with archness. "To ourselves! What a surprise! Strange!" And to herself, returning to her own sober thoughts: "If you did too much thinking you'd lose the use of your legs. And if girls thought a bit before they got marrying, they'd.... Funny! I wonder what they would do!"

ii

What she would herself have done Sally had no time to consider; for they were hurried to their compartment and were locked in by the obliging and amused guard. They then sat demurely upon opposite sides of the carriage until the train began to move. Every time anybody peered in at the window Sally, who had recovered her good spirits, began to laugh; and Gaga was full of consternation. But at last even that anxiety was removed, and in the afternoon sunlight the country began to glow under their eyes and race round in a sweeping circle with an intoxicating effect not to be appreciated by those who are staled for railway travelling. Sally allowed Gaga to embrace her; but she kept her face resolutely turned from him for a long time while she relished her new joy in rushing thus through the increasingly-beautiful districts which bordered the track. It was only when Gaga became expostulatory that she abandoned this pleasure and yielded to his tumultuous affection, with a listlessness and a sense of criticism which was new to her. Silly fool; why couldn't he sit still and be quiet! She belonged to herself, not to him. Almost, she thrust him away from her.

They reached Penterby by four o'clock in the afternoon, and were turned out upon the platform with their two light bags, like the stranded wanderers they were. And then they walked out into the roughly paved road leading through the town to higher land behind, and onward, along a road to which they turned their backs, and which wavered, past the railroad station, up an incline in the direction of the distant sea. Gaga carried both bags, and led the way, and Sally saw for the first time a wide street, and shops and houses quaintly built, and a church spire with houses below it, arranged in terraces, all warm in the dying sun. It was still summer here, she thought, and the atmosphere was pleasant. The houses were not at all crowded, but stood up at the first glance as if they were proud of great age and their height above the road from the station.

"We going up there?" demanded Sally, pointing to the hill, and the houses erect upon it.

"No, darling.... See ... that ... that ... lamp."

Sally looked up at Gaga's face. Oh, if it had only been Toby! The blood suddenly rushed to her cheeks. Toby! She wanted Toby! As quickly, she was chilled by fear. What would Toby do? What would he try to do? Yes, well Toby didn't know yet that she was married. And she was married to Gaga, and she had done this thing with her eyes open. There was no going back. Marriage was a thing you could not repudiate. It was final. The blood flowed away from Sally's face. She was cool again in an instant. Her eyes were fixed upon the lamp which Gaga had indicated, and upon the ivy behind it. Upon a suspended board she read in gold the letters "RIVER HOTEL", and as she appreciated the meaning of this name Sally observed that the street went onward past the hotel over an unmistakable bridge.

"Is that the river?" she asked. "Is the hotel on the river? Where we stay?"

"Yes. You'll see.... You'll like it." Gaga was entreating, now rather frightened by Sally's lack of response to his feverish endearments, already inclined to suspicion and sidelong glances of doubt.

"Sure I shall!" cried Sally, perfectly composed once more. "It's nice. Does the river go just there?"

Gaga became suddenly very enthusiastic. He motioned with the hand in which both small bags were carried. He began to walk at a quicker pace.

"You see the front of the hotel—all ... all ivy. Well at the end the wall goes ... goes right down into the water. And there's a balcony ... all ... all covered with glass, on the first floor. Our room opens on this balcony. You can look right down into the river.

"Is it a nice river?"

He was rather hesitating in face of her sharp tone of inquiry.

"Well, er.... Nice? It's ... it's a tidal river. It flows up and down. In ... in the summer things get carried.... I mean, it's not ... not very clean. It's mud."

"Oo." Sally's little nose wrinkled. "Does it smell? I mean, is it healthy?" But at this new question Gaga looked very perplexed and rather unhappy, so that she quickly abandoned her curiosity about the river, knowing that she would presently be able to satisfy it more effectively by personal observation. Without further speech they came abreast of the hotel, and turned in under the arched entrance. To the left of them was a door with the legend "COFFEE ROOM"; to the right another door above which hung a little sign "HOTEL." It was by this right-hand door that they entered, and it was here, by a glass enclosed bar, that they waited. Upon an extended shelf there was lying a newspaper which had come through the post for some departed visitor. Beyond the bar Sally noticed decanters and bottles and upturned glasses. Before her was another door, open, which revealed a table upon which glasses had left little circular stains. She was all curiosity. This must be the saloon. She gave a sharp mischievous hunching of the shoulders, and hugged Gaga's arm. Then, as a stout woman came out of another room, she grew sedate, and stood free from her husband in case they should be supposed to be upon their honeymoon.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Merrick."

She knew him, then. He was no stranger here.

"Mrs. Tennant.... How ... how d'you do? This.... I've brought my wife with me this time," stammered Gaga proudly. "Sally, this is Mrs. Tennant."

"Pleased to meet you," announced the stout woman. Sally scrutinised her. She had been pretty, but had grown fat. She had puffs round her eyes, and swollen lips, and a cat-like expression of geniality. Behind her agreeable smile there was suspicion of all mankind, suspicion and wariness, due to her constant need of self-control in the difficult business of managing noisy or cantankerous guests. Sally did not like her. "Tabby!" she thought at once. But immediately afterwards she knew that it would be worth while to make a friend of Mrs. Tennant. She gave her little friendly grin, and saw its effect. "That's that," reflected Sally. And it was so. Mrs. Tennant cordially led the way up to the first floor, talking of the weather, and of the number of visitors who were at present staying at the River Hotel.

"Does Mrs. Merrick play?" she asked. "Do you? We've got a very good piano in the drawing-room.... I'm passionately fond of music myself. It's the sorrow of my life I can't play."

Sally grimaced. The drawing-room was glimpsed—a room with settees and big chairs and a strident carpet and antimacassars and small palms in pots. Large windows made it beautifully light. And as she took in these details Sally hurried on, and found herself in a narrow dun-coloured passage, where brown doors with numbers upon them indicated the bedrooms. It was into the second of these rooms that she was led, and in spite of the frowst she looked with eagerness at a further door and windows that opened upon the balcony of which Gaga had spoken. The windows were lace-curtained, but she could see through the curtains to what seemed like a conservatory.

"You see the door opens on to the balcony," explained Mrs. Tennant, while Gaga put down the bags and wiped his hands with his handkerchief. "Looks right across the river. I'm afraid the tide's out now; but when it's up you see all sorts of things floating up and down."

"What sort of things?" demanded Sally, going to the glass sides of the building and peering down at the mud.

"Oh, all sorts...." Mrs. Tennant was a little confused, but conversational. "That old building you see across there is ... well, it used to be a granary; but nobody's used it for a long time. There's a dinghy in the mud over there. It's Mr. Scuffle's...."

Dinghy! Instantly Sally's mind jerked back to a day she had spent with Toby, when he had teased her about her ignorance of boats. Toby! So that was a dinghy! Just like any other boat.

The balcony was empty; but trays still lay upon two of the light iron tables, and a newspaper had been tossed upon the matted floor. All the chairs were of wicker, and in them lay little hard cushions covered with dirtied cretonne. Through the long glass side one could see the slowly-flowing river (for the tide was about to turn), and the already dimming sky, and the houses upon the rising ground that lay beyond the farther bank, and the bridge upon which people were walking. Sally looked up and down the momentarily sinister river. She was afraid of water, afraid of its secrecy and its current; and she turned away from her contemplation with a sense of chill.

"I'm cold," she said, brightly. "Bertram.... Could we have some tea, Mrs. Tennant?"

"Certainly. You'd like a wash? I'll get the tea at once...."

Back in the room, Sally was immediately again embraced. She did not now trouble about Gaga; she was glad of his arms around her, and his breast upon which she could lay her head. Married ... river ... married ... river ... ran her thoughts. And she turned away from Gaga to the washstand, and poured cold water from the ewer into the basin.

"Let me alone...." she laughingly said. "Be ... get away.... I'm going to wash."

And when the water touched her face Sally was alert once more, cleansed and freshened. With tea before her she could face even marriage and that drearily-flowing river and the hideous mud, so thick and so oozily sinister.

iii

On the following day Sally, dogged everywhere by Gaga, was perfectly aware of her contempt for him. Twenty-four hours had been enough to show her the exacting and irritating characteristics of her new husband. Did she stir, he looked up; his hand was ever ready for her hand; those chocolate eyes were eternally suffused with a love that moved Sally to impatience. He did not even amuse her by his calf-like pursuit. All that was ruthless in her rose up and sneered at his weakness and his timid assurance, which had the same effect as one of those horrible streamers of cobweb that catch the face as one walks unwarily along a dusky lane. Only her native resoluteness enabled her to show Gaga a false patience. Only her insensitiveness made his constant caress endurable. Sally blinked sometimes at his grabbing sentimentality; but she already began to slip neatly aside and avoid his carefully-planned contacts. She was not yet hard or perverse.

And while Gaga lay down in the afternoon, as she found he was in the habit of doing, in order that his physical strength might last through the day, Sally found the empty drawing-room and with often-strained ears began the difficult task which she had set herself. Below her was the thick, powerful current of the now sinking river, laden with refuse which flowed backwards and forwards past the hotel; and upon the windows and casual brightnesses of the tall houses on the hill across the river she could see the crystal sparkling of reflected sunshine. She had a feeling that all about Penterby was open green country, sometimes flat, but always in the distance crowned and adorned with hills; and she knew the brown of the river and the mud, and the green slime which decorated the wall opposite. It was unforgettable. She would always think of it. And her task was the writing of a letter to Toby. She had planned to write to him upon this day—the first free day of her married life; and she was bent upon keeping to her plan. He must be told at once, and yet as she held the pen above a sheet of plain paper she was stunned by the extraordinary difficulty of the composition. Only then, for the first time, did she grasp the definiteness of the step she had taken. She would never see Toby again. Never? Never—never—never. Sally's eyes filled with tears. A thick, painful sob forced its way through her. Never.

She began to write. She put no address, but only, in her plain handwriting, still that of a schoolgirl, the words "My dear." It was at this point that Sally began to discard all the phrases which she had earlier composed in her head. She considered that if she were never to see Toby again it did not matter what he thought of her. The bald announcement would do very well. It was best, and easiest, and safest. And then she knew again that she was afraid of Toby, and of what he might do. She was a true woman in being unable to face a conclusion. She could not imagine that she would never see him again. It was incredible. So incapable was she of realising the fact of a complete break that she thought herself possessed by an instinct that they must meet and continue as before. Sally was much more afraid that he would kill her. It was the reason why she was putting no address at the head of the letter. He must not find her with Gaga. She wrote at last.

"My dear. I have been a bad wicked girl and married another man. Do not try to find me. I shall be all right. Find some other girl, and be happy with her. I shall never be happy without you. My husband is very kind and good. Don't forget me."

At the end of this letter she put no signature, but a single cross to indicate a kiss. Then she addressed an envelope, stamped it, slipped down the stairs and along to the post office. By the time Toby got the letter she and Gaga would no longer be there; and he would not be able to find her afterwards. London was so big. She was afraid of him, and yet she longed to see him again. Five minutes later she was back in the drawing-room, seated at the piano, and singing softly in her clear voice the song that had first so greatly charmed Gaga.

"'Your heart mine, and mine in your keeping, List while I sing to you love's tender song.'"

As she sang, Sally looked up and at the doorway. There, adoringly, stood Gaga, all his love making a radiance in his face which she had not previously seen so distinctly. He came slowly towards her, and as she continued her song he kissed the back of her neck where the hair was brushed up in the first soft incalculable wave. Sally for the first time shrank a little; but she pursued her song unhesitatingly, so schooled was she in her determination that the price she was paying was to be borne.

"'When you and I go down the love path together, Stars shall be shining and the night so fair.'"

"We'll go ... go walking in the moonlight to-night ... shall we?" whispered Gaga. Sally nodded, making her voice quaver by the motion. Gaga could not see her face; but Sally knew that even if he had done so he would have been quite unable to read her thoughts, which were dry and inflexible. He remained by her side until she had finished the song, and then fiercely pressed her head back until he was able by stooping to kiss her lips from above. His hand was under her chin. He kissed her many times, oppressively—little ravenous pecks that were febrile rather than loving; and assertive of his new proprietorship. His kisses left Sally unmoved and slightly frowning. She was surprised at Gaga's simplicity in imagining that any girl valued or could possibly value such ceaseless demonstrative action, such ugly hard little parrot-like caresses.

"Only a soppy kid would," she thought. "She'd like it, I suppose. Think quantity meant love. It doesn't. Like a beak. Silly fool!" And aloud she said quite firmly: "There, that's enough. Shan't have any face left, at this rate. I shall come out in spots. What's the time?"

To soften her words she held and pressed his hand; but only for an instant. Then she rose abruptly from the piano and walked over to the window. With his arm immediately at her waist Gaga followed, like a long, abject greyhound.

"The tide's out," he said, indicating the sun illumined mud by the opposite wall.

"Ugh!" shuddered Sally. "Fancy getting your feet in that stuff! You'd never get out.... Gives me the horrors, it does!" She leaned back into his arms.

iv

They left Penterby by a very early train on the Monday morning, and while Gaga took the two bags to an hotel where the Merricks were to stay for the present Sally went direct to Madame Gala's. She had obtained special permission to be an hour late in the morning, and so she entered the workroom without confusion. It was the same as it had always been—the long benches, and the girls, and Miss Summers sitting apart, as plump and feline as ever. There was, of course, curiosity about Sally. Few of the girls supposed that she had been away with a girl friend, which had been the story; and all looked at her with a knowing suspicion. Only Miss Summers was completely trusting. Sally had slipped off her wedding-ring, and it lay in her purse. She took in the whole scene as she entered, and measured the assumptions of the girls with cool indifference. But she would have done that in any case; for Sally had nothing to learn about workgirls and their thoughts and interpretations, and she had also none of the false self-consciousness which makes wrong-doers imagine that their actions have been providentially revealed to all observers. Had she and Gaga arrived together the case would have been different; but nothing had occurred to make the girls suppose that there was any relation between them, and Sally was perfectly safe from that most dangerous of all recognitions. She was still, to the girls, Sally Minto; and to some of them still the white-faced cocket of Rose Anstey's jealous outburst. Sally looked boldly at Rose as she sat industriously working. Then, with greater stealth, at Miss Summers. That plump face had a solemnly preoccupied expression that gave Sally a faint start of doubt. Immediately, however, she knew that Miss Summers must be worried, not upon Sally's account, but on account of some message respecting Madam which had been received earlier in the morning. This made her seize an excuse to approach Miss Summers.

"How's Madam?" she whispered, surreptitiously.

Miss Summers shook her head with foreboding.

"Still the same. No better; no worse. Sally, I'm afraid."

Sally looked down at Miss Summers. How strangely their relation had been altered by this weekend's doings! Wherever Sally glanced she knew that what she saw was now potentially her own. By the simple act of marrying Gaga she had become, as it were, mistress of the place. And she knew it. She knew it plainly and without swollen conceitedness. Not yet was her power unquestionable; but it was none the less genuine. Even Miss Summers....

"I hope she gets better," said Sally.

Miss Summers shot a quick glance upwards. She started, and a faint redness came into her plump cheeks. The tip of her nose was irritated, and she rubbed it with her knuckle.

"Oh, I do hope so," breathed Miss Summers. "It would be awful—awful for all of us—if she didn't. You see...."

"She'll have to die some time," remarked Sally.

"But now!" The head was shaken afresh. Miss Summers gave a heavy sigh. She had no such youthful confidence as Sally's. She was a born follower, a born sheep; and with Madam removed she could see nothing ahead but disaster to the business. Sally had a little difficulty in keeping back her smile. She thought of this poor old pussycat in fear of her life, and her lip slightly curled at the knowledge that she alone had superior knowledge of the situation. Already Sally was casting round for channels in which her new power might be used. She wanted opportunity. It was both a chagrin and a secret relief to her that Madam could not yet be told of the marriage. If she knew it, and disapproved, as Sally knew that she must do, Madam could at any moment annul Sally's hopes of taking a leading part in the business. She could alter her will. Therefore, if she lived, she must be kept ignorant. It would be a trouble. And yet in spite of her assurance Sally was still suspicious of her own ability to master every detail in time to carry on the whole establishment without a great lapse into momentary failure. She planned as a middle-aged woman. At eighteen her plans were profound. But instinctively, and in spite of colossal conceit, she understood that eighteen was not an age at which control can successfully be taken of a large business. Therefore she was fighting against unacknowledged fear.

During that day she hardly saw Gaga at all. He was at home with his mother, and did not come to business until the afternoon. Only in the evening did she creep into his room and submit to his endearments. She then left, and went to the hotel at which for the present they were to stay; and here, in the little sitting-room attached to their bedroom, she was for the first time able to be alone for half-an-hour with her post-nuptial reflections. They were not all pleasant, and they called for the exercise of her natural resoluteness. She had comfort, and the knowledge that she need never again trouble about food and clothing. But she also knew that a husband is a different sort of person from a lover. He seemed to her to be a sort of omnipresent nuisance. Her trouble was that thoughts and ambitions were in conflict with Gaga's amorousness. He could never understand her. He could understand her no better than Toby, and as she had no use for him otherwise than as the instrument of her ambition, she was already, within two days of marriage, bored with him. Sally awaited Gaga's arrival with calm unwillingness. She did not realise how rapid would be her instinctive progress to repugnance; but she had no illusions about her marriage.

At last Gaga arrived, his own eagerness unabated, but he was still shaken by the fact that his mother was seriously ill. With Sally in his arms he whispered or murmured alternately professions of love and anxiety. She was all the time secretly astonished at his devotion to Madam, because it corresponded to nothing in her own nature; but she comforted Gaga because it was her impulse to do so. She did not dislike him in this mood. She felt pity for him. It was only for his tremulous persistency in caress that Sally felt contempt. Gradually she began to be able to divert his mind to other matters—to their own future, and the flat they were to take and to furnish; and to the plans they must make for a slow change of her position in the business. Already Sally was obtaining a grasp of the details, but she could go little further until her access to the books and accounts was free. She could do nothing until some scheme had been made. So the two sat together after dinner and discussed what they were to do, and where they were to live, and how the rooms of the flat were to be furnished. It was all, upon Sally's side, practical and clear; and for Gaga a wonderful revelation of Sally's wisdom. He became more and more infatuated, as Sally became more and more cool. And they talked the whole evening through, without realising that with each moment Sally's dominion was more firmly established.

It was only towards the end of the evening that Gaga, unhinged by excitement, became desperately pale, and confessed to a headache. He found his customary drugs, and took them. But to Sally this headache was a new and emphatic indication of Gaga's troublesome temperament. Ugliness and squalor she knew; but sickliness was new to her. In face of a groaning and prostrate man, she turned away. Her heart sank a little. Then, with a shrug, she turned to the advertisements of flats to let in London which she found in various newspapers; and made notes of the addresses of house agents. This occupation she continued until Gaga called almost fretfully from the next room, when she turned off the electric light and joined him. An hour later, while Gaga still lay staring into the darkness, Sally was fast asleep. She had no dreams. For the present she was occupied with facts alone; and she did not suspect that she was unhappy, because she had been absorbing too many details to be able to reflect upon the sinking of her heart and its meaning.

v

The next evening Sally went to see her mother. Her first object was to get Mrs. Minto away from the room in which they had lived; because it was essential that if Toby came back, as she believed he could not do for some days, he should be unable to trace Sally or her mother. It was for fear of Toby that the removal was to be made. Once get Mrs. Minto away, to some other part of North London, and Toby might seek news of Sally in vain. Only if he came and waited outside Madam's would he be able to find her; and in that case she could still baulk him, as she was going to stay late every evening for the future in order to work with Gaga. But first of all, Sally must arrange to get her mother out of the old house. She would not want to go. She must go. She would pretend that she could keep herself. She would show the stubborn pride of many old people of the working class, who will work until they kill themselves rather than accept charitable doles. Very well, Sally knew that Mrs. Minto could not keep herself; and she knew also that these same old people have no similar delicacy in taking from their children's earnings. She was going to explain that she was still working, and that what Mrs. Minto would receive came from Sally herself, and not from Sally's husband. And she would herself find a room for her mother in Stoke Newington, a suburb which is farther from Holloway than many more distant places for the reason that no dweller in Holloway has any curiosity about Stoke Newington or any impulse to go there as an adventure.

Sally found Mrs. Minto in a familiar attitude, stooping over a very small fire; but as she ran up the stairs very softly, with a nervous dread of Toby, she had no conception of the welcome which awaited her. She opened the door and went into the dingy room, and stood smiling; and to her great surprise she saw her mother rise almost wildly and come towards her. Two thin arms pressed and fondled her, and a thin old cheek was pressed hard against her own. To herself Mrs. Minto was ejaculating in a shivering way: "My baby, my baby!" Only then did Sally understand how much the separation had meant to her mother. She herself had never once thought of that lonely figure at home.

"Poor old thing!" Sally found herself saying. "Was she lonely then?" She patted her mother's bony shoulders, and hugged her, affected by this involuntary betrayal of love. Mrs. Minto had never been demonstrative. "I wish I'd brought you something, now. A present. I never thought of it."

"Is it all right? Are you happy, my dearie?" demanded Mrs. Minto, with a searching glance.

"I knew what I was doing, ma," proclaimed Sally. "There's not much I don't know."

It was an evasion; a confession of something quite other than the happiness about which she had been asked.

"Ah, that's what I was afraid of...." breathed her mother. "That's what young people always think. You don't know nothing at all, Sally."

"I know more'n you do!" It was a defiance.

"You think you do. Why, you're only a baby...." Mrs. Minto shook her head several times, with lugubrious effect. But her last words had been full of a smothered affection, more truly precious than a hundred of Gaga's kisses or a dozen of Toby's animal hugs.

"In your days I should have been." Sally withdrew herself, and led her mother back to her chair. "Not know! Why, the girls know a lot more now than they used to when you was a girl. No more timid little creatures."

"They only think they know more," declared Mrs. Minto, trembling. "And it takes 'em longer to find out they don't know nothing at all. It takes a lot of time to get to know. You're in too much of a hurry, my gel. You don't know nothing. Nothing whatever, for all your talk of it. I been thinking about it all these days—frantic, I've been."

"All these years!" jeered Sally. "Look here, ma.... Here's my marriage license!" And as she spoke she waved the folded paper before her mother's eyes in such a way that it fell open and showed the official entries. Even as she did this so lightly, Sally was able to catch the sharply hidden expression of relief which crossed Mrs. Minto's face at the reassurance. She made no pretence of misunderstanding. "Say I don't know anything?" she demanded. "Think I don't know enough for that? Silly old fool? What did I tell you? There's about twenty million things I know that you don't know. And never will know, what's more. Wake up! I tell you one thing, ma. The people who don't know think a lot worse than the people who do. They fancy more. See? It's a little way they got. All goes on inside their heads, and shakes about. People like me haven't got time to think a lot of muck. We do things ... and do them thorough."

Mrs. Minto, reproved, sank into contemplation.

"Well, I don't know, Sally," she went on, after a pause. "You talk a lot. I'd rather think than talk. You say he's rich. Sometimes girls get left."

"Not me, though," Sally assured her. "Soppy ones do. I'm not soppy. And I'll tell you what. I'm going to get you out of this place."

"I ain't going to live with you and him!" declared Mrs. Minto in alarm. "I wouldn't!"

"No. You're going to live somewhere else. I want you to get away from here. You're going to have two decent rooms ... in Stoke Newington. Real paper on the walls, and a carpet, and new mattress that isn't like two horse troughs."

"I won't take nothing from him."

"No. From me. Out of my wages."

"You ain't going to have.... Don't be silly. I'm well off where I am."

"I'm going to keep on at Madam's. I'm going to have plenty money. And you're going to move. Got it? I'll see about it to-morrow night, get you in Thursday or Friday. Won't take an hour to settle you in. Then you'll be comfortable."

"I'm very well as I am," said Mrs. Minto, obstinately. "I can keep myself. I'm not going to sponge on you. Not likely."

"You'll move Thursday or Friday, I tell you."

It was final. The poor thin little old woman had no fight in her. She looked up at Sally, and her face was the anxious face of a monkey, or of a sick beast that is being tended. Now that she had been comforted about Sally she had nothing left to say. She made a last feeble effort.

"I don't want to move. Mrs. Roberson...."

"Fiddlesticks!"

"My 'ead!"

"Your head'll get better if you keep quiet and have real coal and a bath or two." Sally was imperious, and enjoyingly so. Her spirits had risen. She was a general. She looked down protectingly at her mother, and a ghost of ancient love rose breathing in her heart. "Silly old thing!" she murmured, with a touch of softness; and knelt suddenly. "Got to look after you a bit," she added. "It's you who's the baby now. What a lot of kids people are! Makes me feel a hundred—and over—when I see what fools they are. I'm sorry for you, and that's the truth. You and Miss Summers and Gaga."