THE COMBINED MAZE

 BY MAY SINCLAIR

 AUTHOR OF "THE DIVINE FIRE"

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERSNEW YORK AND LONDONMCMXIII

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HARPER & BROTHERSPRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAPUBLISHED FEBRUARY, 1913

[Illustration: SHE CLOSED HER EYES, AND HIS HOLD TIGHTENED]

THE COMBINED MAZE

CHAPTER I

You may say that there was something wrong somewhere, some mistake, fromthe very beginning, in his parentage, in the time and place and mannerof his birth. It was in the early eighties, over a shabby chemist's shopin Wandsworth High Street, and it came of the union of FulleymoreRansome, a little, middle-aged chemist, weedy, parched, furtivelyinebriate, and his wife Emma, the daughter of John Randall, a draper. 

They called him John Randall Fulleymore Ransome, and Ranny for short. 

Ranny should have been born in lands of adventure, under the green lightof a virgin forest, or on some illimitable prairie; he should havesailed with the vikings or fought with Cromwell's Ironsides; or, betterstill, he should have run, half-naked, splendidly pagan, bearing thetorch of Marathon. 

And yet he bore his torch. 

From the very first his mother said that Ranny was that venturesome. Heshowed it in his ill-considered and ungovernable determination to beborn, and it was hard to say which of them, Ranny or his mother, morenearly died of it. She must have been aware that there was a hitchsomewhere; for, referring again and again, as she did, to Ranny'sventuresomeness, she would say, "It beats me where he gets it from. "

He may have got some of it from her, for she, poor thing, had sunk, adventurously, in one disastrous marriage her whole stock of youth andgaiety and charm. It was Ranny's youth and charm and gaiety that madehim so surprising and so unaccountable. 

Circumstances were not encouraging to Ranny's youth, nor to his privateand particular ambition, the cultivation of a superb physique. For, notonly was he a little chemist's son, he was a great furniture dealer'sinexpensive and utterly insignificant clerk, one of a dozen confined ina long mahogany pen where they sat at long mahogany desks, upon highmahogany stools, making invoices of chairs and tables and wardrobes andwashstands and all manner of furniture. You would never have known, tosee him sitting there, that John Randall Fulleymore Ransome was a leaderin Section I of the London Polytechnic Gymnasium. 

So far, in his way, he testified, he bore his torch. Confined as he wasin a mahogany pen, born and brought up in the odor of drugs, andsurrounded by every ignominious sign of disease and infirmity, his dreamwas yet of cleanness, of health, and the splendor of physicalperfection. The thing that young Ransome most loathed and abhorred wasFlabbiness, next to Flabbiness, Weediness. The years of his adolescencewere one long struggle and battle against these two. He had them everbefore him, and associated them, absurdly but inveterately, with apharmaceutical chemist's occupation; of Weediness his father being theprime example; while for Flabbiness, young Mercier, his father'sassistant--well, Mercier, as he said, "took the biscuit. " It washorrible for young Ransome to inhabit the same house with young Mercier, because of his flabbiness. 

In all cities there are many thousand Ransomes, more or less confined inmahogany cages, but John Randall Fulleymore stands for all of them. Hewas one of those who, in a cold twilight on a Saturday afternoon, stagger from the trampled field, hot-eyed under their wild hair, whosegarments are stained from the torn grass and uptrodden earth, with hereand there a rent and the white gleam of a shoulder or a thigh; whosevivid, virile odor has a tang of earth in it. He is the image and thetype of these forlorn, foredoomed young athletes, these exponents of acity's desperate adolescence, these inarticulate enthusiasts of theearth. He bursts from his pen in the evening at seven or half past, hesnatches somewhere a cup of cocoa and a sandwich, and at nine he isseen, half pagan in his "zephyr" and his "shorts, " sprinting like madthrough the main thoroughfares. In summer some pitch, more or lessperfect, waits for him in suburban playing fields; and the River knowshim, at Battersea, at Chelsea, at Hammersmith, and at Wandsworth, theRiver knows him as he is, the indomitable and impassioned worshiper ofthe body and the earth. 

And if the moon sees him sometimes haggard, panting, though indomitable, though impassioned, reeling on the last lap of his last mile, andlimping through Wandsworth High Street home to the house of the weedypharmaceutical chemist his father, if the moon sees Ransome, why, theMoon is a lady, and she does not tell. 

 * * * * *

If you asked him what he did it for, he would say you did it because itkept you fit, also (if you pressed him) because it kept you decent. 

And to know how right he was you had only to look at him, escaped fromhis cage; you had only to follow his progress through the lightedstreets and observe his unbending behavior before the salutations of thenight. His fitness, combined with his decency, made him a wonder, adesire, and a despair. Slender and upright, immaculately high-collared, his thin serge suit molded by his sheer muscular development to thesemblance of perfection, Ranny was a mark for loitering feet andwandering eyes. Ranny was brown-faced and brown-haired; he had browneyes made clear with a strain of gray, rather narrow eyes, ever soslightly tilted, narrowing still, and lengthening, as with humor, at theouter corners. There was humor in his mouth, wide but fine, that tiltedslightly upward when he spoke. There was humor even in his nose with itssubtle curve, the slender length of its bridge, and its tip, widespread, and like his mouth and eyes, slightly uptilted. 

Ranny, in short, was fascinating. And at every turn his mysteriousdecency betrayed the promise of his charm. 

 * * * * *

It was Fred Booty, his friend and companion of the pen, who first puthim in the right way, discerning in him a fine original genius foradventure. 

For when Ranny's mother said he was that venturesome, she meant that hewas fond, fantastically and violently fond of danger, of adventure. Hiscunning in this matter beat her clean--how he found the things to do hedid do; the things, the frightful things he did about the house withbannisters and windows, of which she knew. As for the things he found todo with bicycles on Wandsworth Common and Putney Hill they were knownmainly to his Maker and Fred Booty. Booty, who could judge (being "a bithandy with a bike" himself), said of them that they were "a fair treat. "

But these were the deeds of his boyhood, and in nineteen-two Ransomelooked back on them with contempt. Follies they were, things a silly kiddoes; and it wasn't by those monkey tricks that a fellow developed hisphysique. Booty had found Ransome in his attic one Saturday afternoon, ayear ago, half stripped, and contemplating ruefully what he conceived tobe the first horrible, mushy dawn of Flabbiness in his biceps muscle. All he wanted, Booty had then declared, was a turn or two at the Poly. Gym. Then Booty took Ransome round to his place in Putney Bridge Road, and they sat on Booty's bed with their arms round each other's shoulderswhile Booty read aloud to Ransome from the pages of the Poly. Prospectus. Booty was a slender, agile youth with an innocent, sanguineface, the face of a beardless faun, finished off with a bush of blondhair that stood up from his forehead like a monumental flame. 

He read very slowly, in a voice that had in it both an adolescent croakand an engaging Cockney tang. 

"The Poly. , " said Booty, "really was a Club, '_where_, '" he underlinedit, "'every reasonable facil'ty shall bee offered fer the formation of asteadfast character, _and_--_of_--true friendships; fer trainin' theintellec'--'"

"Int'lec' be blowed, " said Ransome. 

"'_And_ fer leadin' an upright, unselfish life. Day by day, '" readBooty, "'the battle of life becomes more strenuous. To succeed entylescareful preparation and stern'--stern, Ranny--'deetermination, itdeemands the choice of _good friends_ and the avoid'nce of those personsand things which tend _to_ lessen, instead of _to_ increase thereesources of the individyool. ' There, wot d'you think of _that_, Ran?"

Ran didn't think much of it until Booty pointed out to him, one by one, the privileges he would enjoy as a member of the Poly. 

For the ridiculous yearly sum of ten-and-six (it was all he could riseto) Ransome had become a member of the Poly. Ten-and-six threw open tohim every year the Poly. Gym. , the Poly. Swimming Bath, and the Poly. Circulating Library. For ten-and-six he could further command theservices (once a week) of the doctor attached to the Poly. And of itsexperienced legal adviser. 

That tickled Ransome. He didn't see himself by any possibility requiringcommunion with that experienced man. But it tickled him, the sheerfantastic opulence and extravagance of the thing. It tickled him so muchthat whenever you disagreed with or offended Ransome his jest was torefer you, magnificently, to "my legal adviser. "

Yes, for fantastic opulence and extravagance, Ransome had never seenanything to beat the Poly. There was no end to it, no end to theprivileges you enjoyed. He positively ran amuck among hisprivileges--those, that is to say, offered him by the Poly. SwimmingBath and the Poly. Gym. As he said, he "fair abused 'em. " But heconsidered that the Poly. "got home again" on his exceptionally moderateuse of the Circulating Library, and his total abstention from the BibleClasses. He was not yet aware of any soul in him apart from thatabounding and sufficing physical energy expressed in Fitness, nor was heviolently conscious of any moral sense apart from Decency. 

And Ranny despised the votaries of intellectual light; he more thansuspected them of Weediness, if not of Flabbiness. Yet (as he waited forBooty in the vestibule), through much darkness and confusion, and alwaysat an immeasurable distance from him, he discerned, glory beyond glory, the things that the Poly. , in its great mercy and pity, had reserved forthose "queer johnnies. " It made him giddy merely to look at the postersof its lectures and its classes. It gave him the headache to think ofthe things the fellows--fellows of a deplorable physique--and girls, too, did there. For his part, he looked forward to the day when, by afurther subscription of ten-and-six, he would enroll himself as a memberof the Athletic Club. 

It was as if the Poly. Put out feeler after feeler to draw him toitself. Only to one thing he would not be drawn. When Booty advised himto join the Poly. Ramblers he stood firm. For some shy or unfathomablereason of his own he refused to become a Poly. Rambler. When it came tothe Poly. Ramblers he was adamant. It was one of those vital points atwhich he resisted this process of absorption in the Poly. Bootydenounced his attitude as eminently anti-social--uppish, he called it. 

CHAPTER II

All that winter Ransome's nights and days were regulated in a perfectorder--making statements of account for nine hours on five days of theweek and four on Saturdays. Three evenings for the Poly. Gym. One forthe Swimming Bath. One for sprinting. One (Saturday) for rest orrelaxation after the violence of Rugger. One (Sunday) for theimprovement of the mind. On Sundays he was very seldom good for anythingelse. 

But in the spring of nineteen-two something stirred in him, somethingwatched and waited; with a subtle agitation, a vague and delicateexcitement, it exulted and aspired. The sensation, or whatever it was, had as yet no separate existence of its own. So perfect, in this springof nineteen-two, was the harmony of Ransome's being that the pulse ofthe unborn thing was one with all his other pulses; it was one, indistinguishably, with the splendor of life, the madness of running, and the joy he took in his own remarkable performances on the horizontalbar. It had the effect of heightening, mysteriously and indescribably, the joy, the madness, and the splendor. And it was dominant, insistent. Like some great and unintelligible _motif_ it ran ringing and soundingthrough the vast rhythmic tumult of physical energy. 

Not for a moment did he connect it with the increasing interest that hetook in the appearance of the Young Ladies of the Poly. Gym. He was notaware how aware he was of their coming, nor how his heart thumped andthrobbed and his nerves trembled at the tramp, tramp of their feet alongthe floor. 

For sometimes, it might be twice a year, the young men and the youngwomen of the Gymnasium met and mingled in a Grand Display. 

He was fairly well used to it; and yet he had never got over hisamazement at finding that girls, those things of constitutional andpredestined flabbiness, could do very nearly (though not quite)everything that he could, leaving him little besides his pre-eminence onthe horizontal bar. And yearly the regiment of girls who could "dothings" at the Poly. Increased under his very eyes. Their invasiondisturbed him in his vision of their flabbiness; it rubbed it into him, the things that they could do. 

Not but what he had felt it--he had felt _them_--all about him, outside, in the streets where they jostled him, and in the world made mostly ofmahogany, the world of counters and of desks, of pens where they toowere herded and shut up and compelled, like him, to toil. Queer things, girls, for they seemed, incomprehensibly, to like it. Their liking it, their businesslike assumption of equality, their incessant appearance(authorized, it is true, by business) at the railings of his pen, thepeculiar disenchanting promiscuity of it all, preserved young Ransome inhis eccentricity of indifference to their sex. In fact, if you tried totalk about sex to young Ransome (and Mercier did try) he would denounceit as "silly goat's talk, " and your absorption in it as "the mostmutton-headed form of Flabbiness yet out. "

 * * * * *

But that was before the Grand Display of the autumn of last year, whenWinny Dymond appeared in the March Past of Section I of the Women'sGymnasium; before he had followed Winny as she ran at top speed throughall the turnings and windings of the Combined Maze. 

There were about fifty of them, picked; all attired in black stockings, in dark-blue knickerbockers, and in tunics that reached to the knee, red-belted and trimmed with red. Stunning, he called them; so much sothat they fair took away his breath. 

That was what he said when it was all over. By that time he was ashamedto confess that at the moment of its apparition the March Past had beensomewhat of a shock to him. He had his ideas, and he was not preparedfor the uniform; still less was he prepared for a personal encounterwith such quantities of young women all at once. 

All sorts of girls--sturdy and slender girls; queer girls with lean, wiry bodies; deceptive girls with bodies curiously plastic under theappearance of fragility; here a young miracle of physical culture; therea girl with the pointed breasts and flying shoulders, the limbs, thehips, the questing face that recalled some fugitive soul of the woodsand mountains; long-nosed, sallow, nervous Jewish girls; English girlswith stolid, colorless faces; here and there a face rosy and full-blown, or a pretty tilted profile and a wonderful, elaborate head of hair. Oneor two of these heads positively lit up the procession with their redand gold, gave it the splendor and beauty of a pageant. 

They came on, single file and double file and four abreast, the longline doubling and turning upon itself; all alike in the straight dropof the arms to the hips, the rise and fall of their black-stockingedlegs, the arching and pointing of the feet; all deliciously alike intheir air of indestructible propriety. Here you caught one leashing aniniquitous little smile in the corners of her eyes under her lashes; orone, aware of her proud beauty, and bearing herself because of it, withthe extreme of indestructible propriety. 

There were no words to express young Ransome's indifference to proudbeauty. 

If he found something tender and absurd in the movements of all thoselong black stockings, it was for the sake and on account of the longblack stockings worn by little Winny Dymond. 

Winny Dymond was not proud, neither was she what he supposed you wouldcall beautiful. She was not one of those conspicuous by their flamingand elaborate hair. 

What he first noted in her with wonder and admiration was the absence ofweediness and flabbiness. Better known, she stirred in him, as a childmight, an altogether indescribable sense of tenderness and absurdity. She stood out for him simply by the fact that, of all the young ladiesof the Polytechnic, she was the only one he really knew--barring MaudieHollis, and Maudie, though she was the proud beauty of the Polytechnic, didn't count. 

For Maudie was ear-marked, so to speak, as the property (when he couldafford a place to put her in) of Fred Booty. Ransome would no more havedreamed of cultivating an independent acquaintance with Maudie than hewould of pocketing the silver cup that Booty won in last year's HurdleRace. It was because of Maudie, and at Booty's irresistible request, that he, the slave of friendship, had consented, unwillingly andperfunctorily at first, to become Miss Dymond's cavalier. Maudie, alsoat Booty's passionate appeal, had for six months shared with WinnyDymond a room off Wandsworth High Street, so that, as he put it, hemight feel that she was near him; with the desolating result that theyweren't by any means, no, not by a long chalk, so near. For Maudie, outof levity or sheer exuberant kindness of the heart, had persuaded WinnyDymond to join the Polytechnic. In her proud beauty and in her affiancedstate she could afford to be exuberantly kind. And Booty in his visionof nearness had been counting on the long journey by night from RegentStreet to Wandsworth High Street alone with Maudie; and, though MissDymond practically effaced herself, it wasn't--with a girl of Maudie'stemperament--the same thing at all. For Maudie in company was apt to bea little stiff and stand-offish in her manner. 

Then (one afternoon in the autumn of last year it was) Booty soundedRansome, finding himself alone with him in the mahogany pen when thesenior clerks were at their tea. "I say, " he said, "there's something Iwant _you_ to do for me, " and Ransome, in his recklessness, hismagnificence, said "Right-O!"

He said afterward that he had gathered from the expression of hisfriend's face that his trouble was financial, a matter of five bob, orfifteen at the very worst. And you could trust Boots to pay up any day. So that he was properly floored when Boots, in a thick, earnest voice, explained the nature of the service he required--that he, Ransome, should go with him, nightly, to a convenient corner of Oxford Street, and there collar that kid, Winny Dymond, and lug her along. 

"Do you mean, " asked Ransome, "walk home with her?"

Well, yes; that, Booty intimated, was about the size of it. She was aWandsworth girl, and they'd got, he supposed, all four of them, to getthere. 

He was trying to carry it off, to give an air of inevitability to hispreposterous proposal. But as young Ransome's face expressed his agony, Booty became almost abject in supplication. He didn't know, Rannydidn't, what it was to be situated like he, Booty, was. Booty wanted toknow how he'd feel if it was him. To be gone on a girl like he was andonly see her of an evenin' and then not be able to get any nearer her, because of havin' to make polite remarks to that wretched kid she wasalways cartin' round. At that rate he might just as well not be engagedat all--to Maudie; better engage himself to the bloomin' kid at once. Itwasn't as if he had a decent chance of bein' spliced for good in a yearor two's time. His evenin's and his Sundays and so forth were jolly wellall he'd got. It was all very well for Ransome, _he_ wasn't gone on agirl, else he'd know how erritatin' it was to the nerves. And if Rannyhadn't got the spunk to stand by a pal and see him through, why, thenhe'd cut the Poly. And make Maudie cut it too. 

To most of this Ranny was silent, for it seemed to him that Boots wasmad, or near it. But at that threat, so terrible to him, so terrible tothe Polytechnic, so terrible to Booty, and so palpable a sign of hismadness, he gave in. He said it was all right, only he didn't know whaton earth he was to say to her. 

Booty recovered his natural airiness. "Oh, " he threw it off, "you saynothing. "

And for the first night or so, as far as Ransome could remember, thatwas what he did say. 

And he wasn't really clever at collaring her, either. There wassomething elusive, fugitive, uncatchable about Winny Dymond. It wasBooty, driven by love to that extremity, who collared Maudie and walkedoff with her, with a suddenness and swiftness that left them strandedand amazed. "Fair pace-makin', " Ransome called it. 

And Winny struggled and strove with those little legs of hers (jollylittle legs he knew they were, too, in their long black stockings), strove and struggled, as if her life depended on it, to overtake them. And it was then that Ransome felt the first pricking of that sense oftenderness and absurdity. 

He felt it again after a long silence when, as they were going towardWandsworth Bridge, Winny suddenly addressed him. 

"You know, " she said, "you needn't trouble about _me_. "

"I'm not troublin', " he said. "Leastways--that is--" he hesitated andwas lost. 

"You are, " said she, with decision, "if you think you've got to see mehome. "

He said he thought that, considering the lateness of the hour and theloneliness of the scene, it was better that he should accompany her. 

"But I can accompany myself, " said she. 

He smiled at the vision of Miss Dymond accompanying herself, at eleveno'clock at night, too--the idea! He smiled at it as if he saw in itsomething tender and absurd. He knew, of course, for he was notabsolutely without experience, that girls said these things; they saidthem to draw fellows on; it was their artfulness. There was a word forit; Ransome thought the word was "cock-a-tree. " But Winny Dymond didn'tsay those things--the least like that. She said them with the utmostgravity and determination. You might almost have thought she wasoffended but for the absence in her tone of any annoyance orembarrassment. Her tone, indeed, suggested serene sincerity and a sortof sympathy, the serious and compassionate consideration of his painfulcase. It was as if she had been aware all along of the frightfulpredicament he had been placed in by Fred Booty; as if she divined andunderstood his anguish in it and desired to help him out. That wasevidently her idea--to help him out. 

And as it grew on him--her idea--it grew on him also that there was akind of fascination about the little figure in its long dark-blue coat. 

She wasn't--he supposed she wasn't--pretty, but he found himselfagreeably affected by her. He liked the queer look of her face, whichbegan with a sort of squarishness in roundness and ended, with a suddenstartling change of intention, in a pointed chin. He liked the clearsallow and faint rose of her skin, and her mouth which might have beentoo large if it had not been so firm and fine. He liked, vaguely, without knowing that he liked it, the quietness of her brown eyes andthe faint, half-wondering arch above them; and quite definitely he likedthe way she parted her brown hair in the middle and smoothed it till itlay in two long, low waves (just discernible under the brim of her hat)upon her forehead. He did not know that long afterward he was never tosee Winny Dymond's eyes and parted hair without some vision of strengthand profound placidity and cleanness. 

All he said was he supposed there was no law against his occupying thesame pavement; and then he could have sworn that Winny's face sent alittle ghost of a smile flitting past him through the night. 

"Well, anyhow, " she said, "you needn't talk to me unless you like. "

And at that he threw his head back and laughed aloud. And quite suddenlythe moon came out and stared at them; came bang up on their left abovethe River (they were on the bridge now) out of a great cloud, a blazingand enormous moon. It tickled him. He called her attention to it, andsaid he didn't remember that he'd ever seen such a proper whopper of amoon and with such a shine on him. They hadn't half polished him, hesaid. Any one would think that things had all busted, got turned bottomside upward, and it was the bally old sun that was up there, grinnin' atthem, through the hole he'd made. 

"The idea!" said Winny; but she laughed at it, a little shrill andirresistible titter of delight always, as he was to learn, her homage to"ideas. " He had them sometimes; they came on him all of a sudden, likethat, and he couldn't help it; he couldn't stop them; he got them allthe worse, all the more ungovernably, when Booty lunged at him, as hedid, with his "Dry up, you silly blighter, you!" But that anybody shouldtake pleasure in his ideas, that _was_ an idea, if you like, toRansome. 

They got on after that like a house on fire. 

 * * * * *

But only for that night. For many nights that followed Winny proved morefugitive, more uncatchable than ever. As often as not, when they arrivedin Oxford Street, she would be gone, fled half an hour before them, accompanying herself all the way to Wandsworth. Once he pursued her downOxford Street, coming up with her as she boarded a bus in full flight;and they sat in it in gravity and silence, as strangers to each other. But nearly always she was too quick for him; she got away. And never (hethanked Heaven for that, long afterward), never for a moment did hemisunderstand her. She made that impossible for him; impossible toforget that in her and all her shyness there was no art at all of"cock-a-tree, " only her fixed and funny determination not "to put uponhim. "

And so the seeing home of Winny Dymond became a fascinating anduncertain game, fascinating because of its uncertainty; it had all theagitation and allurement of pursuit and capture; if she had wanted toallure and agitate him, no art of "cock-a-tree" could have served herbetter. He was determined to see Winny Dymond home. 

And all the time it grew, it grew on him, that sense of tenderness andabsurdity. He found it--that ineffable and poignant quality--ineverything about her and in everything she did--in the gravity of herdeportment at the Poly. ; in her shy essaying of the parallel bars; inthe incredible swiftness with which she ran before him in the Maze; inthe way her hair, tied up with an immense black bow in a door-knockerplat, rose and fell forever on her shoulders as she ran. He found it inthe fact he had discovered that her companions called her by absurd andtender names; Winky, and even Winks, they called her. 

That was in the autumn of nineteen-one; and he was finding it all overagain now in the spring of nineteen-two. 

At last, he didn't know how it happened, but one night, having caught upwith her after a hot chase, close by the railings of the Parish Churchin Wandsworth High Street, in the very moment of parting from her heturned round and said, "Look here, Miss Dymond, you think I don't likeseeing you home, don't you?"

"To be sure I do. It must be a regular nuisance, night after night, " sheanswered. 

"Well, it isn't, " he said. "I like it. But look here--if you hate it--"

"Me?"

She said it with a simple, naïve amazement. 

"Yes, you. "

He was almost brutal. 

"But I don't. What an idea!"

"Well, if you don't, that settles it. Don't it?"

And it did. 

CHAPTER III

It was the night of the Grand Display of the spring of nineteen-two. 

To the Gymnasium of the London Polytechnic you ascended (innineteen-two) as to a temple by a flight of steps, and found yourself ina great oblong room of white walls, with white pillars supporting thegallery that ran all round it. The railing of the gallery was of irontracery, painted green, with a brass balustrade. The great clean whitespace, the long ropes for the trapezes which hung from the ceiling andwere looped up now to the stanchions, the coarse canvas of themattresses, the disciplined lines, the tramping feet, the commandingvoices of the instructors, gave a confused and dreamlike suggestion ofthe lower deck of a man-of-war. To-night, under the west end of thegallery, a small platform was raised for the Mayor of Marylebone and ascore of guests. The galleries themselves were packed with members ofthe Polytechnic and their friends. 

The programme of the Grand Display announced as its first item:

 PARALLEL BARS _Tableau by_ MESSRS. BOOTY, TYSER, BUIST, WAUCHOPE, AND J. R. F. RANSOME

There was a murmur of surreptitious, half-ironic applause. "Stick it, Ransome; stick it, old boy!"

The reference was to his extraordinary attitude. 

J. R. F. Ransome appeared as the apex and the crown of a rude triangularstructure whose base was formed by the high parallel bars, flanked ateach end by two bodies (Booty and Tyser front), two supple adolescentbodies, bent backward like two bows. He stood head downward on his handsthat grasped and were supported by the locked arms of two solidathletes, Buist and Wauchope, themselves mounted gloriously andperilously on the straining bars. 

Considered as to his arms, and the white "zephyr" and flannels that hewore, he was merely a marvelous young man balancing himself withdifficulty in an unnatural posture. But his body, uptilted, poised as bya miracle in air, with the slender curve of its back, its flattenedhips, its feet laid together like wings folded in the first downrush, might have been the body of a young immortal descending with facileprecipitancy to earth. 

He maintained for a sensible moment his appearance of having just flownfrom the roof of the Gymnasium. Far below, the photographer fumbledleisurely with his apparatus. 

"Hurry up, there!" "Stick it, Ransome!" "Half a mo!" "Stick it, Ranny;stick it!" they whispered. "Steady does it. "

And Ranny stuck it. Ranny actually, from his awful eminence, sang out, "No fear!"

The flashlight immortalized his moment. 

That was his way--to stick it; to see it out; to go through with theadventure alert and gay, wearing that fine smile of his, soextravagantly uplifted at the corners. "Stick it!" was the motto of hisindividual recklessness and of the dogged, enduring conservatism of hisclass. It kept him in a mahogany pen, at a mahogany desk, for forty-fourhours a week, and it sustained him in his orgies of physical energy atthe Poly. Gym. 

Best of all, it sustained him in his daily and nightly encounters withyoung Mercier. 

He was all the more determined to stick it by the knowledge that youngMercier was up there in the gallery looking at him. He could see himleaning over the balustrade and smiling at him atrociously. He tookadvantage of an interval and joined him. He was half inclined to ask himwhat he meant by it. For he was always at it. Whenever young Merciercaught Ranny doing a sprint he smiled atrociously. At Wandsworth, behindthe counter, or in the little zinc-roofed dispensing-room at the back, among the horribly smelling materials of his craft, he smiled, remembering him. 

Mercier was a black-haired, thick-set youth with heavy features in aheavy, pasty face, a face oddly decorated by immense and slightlyprominent blue eyes, a face where all day long the sensual dream broodedheavily. His black eyebrows gave it a certain accent and distinction. Itwas because of his dream that Leonard Mercier could afford to smile. 

He was one of those who wanted to know what Ranny did it for. Hecouldn't see what fun the young goat got out of his evenings. Not half, no, nor a quarter of what he, Mercier, could get from one night at theEmpire or when he took his girl to Earl's Court or the WandsworthColiseum. And, though up there in the gallery he had said "By Jove!" andthat he was blowed, and that that young Ransome was a corker, though heboasted to three entire strangers that that young fellow was a friend ofhis, his curiosity was still unsatisfied. He still wanted to know whatthe young goat did it for. 

He wanted to know it now. And at his insistence young Ransome wasabashed. How could he explain to old Eno what he did it for or what itfelt like? He couldn't explain it to himself, he had no words for it, for that ecstasy of living, that fusion of all faculties in one rhythmand one vibration, one continuous transport of physical energy. Takesprinting alone. How could he convey to Jujubes in his disgustingflabbiness any sense of the fine madness of running, of the race of theblood through the veins, of the hammer strokes of the heart, of the softpad of the feet on the highway? To Jujubes, who went in like a cushionno matter where you prodded him, how describe the feel of a taut muscle, the mounting swell of it, the resistance, and the small, almostimpalpable ripple and throb under the skin? He couldn't have describedit to himself. 

So he gave Jujubes his invariable casual answer. You did it because itkept you fit and because (he let old Eno have it) it kept you decent. Old Eno would be a lot decenter if he went in for it. It would do himworlds of good. 

To which old Eno replied that he thought he saw himself! As for joiningRanny's precious old Poly. , why, for all the Life you were likely to seethere, you might as well be in a young ladies' boarding-school. AndRansome said that that was where Jujubes ought to be. He liked youngladies. Among them (he intimated) his flabbiness might not exciteremark. Girls (he pondered it) were flabby things. 

Chivalry constrained him to a mental reservation: Winny Dymond and theyoung ladies of the Poly. Gym. Excepted. 

But he was glad that Mercier didn't stay to see them. Young Leonard(whose smile was growing more and more atrocious) had declared that theyoung ladies of the Empire ballet were a bit more in his line, and hehad made off, elbowing his way through the crowded gallery and crooning"Boys of the Empire!" as he went, while Ransome pursued him with thescornful adjuration to "Go home and take a saline draught!"

But you couldn't shame old Eno. He triumphed and exulted in hisflabbiness. For he was a Boy of the Empire. He had seen Life, and wouldsee more and more of it. 

 * * * * *

Ransome went down again into the hall. He removed himself from the crowdand leaned against a pillar, in abstraction, arms folded, showing thegreat muscles; a splendid figure in his white "zephyr" trimmed withcrimson, with the crimson sash of leadership knotted at his side. Thuswithdrawn, he watched, half furtively, the performance of the youngladies of the Polytechnic Gymnasium. 

One by one, with an air incorruptibly decorous, the young ladies of thePolytechnic Gymnasium hurled themselves upon the parallel bars; theywaggled themselves by their hands along them; they swung themselves fromside to side of them, and outstretched themselves between them with afoot and a hand upon each bar; they raised their bodies, thus supported, like an arch; they slackened them and flung themselves (with a crescendoof decorous delirium) from side to side again, and over; alighting ontheir feet in a curtseying posture and with the left arm extended in alittle perfunctory gesture of demonstration to the audience, as much asto say, "There you are, and nothing could be easier!"

Nothing could be more conventional and more unspeakably correct. Onlywhen Winny Dymond did it there was a difference, or it seemed so toyoung Ransome. Winny approached the bars with shyness and a certainearnestness and gravity of intent. She hesitated; for a moment she wasadorable in vacillation. She shook her head at the bars, she bit her lipat them; she set her face at them in defiance; then, with a suddenamazing celerity she gave a little run forward and leaped upon them; sheswung herself in perfect rhythm and motion onward and upward and fromside to side; she arched her sturdy but exquisitely supple body like abridge, flung herself over as if in pure abandonment of joy and lightedon her feet, curtseying correctly but with something piteous in thegesture of the outstretched arm, and upon her face an expression ofgreat surprise and wonder at herself, as if Winny said, not "There youare!" but "Here I am, and oh, I never thought I should be!"

And from his place by the pillar Ransome gave the little inarticulatemurmur he reserved for Winny. It was charged with his sense oftenderness and absurdity. 

 * * * * *

A quarter to ten. His own performances--his wonderful performances onthe horizontal bar--were over; and over the demonstration by F. Bootywith the Indian clubs, where young Fred, slender and supple as a faun, played on his own muscles in faultless rhythm. And now with an eye uponthe Mayor the order was given for the last item on the programme:

/# THE COMBINED MAZE#/

There was a rush of energetic young men who flung themselves upon theproperties of the Gymnasium. They ran them--the parallel bars, thehorses, the mattresses--in under the galleries; they uprooted the postsof the horizontal bar; they cleared the whole of the vast oblong spacebounded by the pillars. 

An attendant then appeared with a bit of chalk in his hand, and with thechalk he drew upon the floor certain mystic circles, one at each cornerof the oblong, one in the center, the heart of the Maze, and facing ittwo smaller circles, one at each side on a visionary line. Seven mystic, seven sacred circles in all did he draw, and vanished, unconscious ofthe sanctity and symbolism of his deed. 

For he, with his bit of white chalk, had marked the course for the greatrunning, for the race that the young men and the young girls runtogether with the racing of the stars, for the unloosening of the holyprimal energies in a figure and a measure and a ritual old as time. 

It was all very well for the instructor (blind instrument of unspeakablymysterious forces) to pretend that he invented it, that august figure ofthe seven-circled Maze; to explain it, as he does to the inquiring, bythe analogy of a billiard table with its pockets. For never yet, on anybilliard table, was a race run and a contest waged like that in whichthese young men and girls ran and contended. Drawn up at the far end ofthe hall under the east gallery in two ranks, four-breasted, the men onthe one side and the women on the other, they waited, and the leader ofeach rank had a foot on a corner circle. They waited, marking time withtheir feet, first, to the thudding beat of the barbell on the floor andthen to an unheard measure, secret and restrained, the murmur of life inthe blood, the rhythm of the soundless will, the beat of the unseen, urging energy, that gathered to intensity, desirous of the race. 

As yet the soul of it slept in their rigid bodies, their grave, forward-looking faces, their behavior, so excessively correct. Somebodywhispered the word, and on a sudden they let themselves go; theystarted. Young Tyser, breasting the wind of his own speed, his headuplifted and thrown backward, led the men, and she with the questingface and wide-pointing breasts of Artemis led the girls; and he hadyoung Ransome on his heels and she Winny; and behind them the fourfoldserried ranks thinned and thinned out and spun themselves in two linesof single file, two threads, one white, one dark blue, both flecked withcrimson, two threads that in their running were wound and unwound andwoven in a pattern, dark blue and white and crimson, that ran and neverpaused and never ended and was never the same. For first, each line wasflung slantwise from the corner circle whence it had started, and wherethe two met, point by point perpetually, in the center circle, they asit were intersected, men and women wriggling, sliding, and darting withincredible dexterity through each other's ranks; and the pattern was across, a tricolor. Then they wheeled round the circle that was and wasnot their goal, and did it all over again; but instead of intersectingat the center circle they struck off there at a tangent, and thepattern, blue by blue divided from white by white, and all red-flecked, was two wide V's set point to point, a pattern that ran away andvanished as each thread, returning, wheeled round the circle whence theother thread had started. 

And all this at the top speed set by Tyser, and with the thud of themen's feet and the pad of the women's; all this with a secret challengeand defiance of one sex to the other, with separation and estrangement, with a never-ending, baffling approach and flight, with the furtivedarting of man from woman and of woman from man, whirled in theircourses from each other as they met. 

And now the lines doubled; they were running two abreast, slantwise; andas they intersected in the sacred center circle it was with a minglingof the threads, a weaving of blue with white, and white with blue; sothat each man had in flight before him a maiden, and so that at theircircles, east and west, where they wheeled they wheeled together, sideby side, as the Maze flung them. And now they were circling andserpentining up and down, and down and up, with contrary motion, in adouble figure of eight; they were winding in and out among the pillarsand wheeling round the middle circles north and south, side by side, till they split there and parted and met again in the center and wereflung from it, to wheel again deliriously, double-ringed, round all thesix outermost circles at once. 

And now, as if they were torn from the ends of the earth by theirresistible attraction of the seventh circle, they were whirling roundthe center in a double ring, a ring of young men round a ring of girls;and then, as by some mysterious compulsion, they divided and castthemselves off in rows of two couples, man and girl by man and girl, linked with arms on each other's shoulders, eight rows in all, eightspokes that sprang from the sacred circle ringed with eight, four menand four girls, who were the felly of the wheel, all running, allrevolving. Such was the magic of the Maze, and the unconscious genius ofthe instructor, that the pattern of the running wound and unwound andknit itself together in the supreme symbol of the great Wheel of EightSpokes, the Wheel of Life. 

And the ancient rhythmic rush and race of the worlds, and the wheelingof all stars, the swinging and dancing of all atoms, the streaming andeddying of the ancestral stuff of life was in the whirling of thatliving Wheel; it was one immortal motion, continuous and triumphant inthe bodies of those men and maidens as they ran. And they, shop-girlsand shop-boys and young clerks, slipped off their memories of the deskand counter, and a joy, an instinct, and a sense that had no memory wokein them, savage, virgin, and shy; the pure and perfect joy of the youngbody in its own strength and speed; the instinct of the hunter of thehills and woodlands; the sense of feet padding on grass and fallenleaves, of ears pricking alert, of eyes that face the dawn on the highdowns and go glancing through the coverts. And as this radiant andvehement life rose in them like a tide their gravity and shyness andseverity passed from them; here and there hair was loosened, combs wereshed, and nobody stopped to gather them; for frenzy seized on the youngmen, and their arms pressed on the girls' shoulders, urging the pacefaster and faster; and light, swift as their flying feet, shot fromtheir eyes, and they laughed each to the other as they ran. So divinewas now the madness of their running, so inspired the whirling of theWheel, that the thing showed plainly as the undying, immemorial ecstasy;showed as the secret dance of magic and of mystery, taken over by theLondon Polytechnic, and, at the very moment when its corybantic naturemost declared itself, constrained to an order and a beauty tremendousand austere. 

So wise and powerful was the London Polytechnic. 

For Ransome, mixed with that joy of the running, there was a joy of hisown, an instinct and a sense, virgin and shy, absolved from memory. Hefound it, when Winny Dymond ran before him, in the slender, innocentmovement of her hips under her thin tunic, in the absurd flap-flappingof the door-knocker plat on her shoulders, in the glances flicked at himby the tail of her eye as she wheeled from him in the endless pursuitand capture and approach and flight, as she was parted, was flung fromhim and returned to him in the windings of the Maze. He found it toperfection in the pressure of each other's arms as the Maze wed them andwhirled them running, locked together in the pattern of the wheel. Itwas not love so much as some inspired sense of comradeship mingledinextricably with that other sense of absurdity and tenderness. 

Not love, not passion, even when in the excitement of the running sheswerved to the wrong side and he had to turn her with his two hands uponher waist. For it was the law of their running that, though it was onewith the movement of life itself, mysteriously, while the thing lasted, it precluded passion. 

CHAPTER IV

Ransome left Winny Dymond at St. Ann's Terrace, and went home along theHigh Street. He went very slowly, as if in thought. 

At the railings of the Parish Church he paused, recalling something. Lowand square-towered, couchant in the moonlight behind its railings, theParish Church guarded under its long flank its huddled graves. 

He smiled for very Youth. It was here that he had run Winny to earth andcaught her. The Parish Church had been his accomplice in that capture. 

Wandsworth High Street twists and winds with the waywardness of a river. The first turn brought him to the old stone bridge over the Wandle. Onthe bridge before him, in the crook of the street, were the booths andstalls of the night market, lit by blazing naphtha, color heaped oncolor in a leaping, waving flare as of torches. On either side was atwisted and jagged line of houses--brown-brick, flat-fronted, eighteenth-century houses, and houses with painted fronts. Here a tall, red-brick modern Parade shot up the gables of its insolent facade. There, oldest of all, a yellow house stooped forward on the posts thatpropped it. Somewhere up in the sky a tall chimney and a cupola. Allbeautiful under the night, all dark or dim, with sudden flashes andpallors and gleams, lamplit and moonlit; and all impressed uponRansome's brain with an extraordinary vividness and importance, as if hehad suddenly discovered something new about Wandsworth High Street. 

What he had discovered was the blessedness of living as he did inWandsworth High Street within three minutes' walk of St. Ann's Terrace. 

To be sure, what with the shop and the storage for drugs, Ransome'sfather's house, with Ransome and his father and his mother and Mercierand the maid in it, was somewhat cramped. And neither Ransome nor hisfather nor his mother knew how beautiful it was with its brown-brickfront, its steep-pitched roof, and the two dormer windows looking downon the High Street like two sleepy eyes under drooping lids. A narrowslip of a house, it stood a foot or two back between the wine merchant'sand John Randall the draper's shop, and had the air of being squeezedout of existence by them. Yet the name of Fulleymore Ransome, in goldletters on a black ground, and with Pharmaceutical Chemist under it in ascroll, more than held its own beside John Randall. The chemist'sdignity was further proclaimed by the immense bottles, three in a row(the Carboys, Mr. Ransome called them), holding the magic liquids, ablue, a red, and a yellow, wide-bellied at the base, and with pyramidsfor stoppers. Under them, dividing the window pane, a narrow gold bandwith black lettering advertised three distinct mineral waters. 

A yellow-ochre blind now screened the lower half of that window. Drawndown unevenly and tilted at the bottom corner, it suffered a vagueglimpse of objects that from his earliest years had never ceased tooffend Ranny's sense of the beautiful and fit. 

He had not as yet considered very deeply the problems of his life. Otherwise, in returning every night to his father's house, it must havestruck him that he was not what you might call a free man. For hisfather's house had no door except the shop door, and it was thepeculiarity of that shop door that it did not admit of any latch key. Every night young Ransome had to ring, and it was usually Mercier, withhis abominable smile, who let him in. 

To-night the door was opened cautiously on the chain and somebodywhispered, "Is that you, Ranny?"

The chain was slipped, and he entered. 

A small bead of gas burned on a bracket somewhere behind the counter. The light slid, pale as water, over the glass and mahogany of theshow-cases, wherein white objects appeared as confused and disconnectedpatches. The darkness effaced every object in the shop that was notwhite, with the queer effect that rows upon rows of white jars showed asif hanging on it unsupported by their shelves. Very close, turned up tohim out of the darkness, was Ranny's mother's face. He kissed it. 

"Where's that Mercier?" said Ranny's mother. 

"What? Isn't he back yet?"

"No, " said Ranny's mother. "And your father's got the Headache. "

By a tender and most pardonable confusion between the symptoms and itscause Ranny's mother had hit upon a phrase that made it possible forthem to discuss his father's affliction without the smallest, mostshadowy reference to its essential nature. For Ranny's mother, suchreference would have been the last profanity, a sacrilege committedagainst the divinities of the hearth and of the marriage bed. But forthat phrase Mr. Ransome's weakness must have been passed in silence asthe unspeakable, incredible, unthinkable thing it was. 

At the phrase, more frequent in his mother's mouth than ever, Ranny drewin his lips for a whistle; but instead of whistling he said, "Poor oldHumming-bird. "

"It's one of His bad ones, " said Ranny's mother. 

He raised the flap of the counter, and they went through. He turned upthe gas so that the outlines of things asserted themselves and thelabels on the white jars gave out their secret gold. On one of theselabels, Hydrarg. Amm. , which had no meaning for him, Ranny fixed afascinated gaze, thus avoiding the revelations of his mother's face. 

For Ranny's mother's face showed that she had been crying. 

Plump, and yet not large, her figure and her face were formed for gaietyand charm. Her little nose was uptilted like Ranny's; but something thatwas not gaiety, but pathos, had dragged down and made tremulous thecorners of a mouth that had once been tilted too--a flowerlike mouth, ofthe same tender texture as her face, a face that was once one wide-open, innocent pink flower. Now it was washed out and burnt with the coursesof her tears. Worry had fretted her soft forehead into lines and twistedher eyebrows in an expression as of permanent surprise at life'shandiwork. And under them her dim-blue eyes, red-lidded, looked out withthe same sorrow and dismay. There was nothing left of her beauty buther exuberant light-brown hair, which she dressed high on her head witha twist and a topknot piteously reminiscent of gaiety and charm. 

She laid her hand on the knob of the left-hand inner door. 

"He's in the dispensin'-room, " she said. 

Ranny turned round. His features tilted slightly, compelled by somethingpreposterous in the vision she had evoked. 

"Whatever game is he playin' there?"

A faint flicker passed over his mother's face, as if it pleased her thathe could talk in that way. 

"Prescription, " she said, and paused between her words to let it sinkinto him. "Makin' it up, he is. Old Mr. Beesley's heart mixture. "

"My Hat!" said Ranny. He was impressed by the gravity of the situation. 

There were all sorts of things, such as toothbrushes, patent medicines, babies' comforters, that Ranny's father with a Headache, or Rannyhimself or his mother could be trusted to dispense at a moment's notice. But the drug strophanthus, prescribed for old Mr. Beesley, was not oneof them. It was tricky stuff. He knew all about it; Mercier had toldhim. Whether it was to do Mr. Beesley good or not would depend on theprecise degree and kind of Ranny's father's Headache. 

"I've never known your father's Headache so bad as it is to-night, " saidRanny's mother. "As for makin' up prescriptions, sufferin' as He is, He's not fit for it. He's not fit for it, Ranny. "

That was as near as she could go. 

"Of course he isn't. "

(They had to keep it up together. )

But Ranny's mother felt that she had gone too far. 

"He ought to be in His bed--"

"Of course he ought, " said Ranny, tenderly. 

"And He would be if it wasn't for that Mercier. "

Thus subtly did she intimate that it was not his father but Mercierwhose behavior was reprehensible. 

"P'r'aps you'll go to him, Ranny?"

"Hadn't we better wait for Mercier?"

(Old Mr. Beesley's mixture was a case for Mercier. )

"Him? Goodness knows when he'll be in. And it's not likely that y'rfather'll have him interferin' with him. They're sendin' at ten pasteleven, and it's five past now. "

Thus and thus only did she suggest the necessity for immediate action. Also her fear lest Mercier should find Mr. Ransome out. As if Mercierhad not found him out long ago; as if he hadn't warned Ranny, time andagain, of what might happen. 

"All right, I'll go. "

 * * * * *

He went by the right-hand door at the back of the shop, and down a shortand exceedingly narrow passage, lined with shallow shelves for thestorage of drugs. 

Another door at the end of the passage led straight into thedispensing-room outside, a long shed of corrugated iron run up againstthe garden wall and lined with honey-colored pine. Under a wide stretchof window was a work table. At one end of this table was a slab ofwhite marble; at the other a porcelain sink fitted with taps and spraysfor hot and cold water. From the far end of the room where the stove wascame a smothered roar of gas flames. On the broken inner wall wereshelves fitted with drawers of all sizes, each with its label, and abovethem other shelves with row after row of jars. Near the stove, moreshelves with more and more jars, with phials, kettles, pannikins, andpipkins. Everywhere else shelves of medicine bottles, innumerablemedicine bottles of all sorts and sizes, giving to the honey-coloredwalls a decorative glimmer of sea-blue and sea-green. 

All this was brilliantly illuminated with gas that burned on everybracket. 

To Ransome's senses it was as if the faint, the delicate colors of theplace gave a more frightful grossness and pungency to its smell. Dyingasafetida struggled still with gas fumes, and was pierced by anotherodor, a sharp and bitter odor that he knew. 

At the long table, under the hanging gaselier, in shirt sleeves andapron, Mr. Ransome stood. The light fell full on his sallow baldness andits ring of iron-gray hair; on his sallow, sickly face; on his littlelong, peaked nose with its peevish nostrils; even on his thin andirritable mouth, unhidden by the scanty, close-trimmed iron-graymustache and beard. He was weedy to the last degree. 

Ranny came near and gazed inscrutably at this miracle of physicalunfitness. Under his gaze the pitiful and insignificant figure boreitself as with a majesty of rectitude. 

Mr. Ransome had before him a prescription, a medicine bottle, a largebottle of distilled water, two measuring-glasses, and a smaller bottlehalf full of a pale-amber liquid. He had been standing motionless, staring at these objects with a peculiar and intent solemnity. Now, asif challenged and challenging, he drew the smaller measuring-glasstoward him with one hand. He held it to the light and moved his fingernail slowly along the middle measuring line. Then with two hands thattrembled he poured into it a part of the infusion. The liquid wenttink-tinkling in a succession of little jerks. He held it to the light;it rose a good inch above the line he had marked. He shook his head atit slowly, with an air of admonition and reproof, and poured it backinto the bottle. 

This process he repeated seven times, always with the same solemnintentness, the same reproving and admonitory air. 

At his seventh failure he turned with the dignity of a man overmasteredby outrageous circumstance. 

"Mercier not in?" he asked, sternly. (You would have said it was his sonRandall that he admonished and reproved. )

"Not yet, " said Ranny. And as he said it he possessed himself verygently of the measuring-glass and bottle. (Mr. Ransome affected not tonotice this man[oe]uver. )

"What is it?"

"Tincture of strophanthus, sodæ bicarb. , and spirits of chloroform. Justyou mind how you handle it. "

"Right-O!" said Ranny. 

The chemist's small, iron-gray eyes were fixed on him with severity andresentment. 

"How much?" said Ranny. 

"Up to three. " Mr. Ransome's head was steadier than his hand. 

Ranny poured the dose. 

"Ac-acqua distillata--to eight ounces, " said Mr. Ransome, disjointedly, but with an extreme incision. 

Ranny poured again, and decanted the medicine into its bottle through afunnel, corked it, tied on the capsule, labeled, addressed, wrapped, andsealed it. The long-drawn, subtle corners of Ranny's eyes and mouth werelifted in that irrepressible smile of his, while Mr. Ransome assertedhis pharmaceutical dignity by acrimonious comment. "_Now_ then! Youmight have club feet instead of hands. Tha's right--mess thesealin'-wax, waste the string, spoil anything you haven't got to payfor. That'll do. "

Mr. Ransome took the parcel from his son's hand, turned it round andround under the gaslight, laid it down, and dismissed it with a flick asof contempt for his incompetence. At that Ranny gave way and giggled. 

Ten minutes later he and his mother stood in the doorway of the backparlor and watched the master's superb and solitary ascent to hisbedroom on the first floor back. It was then that Ranny; still smiling, delivered his innermost opinion. 

"Queer old Humming-bird. Ain't he, Mar?"

His mother shook her head at him. "Oh, Ranny, " she said, "you shouldn'tspeak so disrespectful of your father. "

But she kissed him for it, all the same. 

CHAPTER V

That was how they kept it up together. 

Not that Mrs. Ransome was conscious of keeping it up, of ministering toan illusion as monstrous as it was absurd. She had married Mr. Ransome, believing with a final and absolute conviction in his wisdom and hisgoodness. What she was keeping up had kept up for twenty-two years, andwould keep up forever, was the attitude of her undying youth. It was itstriumph over life itself. 

In her youth the draper's daughter had been dazzled by Mr. Ransome, byhis attainments, his position, his distinction. Fulleymore Ransome hadabout him the small refinement of the suburban shopkeeper, made finer bythe intellectual processes that had turned him out a PharmaceuticalChemist. 

In her world of Wandsworth High Street his grave, fastidious figure hadstood for everything that was superior. He was superior still. He hadnever offered his Headache as a spectacle to the public eye. Born insecrecy and solitude, it remained unseen outside the sacred circle ofhis home. Even there he had contrived to create around it an atmosphereof mystery. So that it was open to Mrs. Ransome to regard each Headacheas an accident, a thing apart, solitary and miraculous in itsoccurrence. Faced with the incredible fact, she found a certaingratification in the thought that Mr. Ransome's position enabled him toorder the best spirit wholesale, and with a professional impunity. Soinviolate was his privacy that not even the wine and spirit merchantnext door could gage the amount of his expenditure in this item. 

Thus, in Mrs. Ransome's eyes, the worst Headache he had ever had couldnot impair his innermost integrity. Her vision of him was inspired by aninnocence and sincerity that were of the substance of her soul. And inthis optimism she had brought up her son. 

Ranny, with his venturesomeness, had carried it a step further. ForRanny, not only did Mr. Ransome's inebriety conceal itself under thename of Headache, but in those hours when the Headache cast itsintolerable gloom over the household Ranny persisted--from his childhoodhe had persisted--in regarding his father, perversely, as the source andfount of joy. 

It was in this happy light he saw him on Sunday morning, when Mrs. Ransome came into the back parlor, where he was hiding his paper, _ThePink 'Un_, behind him under the sofa cushions. She was wearing her newslaty-gray gown with the lace collar, and a head-dress that combined thedecorum of the bonnet with the levity and fascination of the hat. Blackit was, with a spray of damask roses and their leaves, that springupward from Mrs. Ransome's left ear. 

"Your father's goin' to church, " she said. 

Ranny sat up among his cushions and said: "Oh, Lord! That Humming-bird'sa fair treat. "

He took it as a supreme instance of his father's humor. 

But that was not the way Mrs. Ransome meant that he should take it. Ranny's admiration implied that the Humming-bird was carrying it off, successfully, if you like, but still carrying it. Whereas what shedesired him to see was that there was nothing to be carried off. Obviously there could not be, when Mr. Ransome was prepared to go tochurch. 

For the going to church of Mr. Ransome was itself a ritual, a highreligious ceremony. Hitherto he had kept himself pure for it, abstainingfrom all Headache overnight. It was this habitual consecration of Mr. Ransome that made his last lapse so remarkable and so important, whileit revealed it as fortuitous. Ranny had missed the deep logic of hismother's statement. Mr. Ransome was sidesman at the Parish Church, andat no time was the Headache compatible with being sidesman. 

Nothing had ever interfered with the slow pageant of Mr. Ransome'sprogress toward church. Outside in the passage he was lingering over hispreparations: the adjustment of his tie, the brushing of his tall hat, the drawing on of the dogskin gloves he wore in his office. It was noteasy for Mr. Ransome to exceed the professional dignity of his frockcoat and gray trousers, and yet every Sunday, by some miracle, he didexceed it. Each minute irreproachable detail of his dress accentuated, reiterated, the suggestion of his perpetual sobriety. 

Still, there remained the memory of last night. Mrs. Ransome did notevade it; on the contrary, she used it to demonstrate the indomitablepower of Mr. Ransome's will. 

"_I_ say he ought to be layin' down, " she said. "But there--He won't. You know what He is since He's been sidesman. It's my belief He'd riseup off his deathbed to hand that plate. It's his duty to go, and go Hewill if He drops. That's your father all over. "

"That's Him, " Ranny assented. 

His mother looked him in the face. It was the look, familiar to Ranny ona Sunday morning, that, while it reinstated Ranny's father in hisrectitude, contrived subtly, insidiously, to put Ranny in the wrong. 

"You're going, too, " his mother said. 

Well, no, he wasn't exactly going. Not, that was to say, to any churchin Wandsworth. (He had, in fact, a pressing engagement to meet youngTyser at the first easterly signpost on Putney Common, and cycle withhim to Richmond. )

"It's only a spin, " said Ranny, though the look on his mother's face wasenough to tell him that a spin, on a Sunday, was dissipation, and he, recklessly, iniquitously spinning, a prodigal most unsuitably descendedfrom an upright father. 

And then (this happened nearly every Sunday) Ranny set himself to charmaway that look from his mother's face. First of all he said she was atip-topper, a howling swell, and asked her where _she_ expected to go toin that hat, nippin' in and cuttin' all the girls out, and she a marriedwoman and a mother; and whether it wouldn't be fairer all around, andmuch more proper, if she was to wear something in the nature of a veil?Then he buttoned up her gloves over her little fat wrists and kissed herin several places where the veil ought to have been; and when he hadinformed her that "the Humming-bird was a regular toff, " and haddismissed them both with his blessing, standing on the doorstep of theshop, he wheeled his bicycle out into the street, mounted it, andfollowed at the pace of a walking funeral until his parents haddisappeared into the Parish Church. 

Then Ranny, in his joy, set up a prolonged ringing of his bicycle bell, as it were the cry of his young soul, a shrill song of triumph andliberation and delight. And in his own vivid phrase, he "let her rip. "

Of course he was a prodigal, a wastrel, a spendthrift. Going the pace, he was, with a vengeance, like a razzling-dazzling, devil-may-care youngdog. 

A prodigal driven by the lust of speed, dissipating his divine energiesin this fierce whirling of the wheels; scattering his youth to the sunand his strength to the wind in the fury of riotous "biking. " Adrunkard, mad-drunk, blind-drunk with the draught of his onrush. 

That was Ranny on a Sunday morning. 

 * * * * *

He returned, at one o'clock, to a dinner of roast mutton and apple tart. Conversation was sustained, for Mercier's benefit, at the extreme pitchof politeness and precision. It seemed to Ranny that at Sunday dinnerhis father reached, socially, a very high level. It seemed so to Mrs. Ransome as she bloomed and flushed in a brief return of her beauty abovethe mutton and the tart. She bloomed and flushed every time that Mr. Ransome did anything that proved his goodness and his wisdom. Sunday wasthe day in which she most believed in him, the day set apart for herworship of him. 

By what blindfolded pieties, what subterfuges, what evasions she hadachieved her own private superstition was unknown, even to herself. Itwas by courage and the magic of personality--some evocation of her lostgaiety and charm--but above all by courage that she had contrived toimpose it upon other people. 

The cult of Mr. Ransome reached its height at four o'clock on thisSunday afternoon, when Ranny's Uncle John Randall (Junior) and AuntRandall dropped in to tea. Both Mr. And Mrs. Randall believed in Mr. Ransome with the fervent, immovable faith of innocence that has once forall taken an idea into its head. Long ago they had taken it into theirheads that Mr. Ransome was a wise and good man. They had taken it onhearsay, on conjecture, on perpetual suggestion conveyed by Mrs. Ransome, and on the grounds--absolutely incontrovertible--that they hadnever heard a word to the contrary. Never, until the other day, whenthat young Mercier came to Wandsworth. And, as Mrs. Randall said, everybody knew what he was. Whatever it was that Mr. Randall had heardfrom young Mercier and told to Mrs. Randall, the two had agreed to holdtheir tongues about it, for Emmy's sake, and not to pass it on. Wildhorses, Mrs. Randall said, wouldn't drag it out of her. 

Not that they believed or could believe such a thing of Mr. Ransome, whohad been known in Wandsworth for five-and-twenty years before that youngMercier was so much as born. And by holding their tongues about it andnot passing it on they had succeeded in dismissing from their minds, forlong intervals at a time, the story they had heard about Mr. Ransome. "For, mind you, " said Mr. Randall, "if it got about it would ruin him. Ruin him it would. As much as if it was true. "

Long afterward when she thought of that Sunday, and how beautifullythey'd spoken of Mr. Ransome; that Sunday when they had had tea upstairsin the best parlor on the front; that Sunday that had been half pleasureand half pain; that strange and ominous Sunday when poor Ranny hadbroken out and been so wild; long afterward, when she thought of it, Mrs. Ransome found that tears were in her eyes. 

She had no idea then that they had heard anything. Family affection waswhat you looked for from the Randalls, and on Sundays they showed it bya frequent dropping in to tea. 

John Randall, the draper, was a fine man. A tall, erect, full-frontedman, a superb figure in a frock coat. A man with a florid, handsomeface, clean-shaved for the greater salience of his big mustache (dark, grizzled like his hair). A man with handsome eyes--prominent, slightlybloodshot, generous eyes. He might have passed for a soldier but forsomething that detracted, something that Ranny noticed. But even Rannyhesitated to call it flabbiness in so fine a man. 

Mr. Randall had married a woman who had been even finer than himself. And she was still fine, with her black hair dressed in a prominentpompadour, and her figure curbed by the tightness of her Sunday gown. Under her polished hair Mrs. Randall's face shone with a blond pallor. It had grown up gradually round her features, and they, becoming moreand more insignificant, were now merged in its general expression ofgood will. Ranny noted with wonder this increasing simplification ofhis Aunt Randall's face. 

She entered as if under stress, towing her large husband through thedoorway, and in and out among the furniture. 

The room that received them was full of furniture, walnut wood, mid-Victorian in design, upholstered in rep, which had faded fromcrimson to an agreeable old rose. Rep curtains over Nottingham lace hungfrom the two windows. There was a davenport between them, and, opposite, a cabinet with a looking-glass back in three arches. It was Mr. Ransome's social distinction that he had inherited this walnut-woodfurniture. Modernity was represented by a brand-new overmantle instained wood and beveled glass, with little shelves displaying Japanesevases. The wall paper turned this front parlor into a bower of giltroses (slightly tarnished on a grayish ground). 

And as Mrs. Ransome sat at the head of the oval table in the center youwould never have known that she was the woman with red eyes, thefurtive, whispering woman who had opened the door to her son Randalllast night. She sat in a most correct and upright attitude, she lookedat John Randall and his wife, and smiled and flushed with gladness andwith pride. It took so little to make her glad and proud. She was gladthat Bessie was wearing the black and white which was so becoming toher. She was glad that there was honey as well as jam for tea, and thatshe had not cut the cake before they came. She was proud of her teapot, and of the appearance of her room. She was proud of Mr. Ransome'sappearance at the table (where he sat austerely), and of her brother, John Randall, who looked so like a military man. 

And John Randall talked; he talked; it was what he had come for. He hada right to talk. He was a member of the Borough Council, an importantman, a man (it was said of him) with "ideas. " He was a Liberal; and so, for that matter, was Mr. Ransome. Both were of the good, safe middleclass, and took the good, safe, middle line. 

They sat there; the Nottingham lace curtains veiled them from the gazesof the street, but their voices, raised in discussion, could be mostdistinctly heard; for the window was a little open, letting in thegolden afternoon. They sat and drank tea and abused the Tory Government. Not any one Tory Government, but all Tory Governments. Mr. Ransome saidthat all Tory Governments were bad. Mr. Randall, aiming at precision, said he wouldn't say they were bad so much as stupid, cowardly, anddishonest. Stupid, because they were incapable of the ideas the Liberalshad. Cowardly, because they let the Liberals do all the fighting forideas. Dishonest, because they stole the ideas, purloined 'em, carriedthem out, and sneaked the credit. 

And when Ranny asked if it mattered who got the credit provided they_were_ carried out, Mr. Randall replied solemnly that it did matter, myboy. It mattered a great deal. Credit was everything, the nation'sconfidence was everything. A Government lived on credit and on nothingelse. And his father told him that he hadn't understood what his unclehad been saying. 

"If anybody asks _me_--" said Mr. Ransome. He interrupted himself tostare terribly at Mrs. Ransome, who was sending a signal to her son anda whisper, "Have a little slice of gingercake, Ran dear. "

"If anybody asks me _my_ objection to a Tory Government, I'll put it for'em, " said Mr. Ransome, "in a nutshell. "

"Let's have it, Fulleymore, " said Mr. Randall. 

And Mr. Ransome let him have it--in a nutshell. 

"With a Tory Government you always, sooner or later, have a war. Andwho, " said Mr. Ransome, "_wants_ war?"

Mr. Randall bowed and made a motion of his hand toward hisbrother-in-law, a complicated gesture which implied destruction of allTory Governments, homage to Mr. Ransome, and dismissal of the subject asdefinitively settled by him. 

Mrs. Ransome seized the moment to raise her eyebrows and the teapottoward Mrs. Randall, and to whisper again, surreptitiously, "Jestanother little drain of tea?"

Then Ranny, who had tilted his chair most dangerously backward, washeard saying something. A bit of scrap, now and then, with other nationswas, in Ranny's opinion, a jolly good thing. Kept you from gettin'Flabby. Kept you Fit. 

Mr. Randall, in a large, forbearing manner, dealt with Ranny. He wantedto know whether he, Ranny, thought that the world was one almighty Poly. Gym. ?

And Mr. Ransome answered: "That's precisely what he does think. Made forhis amusement, the world is. "

Ranny was young, and so they all treated him as if he were neither goodnor wise. 

And Ranny, desperately tilted backward, looked at them all with a smilethat almost confirmed his father's view of his philosophy. He wasworking up for his great outbreak. He could feel the laughter strugglingin his throat. 

"I don't say, " said Mr. Ransome, ignoring his son's folly, "that I'mcomplaining of this Boer War in especial. If anything"--he weighed it, determined, in his rectitude, to be just even to the war--"if anythingwe sold more of some things. "

"Now what, " said Mrs. Randall, "do you sell most of in time of war?"

"Sleepin' draughts, heart mixture, nerve tonic, stomach mixture, and soforth. "

"And he can tell you, " said Mr. Randall, "to a month's bookin' whatmeddycine he'll sell. "

"What's more, " said the chemist, with a sinister intonation, "I can tellwho'll want 'em. "

"Can you reelly now?" said Mrs. Randall. "Why, Fulleymore, you shouldhave been a doctor. Shouldn't he, Emmy?"

Mrs. Ransome laughed softly in her pride. "He couldn't be much more thanHe is. Why, He doctors half the poor people in Wandsworth. They all cometo Him, whether it's toothache or bronchitis or the influenza, or ahousemaid with a whitlow on her finger, and He prescribes for all. Ifall the doctors in Wandsworth died to-morrow some of us would be noworse off. "

"Many's the doctor's bill he's saved me, " said Mr. Randall. 

"Yes, but it's a tryin' life for Him, sufferin' as He is in 'is own'ealth. Never knowin' when the night bell won't ring, and He have to getup out of his warm bed. He doesn't spare Himself, I can tell you. "

And on they went for another quarter of an hour, boldly asserting, delicately hinting, subtly suggesting that Mr. Ransome was a good man;as if, Ranny reflected, anybody had ever said he wasn't. Mr. Ransomewithdrew himself to his armchair by the fireplace, and the hymn ofpraise went on; it flowed round him where he sat morose and remote; andRanny, in the window seat, was silent, listening with an inscrutableintentness to the three voices that ran on. He marveled at the way theykept it up. When his mother's light soprano broke, breathless for amoment, on a top note, Mrs. Randall's rich, guttural contralto came toits support, Mr. Randall supplying a running accompaniment of bass. Andnow they burst, all three of them, into anecdote and reminiscence, illustrating what they were all agreed about, that Mr. Ransome was agood man. 

Nobody asked Ranny to join in; nobody knew, nobody cared what he wasthinking, least of all Mr. Ransome. 

He was thinking that he had asked Fred Booty in to tea, and that he hadforgotten to say anything about it to his mother, and that Fred waslate, and that his father wouldn't like it. 

 * * * * *

He didn't. He didn't like it at all. He didn't like Fred Booty to beginwith, and when the impudent young monkey arrived after the others hadgone, and had to have fresh tea made for him, thus accentuating andprolonging the unpleasantly, the intolerably festive hour, Mr. Ransomefelt that he had been tried to the utmost, and that courtesy andforbearance had gone far enough for one Sunday. So he refused to speakwhen he was spoken to. He turned his back on his family and on Booty. Heimpressed them with his absolute and perfect disapproval. 

For, as the Headache worked in Mr. Ransome, all young and gay andinnocent things became abominable to him. Especially young things withspirits and appetites like his son Randall and Fred Booty. Thisafternoon they inspired him with a peculiar loathing and disgust. So didthe malignant cheerfulness maintained by his wife. Escape no doubt wasopen to him. He might have left the room and sat by himself in the backparlor. But he spared them this humiliation. Outraged as he was, hewould not go to the extreme length of forsaking them. He was a good man;and, as a good man, he would not be separated from his family, though heloathed it. So he hung about the room where they were; he brooded overit; he filled it with the spirit of the Headache. Young Booty became soinfected, so poisoned with this presence that his nervous systemsuffered, and he all but choked over his tea. Young Booty, with hishumor and his wit, the joy of Poly. Ramblers, sat in silence, miserablyblushing, crumbling with agitated fingers the cake he dared not eat, andall the time trying not to look at Ranny. 

For if he looked at Ranny he would be done for; he would not be able tocontain himself, beholding how Ranny stuck it, and what he made of it, that intolerable, that incredible Sunday afternoon; how he saw itthrough; how he got back on it and found in it his own. For, as Mr. Ransome went from gloom to gloom, Ranny's spirit soared, indomitable, and his merriment rose in him, wave on wave. 

What he could make of it Booty saw in an instant when Mr. Ransome leftthe room at the summons of the shop-bell. Ranny, with a smile ofpositive affection, watched him as he went. 

"Queer old percher, ain't he?" Ranny said. 

Then he let himself go, addressing himself to Booty. 

"The old Porcupine may seem to you a trifle melancholy and morose. Youcan't see what's goin' on in his mind. You've no ideer of the glee hebottles up inside himself. Fair bubblin' and sparklin' in him, it is. Some day he'll bust out with it. I shouldn't be surprised if, at anymoment now, he was to break out into song. "

Booty, very hot and uncomfortable under Mrs. Ransome's eyes, affected toreprove him. "You dry up, you young rotter. Jolly lot of bottlin' upthere is about you. "

But there was that in Ranny which seemed as if it would never dry up. Hehopped a chair seven times running, out of pure light-heartedness. Thesound of the hopping brought Mr. Ransome in a fury from the shop below. He stood in the doorway, absurd as to his stature, but tremendous in theexpression of the gloom that was his soul. 

"What's goin' on here?" he asked, in a voice that would have thunderedif it could. 

"It's me, " said Ranny. "Practisin'. "

"I won't 'ave it then. I'll 'ave none of this leapin' and jumpin' overthe shop on a Sunday afternoon. Pandemonium it is. 'Aven't you got allthe week for your silly monkey tricks? I won't 'ave this room used, Mother, if he can't behave himself in it of a Sunday. "

And he slammed the door on himself. 

"On Sunday evenin', " said his son, imperturbably, as if there had beenno interruption, "eight-thirty to eleven, at his residence, High Street, Wandsworth, Mr. Fulleymore Ransome will give an Entertainment. HumorousImpersonations: Mr. F. Ransome. Step Dancin': Mr. F. Ransome. Ladies arerequested to remove their hats. Song: _Put Me Among the Girls_, Mr. F. Ransome--"

"For shame, Ranny, " said his mother, behind her pocket handkerchief. 

"--There will be a short interval for refreshment, when festivities willconclude with a performance on the French Horn: Mr. F. Ransome. "

His mother laughed as she always did (relieved that he could take itthat way); but this time, through all her laughter, he could see thatthere was something wrong. 

And in the evening, when he had returned from seeing Booty home, shetold him what it was. They were alone together in the front parlor. 

"Ranny, " she said, suddenly; "if I were you I wouldn't bring strangersin for a bit while your father's sufferin' as he is. "

"Oh, I say, Mother--"

Ranny was disconcerted, for he had been going to ask her if he mightbring Winny Dymond in some day. 

"Well, " she said, "it isn't as if He was one that could get away byHimself, like. He's always in and out. "

"Yes. The old Hedgehog scuttles about pretty ubiquitous, don't he?"

That was all he said. 

But though he took it like that, he knew his mother's heart; he knewwhat it had cost her to give him that pitiful hint. He was balancinghimself on the arm of her chair now, and hanging over her like a lover. 

He had always been more like a lover to her than a son. Mr. Ransome'stransports (if he could be said to have transports) of affection wereviolent, with long intermissions and most brief. Ranny had ways, softwords, cajoleries, caresses that charmed her in her secret desolation. Balancing himself on the arm of her chair, he had his face hidden in thenape of her neck, where he affected ecstasy and the sniffing in offragrance, as if his mother were a flower. 

"What do you _do_?" said Ranny. "Do you bury yourself in violets allnight, or what?"

"Violets indeed! Get along with you!"

"Violets aren't in it with your neck, Mother--nor roses neither. Whatdid God Almighty think he was making when he made you?"

"Don't you dare to speak so, " said his mother, smiling secretly. 

"Lord bless you! _He_ don't mind, " said Ranny. "He's not like Par. "

And he plunged into her neck again and burrowed there. 

"Ranny, if you knew how you worried me, you wouldn't do it. You reellywouldn't. I don't know what'll come to you, goin' on so reckless. "

"It's because I love you, " said Ranny, half stifled with his burrowing. "You fair drive me mad. I could eat you, Mother, and thrive on it. "

"Get along with you! There! You're spoiling all my Sunday lace. "

Ranny emerged, and his mother looked at him. 

"Such a sight as you are. If you could see yourself, " she said. 

She raised her hand and stroked, not without tenderness, his rumpledhair. 

"P'r'aps--If you had a sweetheart, Ran, you'd leave off makin' a fool ofyour old mother. "

"I wouldn't leave off kissin' her, " said he. 

And then, suddenly, it struck him that he had never kissed Winny. Hehadn't even thought of it. He saw her fugitive, swift-darting, rebellious rather than reluctant under his embrace; and at the thoughthe blushed, suddenly, all over. 

His mother was unaware that his kisses had become dreamy, tentative, foreboding. She said to herself: "When his time comes there'll be noholding him. But he isn't one that'll be in a hurry, Ranny isn't. "

She took comfort from that thought. 

CHAPTER VI

Ranny had received his first intimation that he was not a free man. Andit had come upon him with something of a shock. He had made his burstfor freedom five years ago, when he refused to be a PharmaceuticalChemist in his father's shop, because he could not stand his father'subiquity. And yet he was not free to leave his father's house; for hedid not see how, as things were going, he could leave his mother. He wasnot free to ask his friends there either; not, that was to say, friendswho were strangers to his father and the Headache. Above all, he was notfree to ask Winny Dymond. He had thought he was, but his mother had madehim see that he wasn't, because of his father's Headache; that he reallyought not to expose the poor old Humming-bird to the rude criticism ofpeople who did not know how good he was. That was what his mother, blessher! had been trying to make him see. And if it came to exposing, ifthis was to be a fair sample of their Sundays, if the Humming-bird wasgoing to take the cake for queerness, what right had he to expose littleWinny?

And would she stand it if he did? She might come once, perhaps, but notagain. The Humming-bird would be a bit too much for her. 

Then how on earth, Ranny asked himself, was he going to get any furtherwith a girl like Winny? His acquaintance with her was bound to be afurtive and a secret thing. He loathed anything furtive, and he hatedsecrecy. And Winny would loathe and hate them, too. And she might turnon him and ask him why she was to be made love to in the streets whenhis mother had a house and he lived in it?

It was the first time that this idea of making love had come to him. Ofcourse he had always supposed that he would marry some day; but as formaking love, it was his mother who had put into his head thatexquisitely agitating idea. 

To make love to little Winny and to marry her, if (and that was not byany means so certain) she would have him--no idea could well haveagitated Ranny more. It blunted the fine razorlike edge of his appetitefor Sunday supper. It obscured his interest in _The Pink 'Un_, which hehad unearthed from under the sofa cushion in the back parlor, whither hehad withdrawn himself to think of it. And thinking of it took away thebest part of his Sunday night's sleep. 

For, after all, it was impossible; and the more you thought of it themore impossible it was. He couldn't marry. He simply couldn't afford iton a salary of eight pounds a month, which was a little under a hundreda year. He couldn't even afford it on his rise. Fellows did. But heconsidered it was a beastly shame of them; yes, a beastly shame it wasto go and tie a girl to you when you couldn't keep her properly, to saynothing of letting her in for having kids you couldn't keep at all. Ranny had very fixed and firm opinions about marrying; for he had seenfellows doing it, rushing bald-headed into this tremendous business, for no reason but that they had got so gone on some girl they couldn'tstick it without her. Ranny, in his decency, considered that that wasn'ta reason; that they ought to stick it; that they ought to think of thegirl, and that of all the beastly things you could do to her, this wasthe beastliest, because it tied her. 

He had more than ever decided that it was so, as he lay in his atticsleepless on his narrow iron bedstead, staring up at the steep slope ofthe white-washed ceiling that leaned over him, pressed on him, andthreatened him; watching it glimmer and darken and glimmer again to thedawn. He had put away from him the almost tangible vision of Winny lyingthere, pretty as she would be, in her little white nightgown, and herhair tossed over his pillow, perhaps, and he vowed that for Winny's sakehe would never do that thing. 

As for the feeling he had unmistakably begun to have for Winny, he wouldhave to put that away, too, until he could afford to produce it. 

It might also be wiser, for his own sake, to give up seeing her until hecould afford it; but to this pitch of abnegation Ranny, for all hisdecency, couldn't rise. 

Besides, he had to see her. He had to see her home. 

 * * * * *

And so he took his feeling and put it away, together with a certainsachet, scented with violets, and having a pattern of violets on awhite-satin ground, and the word Violet going slantwise across it inembroidery. He had bought it (from his mother) in the shop, to keep (hesaid) in his drawer among his handkerchiefs. And in his drawer, amonghis handkerchiefs, he kept it, wrapped tenderly in tissue paper. Hetried hard to forget that he had really bought it to give to Winny onher birthday. He tried hard to forget his feeling, wrapped up and putaway with it. But he couldn't forget it; because every day hishandkerchiefs, impregnated with the scent of violets, gave out a whiffthat reminded him, and his feeling was inextricably entangled with thatwhiff. 

It was with him as he worked in his mahogany pen at Woolridge's. All daya faint odor of violets clung to him and spread itself subtly about thecounting-house, and the fellows noticed it and sniffed. And, oh, howthey chaffed him. "Um-m-m. You been rolling in a bed of violets, Ranny?"And "Oo-ooh, what price violets?" And "You might tell us her name, oldchappie, if you _won't_ give the address. " Till his life was a burden tohim. 

So to end the nuisance he took that sachet wrapped in tissue paper, andput it in the round, japanned tin box where he kept his collars, and lethis collars run loose about the drawer. He shut the lid down tight onthe smell and took the box and hid it in the cupboard where his bootswere, where the smell couldn't possibly get out, and where the very nextday his mother found it and received some enlightenment as to Ranny'sstate of mind. But, like a wise woman, she kept it to herself. 

And the smell departed gradually from the region of Ranny's breastpocket, and he had peace in his pen. His fellow-clerks suspected him ofa casual encounter and no more. A matter too trivial for remark. 

The counting-house at Woolridge's was an immense long room under theroof, lit by a row of windows on each side and a skylight in the middle. The door gave on a passage that ran the whole length of the room, dividing it in two. Right and left the space was partitioned off intopens more or less open. On Ransome's right, as he entered, was the penfor the women typists. On his left the petty cashier's pen, overlookingthe women. Next came the ledger clerks, then the statement clerks; andfacing these the long desk of the checking staff. At the back of theroom, right and left, were the pens of the very youngest clerks, whomade invoices. From their high desks they could see the bald spot on theassistant secretary's head. He, the highest power in that hierarchy, hada special pen provided for him behind the ledger and the statementclerks; a little innermost sanctuary approached by a short passage. Surrounded entirely by glass, he could overlook the whole of hisdominion, from the boys at the bottom to the gray-headed cashier and thewomen typists at the top. 

And in between, scattered and in rows, the tops of men's heads: headsdark and fair and grizzled, all bowed over the long desks, alldiminished and obscured in their effect by the heavy mahogany of theirpens, by the shining brass trellis-work that screened them, by theemerald green of the hanging lampshades, by the blond lights and clearshadows of the walls, and by the everlasting streaming, drifting, andshifting of the white paper that they handled. 

The whole place was full of sounds: the hard clicking of thetypewriters, and under it the eternal rustling of the white papers, thescratching of pens, the thud of ledgers on desks, the hiss of theirturning leaves, and the sharp smacking and slamming as they closed. 

And, in the middle of that stir and motion made by hands, all those topsof heads were still, as if they took no part in it; through theintensity of their absorption they were detached. Every now and then oneof them would lift and hold up a face among those tops of heads, and itwas like the sudden uncanny insurgence of an alien life. 

That stillness was abhorrent to young Ransome. So was the bowing of hishead, the cramping of his limbs, and his sense of imprisonment in hispen. 

And all his life he would go on sitting there in that intolerableconstraint. He had no hope beyond exchanging a larger pen at the bottomof the room for a smaller one at the top. He had begun at the verybottom as an invoice clerk at a pound a week. He was now a statementclerk at eight pounds a month. Working up through all his grades, hewould become a ledger clerk at twelve pounds a month. He might stick atthat forever, but if he had luck he might become a petty cashier atsixteen pounds. That couldn't happen before he was thirty, if then. Hewas bound to get his rise in the autumn. But that was no good. Itwouldn't be safe, not really safe, to marry until he had become a pettycashier. To end in the petty cashier's narrow pen by the door, that wasthe goal and summit of his ambition. 

 * * * * *

Day in day out he worked now with desperate assiduity. He bowed hisyoung head; he cramped his glorious limbs; he steeped his very soul instatements of account for furniture. Furniture bought with hideouscontinuity by lucky devils, opulent beasts, beasts that wallowedinconsiderately; worst of all by beasts, abominable beasts, who couldn'tafford it and were yet about to marry and to set up house. Woolridge'soffered a shameless encouragement to these. It lured them on; it laidout its nets for them and caught and tangled them and flung them totheir ruin. All over London and the provinces Woolridge's posters weredisplayed; flaunting yet insidious posters where a young man and a youngwoman with innocent, idiotic faces were seen gazing, fascinated, intoWoolridge's windows. Woolridge's artist had a wild humor that gave theshow away by exaggerating the innocence and idiocy of Woolridge'svictims. It appealed to Ransome by the audacity with which it had defiedWoolridge's to see its point. Woolridge's itself was a perpetualtempting and solicitation. Ranny wondered how in those days he everresisted its appeal to him to be a man and risk it and make a home forWinny. 

 * * * * *

And as the months went on he kept himself fitter than ever. He diddumb-bell practice in his bedroom. He sprinted like mad. He rowed hardon the river. He was so fit that in June (just before stock-taking) heentered for the Wandsworth Athletic Sports, and won the silver cupagainst Fred Booty in the Hurdle Race. He was more than ever punctual atthe Poly. Gym. 

And sometimes, on a Sunday afternoon, he would take Winny for a bicycleride into the country. He liked pushing her machine up all the hills;still more he liked to help her in her first fierce charging of them, with a strong hand at the back of her waist. That was nothing to the joyof scorching on the level with linked hands. And it was best of all whenthey rested, sitting side by side under a birch tree on the Common, orlying in the long grass of the fields. 

Thus on a Sunday afternoon in June they found themselves alone in acorner of a meadow in Southfields. All day Ransome had been overcome bya certain melancholy which Winny for some reason affected to ignore. 

They had been silent for a perceptible time, Ransome lying on his backwhile Winny, seated beside him, gathered what daisies and buttercupswere within her reach. And as he watched her sidelong, it struck him allat once that Winny's life was worse even than his own. Winny was clever, and she had a berth as book-keeper in Starker's, one of the smallerdrapers' shops in Oxford Street, near Woolridge's. Her position was asgood as his, yet she only earned five pounds a month to his eight. Andhe hated to think of Winny working, anyway. 

"Winny, " he said, suddenly, "do you like book-keeping?"

"Of course I do, " said Winny. She didn't, but she was not going to sayso lest he should think that she was discontented. 

"They--are they decent to you at Starker's?"

"Of course they are. I would like, " said Winny, in her grandest manner, "to see anybody trying it on with _me_. "

"Oh, well, I suppose it's all right if you like it. But Ithought--perhaps--you didn't. "

"You'd no business to think. "

"Can't help it. Born thinkin'. "

"Well--it shows how much you know. I mean to enjoy life, " said Winny. "And I do enjoy it. "

Ranny, lying on his back with his face turned up to the sky, said thatthat was a jolly sight more than he did; that for his part he thought ita pretty rotten show. 

Winny stared, for this utterance was most unlike him. 

"My goodness! What ever in the world's wrong with you?"

Everything, he answered, gloomily, was wrong. 

"What an idea!" said Winny. 

It _was_ an idea, he said, if it was nothing else. At any rate, it washis idea. And Winny wanted to know what made him have it. 

"Oh, I dunno. There are things a fellow wants he hasn't got. "

"What sort of things?"

"All sorts. "

"Well--don't think about them. Think, " said Winny, "of the things you_have_ got. "

"What things?"

"Why, " said Winny, counting them off on her fingers, "you've got afather--and a mother--and new tires to your bike. Good boots" (she hadstuck buttercups in their laces) "and a most beautiful purple tie. " (Sheheld another buttercup under his chin. )

"It _is_ a tidy tie, " Ranny admitted, smiling because of the buttercups. "But me hat's a bit rocky. "

"Quite a good hat, " said Winny, looking at it with her little head onone side. "And you've won the silver cup for the Wandsworth Hurdle Race. What more do you want?"

"It's what a fellow hasn't got he wants. "

"Well, what haven't you got, then?"

"Prospects, " said Ranny. "I've no prospects. Not for years and years. "

"No, " said Winny, with decision. "And didn't ought to have. Not at yourage. "

She had no sympathy for him and no understanding of his case. 

Ranny sat up, stared about him, and sighed profoundly. 

And because he could think of nothing else to say he suggested that itwas time to go. 

Winny sprang to her feet with a swiftness that implied that if it was togo he wanted, she was more than ready to oblige him. As she mounted herbicycle, the shut firmness of her mouth, the straightness of her back, and the grip of her little hands on the handle bars were eloquent of herdetermination to be gone. And her face, he noticed, was pinker than heever remembered having seen it. 

And he wondered what it was he had said. 

CHAPTER VII

It was after that evening that he observed a change in her, a changethat he could neither account for nor define. It seemed to him that shewas trying to avoid him, and that he was no longer agreeably affected byher behavior, as he had been in the beginning by her fugitive, evasiveways. Then she had, indeed, led him a dance, but he had thoroughlyenjoyed the fun of it. Now the dancing and the fun were all over. Atleast, so he was left to gather from her manner; for the strangeness ofit was that she said nothing now. There was about her a terriblestillness and reserve, and in her little face, once so tender, thesuggestion of a possible hardness. 

He was not aware that the stillness and reserve were in himself, northat the hardness was in his own face as it set in his indomitabledetermination to stick it, and not to do the beastly thing, nor yet thatthere were moments when that stillness and that set look terrifiedWinny. Neither was he aware that Winny, under all her terror, had aninstinct that divined him and understood. 

And as the months went on he saw less and less of her. Though he waspunctual at their corner in Oxford Street, he was always too late tofind Winny there. He gave that up, and began to haunt the door inStarker's iron shutter at closing-time. He had found out that girlclerks, what with chattering and putting on their hats and things, werealways a good ten minutes later than the men. He had seen fellows(fellows from Woolridge's, some of them) hanging round the shutters ofthe big draperies to meet the girls. By making a dash for it fromWoolridge's he could reach Starker's just in time to catch Winny as shecame out, delicately stepping through the little door in the great ironshutter. 

Evening after evening he was there and never caught her. She was offbefore he could get through the door in his own shutter. 

Then (it was one evening in August) he saw her. He was not making a dashfor it; he was strolling casually and without hope in the direction ofStarker's, and he saw her walking away, arm in arm with another girl, agirl he had never seen before. He would have overtaken them but that thepresence of the girl deterred him. 

He followed, losing them in the crowd, recovering, losing them again;then they turned northward up a side street and were gone. He noticedthat the strange girl was taller than Winny by the head and shoulders, and that she went lazily, deliberately, with sudden lingerings, andalways with a curious swinging movement of her hips. He had been closeupon Winny at the corner as they turned, so close that he could havetouched her. He thought she had seen him, but he could not be sure. Hewas also aware of a large eye slued round toward him in a pretty profilethat lifted itself, deep-chinned, above Winny's head. Their behavioragitated him, but he forbore to track them further. Decency told himthat that would be dishonorable. 

The next evening and the next he watched the door in the iron shutter, and was too late for Winny. But the third evening he saw her standing bythe door and talking to the same strange girl. The girl had her back tohim, but Winny faced him. She was not aware of him at first; but, at thesignal that he gave, she turned sharply and went from him, drawing thegirl with her, arm in arm. 

They disappeared northward up the same side street as before. 

That was on a Friday. On Sunday he called at St. Ann's Terrace and sawMaudie Hollis, who told him that Winny had gone up Hampstead way. No, not for good, but with a friend. She had been very much taken up latelywith a friend. 

"You know what she is when she's taken up, " said Maudie. 

He sighed unaware, and Maudie answered his sigh. 

"It isn't a gentleman friend. "

"No?" It was wonderful the indifference Ranny packed into that littleword. 

"Catch _her_!" said Maudie. 

She smiled at him as he turned away, and in the middle of his own miseryit struck him that poor Maudie would have to wait many years beforeBooty could afford to marry her, and that already her proud beauty was alittle sharpened and a little dimmed by waiting. 

On Monday he refrained from hanging round the door in Starker's ironshutter. But on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday he was at his post, andremained there till the door was shut almost in his face. 

On Friday he was late, and he could see even in the distance the shutdoor. 

But somebody was there, somebody was standing close up against theshutter; somebody who moved forward a step as he came, somebody who hadbeen waiting for him. It was not Winny. It was the tall girl. 

He raised his hat in answer to the movement that was her signal, andwould have passed on, but she stopped him. She stood almost in front ofhim, so that he should not pass. And the biggest and darkest blue eyeshe had ever seen arrested him with a strange bending on him of blackbrows. 

The strange girl was saying something to him, in a voice full and yetlow, a voice with a sort of thick throb in it, and in its thickness asweet and poignant quality. 

"Please, " it was saying, "excuse me, you're Mr. Ransome, aren'tyou--Winny Dymond's friend?"

With a "Yes" that strangled itself and became inarticulate, he admittedthat he was Mr. Ransome. 

The girl lowered her eyelids (deep white eyelids they were, and hungwith black fringes, marvelously thick and long); she lowered them as ifher own behavior and his had made her shy. 

"I'm Winny's friend, too, " she said. "That's why I'm here. "

And with that she looked him in the face with eyes that shot at him aclear blue out of their darkness. Her eyes, as he expressed itafterward, were "stunners, " and they were "queer"; they were the"queerest" thing about her. That was his word for theirhalf-fascinating, half-stupefying quality. 

"Are you waiting for her?" he asked. 

"No. It's no good waiting for her. She's gone. "

"Gone?"

"Gone home. "

He rallied. "Then what are you waiting for?"

"I was waiting for you, " she said, "to tell you that it's no good. "

He had moved a little way out of the stream of people, so that he wasnow placed with his back against the shutter, and she with her shoulderto the stream. As she stood thus a man jostled her, more to attract herattention than to move her from his path. She gave a little gasp andshrank back with a movement that brought her nearer to Ransome and tohis side. And as she moved there came from her, from her clothes, andfrom her hair, a faint odor of violets, familiar yet wonderful. 

"You don't mind my speaking to you?" she said. 

"No, " said he, "but let's get out of this first. "

He put his hand lightly on her arm to steer her through the stream. There was something about her--it may have been in her voice, or in theway she looked at him--something helpless that implored and entreatedand appealed to his young manhood for protection. Her arm yielded to histouch, yet with a slight pressure that made him aware that its tissuewas of an incredible softness. Somehow, for the moment while this touchand pressure lasted, he found it impossible to look at her. Someinstinct held his eyes from her, as if he had been afraid. 

They moved on slowly, aimlessly it seemed to Ransome; yet steering hewas steered, northward, up the side street where he had seen herdisappear with Winny. It was quiet there. He no longer touched her. Hecould look at her now. 

He looked. And what he saw was a girl well grown and of incomparablesoftness. She could not have been much more than twenty, but her bodywas already rounded to the full flower of its youth. This body wasneither tall nor slender nor particularly graceful. Yet it carrieditself with an effect of tallness and slenderness and grace. 

In the same way she impressed him as being well dressed. Yet she onlywore a little plain black gown cut rather low, with a broad lace collar. There was a black velvet band round her waist and another on her wideblack hat. And yet another and a narrower band of black velvet round herfull white neck. 

The face above that neck was not beautiful, for her little straight nosewas a shade too blunt, her upper lip a shade too long and too flat; herlarge mouth, red and sullen-sweet, a shade too unfinished at the edges. There was, moreover, a hint of fullness about the jaw and chin. But thecolor and the texture of this face made almost imperceptible its flawsof structure. It was as if it had erred only through an excess ofsoftness that made the flesh of it plastic to its blood, to the subtleflame that transfused the white of it, flushing and burning to rose-red. A flame that even in soaring knew its place; for it sank before it coulddiminish the amazing blueness of her eyes; and it had left her foreheadand her eyelids to the whiteness that gave accent to eyebrows andeyelashes black as her black hair. 

That was how this girl's face, that was not beautiful, contrived to givean impression of strange beauty, fascinating and stupefying as hervoice. 

Her voice had begun again. 

"It really isn't any good, " it said. 

"What isn't?"

"Your hanging about like this. It won't help you. It won't, really. Youdon't know Winny. "

"I say, did she ask you to tell me that?"

"Not she! 'Tisn't likely. And if she did, you don't suppose I'd let on. I'm giving you the straight tip. I'm telling you what I know about her. I'm her friend, else I couldn't do it. "

"But--why?"

"Don't ask me--how do I know? I suppose I couldn't stand seeing youwaiting outside there, night after night, all for nothing. "

She drew herself up, so that she seemed to be looking down at him; sheseemed, with all her youth, to be older than he, to be no longerchildlike and innocent and helpless. And her voice, her incomparablevoice, had an edge to it; it was the voice of maturity, of experience, of the wisdom of the world. 

"You can take it from me, " said this voice, "that it doesn't do a man abit of good to go on hanging about a girl and worrying her when shedoesn't want him. "

"You mean--she doesn't like me?"

"Like you? As far as I know she likes you well enough. "

"Then--for the life of me I can't see why--"

"Liking a man isn't wanting him. And you're not going the way to makeWinny want you. "

"Oh--"

He had drawn up in the middle of the pavement just to consider whether, after all, there wasn't something in it. 

"You're--you're not offended?" Her voice implored now and pleaded. 

"That's all right. "

"Well--if you're sure you're not--would you mind seeing me home?"

"Certainly. With pleasure. "

 * * * * *

She was all helpless again and childlike, and he liked her that waybest. 

"I don't like the streets, " she explained. "I'm afraid of them. I meanI'm afraid of the people in them. They stare at me something awful. Sohorribly rude, isn't it, to stare?"

"Rude?" said Ransome. "It's disgustin'. "

"As if there was something peculiar about me. Do _you_ see anythingpeculiar about me? Anything, I mean, to make them stare?"

He was silent. 

"_Do_ you?" she insisted, poignantly. 

They were advancing headlong toward intimacy and its embarrassments. 

"Well, no, " he said, "if you ask me--no, I don't. Except that, don't youknow, you're--"

"I'm what?"

"Well--"

"Oh!" (She became more poignant than ever. ) "You _do_, then--"

"No, I don't--on my honor I--I only meant that--well, you _are_ a bitout of the way, you know. "

Her large gaze interrogated him. 

"Out of the way all round, I should fancy. Something rather wonderful. "

"Something--rather--wonderful--" she repeated, drowsily. 

"Strikes me so--that's all. "

"Strange?"

"Sort of--"

"It _is_ strange that we should be talking this way--when you think--Why, you don't even know my name. "

"No more I do, " said Ransome. 

"My name is Violet. Violet Usher. Do you like it?"

"Very much, " said Ransome. 

He did not know if this was "cock-a-tree"; but if it was he foundhimself enjoying it. 

"And yours is Randall. Mr. Randall Ransome, aren't you?"

"I say, you know; how did you get hold of that?"

"Why--Winny told me. "

In the strangeness of it all he had forgotten Winny. 

"Then she told you wrong. Now I think of it, Winny doesn't know my realname. My real name would take your breath away. "

"Tell it me. "

"Well--if you will have it--stand well back and hold your hat on. Don'tlet it catch you full in the face. John--Randall--Fulleymore--Ransome. Now you know me. "

She smiled enchantingly. "Not quite. But I know something about youWinny doesn't know. That's strange, isn't it?"

It was, if you came to think of it. 

They had crossed the Euston Road now, and Miss Usher turned presently upanother side street going north. She stopped at a door in a long row ofdingy houses. 

"This is me, " she said, "I've got a room here. It was awfully good ofyou to bring me. "

"Not at all, " he murmured. 

"And you're sure you didn't mind my speaking to you like that? Iwouldn't have done it if I hadn't been Winny's friend. "

"Of course not. "

She was not sure whether he were answering her question or assenting toher statement. 

"And now, " she said, "you're going home?"

"I suppose so. " But he remained rooted to the doorstep, digging into acrevice in it with his stick. 

From the upper step she watched him intently. 

"And we sha'n't see each other again. "

_He_ was not sure whether it was a statement or a question. 

"Sha'n't we?" He said it submissively, as if she really knew. 

She was opening the door now and letting herself in. Miss Usher had alatch key. 

"Where?" said Miss Usher, softly, but with incision. She had turned nowand was standing on her threshold. 

"Oh--anywhere--"

"Anywhere's nowhere. " Miss Usher was smiling at him, but as she smiledshe stepped back and shut the door in his excited face. 

He turned away, more stupefied than ever. 

For the first time in his life he had encountered mystery. And he had noname for it. 

But he had made a note of her street, and of the number of her door. 

CHAPTER VIII

That night Ransome was more than ever the prey of thought, if you couldcall it thought, that mad racing and careering of his brain whichfollowed his encounter with Miss Usher. The stupefaction which had beenher first effect had given way to a peculiar excitement and activity ofmind. When he said to himself that Miss Usher had behaved queerly, hemeant that she had acted with a fine defiance of convention. And she hadcarried it off. She had compelled him to accept her with her mystery asa thing long known. She had pushed the barriers aside, and in a momentshe had established intimacy. 

For only intimacy could have excused her interference with his innermostaffairs. She had given him an amount of warning and advice that he wouldnot have tolerated from his own mother. And she had used some charm thatmade it impossible for him to resent it. What could well be queerer thanthat he should be told by a girl he did not know that his case washopeless, that he must give up running after Winny Dymond, that he wasonly persecuting a girl who didn't care for him. Ransome had no doubtthat she had spoken out of some secret and mystic knowledge of herfriend. 

He supposed that women understood each other. 

And after all what had she done that was so extraordinary? She had onlyput into words--sensible words--his own misgivings, his own profounddistrust of the event. 

What _was_ extraordinary, if he could have analyzed it, was the calmnessthat mingled with his disturbance. Calmness with regard to Winny and tothe issue taken out of his hands and decided for him; calmness, and yeta pain, a distinct pain that he was not subtle enough to recognize asremorse for a disloyalty. And, under it all, that nameless, inexplicableexcitement, as if for the first time in the affairs of sex, he had asense of mystery and of adventure. 

He did not ask himself how it was that Winny had not stirred that sensein him. He did not refer it definitely to Violet Usher. It had moved inthe air about her; but it remained when she was gone. 

 * * * * *

So far was he from referring it to Miss Usher that when it died down hemade no attempt to revive it by following the adventure. He wasrestrained by some obscure instinct of self-preservation, also by theabsurd persistence with which in thought he returned again and again toWinny Dymond. That recurrent tenderness for Winny, a girl who had nosort of tenderness for him, was a thing he did not mean to encouragemore than he could help. Still, it kept him from running after any othergirl. He was not in love with Violet Usher, and so, gradually, her magiclost its hold upon his memory. 

 * * * * *

Autumn came, and with it another Grand Display at the PolytechnicGymnasium, the grandest he had yet known. As if it had been some greatcivic function, it was attended by the Mayor of Marylebone in his robes. To be sure, the Mayor, who was "going on" that night, left some timebefore the performance of Mr. J. R. F. Ransome on the Horizontal Bar. 

But Ranny was not aware of the disappearance of the Mayor. He was notperfectly aware of his own amazing evolutions on the horizontal bar. Hewas not perfectly aware of anything but the face and eyes of VioletUsher fixed on him from the side gallery above. The gallery was crowdedwith other faces and with other eyes, all fixed on him; but he was notaware of them. The gallery was for him a solitude pervaded by thepresence of Violet Usher. 

She was seated in the front row directly opposite him; her arms werelaid along the balustrade, and she leaned out over them, bending herdark brows toward him, immovable and intent. He did not know whether shewas alone there. To all appearance she was alone, for her face remainedfixed above her arms, and it was as if her eyes never once looked awayfrom him. 

And under their gaze an exultation seized him and a fierce desire, notonly to exceed and to excel all other performers on the horizontal bar, but to go beyond himself; beyond his ordinary punctual precision; beyondthe mere easy swing and temperate rhythm. Instead of the oldgood-natured rivalry, it was as if he struggled and did battle in somesupreme and terrible fight. Each movement that he made fired his blood;from the first flinging of his lithe body upward, and the sliding of itstaut muscles on the bar, to the frenzy of his revolving, triumphal, glorious to behold. Each muscle and each nerve had its own peculiarecstasy. 

And when he dropped from the high bar to the floor he stood tingling andtrembling and breathless from the queer violence with which his heartthrew itself about. So utterly had he gone beyond himself. And he knewthat his demonstration had not been quite so triumphal, so glorious ashe had thought it. There had been far too much hurry and excitementabout it. And Booty told him he was all right, but perhaps not quite upto his usual form. 

It was with the air of a conqueror that Ranny pushed his way through thepacked line of spectators in the gallery. It was with a crushed andnervous air, as of some great artist, conscious of his aim and of hisfailure, that he presented himself to Violet Usher, sliding slantwiseinto the place she made for him. 

It was as if she had known that he would come to her. They shook handsawkwardly. And with the stirring of her body there came from her thatfaint warm odor of violets. 

"I didn't expect to see you here, " he said, at last. 

"Winny brought me; else I shouldn't have come. "

She was very precise in making Winny responsible for her appearance. Hegathered that that was her idea of propriety. 

"Well--anyhow--it's a bit of all right, " he said. Then they sat silentfor a while. 

And the girl's face turned to Ranny with a flying look; and it was as ifshe had touched him with her eyes, lightly and shyly, and was gone. Thenher eyes began slowly to look him up and down, up and down, from hisbare neck and arms, white against the thin crimson binding of his"zephyr, " from his shoulders and from his chest where the lines andbosses of the muscles showed under the light gauze, and from his crimsonbelt, down the firm long slopes to his knees; and it was as if her eyesbrushed him, palpably, with soft feather strokes. They rested on hisface; and it was as if they held him between two ardent hands. And overher own face as she looked at him there went a little wave of change. Her rich color stirred and deepened; her lips parted for the quickpassage of her breath; and her blue eyes looked gray as if veiled in alight vapor. 

Ranny was seized with an overpowering, a terrible consciousness ofhimself and of his evolutions on the horizontal bar. 

"Well, " he said, as if in apology, "you've seen me figuring queerly. "

"Oh, it's all right for men, " she said. "Besides, I've seen _you_before. "

"Why, you weren't here last time?"

"No. Not here. "

"Where, then? Where on earth can you have seen me?"

She bent her brows at him in that way she had, under the brim of herwide hat. "I saw you at Wandsworth--at the Sports--running in that race. When you won the cup. "

"Oh, Lord, " said Ranny, expressing his innermost confusion. 

"Well, I'm sure you ran beautifully. "

"Oh, yes, I _ran_ all right. "

"And you jumped!"

"Anybody can jump, " said Ranny. 

"Can they?"

"Oh, Lord, yes. You should see Fred Booty. "

"I did see him. You won the cup off him. "

She drew herself up, in that other way she had, as if challenged. 

"And he'll win it off me next year. You bet. Look--here they are. "

Some instinct, risen he knew not whence, compelled him to divert hergaze. 

From below in the great hall came the sound of the rhythmic padding andtramping of feet. The Young Ladies of the Polytechnic were marching in. Right and left they wheeled, and right and left ranged themselves in twolong lines under the galleries. Now they were marking time with thestiff rise and fall of black stockings under the short tunics. Facingthem, at the head of her rank, was Winny Dymond, very upright andearnest. And with each movement of her hips the crimson sash ofleadership swung in rhythm at her side. 

Miss Usher turned to him. "Is Winny with them?"

"Rather. There she is. Right opposite. Jolly she looks, doesn't she?"

Miss Usher looked at Winny. The bent black brows bent lower, and a largeblue eye slued round into her profile, darting a sudden light at him. 

"Don't ask _me_, " she said, "I'm sure _I_ don't know. " And she turnedher shoulder on him and sat thus averted, gazing at her own hands foldedin her lap. 

Ransome leaned out over the balustrade and watched Winny. And for amoment, as he watched her, he felt again the old sense of tenderness andabsurdity, mingled, this time, with that mysterious pain. 

A barbell struck on the floor. A feminine voice gave the sharp word ofcommand, and the Young Ladies formed up for their performance on theparallel bars. 

Miss Usher still sat averted. 

"Look, " he said, at last, "it's Winny's turn. "

She turned slowly, reluctantly almost, and looked. 

Winny Dymond, shy, but grave and earnest, was going through her littlepreliminary byplay at the bars. Then, with her startling suddenness, sherushed at them, and swung herself, it seemed to Ransome, with anincreased abandonment, a wilder rhythm and motion; and when she raisedher body like an arch, far-stretching and wide-planted, it seemed to himthat it rose higher and stretched farther and wider than before, thatthere was, in fact, something preposterous in her attitude. For as MissUsher looked at Winny she drew herself up and her red mouth stiffened. 

Ranny's tension relaxed when Winny flung herself from side to side againand over, and lighted on her feet in the little curtseying posture, perfunctory and pathetic. 

He clapped his hands. "'Jove! That's good!" He was smiling tenderly. 

He turned to Miss Usher, eager and delighted. "Well--what'd you think ofit?"

The eyes he gazed into were remote and cold. Miss Usher did not answerhim. And he gathered from her silence that she disapproved profoundly ofthe performance. He wondered why. 

"Oh, come, " he said. "She's the best we've got. There's not one of thosegirls that can touch her on the bars. Look at them. "

"I don't want to look at them. I didn't think it would be like that. I'mnot used to it. I've never been to a Gymnasium in my life before. "

"You ought to come. You should join us, Miss Usher. Why don't you?"

"Thank you, Mr. Ransome, I'd rather not. I don't see myself!"

He didn't see her either. Some of his innocence had gone. She had takenit away from him. He was beginning to understand how Winny's performancehad struck her. It was magnificent, but it was not a thing that could bedone by a nice woman, by a woman who respected herself and her ownwomanhood and her own beauty; not a thing that could be done by VioletUsher. He was not sure that in her view it was consistent withpropriety, with reticence, with a perfect purity. And he began to wonderwhether his own view of it had not been a little shameless. 

He rushed, for sheer decency, into a stuttering defense. 

"Well, but--well, but--but it's all right, don't you know?"

"It's all right for men. They're different. But--"

"Not right for women?"

"If you reelly want to know--no. I don't think it is. It isn't pretty, for one thing. "

"Oh, I say--how about Winny?"

"Winny's different. It doesn't seem to matter so much for her. "

"Why not--for her?"

"Well--she's a queer creature anyhow. "

"How d'you mean--queer?"

"Well--more like a boy, somehow, than a girl. She doesn't care. She'lldo anything. And she's plucky. If she's taken a thing into her headshe'll go through with it whatever you say. "

"Yes, she's got pluck, " he assented. "_And_ cheek. "

"Mind you, she's as good as gold, with all her queerness. But it _is_queer, Mr. Ransome, if you're a woman, not to care what you do, or whatyou look like doing it. And she's so innocent, she doesn't reelly know. She couldn't do it if she did. All the same, I wish she wouldn't. "

She seemed to brood over it in beautiful distress. 

"It's a pity that the boys encourage them. Boys don't mind, of course. But _men_ don't like it. "

And with every word of her strange, magical voice there went from himsome shred of innocence and illusion. It was, of course, his innocence, his ignorance that had made him tolerant of a Grand Display, that hadfilled him with admiration for the Young Ladies of the PolytechnicGymnasium, and that had attracted him to Winny Dymond. Everything he hadthought and felt about Winny was illusion. It was illusion, that senseshe gave him of tenderness and of absurdity. Gymnastics were all verywell in their way. But nice women, the women that men cared about, womenlike Violet Usher, did not make of their bodies a spectacle in GrandDisplays. Little Winny, whatever she did, was all right, of course; butnow he came to think of it, he began to wish, like Violet Usher, thatshe wouldn't do it. It was as a boy and her comrade that he had admiredher. It was as a man that he criticized her now, looking at her throughViolet Usher's eyes. And it was as a boy that he had cared, and as a manthat he had ceased to care. 

In one night Ranny had suddenly grown up. 

Of course, it might have been different if she had cared for _him_. 

"What does it mean, the Combined Maze? What is it?"

Miss Usher was studying her programme. 

The Combined Maze? That wasn't so easy to explain. But Ranny explainedit. It was, he said, a maze, because you ran it winding in and out like, and combined, because men and women ran in it all mixed up together. They made patterns accordin' as they ran, and the patterns were the planof the maze. You didn't see the plan. You didn't know it, unless youwere leader. You just followed. 

"I see. Men and women together. "

"Men and women together. "

"Are you running in it?"

"Yes. "

"Does Winny run in it?"

"Rather. We run together. You'll see how it's done. "

Miss Usher thought she saw. 

 * * * * *

And they ran in it together, Ransome with Winny before him, turning fromhim, parting from him, flying from him, and returning to him again. Always with the same soft pad of her feet, the same swaying of hersturdy, slender body, the same rising and falling on her shoulders ofher childish door-knocker plat. 

Winny was a child; that was all that could be said of her; and he, hewas a man, grown up suddenly in a single night. 

He ran, perfunctorily, through all the foolish turnings and windings ofthe maze. He put his hands on Winny's waist to guide her when, in herexcitement, she went wrong. He linked his arm with hers when they ranlocked, shoulder to shoulder, in the Great Wheel; but it was as if heheld and caught, and was locked together with a child. Winny's charm wasgone; and with it gone the sense of tenderness and absurdity; gone themagic and the madness of the running. For in Ranny's heart there wasanother magic and another madness. And it was as if Life itself hadcaught him and locked him with a woman in the whirling of its GreatWheel. 

CHAPTER IX

He haunted that door in the shutter more than ever in the hope of seeingViolet Usher. Not that he wanted to haunt it. It was as if, set his feetsouthward as he would, they were turned back irresistibly and drawneastward in the direction of the door. 

There was nothing furtive and secret in his haunting. He had a right tohang about Starker's, for he knew Miss Usher now. He had been formallyintroduced to her by Winny as they left the Polytechnic together, on thenight of the Grand Display. Winny, preoccupied with her own performanceon the parallel bars, had remained unaware of their communion in thegallery, and Violet Usher had evidently judged it best to say nothingabout their previous interviews. 

The introducing, of course, made all the difference in the world; forRansome, reckless as he was, respected the conventions where women wereconcerned. He had seen too much of the secret and furtive ways of otherfellows, and he knew what their hanging about meant. It meant in ninecases out of ten that they wanted kicking badly. And Ranny would havetold you gravely that, in his experience, it was the "swells" who wantedkicking most of all. The "fellows, " the shop assistants, and the youngclerks, like himself, were fairly decent, but sometimes they wantedkicking, too, and in any case the "flabby" way they fooled about withgirls, and their "silly goats' talk" outraged Ranny. It made a girlcheap, and kept other fellows off her. It didn't give her her chance. Itwasn't cricket. 

He was prepared to kick, personally, any fellow he found making WinnyDymond or Violet Usher cheap. 

Not that Winny lent herself to cheapness, but about Violet he was notquite sure. And if you had asked why not, he would have told you it wasbecause she was so different. By which he meant so dangerously, sodisastrously feminine and innocent and pretty. He knew now (she had"jolly well shown him") that Winny could take care of herself; butViolet, no; she was too impulsive, too helpless, too confiding. To thinkof her waiting for him like that--for a fellow she'd never metbefore--in Oxford Street at closing-time! How did she know that hewasn't a blackguard? Supposing it had been some other fellow? Ranny'smuscles quivered as he thought of Violet's innocence and Violet'sdanger. 

All this was luminously clear to Ranny. 

But when he asked himself why, and to what end he himself desired tocultivate her acquaintance, it was there that obscurity set in. Onething he was sure about. He did not intend to marry her. If he couldn'tafford to marry Winny he most certainly could not afford to marryViolet, not for years and years, so many years that you might just aswell say never, and have done with it. Violet was not the sort of girlyou could ask to wait for you years and years. His youth was not toosanguine to divine in her the makings of a more expensive woman thaneven a petty cashier could afford. 

To be sure, Ranny did not enter into any sordid calculations, neitherdid he think the thing out in so many words; for in this matter ofViolet Usher he was incapable of any sustained and connected thought. Itcame to him--the utter hopelessness of it--in glimpses and by flashes, as he sat at his high desk in the counting-house. 

But no flashes came to him with the question, Why, then, did he keep onrunning after Violet Usher? He ran because he couldn't help it; becauseof the sheer excitement of the running; because he was venturesome, andbecause of the very mystery and danger of the adventure. 

But, though he hung round Starker's evening after evening, from themiddle to the very end of October, he never once caught sight of VioletUsher. Winny he caught, as often as not, now that he had given up tryingto catch her; sometimes he caught her at Starker's, sometimes at theirold corner by the Gymnasium; and whenever he caught her he walked homewith her. If Winny did not positively seek capture, she no longerpositively evaded it. She was no longer afraid of him, recognizing, nodoubt, that he wanted nothing of her, that he would never worry heragain. It was as if she had given him his lesson, and was content nowthat he had learned it. 

One night, early in November, as they were going over Wandsworth Bridge, the question that had been burning in him suddenly flared up. 

"What has become of your friend Miss Usher?"

"Nothing, " said Winny, "has become of her. She's gone home. Her fathersent for her. "

"What ever for?"

"To look after her. She never should have left home. "

Then she told him what she knew of Violet, bit by bit, as he drew it outof her. She was very fond of Violet. Violet had pretty ways that madeyou fond of her. Everybody was fond of Violet. Only her people--they'dbeen a bit too harsh and strict with her, Winny fancied. Not that sheknew anything but what Violet had told her. 

Where was her home?

In the country. Down in Hertfordshire. Her father was a farmer, a smallfarmer. The trouble was that Violet couldn't bear the country. Shewouldn't stay a day in it if she could help it. She was all for life. She'd been about a year in town. No, Winny hadn't known her for a year. Only for a few months really, since she came to Starker's. She'd been inseveral situations before that. She was assistant at the ribbon counterat Starker's. The clerks didn't have anything to do with the shop girlsas a rule: but Winny thought the custom silly and stuck up. Anyhow, she'd taken a fancy to Violet, seeing her go in and out. And Violetneeded a deal of looking after. She was like a child. A spoiled childwith little ways. Winny had tried her best to take care of her, but shecouldn't be taking care of her all the time. She was glad she had gonehome, though she was so fond of her. But she was afraid she wouldn'tstay long. 

"You think, " said Ransome, "she'll come back?"

"I shouldn't be surprised if she turned up any day. "

"And you'll take care of her?"

"Yes, I shall take care of her. "

He looked at her, and for a moment it revived, it stirred in his heart, that odd mingled sense of absurdity and tenderness. 

 * * * * *

She would come back, he told himself; she would come back. Meanwhile hecould call his soul his own, to say nothing of his body. Under all theshock of it Ransome felt a certain relief in realizing that Violet Usherhad gone. It was as if some danger, half discerned, had been hangingover him and had gone with her. 

But winter and spring passed, and she did not come back. They passedmonotonously, like all the springs and winters he had known. He had gothis rise at Michaelmas; but he was free from the obsession of thematrimonial idea and all that he now looked forward to was an indefiniteextension of the Athletic Life. 

In June of nineteen-four he entered for the Wandsworth Athletic Sports. He hoped to win the silver cup for the Hurdle Race, against Fred Booty, as he had done last year. 

Wandsworth was sure of its J. R. F. Ransome. Putney and Wimbledon, competing, were not sending any better men than they had sent last year. And this year, as Booty owned, Ransome was "a fair masterpiece, " a youngmiracle of fitness. His admirable form, hitherto equal to young Booty's, was improved by strenuous training, and at his worst he had what Bootyhadn't, a fire and a spirit, a power, utterly incalculable, of suddenuprush and outburst, like the loosening of a secret energy. When heflagged it would rise in him and sting him to the spurt. But, while itmade him the darling of the crowd, it was apt to upset the betting ofexperts at the last minute. 

There is a level field not far from Wandsworth which is let for footballmatches and athletic sports. Railings and broken hedges and a few elmtrees belt the field. All round the space marked out for the contest, aring of ropes held back the straining crowd; and all round, within thering, went the course for the mile-flat race. Down one side of thefield, facing the Grand Stand, was the course for the jumping, for thehundred yards' flat race, and for the hurdle race, which was the lastevent. On this side, where the crowd was thickest, the rope wassupplemented by a wooden barrier. 

The starting-post was on the right near the entrance to the field; thewinning-post on the left directly opposite the Grand Stand. Those whocould not buy tickets for the Grand Stand had to secure front places atthe barrier if they wished to see anything. 

Here, then, there was a tight-packed line of men and women, youths andgirls, with an excited child here and there squeezed in among them, orsquatting at their feet under the barrier. Here were young Tyser andBuist and Wauchope of the Polytechnic, who had come to cheer. And here, by the winning-post, well in the front, having been there since thegates were open, were Maudie Hollis and Winny Dymond, in flower-wreathedhats and clean white frocks. Behind, conspicuous in their seats on theGrand Stand as became them, were Mr. And Mrs. Randall, and with them wasRanny's mother. 

For all these persons there was but one event--the Hurdle Race. For allof them, expectant, concentrated on the imminence of the Final Heat, there was but one distraction, and that was the remarkable behavior of ayoung woman who had arrived too late for a satisfactory place among thecrowd. 

She had wriggled and struggled through the rear, with such success thather way to the front row was obstructed only by the bodies of two smallchildren. They were firmly wedged, yet not so firmly but that adetermined young woman could detach them by exerting adequate pressure. This she did; and having loosened the little creatures from theirfoot-hold, she partly lifted, partly shoved them behind her and slippedinto their places at the barrier. This high-handed act roused theresentment of a young man, the parent or guardian of the children. Hewanted to know what she thought she was doing, shoving there, and toldher that the kids had as much right to see the blooming show as she had, and he'd trouble her to give 'em back the place she'd taken. And it wasthen that the young woman revealed herself as remarkable. For she turnedand bent upon that young man a pair of black brows with blue eyessmiling under them, and said to him in a vivid voice that penetrated tothe Grand Stand, "Excuse me, but I _do_ so want to see. " And the youngman, instead of making the obvious retort, took off his hat and beggedher pardon and gave her more room than she had taken. 

"Well, " said Mr. Randall (for he had been observing her for some timewith sidelong appreciation), "some people have a way with them. "

"Some people have impudence, " said Mrs. Randall. 

"And if it was you or me, Bessie, " Mrs. Ransome said, "it wouldn't havebeen made so easy for us. "

"I see you wanting to shove anybody, Emmy, " said her brother. 

"If I did, I shouldn't begin with little innocent children. I shouldshove some one of my own size. "

Then they were silent and paid no more attention to the young woman andher ways. 

For far down at the end of the course the racers, the winners of thefirst four heats, were being ranged for the start, four abreast; the twoyoung men from Putney and Wimbledon on the inside of the course, FredBooty in the middle, and Ransome outside. Booty knew that, starting evenwith his rival, he hadn't much of a chance. As for the young men fromPutney and Wimbledon, they would be nowhere. 

Of those four young bodies, Ransome's was by far the finest. Even Booty, with his wild slenderness and faunlike grace, could not be compared withRansome, so well knit, so perfect in every limb was he. Beside him thetwo young men from Putney and Wimbledon were distinctly weedy. He stoodpoised, with head uplifted, his keen mouth tight shut, his nostrilsdilated, his eyes gazing forward, intent on the signal for the start. His brown hair, soaked in the sweat of the first heat and thensun-dried, was crisped and curled about his head. Under his white gauze"zephyr" and black running-drawers the charged muscles quivered. Hiswhole body was a quivering vehicle for the leashed soul of speed. 

The pistol-shot was fired. They let themselves go. From far up thecourse by the winning-post, where Winny leaned out over the barrier, itwas as if at the first row of hurdles four bodies leaped into the airlike one and wriggled there. At the sixth row, well in sight, twobodies, Booty and Ransome, soared clean and dropped together. Putney andWimbledon rose wriggling close behind their drop. At the seventh rowRansome was in front, divided from Booty by an almost imperceptibleinterval. Putney and Wimbledon were several yards behind. At the eighthand the ninth hurdles he rose gloriously and alone; Booty dropped with adull thud a yard behind him. Putney and Wimbledon were nowhere. Nobodylooked at them as they went lolloping, unevenly, dejectedly, over theirseventh hurdle. 

And now Booty was catching up, but the race was Ransome's. He knew it. Booty knew it. The field knew it. 

Ranny's mother knew it. Little shivers went up and down her back; therewas a painful constriction in her throat, and tears of excitement in hereyes; her hand was clenched convulsively over her pocket handkerchiefwhich had rolled itself into a ball. She had been holding herself in;for she knew that these symptoms would increase when she saw Ranny, herboy, come running. 

Below, at the barrier, there were hoarse cries, shrill cries, deepshouting. "Go it, Ransome! Go it, old Wandsworth! Wandsworth wins!"Tyser and Buist and Wauchope were yelling "Stick it, Ranny! Stick it!""Stick it!" "Stick--it!" The last voice, which was Wauchope's, died awayin a groan. 

Somebody was leaning over the barrier, on a line with the last hurdles. Somebody stretched out an arm and shook a little white handkerchief athim as he came on. Somebody caught his eyes and struck him with a blueflash under black brows. She struck and fixed him as he ran to his lastleap. 

He looked at her and started and stood staggering with checked speed. And as he staggered Booty rose slenderly and dropped and rushed on tothe tape-line at the winning-posts. The white tape fluttered across himas he breasted it. Booty had won the race. 

They cheered him; they were bound to cheer the winner. But at thebarrier and from the Grand Stand there burst forth a more frantic uproarof applause as Ransome recovered himself and took his last hurdle at astand. 

It was all very well to cheer him; but he was beaten, beaten in the racethat was his. 

 * * * * *

He staggered out of the course. Hanging his head, and heedless of hisfriends, and of Booty's hand on his bent shoulder, he went and hidhimself in the dressing-tent. 

And there in the dressing-tent, his faunlike face more sanguine thanever in his passion, Booty burst out like a young lunatic. He swore mosthorribly. He swore at the umpire. He swore at Ransome. He swore ateverybody all round. The more Ranny congratulated him, the more he sworeat him. He called Ranny a blanky young fool, and asked him what theblank he did it for. He said it was a blanky shame, and that if anybodytried to give _him_ a blanky cup, he'd throw it at 'em. Even when they'dcalmed him down a bit, he still swore that he'd give Ranny the cup, forRanny'd given him the race. He explained to them in his hoarsest tonesthat it stood to reason he could never have got in with the pace Ranny'dgot on him. It wasn't fair, he said. It was a fluke, a blanky fluke. 

And round him Tyser and Buist and Wauchope clamored in the tent andagreed with him, declaring that it wasn't fair. Of course it was afluke, a blanky fluke. 

And Ranny, though he told Booty to dry up and stow it; though he put itto Tyser and Buist and Wauchope that it wasn't any blanky fluke, that itcouldn't well be fairer, seeing how he'd funked it at the finish, Rannyknew in his heart that somewhere there was something queer about it. Hecouldn't think why on earth he'd funked it. 

 * * * * *

That night, in her little room in St. Ann's Terrace, Winny lay awake andcried. 

Violet Usher had come back. 

CHAPTER X

It was from the next day, Sunday, that he dated it--what happened. Itfollowed as a sequel to the events of Sunday. 

For Ransome was convinced that it never could have happened if he hadnot gone with Wauchope on Sunday evening to that Service for Men. Heused to say that if you traced it back far enough, poor old Wauchope wasat the bottom of it. It was poor old Wauchope who had "rushed" him forthe Service (in calling him poor old Wauchope, he recognized him as theunknowing and unwilling thing of Destiny). Thus it had its root and risein the extraordinary state of Wauchope's soul. 

Wauchope had realized that he _had_ a soul, and was beginning to take aninterest in it. That, of course, was not the way he put it when heapproached Ransome on Saturday night after the Sports Dinner at the"Golden Eagle. " All he said was that he was "in for it. " Been let in bya curate johnnie who'd rushed him for a Service for Men to-morrow nightat Clapham. Wauchope wasn't going because he wanted to, but because thecurate was such a decent chap he didn't like to disappoint him. He ran aYoung Men's Club in St. Matthias's, Clapham, and Wauchope helped him bylooking in now and then for a knock-up with the gloves. The curate washandy with the gloves himself. A bit cumbrous, but fancied himself as afeatherweight, in a skipping, dodging, dance-all-round-you, land-you-one-presently sort of style. Well, the curate johnnie had beenhanding round printed invitations for this Service. "All Welcome, " don'tyou know? "Come, and bring a Friend. " Wauchope had promised, HonorBright, he'd come and bring a friend. And Ransome, in a weak moment, hadconsented to be brought. 

The Service would be at eight, and would last, say, till nine. Half pastnine was the very earliest hour he could fix for his appointment withMiss Usher. 

For he had seen her. She had risen up before him, to his amazement, onthat Sunday evening, as he turned out of his own door on his way tosupper with Wauchope at Clapham. He had walked with her for fiveminutes, wheeling his bicycle in the gutter, while they settled how andwhere they were to meet. 

She was living in Wandsworth, lodging in St. Ann's Terrace, near toWinny Dymond, so that Winny could take care of her. She had got anothersituation at Starker's, in the millinery department. 

He proposed that he should meet her at closing-time to-morrow, and shesmiled at him and said she didn't mind; but Winny would be there (he hadforgotten Winny). Then he suggested next Saturday afternoon or Sundayabout three; and she said she really couldn't say. Saturday and Sundaywere such a long way off, and things might be different now that she wasin the millinery. And she smiled again, and in such a manner that he hada vision, a horrible vision, of other fellows crowding round her onSaturdays and Sundays. He more than suspected that this was"cock-a-tree"; but it made him desperate, so that he said, "Well--howabout to-night?"

Well--_to-night_ she'd promised Winny she'd be good and go to church. 

If he had been madder, if he'd been more set on it, he would have goneoff with her that minute; he would have persuaded her to give up church;he himself would have broken his promise to old Wauchope. But he didnone of these things, and his abstention was the sign and measure of hiscoolness, of his sanity. He only said, as any cool and sane young manmight say: How about after church? And if he called when he got backfrom Clapham? He wouldn't be a minute later than half past nine. 

And Violet had said: Oh, well--she didn't know about calling. You see, she only had one room. And he had reckoned with that difficulty; forWinny Dymond only had one room which she shared with Maudie. By calling, he'd meant, of course, on the doorstep, to take her for a walk. 

But Violet, for some reason, didn't care about the doorstep. She'drather, if he didn't mind, that he met her somewhere out of doors. 

And so they had been drawn into an assignation at the old elm tree bythe Causeway on Wandsworth Plain. 

Thus, if it had done nothing else to him, the Service for Men could beheld responsible for throwing that meeting with Violet much too late. 

Still, he had no misgivings. It was June; and in June nine o'clock wasstill daytime. And when he went to the Service he hadn't any idea whatit would do to him. 

No more, of course, had poor old Wauchope. Wauchope was grateful andapologetic; before they got there he said he didn't know what he mightbe letting Ransome in for. The curate johnnie was bossing the Service, but he understood they'd engaged another joker for the Address. What he, Wauchope, funked, personally, more than anything was the Address. AndRansome, generously, declared that whatever it was like, he'd stick it. He'd stand by Wauchope to the finish, like a man. 

 * * * * *

They left their bicycles in Wauchope's rooms, and walked the few hundredyards to St. Matthias's Mission Church. 

St. Matthias's Mission Church was a brand-new yellow-brick building inthe latest Gothic, with a red-tiled roof, where a shrill little bellswung tinkling under the arch in the high west gable. 

Inside, cream distempered walls with brown stencilings; in the roof, bare beams of pitch pine, stained and varnished; north and south, clearglass windows shedding a greenish light; one brilliant stained-glasswindow above the altar at the east end. 

Up and down the aisles between the open pews of pitch pine went theworkers of the Mission, marshaling the men into their seats. By the westdoor, Wauchope's friend, the cumbrous curate, who fancied himself as afeatherweight, stood smiling and shaking hands with each man as he came, and thanking him for coming, thus carrying out the idea that it was anentertainment. He had his largest smile, his closest grip for Wauchopeand for Ransome, for they were men after his own heart. Ransome observedthe curate critically, and without committing himself irretrievably toan opinion, he owned that he looked fit enough. There was not about himany sign that you could see of flabbiness or weediness. He was evidentlya decent johnnie, and for all that happened afterward Ransome forbore tohold him personally responsible. 

The service, conducted by the curate, was extremely brief. Everythingwas left out that could be left, to make room for hymns wherever it waspossible to place a hymn. The Psalms were chanted, and the curateintoned the Prayers in a voice that was not his natural voice, butsomething far more poignant and impressive. 

There were no boys in the choir, and the singing, that lacked theirpurifying and clarifying treble, had a strange effect, somber yetdisturbing. It acted on Ranny like an incantation. 

Of course, if he had known what it was going to do to him, he would havekept away. 

For though there was nothing in his flesh and blood and muscle thatsuggested an inebriate father, yet in his profounder and obscurer beinghe was Fulleymore Ransome's son. The secret instability that madeFulleymore Ransome drink had had its effect on Ranny's nervous system. His nerves, though he was not aware of it, were finely woven and highlystrung. He had a tendency to be carried away and to be excited, exalted, and upset. Since Saturday afternoon Ranny had remained more or less in astate of tension induced by the hurdle race, by the shock of seeingViolet Usher, and by the dinner at the "Golden Eagle. " And, comingstraight from Violet, he had entered St. Matthias's Mission Church keyedup to his highest pitch. So that the Service for Men which subduedWauchope and made him humble and ashamed and sent him away trying to bea better man, that very same Service worked Ranny up to a point whenanything became possible to him. 

First of all, then, the intoning and the chanting acted on him exactlylike an incantation. Ranny's will, the spiritual part of him, was lulledto sleep by the rhythmic voices, and as his sense of decency had noreason whatever to expect an outrage, it was also off its guard, quiescent, passive to the charm. The rest of Ranny was exposed, piteously, to the rhythm that swelled, that accentuated, accelerated thevibration of his inner tumult. 

Then the obvious safety-valve was closed to him. A sense of strangenessand of sudden shyness prevented him from joining as he should havejoined in the Service. Ranny could not take it out all at once insinging. That silence and passivity of his left him open at every poreto the invasion of the powers of sound. These young, intensely vibrantbass and tenor voices sang all round him, they sang at him and into himand through him. There was a young man close behind him with a tenorvoice that pierced him like a pain. There was Wauchope at his right earthundering in a tremendous barytone. 

First of all it was a trumpet call that shook him. 

/P "Sold-ier-ers o-of Christ! a-arise, And put your armor on, "P/

sang Wauchope. The sound of that singing made Ransome feel noble; andthere is nothing more insidiously destructive than feeling noble. 

And then, later on, it was a strange and a more poignant cry that meltedhim, so that his very soul dissolved in tenderness and yearning. 

/P "Jesu, Lover o-of my soul, "P/

sang the young man with the tenor. 

/P "Let me to Thy bosom fly, While the gathering wa-ters roll. While the tempest sti-ill is high. "P/

(Ranny felt them about him, the waters and the tempest. )

/P "Other refuge ha-ave I none, Hangs my helpless soul on Thee; Leave--ah! leave me no-ot alone, Still support and co-omfort me. "P/

And as the infinite pathos and pleading of the tenor voice played onhim, Ranny sank, lost and shelterless and alone, till at the word "Life"he rose again and exulted, he rose above himself, even to the point ofsinging. 

/P "Thou of Life the fountain art, Freely let me take of Thee; Spring Thou up with-in my heart;"P/

sang Ranny. 

/P "Rise to all eternity. "P/

There was something about that hymn, and his own sudden crying out init, that made him peculiarly susceptible to the influences of theAddress. When the preacher rose in the pulpit, when he looked about himwith ardent and earnest eyes in a face ravaged by emotion, when his wideand somewhat loose and mobile lips gave out the text, Ranny had anobscure foreknowledge of what would happen to him. 

For he was not altogether virgin to the experience he was undergoing. Itbelonged to certain moods of his childhood and his adolescence when morethan once, in Wandsworth Parish Church, he had been stirred mysteriouslyby the tender music of the Evening Service, and by the singing ofcertain hymns. There were layers upon layers of emotion sunk beyondmemory in Ranny's soul. So that what happened to him now had theprofound and vehement, though secret, force of a revival. The submergedfeelings rose in him; they were swollen, intensified, dominated beyondrecognition by the virile and unspiritual passion that leaped up and rantogether with them and made them one. It gave them an obscure but superbsanction and significance. 

For that incantation not only called up the past; with a still greatermagic and mystery it evoked the future. It was a prophecy, a premonitionof the things to be. It cried upon the secret, unseen powers of life. Itbrought down destiny. 

"'Know ye not that your bodies, '" said the preacher--and he leaned outand looked to the young men on the right--"'your bodies'"--and he lookedto the young men on the left--"'are the temples, of the HolyGhost'"--and he looked straightforward and paused as if he saw invisiblethings. 

He may have drawn a bow at a venture, but he seemed to have singled outRanny from among all those young men. He leaned over his pulpit, andfixed his kindled and penetrating eyes on Ranny. He adjured Ranny toremember that Sin which he had never committed; he implored him torecall the shame which he had never felt, and at the same time to purgehimself of that unholy memory, and put away from him the sensualthoughts that had never occurred to him and the abominable intentionsthat he had never had. 

Then, with a subtle and plastic inflection of his voice, like the poiseof wings descending, he dropped from that almost inspired height ofemotion, and became shrewd and practical, thoroughly informed andcompetent, a physician with a flair for the secret of disease, a surgeonof the Soul, relentless in his handling of the knife, a man of the worldwho spoke to them of what he knew, in all sincerity, as man to man. Andthen he soared again, flapping his great wings that fanned emotion to aflame. 

And through it all the young curate who had brought them there satfolded more and more within his surplice, and became more and more redas to his face, more and more dubious as to his eyes. He was like someyoung captain, wise though intrepid, who sees his brave battalionsrouted through the false move of his general. 

The magic worked. A man behind Ransome was heard breathing heavily. Thegentle drowsiness habitually expressed by Wauchope's broad and somewhatflattened features was intensified to stupefaction. His head had sunkslightly forward, but he looked up, lowering at the preacher with hislittle innocent eyes, half sullen, half afraid. 

Wauchope was merely uncomfortable. He suffered on the surface. But Rannywas disturbed profoundly, shaken, excited, and most curiously uplifted. 

He and Wauchope compared notes afterward on the preacher, whom theycalled "that imported josser. " They thought he rather fancied himself atthat particular job, and supposed that he was some sort of a "pro" whohad spoiled his "form" by overdoing it, and had lost the confidence ofhis backers. They agreed that if Wauchope's friend the curate had giventhem a straight talk it would have been much straighter. As it was, nothing could have been more devious, more mysterious and serpentinethan the discourse that turned and wound and wormed its way into thelast obscurities and secrecies of Ranny's being. 

In the Mission Church of St. Matthias's Ranny underwent illumination. Itwas as if all that was dark and passionate in him had been interpretedfor him by the preacher. Interpreted, it became in some perverse wayjustified. Over and above that innermost sanction and recognition it hadthe seal outside it of men's acknowledgment, it took its place among theexistent, the normal, the expected. Ranny was not alone in his passionand confusion. He was companioned, here and now, in the greatenlightenment. 

But even Ranny could not have foretold the full extent of his reactionto that sinuous and evocative Address. 

Meanwhile, so carried away was Ranny that he joined Wauchope in afurious singing of the final hymn, "Onward, Christian so-o-oldier-ers!"

He had felt noble; he had felt tender; now he was triumphant. 

CHAPTER XI

Wauchope, who hadn't a nerve in his composition, recovered soon after hegot into the open air. But in Ransome, without intermission, the magicof that incantation worked. 

The symptoms of its working were a frightful haste, anxiety, and fear. He left Wauchope without any explanation, and rode off to hisappointment at a dangerous speed and with a furious ringing of his bell. He was afraid that if he were late by five seconds Violet Usher would begone. It was incredible to him that she should be there. It wasincredible that it should have come to this, that he should be flying inhaste and anxiety and fear unspeakable to meet her at the elm tree bythe Causeway on Wandsworth Plain. The whole adventure was incredible. 

Yet there could not be a better place for it than Wandsworth Plain, athree-cornered patch of bare ground, bounded on one side by the riverWandle, and on the other by a row of brown cottages and two little oldinns, with steep tiled roofs and naked walls, "The Bell" and "TheCrane. " They were pure eighteenth century, and they give to WandsworthPlain its lonely and deserted air as of a little riverside hamletoverlooked by time and the Borough Council. On a Sunday evening insummer they stand as if in perpetual peace, without rivalry, withoutregret, very bright and clean and simple, one washed yellow and theother chalk-white. The river runs under brown walls, shaded on one sideby espalier limes, on the other over-hung with elder bushes in flower. Lower down, on the banks, are willows and alders, and the wild hemlockgrows there, lifting up its great white whorls. Beyond the farther walland the limes there is a vast yard, stacked with timber; beyond thebanks a dock; and beyond all, on the great River, unseen, a distance ofcrowded warehouses and gray wharves. 

The elm tree, muffled in green, leans out over the stream as thelightning bowed it long ago, propped by wooden stays, mutilated to themerest torso of a tree. A sacred thing, the elm tree is inclosed andguarded by a wooden railing as in a shrine. 

Ransome was ten minutes too early, and it was impossible that she shouldbe there. Yet there she was, in her white dress, leaning up against thewooden railing, as if swept and then left there in her detachment, soinaccessible, so isolated was she, so unaware or so disdainful of thecouples, the young devotees of passion, who had made the elm tree theirmeeting-place. She was there too soon, yet about her there was no air ofhaste, but rather of brooding and delay. You would have said of her inher stillness that she could afford to wait, she was so certain of herend. 

She scarcely stirred from her place to greet Ransome as he came. Heleaned up against the railing close beside her. 

"I'm sorry, " he said. "I tore like mad. Did you think I was nevercoming?"

She smiled with a curious smile. 

"No, " she said. "I knew that you would come. "

And they stayed there. (Some instinct had impelled him to call at theshop, and leave his bicycle with Mercier. A bicycle was an encumbrance, a thing inappropriate to the adventure. ) They stayed while the couples, the young devotees of passion, stood locked in each other's arms, ormoved away, slowly, like creatures in an enchantment, linked together, and passed into the dusk. And in the end his hand sought and found hers, secretly, behind the shelter of her gown, and they too passed, hand inhand and slowly, like creatures in an enchantment; they were drawn intothe dusk, beyond the barrier at the Causeway, to the footpath by theriver. 

When they returned to the elm tree it was all dark and secret there. They stood as those others had stood, creatures of the enchantment, locked, with hands on shoulders and faces looking close and seeing eachother's eyes large and strange in the darkness. 

Over Wandsworth Plain came the sound of the Parish Church clock strikingten. 

When they reached St. Ann's Terrace the little brown house where Violetlodged was shut up, asleep behind drawn blinds. 

Violet could let herself in. She had a key. At least, she thought shehad. She could have been almost sure she had brought it. But no, it wasnot in her purse, nor yet in her pocket. She turned the pocket insideout and shook it, and there was no key. Oh, dear, she was afraid she hadlost it, or else--perhaps--she hadn't brought it after all. She was thatcareless. She thought she must have left it in her room on thedressing-table. 

They knocked three times, and nobody answered. Nobody was there. Theyhad all gone out early in the evening, and evidently they had not comeback. Sometimes, Violet said, they weren't back till eleven or past it. 

Well, she didn't want to stand out there much longer. She wondered howshe was ever going to get in. 

They looked at each other and laughed at their helplessness. There isalways something funny about being locked out. Ranny said, "What alark!"

Then he thought of the window. 

It was low. He stepped on to the ledge, and stood there. He slipped thelatch with the blade of his pocket knife. He raised the sash and droppedinto the room. He groped about in it till he found his way into thepassage and opened the door and let Violet in. 

She said she was all right now. Her candle would be left there for her, on the shelf. But it wasn't, and Violet didn't like the dark. She wasafraid of it. So Ranny lit a match. He lit several matches and lightedher all the way up the narrow staircase to the door of her littlebedroom at the back. She took the matches from him and went in to lookfor the candle, leaving the door ajar and Ranny standing outside it onthe mat. 

He heard her soft feet moving about the room; he heard the spurt of thematches, and her little smothered cry of impatience as they went out oneby one. It seemed ages to Ranny as he waited. 

At last she found the candle and lit it and set it down somewhere whereit was hidden behind the door. 

And then she came to him with her eyes all shining in the dusk. 

She filled the half-opened doorway; and round and about her and in theroom beyond there hung, indescribable but perceptible, palpable almostas a touch, the thick scent of her hair. And they stood together on thethreshold as they had stood by the elm tree in the dark. 

She closed her eyes, and his hold tightened. She called his namethickly, "Ranny!" and suddenly it was as if his very nerves and thestrength of his knees dissolved and flowed like water, and drawing hewas drawn over the threshold. 

 * * * * *

"Don't worry about it, Ranny. It had got to be. "

She said it, clinging to him with soft hands, as he parted from her. Fora moment she was moved beyond herself by his compunction, his passion oftenderness for the helpless thing she seemed. 

What would have surprised him if he could have thought about it wasthat, above it all, above the tenderness and the compunction, he stillfelt that triumphant sense of sanction and completion, of acquiescencein an end foreappointed and foreseen. 

But before he could think about it he was overtaken by an astounding, anincredible drowsiness. 

He dragged himself home to his attic and his bed, where, astoundingly, incredibly, he slept. 

CHAPTER XII

It was about nine o'clock of another Sunday evening a week later. 

Winny Dymond was sitting on the edge of Violet's bed in the little backroom in St. Ann's Terrace. Violet, in a white petticoat and camisole, overcome by the heat, lay stretched at length, like a drowsy animal, inthe hollow of the bed where she had flung herself. Her head, tiltedback, lay in the clasp of her hands. Her breasts, drawn upward by theraised arms, left her all slender to the waist. The soft-folded, finelyindented crook of her elbows made a white frame for her flushed face. She was looking at Winny with eyes narrowed to the slits of the sleepy, half-shut lids. 

In a thick, sweet voice, a voice too drowsy for anything beyond the barestatement of the fact, she had been telling Winny that she was engagedto be married to Mr. Ransome. 

Now she was looking at Winny (all her intelligence narrowed to thatthread-fine glint of half-shut eyes), looking to see how Winny wouldtake it. 

Winny took it with that blankness that leaves the brain naked to allirrelevant impressions, and with a silence that made all her pulsesloud. She heard the rattle and roar of a distant tram and the clockstriking the hour in the room below. She saw the soiled lining and theugly warp of Violet's shoes kicked off and overturned beside the bed. Beyond the shoes, a stain that had faded rose and became vivid on thecarpet. Then a film came over Winny's eyes, and on the far border of thefield of vision, somewhere toward the top of her head, a yellow chest ofdrawers with white handles grew dim and quivered and danced like theyellow and white specter of a chest of drawers. 

"I suppose you're surprised, " said Violet. 

"No, I'm not. Not at all. "

And she wasn't. But she was amazed at her own calmness. 

"I knew it, " she said. 

"Knew it?"

"Yes. "

Of course she had known it. If she hadn't, how could she have endured itnow?

"When did you know?"

"Last week. When you came back. "

That was not true. She had known it before last week. She had known itas long as she had known Violet. And she had known that because of itViolet would come back. 

She hadn't blamed Violet for coming back. Even now, as she sat onViolet's bed and was tortured by those lights under Violet's eyelids, even now she didn't blame her. And if she turned her shoulder it was notbecause she minded Violet looking at her (she was past minding that), but because she was afraid to look at Violet. She didn't want to see herlying there. It was almost as if she were afraid of hating her. 

Behind her Violet was stirring. She had drawn up her outstretched limbsand raised herself on the pillows. Winny felt her behind her, restlessand alert. 

Then she spoke again. 

"You needn't mind, Winny. It's got to be. "

"Mind? What makes you think I'm minding?"

"The way you sit there with your mouth shut, saying nothing. "

"There's nothing to say. I'm not surprised. You've not told me anythingI didn't know. "

"Well, any one would think you didn't approve of it. Why can't you getup and say you hope we'll be happy, or something?"

"Of course, I hope you'll be happy. I want you to be happy. "

(Of course she did. )

"Look here"--Violet was sitting up now--"_was_ there anything betweenyou and him?"

Winny rose straight and turned and looked at her. 

"You've no business to ask that, " she said. 

"Yes I have. " She rose slowly, twisted herself, slid her foot to thefloor, and stood up facing Winny. "If I'm going to marry him I've aright to know. Not that it'll make a scrap of difference. "

"Who told you there was anything between us?"

"Nobody told me. I mean--_was_ there--before I came?"

"There was never anything--never. Any one who tells you anythingdifferent's telling you a lie. I'm not saying we weren't friends--"

Violet smiled. 

"I'm not saying you were anything else. You can go on being friends. _I_sha'n't care. Only don't you go saying I came between you--that's all. "

At that Winny fired. 

"As if I'd do any such a thing! I don't know what can have put it intoyour head. "

Violet laughed. 

"You should see _your face_, " she said. "Why--any one could tell youwere gone on him. They've only got to look at you. "

There are some insults, some insolences that cannot be answered. 

"You can believe that, " said Winny, "if you like--if it makes you anyhappier. But your believing it won't make it true. "

She walked slowly, in her small dignity, to the chair where she hadthrown down her hat. She took up the hat and put it on, deliberately, with a high bravery, before the glass. 

Then she turned to her friend and smiled at her. 

"It's all right, " she said, "though you mightn't think it. Good-by. "

Whereupon Violet rushed at her and kissed her. 

"It isn't your fault, and it isn't mine, Winky, " she whispered. "It'sgot to be, I tell you. "

She drew herself from the embrace, erect and rosy, in a sudden passionthat had in it both triumph and despair. 

"Wild horses couldn't have torn him and me apart. "

 * * * * *

And Winny didn't blame her; even in the pain of the night that followed, when she lay awake in the bed she shared with Maudie Hollis, stiflingher sobs lest she should waken Maudie, clutching the edge of themattress where she had writhed out of Maudie's reach. For at the firstsound of crying the proud beauty had turned to her friend and put herarms about her, and held her in a desolate and desolating embrace. 

"Don't cry, Winny; don't cry, dear. It isn't worth it, " had beenMaudie's consolation. For, though Winny hadn't said a word to her, sheknew. And she had followed it up by declaring that she hated that VioletUsher; and she hated Ransome; she hated everybody who made little Winky, little darling Winky, cry. 

But Winky didn't hate them. It had to be. Nothing could be morebeautiful in its simplicity than her acceptance of the event. 

And she didn't blame them. She didn't blame anybody. She had brought iton herself. The thing was as good as done last summer, when she hadstopped Ranny making love to her. She had stopped it on purpose. Sheknew he couldn't afford to marry her, not for years and years; she knewhe had been trying to tell her so; and it didn't seem fair, somehow, tolet him get worked up all for nothing. That was how girls drove men mad. She considered that she was there to take care of Ranny, and she hadseen, in her wisdom, that to keep Ranny well in hand would be less hardon him than to let him lose his head. 

Violet hadn't seen it, that was all. 

Besides, Violet was different. She had ways with her which made it nowonder if Ranny lost his head. In Winny's opinion the man didn't livewho could resist Violet and her ways. She got round you somehow. She hadgot round Winny last year when she had come imploring her to take her tothe Grand Display at the Polytechnic Gymnasium, teasing her andthreatening that if she didn't take her she'd go off to the Empire byherself. She had spoken as if going to the Empire was a preposterous andunheard-of thing. Winny didn't know that Violet had gone there more thanonce, not by herself, but with the foreman of her department. 

And she had had to take her, and that, of course, had done it. Thoughshe had been afraid of this thing and had foreknown it from thebeginning, she had taken her; though she had been afraid ever since shehad seen Violet's face and watched her ways. So afraid was she that shehad tried to keep Ranny from ever seeing Violet. Time and again she hadhurried her away when she had seen Ranny coming, while the fear in herheart told her that those two were bound to meet. She had lived fromhand to mouth on her precarious happiness, contented if she could staveoff the evil day. 

And it was all worse than useless. Violet had been aware that she wasbeing hurried away when Ranny came in sight, and it had made her themore set. As for Winny's hope that Violet would forget all about Rannywhen some other man appeared, it was futile as long as she took care ofViolet. Taking care of Violet meant keeping her as far as possible outof the way of other men--so that there again! It seemed as if she hadarranged it so that Ranny should be the only one. For Winny had divinedher friend's disastrous temperament even while she maintained hotly thatthere was no harm in her. And she had almost quarreled with Maudiebecause the proud beauty had said, "Well, you'll see. "

Winny knew nothing about Violet and the foreman. 

And with the same innocence she never doubted that when Violet andRansome met that night at the Polytechnic it was for the first time. 

 * * * * *

And so she stitched with a good will at a white muslin blouse forViolet's wedding present, and folded it herself and put it away in theyellow chest of drawers with the rest of Violet's wedding things. It laythere, all snowy white, with a violet-scented sachet on the top of it, asachet (Winny had found it in the drawer) with a pattern of violets on awhite satin ground and the name "Violet" sprawling all across it inembroidery. 

CHAPTER XIII

Ransome had barely risen from that sleep of exhaustion when he realizedthe disastrous character of the night's adventure. He was no longeruplifted by any sense of sanction and of satisfaction. Of the pride oflife there remained in him only sufficient to prevent him from regardinghis behavior as in any sense a shame and a disaster to his own youth. Otherwise his mood was entirely penitential. He could not look at thething as it affected himself. However it might be for him, he hadwronged Violet, and that was calamity enough for any man to face. According to all his instincts and traditions, he had wronged her. 

Of course, he was going to marry her. He was going to marry her at once;as soon as ever they could get their banns put up. It never occurred tohim that delay could, in such a case, be possible. 

For, from the very moment of that morning after, in Ranny's heart therewas an awful and a sacred fear, a fear of fatherhood. It was the firstthing he thought of as soon as he could think at all. 

He wanted to put Violet right at once, before a suspicion of thatpossibility should have crossed her mind. It would have seemed to himabominable to risk it, to wait on, as fellows did, on the off-chance ofa reprieve, till she came to him, poor child, with her whispered tale. That, to Ranny's mind, was where the shame came in; not in the fact, but in the compulsion of the fact. It was intolerable that any manshould have the right to say of his own wife that he had been forced tomarry her. Hence his desperate haste. 

Violet couldn't understand it. She didn't want to be married all atonce. She said there was no hurry; that he couldn't afford it; thatthere was no rime nor reason in it; let them go on as they were a bit;let them wait and see. 

In all this Ranny saw only a tenderness and a desire to spare him. Buthe stood firm. He was not concerned with reasons and with rimes; hewouldn't wait, he wouldn't see; and (this astonished Violet and secretlyenraged her) he absolutely refused to go on as they were. 

For his fear was always before him. 

It was no doubt to that refusal of his that he owed Violet's consent. 

His family were appalled at the news of Ranny's engagement. It was sounexpected, so unlike him; and how it had happened Ranny's mothercouldn't think. She knew all his comings and goings for the last year. His temperance and discretion had given her a sense of imperishablesecurity. She had made up her mind that Ranny wasn't one to be in ahurry; and now she had been right only in her prophecy that when histime came there would be no holding him. 

And there _was_ no holding him. 

They had all tried it. They had all been at him; his Uncle Randall andhis Aunt Randall, and his mother and his father. For the first time inhis life Mr. Ransome was roused to take an interest in his son, toacknowledge him as an adult, capable of formidably adult things. Andthough they all told him that he was too young to know his own mind, that he was doing foolish, and behaving silly, under the show ofdisapproval and disparagement it was clear that they respected him, thatthey realized his manhood, and that he was somehow important to them ashe had never been important in his life before. 

What was more, rage as they would at it, they were impressed by Ranny'sfirmness, his unalterable and imperturbable determination to marry, andto marry the unknown Violet Usher. 

And on the main issue they gave way. They owned that it was natural thatthe boy should want to marry; they saw that he would have to marry someday; and his mother went so far as to say she wanted him to marry and tosettle down. What they did not understand, and most certainly did notapprove of, what they did their best to talk him out of, was the awfulhurry he was in. There wasn't any hurry, they said, there shouldn't be, when he was so young. He couldn't afford to marry now, but he couldafford it very well in two years' time. Why, he was only twenty-three, and in two years' time he'd have got his next rise, and he'd have savedmore money. 

"If you'd wait, Ranny, " said his mother, "but the two years. " And hisfather and his uncle said he _must_ wait. 

But Ranny wouldn't. He wouldn't wait six months. No, and he wouldn'twait three months and look about him. He wouldn't have waited threeweeks if it hadn't been for the banns. It was no use their talking. 

They knew it. It had been no use their talking seven years ago, whenRanny had refused to become a Pharmaceutical Chemist, and had given noreasons, because the only reason he could give was that life would beintolerable if spent in the perpetual presence of his father. And hedidn't give them any reasons now. 

Before the Ransomes and the Randalls knew where they were the banns hadbeen put up in Wandsworth Parish Church and in the Parish Church ofElstree, in Hertfordshire, and Violet had been twice to tea. 

He had looked for opposition down at Elstree, in Hertfordshire, fierceand insurmountable opposition from Mr. Usher, that father who had beenso harsh to Violet. It was incredible that Violet's father would allowhim to marry her; it was incredible that her mother would allow it. Hewould just have to marry her in spite of them. 

But, as it happened, the attitude of Mr. And Mrs. Usher surpassedprobability. Not only were they willing that he should marry Violet, they desired that he should marry her at once. The sooner the better, Mr. Usher said. If young Ransome could marry her to-morrow he'd be bestpleased. It was almost as if Mr. Usher knew. But, of course, he didn't, he couldn't possibly know. He would have scouted the propositionaltogether if he hadn't had three other younger girls at home. Itwasn't, Ranny reflected, as if Violet was the only one. So far fromputting obstacles in Ranny's way, Mr. Usher positively smoothed it. Understanding that the young man was not, as you might call it, rolling, he said there wasn't much that they could do, but if at any time ahamper of butter and eggs and fruit and vegetables should come inhandy, they'd send it along and welcome; he shouldn't even wonder if, incase of necessity, they could rise to a flitch of bacon or a joint ofpork. Ranny was exquisitely grateful; though, as for the necessity, hedidn't see himself depending on his father-in-law for his food supplies. He had no foreboding of the importance that hamper from Hertfordshirewas to assume in the drama of his after life. For the actual hour itstood simply as the measure of Mr. Usher's approval and good will. 

He was much moved when at parting Mrs. Usher pressed him by the hand andasked him to be gentle with her girl. There was no harm, Mrs. Ushersaid, in poor Vi. She was a bit wilful and wildlike; all for life wasViolet--but there, she'd be as good as gold when she had a home and akind husband and children of her own. "Mark my words, " said Mrs. Usher, "once the babies come she'll settle down. "

And Ranny marked her words. 

This unqualified backing that he got from Violet's parents went far tosustain Ransome in the conflict with his own. He could, indeed, haveembraced Mr. And Mrs. Usher when, in consequence of one Sundayafternoon's communion with these excellent people, his mother declaredherself more reconciled than she had been to the idea of Ranny'smarrying. Between Ranny's mother and Mrs. Usher there was established inone Sunday afternoon the peculiar sympathy and intimacy of parents wholive supremely in their children. With her rosy, full-blown, robustbenevolence, Mrs. Usher was a powerful pleader. She put it to Mrs. Ransome that nothing mattered so long as the young people were happy. If in the pursuit of happiness the young people failed in the first yearor two to make ends meet, surely among them all they could be given ahelping hand. She was sure that Mr. Usher would do anything he could, inreason. The comfortable woman declared that she had taken a fancy suchas never was to Ranny, so had Mr. Usher, and he wasn't, she could assureyou, one to take a fancy every day. She had never had a boy (and itwasn't for not wanting), but if she _had_ had one she'd have wished himto be just such another as Ranny. Ranny, she was certain, was thatclever he'd be sure to get along. To which argument Mrs. Ransome had toyield. For she was confronted with a dilemma, having either to agreewith Mrs. Usher or to maintain that her Ranny was not clever enough toget along. So that before Sunday evening she found herself partaking inthe large-hearted tolerance and optimism of Violet's parents, andforcing her view upon Uncle and Aunt Randall. 

Only Mr. Ransome held out. He refused to be worked upon by argument. ToRanny's amazement, the old Humming-bird bore himself in those days ofstress, not with that peculiar savage obduracy that distinguished hismore insignificant hostilities, but with a certain sad and fineinsistence. It was as if for the first time in his life he was awarethat he cared for his son Randall and was afraid of losing him. TheHumming-bird could hardly have suffered more if the issue had beenRandall's death and not his marriage. But when the thing was settled, all he said was, "I don't like it, Mother, I don't like it. "

How profoundly it had disturbed him was shown in this, that for thethree weeks before Ranny's wedding-day he remained completely sober. 

 * * * * *

So precipitate, so venturesome was Ranny, that in a month from thatmemorable Sunday he found himself married and established in a house. Ahouse that in twenty years' time would become his own. 

That was incredible, if you like. Cowardly caution and niggardlyprudence had suggested rooms; two low-rented, unfurnished rooms such ascould be found almost anywhere in Wandsworth; whereas a house inWandsworth was impossible even if you sank as low as Jew's Row or WarpleWay. For the first two days of his engagement Ranny had devoted everymoment of his leisure to the drawing up and balancing of imaginaryhousehold accounts; with the result that he wondered how he ever couldhave regarded marriage as a formidable affair. Why, in the seven yearssince he had begun to earn money he had been steadily putting money by. Five pounds a year in the first three years, then ten, then twenty, anda whole fifty in the year and a half since he had got his rise. With theinterest on his savings and his salary, his present income was not lessthan a hundred and twenty-five pounds a year. 

In the night watches he grappled like a man with the financial problem. Scheme after scheme did Ranny throw on the paper from his seethingbrain. In the fifth--no, the thoroughly revised and definitive seventh, he made out that, by a trifling reduction in his personal expenditure, housekeeping on the two-room system would leave him with a considerablemargin. (In the first rough draft--even in the second--he had allowedabsurdly too much for food and clothing. ) But, mind you, that marginexisted solely and strictly on the two-room system. 

And here Ranny's difficulties began; for neither Violet nor her parentswould hear of their living in two rooms. Violet, who had lived in oneroom, said that living in two rooms was horrible, and Mrs. Usher saidthat Violet was right. It was better for all parties to begin as youmeant to go on. Begin in hugger-mugger and you may end in it. But if hegave Violet a home of her own that _was_ a home at the very start, she'dsoon settle down in it. He needn't worry about the hard work it meant. The only thing that would keep Violet steadylike was downright hardwork. No; she didn't mean anything cruel. They could have a char once afortnight for a scrub-down and the heavy washing. 

And Ranny began all over again and made out another set of accounts onthe house basis and allowing for the char. 

Impossible; even in Jew's Row or Warple Way. Skimp as he would inpersonal expenditure, on the house basis the two ends of Ranny's incomesimply _wouldn't_ meet. 

All the same, he began looking for the house. The idea of the house, thedesire for the house worked in his brain like a passion; the moreimpossible it was, the more ungovernable, the more irresistible he foundit. 

And, as he wandered forth on that adventure, seeking for a house, oneSaturday afternoon, accompanied by Violet, Ranny fell into the hands ofthe Speculative Builder. 

Not very far from Wandsworth, in the green pasturelands of Southfields, that great magician was already casting into bricks and mortar histremendous dream--the city of dreams, the Paradise of Little Clerks. 

As yet he had called into being only a few streets of his city, stretching eastward and southward into the green plain. About it, southward and eastward, there lay acres of naked earth upturned, tornand tamed to his hand. Beyond were the fields with their tall elms, unbroken, virgin, mournful in their last beauty, as they waited for theax and pick. 

He had done terrible things to the green earth, that speculativebuilder, but you could not say of him that he had shut out the sky. Thecity ran very low upon the ground in street after street of diminutivetwo-storied houses. Each house was joined on to the next, porch to porchand bow window to bow window, alternating in an endless series, amachine-made pattern that repeated; a pattern monotonous and yetfantastic in its mingling of purple, white, and red. Each had the samelittle mat of grass laid before each bow window, the same littlered-tiled path from gate to front door, the same front door decoratedwith elaborate paneling and panes of colored glass, the same littlemachine-made iron gate, the same low red wall and iron railing andprivet hedge; so indistinguishably, so maddeningly alike were all thesediminutive houses. Each roof had the same purple slates, each roof treethe same red earthwork edging it like a lace; the same red tiles roofedeach porch and faced each gable and the space between the stories. Onlywhen your eyes became accustomed to the endless running pattern couldyou trace it clearly, grasp the detail, note that every two bow windowswere separated by one rain pipe, every two porches sustained by onepillar, one diminutive magnificent purple pillar, simulating porphyryand crowned with a rich Corinthian capital in freestone, the outline ofeach porch being picked out and made clear and decisive with woodworkpainted white. Then, and not till then, did you see that theall-important detail was the porphyry pillar, for it was as if every twohouses sprang from it as two flowers from one stem. 

Inside, each little house had the same narrow passage and steep stairs;each had the same small room at the front and one still smaller at theback; the same little scullery behind the same back door at the end ofthe passage that led off into the garden; and upstairs the same bathroomover the scullery, the same bedrooms back and front, and the same tinydressing-room with its little window looking out over the porch. 

"Quite enough, if we can run to it, " Violet said. 

Violet, hitherto somewhat indifferent to the adventure, was caught bythe redness and whiteness, the brandnewness and compactness of thelittle houses; she was seduced beyond prudence by the sham porphyrypillar. 

"Quite enough. More than we want, really, " said Ranny. 

But that was before they had seen the Agent and the Prospectus. 

They went to the Agent, not because they could afford to take a house, but just for curiosity, just to say they'd been, just to supply Rannywith that information that he craved for, now that the passion of thehouse hunt was upon him. 

"No good going, " said Violet. "The rent will be something awful--why, that pillar alone--"

And Ranny, too, said he was afraid the rent wouldn't be any joke. 

But that was precisely what the rent was--a joke. A joke so good thatRanny took for granted it couldn't possibly be true. Ranny chaffed theAgent; he told him he was trying to get at him; he said you didn't findhouses with bathrooms and gardens back and front, going for thirteenshillings a week, not in this country. 

And the Agent, who was very busy and preoccupied with making notes in alarge notebook at his table, mumbled all among his notes that that wasright. Of course you didn't find 'em unless you knew where to look for'em. And that was not because a good 'ouse couldn't be made to pay forthirteen shillings a week, if there was capital and enterprise at theback of the Company that built 'em. This here Estate was the only estatein England--or anywhere--where you could pick up a house, a house builtin an up-to-date style with all the modern improvements, for thirteenshillings a week. 

And Ranny with a fine shrewdness posed him. "Yes, but what about ratesand taxes?"

They were included. 

And as the Agent said it calmly, casually almost, making notes in hisnotebook all the time, Ranny conceived a ridiculous suspicion. He fixedhim with a stare that brought him up out of his notebook. 

"Included? _What's_ included?"

"District rate, " said the Agent, "poor rate, water rate, the whole bagof tricks for thirteen shillings. "

That took Ranny's breath away. As for Violet, she said instantly thatthey must have the house. 

"Of course you must 'ave it, " said the Agent. He might have been anindulgent father. "Why not? Only thirteen shillings. And I can make youbetter terms than that. "

It was then that he produced the Prospectus. 

By this time, as if stirred by Violet's beauty, he had thrown off themask of indifference; he was eager and alert. 

They spent twenty minutes over that Prospectus, from which it appearedthat the profit of the Estate Company, otherwise obscure, came from whatthe Agent called the "ramifications" of the scheme, from the miles andmiles of houses they could afford to build. Whereas Ranny's profit waspatent, it came in on the spot, and it would come in sooner, of course, if he could afford to purchase outright. 

"For how much?"

"Two hundred and fifty. "

But there Ranny put his foot down. He said with decision that itcouldn't be done, an answer for which the Agent seemed prepared. 

Well, then--he could give him better terms again. Could he rise totwenty-five?

Ranny deliberated and thought he could. 

Well, then--only twenty-five down, and the balance weekly. 

The balance? It sounded formidable, but it worked out at exactlytenpence a week less than the rent asked for (twelve and twopenceinstead of thirteen shillings), and in twenty years' time--and he'd be ayoung man still then--the house would be his, Ranny's, as surely as ifhe had purchased it outright for two hundred and fifty pounds. 

It was astounding. Such a scheme could only have been dreamed of in theParadise of Little Clerks. 

And yet--and yet--it was impossible. 

Ranny said he didn't want to be saddled with a house. How did he knowwhether he'd want that particular house in twenty years' time?

Then he could let or sell, the Agent said. It was an investment for hismoney. It was property. Property that was going up and up. Evensupposing--what was laughable--that he failed to sell--he would bepaying for his property--paying for house and land--less weekly than ifhe rented it. Ordinarily you paid your rent out of income orinvestments. He would be investing every time he paid his rent. Peoplemade these difficulties because they hadn't grasped our system--or forother reasons. Maybe (the Agent fired at him a glance of divination) hewas calculating the expense of furnishing?

He was. 

Nothing simpler. Why--you furnished on the hire-purchase system. 

"Not much, " said Ranny. He knew all about the hire-purchase system. 

So he backed out of it. He backed out of his Paradise, out of his dream. But to save his face he said he would think it over and let the Agentknow on Monday. 

And the Agent smiled. He said he could take his time. There was nohurry. The house wouldn't run away. And he gave Ranny a copy of theProspectus with a beautiful picture of the house on it. 

All the way home Violet reproached him. It was a shame, she said, thathe couldn't afford the furniture. There was nothing in the world shewanted so much as that beautiful little house. She hung on his arm andpleaded. Would he ever be able to afford the furniture? And Ranny saidhe thought he could afford it in two years. Meanwhile the house wouldn'trun away. It would wait two years. 

And as if it had been waiting for him, motionless, from all eternity, the house, with its allurements and solicitations, caught him before sixo'clock on the evening of that very day. 

Ranny's mother, as if she had known what the house was after, playedinto its hands. Attracted by the Prospectus and the picture, she walkedover to Southfields directly after tea. She looked at the house and fellin love with it at first sight. It had taken her no time to grasp thesystem. You couldn't get a house like that in Wandsworth, not for fiftyor fifty-five, not counting rates and taxes. It was a sin, she said, tothrow away the chance. As for furnishing, she had seen to that. In fact, Ranny without knowing it had seen to it himself. For the last five yearshe had kept his father's books, conceiving that herein he was fulfillingan essentially unproductive filial duty. And all the time his mother, with a fine sense of justice, had been putting by for him theremuneration that he should have had. Out of his seven years' weeklypayments for board and lodging she had saved no less than a hundredpounds. Thus she had removed the one insurmountable obstacle fromRanny's path. 

It might have been better for Ranny if she hadn't. Because, on anyscheme, on the lowest scale of expenditure, with the most dexterousmanipulation of accounts, the house left him without a margin. But whowould think of margins when he knew that he would grow steadily year byyear into a landlord, the owner of house property, and _that_, if youwould believe it, for less rent than if he didn't own it? So miraculouswas the power of twenty-five pounds down. 

As if he thought the house could, after all, run away from him, hebicycled to Southfields with a letter for the Agent, closing with hisoffer that very night. 

And by a special appointment with the Agent, made as a concession to hispeculiar circumstances, he and Violet went over before ten o'clock onSunday morning to choose the house. 

For after all they hadn't chosen it yet. 

It was difficult to choose among the houses where all were exactlyalike; but you could choose among the streets, for some were plantedwith young limes and some with plane trees, and one, Acacia Avenue, withacacias. Ransome liked the strange tufted acacias. "Puts me in mind ofpalm trees, " he said. And finally his fancy and Violet's was taken byone house, Number Forty-seven Acacia Avenue, for it stood just oppositea young tree with a particularly luxuriant tuft. It was really as if thetree belonged to Number Forty-seven. 

Then they discovered that, outwardly uniform, these little houses had asubtle variety within. All, or nearly all, had different wall papers. InNumber Forty-seven there were pink roses in the front sitting-room andblue roses in the back, and, upstairs, quiet, graceful patterns of loveknots or trellis work. The love knots, blue with little pink rosebuds, in the front room (_their_ room) caught them. They were agreed in favorof Number Forty-seven. 

Then--it was on the following Saturday--they quarreled. The Agent hadwritten inquiring whether Mr. Ransome wished to give his residence adistinctive name. He didn't wish it. But Violet did. She wished to givehis residence the distinctive and distinguished name of Granville. Shesaid she couldn't abide a number, while Ranny said he couldn't stand aname. Especially a silly name like Granville. He said that if he livedin a house called Granville it would make him feel a silly ass. AndViolet said he was a silly ass already to feel like that about it. 

Then Violet cried. It was the first time he had seen her cry, and itdistressed him horribly. He held out against his pity all Saturdayevening. But on Sunday morning, when he thought of Violet, he relented. He said he'd changed his mind about that old family seat. Violet couldcall it what she liked. 

She called it Granville. 

The name, in large white letters, appeared presently in the fanlightabove the door. 

 * * * * *

At Woolridge's, on Monday morning in his dinner-hour, Mr. Ransome of thecounting-house strolled with great dignity and honor through sevendistinct departments as a customer. He ear-marked, for a beginning, andsubject always to the approval of a Lady, three distinct suites offurniture which he proposed, most certainly, to purchase outright. Noneof your hire-purchase systems for Mr. Ransome. 

On Tuesday, accompanied by two ladies, he again appeared. Between twoviolent blushes, and with an air which would have been light and offhandif it could, Mr. Ransome presented to his friend, the foreman, hismother--and Miss Usher. And as if the foreman had not sufficientlydivined her, Miss Usher's averted shoulders, burning cheeks, and loweredeyelids made it impossible for him to forget that she was the Lady whoseapproval was the ultimate condition of the deal. 

After an immensity of time, in which Mr. Ransome's dinner hour wasswallowed up and lost, Miss Usher decided finally on the suite instained walnut, upholstered handsomely in plush, with a pattern whichRansome imagined to be Oriental, a pattern of indefinite design in ayellowish drab and heavy blue upon a ground of crimson. A splendidsuite. The overmantle alone was worth the nineteen pounds nineteenshillings he paid for it. 

The furnishing of the chamber of the love knots was arranged for, decorously, between Mrs. Ransome and the foreman. Over every item, fromthe wardrobe in honey-colored maple picked out with black, to the china"set" with crimson reeds and warblers on it, Ranny's friend, theforeman, communed with Ranny's mother in an intimate aside; and Ranny'smother, in another aside of even more accentuated propriety, appealed toflaming cheeks and lowered eyelids and a mouth that gave an almostinarticulate assent. The eyelids refused to open on Ranny where hestood, turning his back on the women, while he shook dubiously thefootrail of the iron double bedstead to test the joints; and the mouthrefused to speak when Ranny was heard complaining that the bedstead wasabout three sizes too large for the room. Eyes and mouth recovered onlydownstairs among the carpets, where they again asserted themselves byinsisting on a Kidderminster with a slender pattern of blue on a drabground; though Ranny's mother had advised the black and crimson. Ranny'smother contended almost with passion that drab showed every stain. ButViolet would have that carpet and no other. 

And when by struggles and by prodigies of strength on Ranny's part, andon the part of Woolridge's men, by every kind of physical persuasion, and by coaxing, by strategy and guile, all that furniture from sevendistinct departments was at last squeezed into Granville--well, therewas hardly room to turn round. Granville, that would have held its ownunder any treatment less severe, was overpowered by Woolridge's. 

 * * * * *

"What's wrong with it?" said poor Ranny, as they stood together oneSaturday evening and surveyed their front sitting-room. He couldn't seeanything wrong with it himself. 

They had been married that morning. Ranny had had to bring his bridestraight from her father's house to Granville. There could be no goingaway for the honeymoon. Woolridge's wouldn't let Ranny go till the saleswere over. 

It was only a minute ago that he had had his arm round Violet's waist, and that her face had pressed his. It seemed ages. And suddenly Violethad shown sulkiness and irritation. He couldn't understand it. Hecouldn't understand how she could have chosen their first hour ofsolitude for finding fault with the arrangement of the room. He himselfhad been distinctly pleased; proud, too, of having furnished throughoutfrom Woolridge's, in a style that would last, and at a double discountwhich he owed to his payment in ready money, and to his connection withthe firm. 

Now he faced a young woman who had no understanding of his pride and nopity. 

"It's _all_ wrong, " said she. "And I'll tell you for why. It's tooheavy. You should have furnished in bamboo. "

"Bamboo? Sham-poo! It wouldn't last, " said Ranny. 

"Who wants the silly things to last?" said Violet. 

"Come to that, you never let on it was bamboo you wanted. "

"How could _I_ know what I wanted? You rushed me so, you never gave metime to think. "

"Oh, I say, " said Ranny, "what a tiresome kiddy!"

With that he kissed her, and between the kisses he asked her, withdelirious rapidity: "Who gave you a drawing-room suite? Who gave you anice house? Who let you call it Granville?" But he knew. Nobody, indeed, knew better than Ranny how tight a squeeze it was; and what a horriblemisfit for Granville. 

Then suddenly something in the idea of Granville tickled him. 

"Whether is it, " he inquired, "that the drawing-room suite is too largefor Granville? Or that Granville is too small for the drawing-roomsuite?"

"It's too small for anything. And I think you might have waited. "

"Waited?"

"Yes. Why shouldn't we have gone on as we were?"

He couldn't criticize her in a moment that was still so blessed;otherwise it might have struck him that Granville was certainly toosmall for Violet's voice. 

But it struck Ranny's mother as she heard it from the bedroom overhead, where she labored, spreading with her own hands the sheets for her son'smarriage bed. 

"Why shouldn't we?" Violet's voice insisted. 

"Because we couldn't. "

He drew her to him. Her eyes closed and their faces met, flame to flame. 

"Poor little thing, " he said. "Is its head hot? And is it tired?"

"Ranny, " she said, "is your mother still upstairs?"

"She'll be gone in a minute, " he whispered, thickly. 

CHAPTER XIV

Violet's connection with Starker's ceased on the day of her marriage. Violet herself would have continued it; she had meant to continue it;she had fought the point passionately with Ranny; but Ranny had put hisfoot down with a firmness that subdued her. She had said, "Oh, well--just as you like. If you think you can get along without my pounda week. " And Ranny, with considerable warmth, had answered back that hehoped to Heaven he could. And then, again and again, with infinitepatience and gentleness, he explained that the privileges of acquiringGranville entailed duties and responsibilities incompatible with herattendance in Starker's Millinery Saloons. He pointed out that if theywere dependent upon Granville, Granville was also dependent upon them. Granville, she could see for herself, was helpless--pathetic he was. 

And Violet would laugh. In those first days he could always make herlaugh by playing with the personality they had created. She would comeout into the roadway on an August morning, as Ranny was going off toWoolridge's, and they would look at the absurd little house where itstood winking and blinking in the sun; and morning after morning Rannykept it up. 

"Look at him, " he would say, "sittin' there behind his little railin's, sayin' nothing, just waitin' for you to look after him. "

And Violet would own that Granville was pathetic. But she triumphed. "You wouldn't feel about him that way, " she said, "if he was only NumberForty-seven. "

Just at first there was no doubt that Violet was fond of Granville. Justat first it was as if she couldn't do too much for him, to keep himspick and span, clean from top to toe, and always with a happy polish. Just at first he was, as Ranny said, "such a pretty little chap with hisfunny purple pillar, and his little peepers winkin' at you kind ofplayful, half the time. " For the sun shone on him all that Augusthoneymoon. It streamed down the Avenue between the rows of young acaciaswhose green tufts with that light on them put Ranny more and more inmind of palm trees. He was more and more in love with the brand-newParadise. He expressed all the charm of Southfields, of Acacia Avenue, when he said it was "so open, and so up-to-date. " It made WandsworthHigh Street look old and tortuous and grimy by comparison. 

But Ranny was more and more in love with Violet; so much in love that hecould never have expressed her charm. And yet he couldn't hide theeffect it had on him. The neighbors knew it was their honeymoon. Theysmiled when they saw Ranny and Violet come out of Granville everymorning wheeling the bicycle between them; they smiled when Violet ranbeside him as he mounted; most of all they smiled when Ranny, ridingslowly, turned right round in his saddle and the two young lunaticswaved and signaled to each other as if they would never have done. 

No doubt that in those first days Violet was in love with Ranny. Nodoubt that she looked after him as much as Violet could look afteranything; every bit as much as she looked after Granville. 

But the hard fact was that Granville and all his furniture required agreat deal of looking after. 

Ranny too. To begin with, he had what Violet called an awful appetite. Which meant that a joint and a loaf went twice as fast as Violet hadcalculated; so that she found herself driven to pan bread and tinnedmeat in self-defense. She had found that for some reason Ranny didn'teat so much of these. What with his walking and his "biking, " and hissitting, Ranny's activities wore through his ordinary every-day clothesat a frightful rate. And then his zephyrs and his flannels! Ranny'smother had always seen to them herself. She had washed them with her ownhands. Ranny's wife sent them to the laundress, not too often. So thatRanny, the splendid, immaculate Ranny she had fallen in love with, appeared after his marriage a shade less immaculate, less splendid thanhe had been before. 

It was not, of course, that Violet couldn't wash things. For, as Ranny'smother said to Mrs. Randall, You should see her own white blouses. Therewas washing for you! Mrs. Ransome owned quite handsomely that the girl"paid for it. " By which she meant that Violet's appearance justified theextravagant amount of time she spent on it. And it was not thatGranville demanded from her the downright hard work Mrs. Usher hadconsidered salutary in her case. Ransome had seen to that. He had notagreed with Mrs. Usher. If he couldn't keep a servant, he could, anddid, engage a charwoman for all the heavy work. It was not that thelight work Violet did was unbecoming to her. On the contrary, Violetbloomed in Granville. She had had to own that the unaccustomed exercisewas a good thing, giving a fineness and a firmness to outlines that hadbeen a shade too lax. It was that you can have too much of a good thingwhen you have it every day; too much of light washing and light cooking, of the lightest of light sweeping, of dusting, and the making of evenone double bed. 

Ransome did his best to spare her. He thought that she was tired oflooking after Granville, when in reality she was only bored. As for herfits of sullenness and irritation, he had been initiated into theirmystery on his wedding-day. The sullenness, the irritation had ceased sounmysteriously that Ranny in his matrimonial wisdom was left in no doubtas to its cause. There was even sweetness in it, for it proved that, however tired Violet might be of things in general, she was by no meanstired of him. 

Ransome himself was never tired in those days, and never, never bored. Granville as Number Forty-seven might have palled upon him; Granville asa personality assumed for him an everlasting charm. It was astonishinghow right Violet had been there. Granville, after all, hadn't made himfeel a silly ass. It kept him in a state of being tickled. It tickledWauchope and Fred Booty. They met him with "What price Granville?" Theycalled him by turns Baron Granville of Granville, and the Marquis or theDuke of Granville. They "ragged" while Ranny lunged at them and said, "Cheese it"; until one day Booty, suddenly serious, asked, why on earth, old chappie, he had called it Granville? When Ranny repliedsignificantly, "I didn't. " Then they stopped. 

But Granville tickled him only, as it were, on one side. The other sideof Ransome was insensitive. His undeveloped taste was not aware of thearchitectural absurdity of Granville, with its perky gable and its shamporphyry pillar. He could look at it, and yet think of it quite gravelyand with a secret tenderness as his home, and more than all as the homehe had given Violet, the blessed roof and walls that sheltered her. 

And all the time, in secret, it was taking hold of him, the deliciousthought of property, of possession, of Granville as a thing that intwenty years' time would be his own. Brooding over Granville, Ranny'sbrain became fertile in ideas. He was always calling out to Violet:"Vikes! I've got _another_ idea! When he gets all dirty next year I'llpaint him green. That'll give him a distinctive character, if you like. "Or, "How would it be if I was to cover him up all over with creepers, back and front?" Or, "Some day I'll whip off those tiles and clap him ona balcony. He'd look O. K. If he only had a balcony over his porch. "

His porch was the one thing wrong with Granville, because it wasn'tabsolutely and entirely his. The porphyry pillar for instance; he hadonly half a share in it; the other half belonged to Number Forty-five;and you couldn't rightly tell where Number Forty-five's share ended andhis began. Still it wasn't as if anybody ever wanted to swarm up thepillar. But there was a party wall, and that was a serious thing. Itwas so low that a child could clear it at a stride. And when the postmanand errand boys and tradespeople went their rounds, instead of goingdown Forty-five's front walk and up Granville's, they all straddledinsolently over the party wall. Ransome said it was "like their ballycheek, " by which he meant that it was an insult to the privacy anddignity of Granville. And he stopped it by setting a high box, plantedwith a perfect little hedge of euonymus, on Granville's half of the topof the party wall. And he and Violet hid behind the window curtains allone Saturday afternoon, and watched "the poor johnnies being sold. "

There was no end to the fun he was getting out of Granville. Everyevening he hurried home from Woolridge's that he might put in an hour'swork in his garden before supper. He was never tired of digging andplanting and watering the long strip at the back, or of clipping theprivet hedge that screened his green mat at the front. Only Violet gottired of seeing him doing it. More than once, when Ranny's innocent backwas turned she watched it, scowling. She was so far "gone on him" thatshe couldn't bear to see him taken up with Granville. She hated the veryflowers as his hands caressed them. She hated the little tree he hadplanted at the bottom of the back garden. For the little tree had kepthim out one night till nearly ten o'clock, after Violet had expresslytold him that she was going to bed at nine. 

 * * * * *

Violet was not tired; but she was tired of Granville. 

After six weeks of it she began to long secretly for Starker'sMillinery Saloons. In the saloon you walked looking beautiful through aflowery and a feathery grove of hats. You had nothing to do but to tryhats on and to sell them, and each sale was a personal triumph for theseller. Violet knew she could sell more hats than any other of the girlsat Starker's; she knew she had a pretty way of putting on a hat, ofturning slowly round and round in it to show the side and crown, ofstanding motionless before a customer while her blue eyes made play thatadvertised the irresistible fascinations of the brim. At Starker's shewent from one triumph to another. 

For gentlemen came to the Millinery Saloons, gentlemen whose looks saidplainly that they found her prettier than the ladies that they brought;gentlemen who sometimes came again alone, who for two words would buy ahat and give it you. At Starker's there was always a chance of somethinghappening. 

At Granville nothing happened, nothing ever could happen. Granville, when it didn't keep you doing things, gave you nothing to look at, nothing to think about, nothing to take an interest in, and nobody totake an interest in you. It left you sitting in a lonely window lookingout into a lonely Avenue, an Avenue where nobody (nobody to speak of)ever came. And not only did Violet long for Starker's Millinery Saloons, she longed for Oxford Street, she longed for the adventurous settingforth in bus or tram, with the feeling that anything might happen beforethe day was over; she longed for the still more adventurous stepping outof the little door in Starker's shutter into the amorously hoveringcrowd, for the furtive looking round with eyes all bright for theencounter; above all she longed for somebody, no matter who, to come, somebody to meet her somewhere and take her to the Empire. 

And nobody but Ranny ever came. 

Sometimes, of course, he took her to Earl's Court or the Coliseum; butgoing there with Ranny wasn't any fun. Ranny's idea of fun was notEarl's Court or the Coliseum; it was to mount a bicycle and ride fromthat lonely place, Acacia Avenue, into places that were more lonelystill. Sometimes they would have tea at a confectioner's, but what Rannyloved best was to put bits of cake or chocolate in his pocket, and toeat them in utter loneliness sitting in a field. In short, Ranny lovedto take her into places where there was nothing for them to do, nothingfor them to look at, and nobody to look at them. If Violet hadn't beengone on Ranny she couldn't have endured it for a day. 

 * * * * *

Then in the late autumn the bicycle rides ceased. Violet was overtaken, first, with a dreadful lassitude, then with a helplessness as great asGranville's. And with it a sullenness that had no sweetness in it, forViolet defied her fate. And now when she raised her old cry again, "Ican't see _why_ I shouldn't have gone on at Starker's like I did, "instead of saying "Somebody's got to look after Granville" Rannyanswered, "_This_ is why. "

All through the winter the charwoman came every day. And one midnight, in the first week of March, nineteen-five, Violet's child was born. Itwas a daughter. 

CHAPTER XV

On that night Ransome acquired a dreadful knowledge. Granville was not aplace where you could be born with any decency. It seemed to participatehorribly in Violet's agony, to throb with her tortures and recoils, tofill itself shuddering with her cries, such cries as Ransome had neverheard or conceived, that he would have believed impossible. They weresavage, inhuman; the cries and groans of some outraged animal; there wasmenace in them and rebellion, terror, and an implacable resentment. 

And as Ransome heard them his heart was torn with pity and with remorsetoo, as though Violet's agony accused him. He could not get rid of theidea that he had wronged her; an idea that he somehow felt he wouldnever have had if the baby had been born a month later. He swore thatshe should never be put to this torture a second time; that if God wouldonly spare her he would never, never quarrel with her, never say anunkind word to her again. He couldn't exactly recall any unkind words;so he nourished his anguish on the thought of the words he had verynearly said, also of the words he hadn't said, and of the things hehadn't done for her. Casting about for these, he found that he hadn'ttaken her to Earl's Court or the Coliseum half as often as he might. Hehad been wrapped up in himself, that's what he had been; a selfish, lowbrute. He felt that there was nothing he wouldn't do for Vi, if onlyGod would spare her. 

But God wouldn't. He wasn't sparing her now. God had proved that he wascapable of anything. It was incredible to Ransome that Violet shouldlive through that night. He wouldn't believe his mother and the doctorand the nurse when they told him that everything was as it should be. Heknew that they were lying; they must be; it wasn't possible that anywoman would go through that and live. 

All this Ransome thought as he sat in the front parlor under the littlecreaking room. He _would_ sit there where he could hear every sound, where it was almost as if he was by her bed and looking on. 

And he wouldn't believe it was all over when at midnight they came andtold him, and when he saw Violet lying in her mortal apathy, and when hekissed her poor drawn face. He couldn't believe that Violet's facewouldn't look like that forever, that it wouldn't keep forever itsdreadful memory, the resentment that smoldered still under its whiteapathy. 

 * * * * *

For there could be no doubt that that was Violet's attitude--resentment, as of some wrong that had been done her. He didn't wonder at it. Heresented the whole business himself. 

It was a pity, though, that she didn't take more kindly to the baby, seeing that, after all, the poor little thing was innocent, it didn'tknow what it had done. 

Ranny would not have permitted himself this reflection but that a wholefortnight had passed and Violet had not died. Ranny's fatherhood wasperturbed by Violet's indifference to the baby. He spoke of it to thedoctor, and suggested weakness as a possible explanation. 

"Weakness?" The doctor stared at him and smiled faintly. "Whatweakness?"

"I mean, " said Ranny, "after all she's gone through. "

The doctor put his hand on Ranny's shoulder. "My dear boy, if half thewomen went through as little and came out of it as well--"

Ranny flared up. 

"I like that--your trying to make out she didn't suffer. Torturesweren't _in_ it. How'd you like--"

But the doctor shook his head. 

"We can't alter Nature, my dear boy. But I'll tell you for yourcomfort--in all my experience I've never known a woman have an easiertime. "

"D'you mean--d'you mean--she'll get over it?"

"Get over it? She's got over it already. She's as strong as a horse. "

He turned from Ranny with a swing of his coat tails that but feeblyexpressed his decision and his impatience. He paused before the closeddoorway for a final word. 

"There's no earthly reason why she shouldn't nurse that baby. "

"What's that, sir?" said Ranny, arrested. 

"She _must_ nurse it. It's better for her. It's better for the child. IfI were her husband I'd insist on it--_insist_. If she tells you shecan't do it, don't believe her. "

"I say, I didn't know there'd been any trouble of that sort. "

"That's all the trouble there's been, " the doctor said. And he enteredon a brief and popular exposition of the subject, from which Rannygathered that Violet was flying in the face of that Providence thatNature was. Superbly and exceptionally endowed and fitted for her end, Violet had refused the task of nursing-mother. 

"Why?"

The doctor shrugged his shoulders, implying that anything so abstruse asyoung Mrs. Ransome's reasons was beyond him. 

He left Ranny struggling with the question: If it isn't weakness--_what_is it?

 * * * * *

For Violet persisted in her strange refusal, in spite of Ranny'sremonstrances, his entreaties, his appeals. 

"It's been trouble enough, " she said, "without that. "

She was sitting up in her chair before the bedroom fire. They werealone. The nurse was downstairs at her supper. The Baby lay between themin its cradle, wrapped in a white shawl. Ranny was watching it. 

"I should have thought, " he said, at last, "you couldn't have borne tolet the little thing--"

But she cut that short. "Little thing! It's all very well for _you_. Youhaven't been through what I have; if you had, p'raps you'd feel as Ido. "

The Baby stirred in its shawl. Its eyes were still shut, but its lipsbegan to curl open with a queer waving, writhing movement. 

"What does it mean, " said Ranny, "when it makes that funny face?"

"How should _I_ know?" said Violet. 

Little sounds, utterly helpless and inarticulate, came now from thecradle. 

"What nice noises it makes, " said Ranny. He was stooping by the cradle, touching the Baby's soft cheek with his finger. 

"Look at it, " he said. 

But Violet would not look. 

The Baby's face puckered and grew red. Its body writhed and stiffened. It broke into a cry that frightened him. 

"Oh, Lord!" said Ranny, "do you think I've hurt it? Hadn't you bettertake it up or something?"

But Violet did not take it up. He looked at her in astonishment. Shelooked at him, and her face was sullen. 

The Baby screamed high. 

Ranny put his arm under the small warm thing and lifted it up out of itscradle. He had some idea of laying it on its mother's lap. 

The Baby stopped screaming. 

Ranny held it, with the nape of its absurdly loose and heavy headsupported on his left wrist, and its little soft hips pressed into thehollow of his right hand. And as he held it he was troubled with acompassion and a tenderness unlike anything he had ever known before. For the Baby's helplessness was unlike anything he had ever known. 

And its innocence! Why, its hand, its incredibly tiny hand, had foundhis breast and was moving there for all the world as if he had been itsmother. And to Ranny's amazement, with the touch, a queer littlepricking pang went through his breast, as if a thin blood vessel hadsuddenly burst there. 

"D'you see that, Vi? Its little hand? What a rum thing a baby is!"

But even that didn't move Violet, or turn her from her purpose, thoughshe smiled. 

 * * * * *

From that moment Ranny's paternal instinct raised its head again. It hadbeen crushed for the time being in his revolt against Violet'ssufferings. But now it was indescribable, the feeling he had for hislittle daughter Dorothy. (Violet, since they _had_ to call the Babysomething, had called it Dorothy. ) Meanwhile, he hid his feeling. Hemaintained a perverse, a dubious, a critical silence while his motherand his mother-in-law and his Aunt Randall and the nurse overflowed inpraise which, if the Baby had understood them, must have turned itshead. 

Ranny was reassured when the other women were about him; because thenViolet did show signs of caring for the Baby, if only to keep them intheir places and remind them that it was her property and not theirs. She would take it out of their arms, and smooth its hair and itsclothes, and kiss it significantly, scowling sullen-sweet, as if theirembraces had rumpled it and done it harm. For as long as the nurse wasthere to look after it, the Baby's adorable person was kept in adaintiness and sweetness so exquisite that it was no wonder if Ranny'smother, in her transports, called it "Little Rose, " and "Honeypot, " and"Fairy Flower"; when all that Ranny said was, "It's a mercy it's gothair. "

CHAPTER XVI

Just at first the miracle of the Baby drew a crowd of pilgrims fromWandsworth to Acacia Avenue. Granville had become a shrine. 

People Ransome hardly knew and didn't care for, friends of his motherand of his Aunt Randall, came over of a Sunday afternoon to see theBaby. And Wauchope and Buist and Tyser of the Polytechnic came; and oldWauchope got excited and clapped Ranny on the back and said: "Go it, Granville! Steady does it. Here's to you and many more of them. " AndBooty brought Maudie Hollis, who was not too proud and too beautiful togo down on her knees before the Baby, while young Fred stood aloof inawe, and grew sanguine to the roots of the hair that rose, tipping hisforehead like a monumental flame. 

As for the Humming-bird, he was amazing. He insisted on the Baby beingchristened in Wandsworth Parish Church (marvelous, he was, throughoutthe ceremony); and he actually appeared at Granville afterward with thechristening party. 

 * * * * *

That Sunday afternoon Ransome saw Winny Dymond for the first time sincehis marriage. He saw her, he could swear that he saw her, standing withMaudie Hollis in a seat near the door. He was certainly aware of alittle figure in a long dark coat, and of a face startlingly likeWinny's, and of eyes that could only have been hers, profound andserious eyes, fixed upon the Baby. But when he looked for her afterwardas the christening party passed out of the church, led by Mrs. Randallcarrying the Baby, Winny was nowhere to be seen. No doubt thechristening party scared her. 

He thought of Winny several times that week. He wondered what she hadbeen doing with herself all those months, and why it was she hadn't cometo see them. 

And the very next Saturday, as Ransome, on his return from Woolridge's, was wheeling his bicycle with difficulty through the little gate, thedoor of Granville opened, and Winny came out. 

Ransome was so surprised that he let the bicycle go, and it went downwith a horrid clatter, hitting him a malicious blow on the ankle as itfell. He was so surprised that, instead of saying what a man naturallywould say in the circumstances, he said, "Winky!"

It would have been like her either to have laughed at his clumsiness orto have flown to help him, but Winky wasn't like herself. She stood inan improbable silence and gravity and stared at him, while her lipsmoved as if she drew back her breath, and her feet as if she would havedrawn herself back, but for the door she had closed behind her; soinspired was she with the instinct of retreat. 

Her scare (for plainly she was scared) lasted only for a second; onlytill he spoke again and came forward. 

"So it's little Winky, is it? Well, I never!" He laughed for purepleasure. 

She smiled faintly and came off her doorstep to take the hand he heldout to her. 

"I came, " she said, "to see Violet and the Baby. "

At that he smiled also, half furtively. "And have you seen them?"

"Oh yes. I've been sitting with Violet for the last hour. I must begoing now. "

"Going? Why, what's the hurry?"

"Well--"

"Well--" He tried to sound the little word as she did. He remembered it, the funny little word that summed up her evasiveness, her reluctance, her absurdity. 

She was still standing by the doorstep, stroking the sham porphyrypillar with her childish hand, as if she wanted to see what it was madeof. 

"It isn't _reelly_ marble, " Ransome said. 

She gazed at him, wondering. "_What_ isn't?"

"That pillar. "

"Oh--I wasn't thinking--" She took her hand away suddenly as if thepillar had been a snake and stung her. Then she looked at it. 

"How beautiful they make them!" She paused, absolutely grave. Then, "Oh, Ranny, you _have_ got a nice house, " she said. 

"Have you seen it?"

"No. Not _all_ of it. " She spoke as if it had been a palace. 

"Come in and have a look round, " said Ranny. 

"Well--"

There was distinct yielding in her voice this time. Winny was halfcaught. 

"I _do_ love looking at houses. "

He lured her in. She came over the threshold as if on some delicious yetperilous adventure, with eyes that shone and with two little teeth thatbit down her lower lip; a way she had when she attempted anythingdifficult and at the same time exciting. He showed her everything exceptthe room she had seen already, the room with the love knots and therosebuds where Violet and the Baby were. Winny admired everything withjoy and yet with reverence, from the splendid overmantel in the frontsitting-room to the hot-water tap in the bathroom. 

"My word, " Winny said, "what I'd give to have a bath like that!"

"I say, " said Ransome, suddenly moved, "you take a lot more interest init all than Virelet does. "

"She's used to it, " said Winny. "Besides, I always take an interest inother people's houses. "

She pondered. They were both leaning out of the back bedroom window now, looking down into the garden. 

"Think of all those little empty houses, Ranny, and the people that'llcome and live in them. It seems somehow so beautiful their coming andfinding them and getting things for them; and at the same time it seemssomehow sad. " She paused. 

"I don't mean that _you're_ sad, Ranny. You know what I mean. "

He did. He had felt it too, the beauty and the sadness, but he couldn'thave put it into words. It was the sadness and the beauty of life. 

It was queer, he thought, how Winny felt as he did about most things inlife. 

But Winny's joy over the house was nothing to her joy over the garden, the garden that Ranny had made, and over the little tree that he hadplanted. It was the most beautiful and wonderful tree in the wholeworld. For in her eyes everything that Ranny did and that he made wasbeautiful and wonderful. It could not be otherwise: because she lovedhim. 

And oh! she had the most intense appreciation of Granville, of the nameand of the personality. She took it all in. Trust Winny. 

And as they stood in the gateway at parting, he told her of the systemby which in twenty, no, in not much more than nineteen years' timeGranville would be his own. 

"Why, Ranny, it sounds almost too good to be true!"

"I know it does. That's why sometimes I think I'll be had over it yet. Isay to myself Granville looks jolly innocent, but he'll score off me, you bet, before he's done. "

"He _does_ look innocent, " said Winny. 

He did. (And how Winny took it in!)

"_That's_ what tickles me, " said Ranny. "Sometimes, when I come home ofa evening and find him still sittin' there, cockin' his little eyes asif he was goin' to have a game with me, it comes over me that he's up tosomething, and--what do you think I do?"

"I don't know, Ranny. " She almost whispered it. 

"I burst out laughin' in his face. "

"How _can_ you?" She was treating Granville as he did, exactly as if itwas alive. 

"Well--you see how comical he is. "

"Yes. I see it. " (Of course she saw it. ) "Still--there's something abouthim all the same. "

There was something about everything that was Ranny's, something thattouched her, something that made her love it, because she loved him. Winny couldn't have burst out laughing in its face. 

"I'm glad I came, " she said. "Because now I can see you. "

He misunderstood. "I hope you will, Winky--very often. "

"I mean--see you when you're not there. "

He looked away. Something in her voice moved him unspeakably. For onemoment he saw into the heart of her--placid, profound, and pure. 

He was going down the Avenue with her now. For in that moment he hadfelt the beauty of her and the sadness. He couldn't bear to think of her"seeing herself home, " going back alone to that little room in St. Ann'sTerrace, where some day, when Maudie married, she would be left alone. The least he could do was to walk with her a little way. 

"I say, Win, " he said, presently, "why ever haven't you come before?" Hereally wondered. 

There was a long silence. Then, "I don't know, Ranny, " she said, simply. 

They had come to the end of Acacia Avenue before either of them spokeagain. Then Ranny conceived something brilliant. 

"What did you think of the Baby?" he said. 

She fairly shone at him, and at the same time she was earnest and verygrave. 

"Oh, Ranny, " she said, "it's the most beautiful baby that everwas--Isn't it?"

Ranny smiled superbly. 

"They tell me so; but I dunno. _Is_ it?"

"Of course it is. "

She had turned, parting from him at last, and she flung that at him asshe walked backward, smiling in his face. 

"Well--I must be going back to Vi, " he said. 

And he went back. 

CHAPTER XVII

In April Ransome looked confidently for Violet to "settle down. " Mrs. Usher had assured him again and again that the next month would bringthe blessed change. 

"She'll be all right, " said Mrs. Usher, "when the nurse goes and she hasyou and Baby to herself. "

And at first it seemed as though Violet's mother knew what she wastalking about. 

April put an end to their separation. April, like a second honeymoon, made them again bride and bridegroom to each other. Nature, whom Rannyhad blasphemed and upbraided, triumphed and was justified in Violet'sbeauty, that bloomed again and yet was changed to something almost fine, almost clear; as if its coarse strain had been purged from it bymaternity. Something fine and clear in Ranny responded to the change. 

And, as in their first honeymoon, Violet's irritation ceased. She wassullen-sweet, with a kind of brooding magic in her ways. She drew himwith eyes whose glamour was tenderness under lowering brows; she boundhim with arms that, for all their incredible softness, had a vehemencethat held him as if it would never let him go; and in the cleaving ofher mouth to his there was a savage will that pressed as if it wouldhave crushed between them all memory and premonition. This was somewhatdisastrous to fineness and clearness, and Ransome's no doubt would haveperished but for the persistence with which he held Violet sacred as themother of his child. 

Her attitude to the child was still incomprehensible to him, but he wasbeginning to accept it, perceiving that it had some obscure foundationin her temperament. There were moments when he fell back on his oldsuperstition (exploded by the doctor) and told himself that Violet wasone of those who suffer profoundly from the shock of childbirth. And inthat case she would get over it in time. 

 * * * * *

But time went on, and Violet showed no signs of getting over it, nosigns, at any rate, of settling down. On the contrary, before very longshe slipped into her old slack ways. With all her fierce vitality it wasas if she had no strength to turn her hand to anything. The charwomancame every week. (That was no more than Ransome was prepared for. )

The charwoman worked heavily against odds, doing all she knew. And yet, in the searching light of summer, it was plain, as Ransome pointed out, that Granville was undergoing a slow deterioration. 

First of all, the woodwork cracked and the paint came off in blisters, and the dirt that got into the seams and holes and places stayed there. Granville was visited with a plague of fine dust. It settled oneverything; it penetrated; it worked its way in everywhere. Violet, going round languidly with a silly feather brush, made no headwayagainst the pest. 

"For Heaven's sake get it out, " said Ransome, "or we shall all beswallowed up in it and die. "

"Get it out yourself, if you can, " said Violet. "You'll soon see how youlike my job. "

She was developing more and more a power of acrimonious and unanswerableretort. 

"Can't you let it be, Ranny?" (He had found the feather brush. )

"No. It's spoiling all my O. K. Cuffs and collars. "

"I can't help your cuffs and collars. What do you suppose it's doing tomine?"

Ransome went on flourishing the feather brush. Presently he began tocough and sneeze. 

"If you wouldn't rouse it, " said Violet, "it would do less harm. "

He admitted that the dust was terrible when roused. 

So the dust got the better of them. Ransome was not the sort of man whocould go about poking his nose into cupboards and places, or flourish afeather brush with a serious intention. He was even more incapable ofbadgering a beautiful girl whom he had already wronged sufficiently, whodeclared herself to be sufficiently handicapped by Baby. 

Since the Baby came he had abstained from comment on his wife'sshortcomings; though in the matter of meals, for instance, she had begunto add unpunctuality to incompetence. Ransome would have consideredhimself "pretty flabby" if he couldn't rough it. But he found himselflooking forward more and more to the days they spent at Wandsworth, those rare but extensive Sundays that covered the hours of two squaremeals, not counting tea-time. Then there was the hamper fromHertfordshire. To be sure, in common decency, it could only be regardedas a lucky windfall, but providentially the windfall was beginning tooccur at frequent intervals. The Ushers must have had an inkling. Everybody who came to the house could perceive the awful deteriorationin the food. 

The next thing Ransome noticed was a faint, a very faint, but stillperceptible deterioration in himself. And by "himself" Ranny meant ingeneral his physique and in particular his muscles. They were notflabby--Heaven forbid!--but they were not the superb muscles that theyhad been. All last year he had attended the Gymnasium religiously once aweek, just to keep in form. This year his wife was having a bad time, and it wasn't fair to leave her too much by herself. Instead of going tothe Polytechnic he practised with his dumb-bells in the back bedroom. And now and then after Violet had gone to bed he sprinted. There was noneed to worry about himself. 

What Ranny worried about was the steady, slow deterioration in the Baby. 

It began in the third month of its existence. Up till then the Babyhadn't suffered. It was naturally healthy, and even Violet owned that itwas good. By which she meant that it slept a great deal. And for a wholemonth after she had it to herself she had made tremendous efforts tokeep it as the nurse had kept it. She saw (for she was notunintelligent) that trouble taken now would save endless trouble in thelong run, in dealing with its inconceivably tender person. As for itsfood, Violet had been firm about the main point, but it was no strain toorder once for all from the dairy an expensive kind of milk which Rannypaid for. 

Only, whereas Nurse had made a Grand Toilette for Baby every other day, insisting that the little frocks and vests and flannels should be put onall clean together, Violet observed a longer and longer interval. OnSundays, when Ranny's mother saw her, Baby was still a Little Rose, aHoneypot, and a Fairy Flower. On other days, when tiresome peopledropped in unexpectedly, Violet hid everything under a clean overallwhen she could lay her hands on one. 

But from Ranny she hid nothing; and presently it came upon him with ashock that to caress and handle Baby was not the same perfect ecstasythat it had been. It puzzled him at first; then it enraged him; and atlast he spoke to Violet. 

"Look here, " he said, "if you want that child to be a Little Rose and aHoneypot and a Fairy Flower, you'll have to keep it cleaner. That's gotto be done, d'you see, whatever's left. "

Violet sulked for twenty-four hours after that outburst, but for a wholeweek afterward he noticed that Baby was distinctly cleaner. 

But whether it was clean or whether it was dirty, Ranny loved it, andbecame more and more absorbed in it. 

And with Ranny's absorption Violet's irritability returned andincreased, and sullenness set in for days at a time withoutintermission. 

"_This_, " said Ranny, "is the _joie de veeve_. "

 * * * * *

Three more months passed. 

For Ransome every day brought a going forth and a returning, a mixingwith the world, with men and with affairs, the affairs of Woolridge's. His married life had done one thing for him. It taught him toappreciate his life at Woolridge's, and to discern variety where varietyhad not been too apparent. There was the change from Granville toWoolridge's, and from Woolridge's to Granville. There was the dinnerhour when he rose from his desk and went out to an A B C shop with Bootyor some other man. Sometimes the other man had ideas, views of life andso forth, that interested Ransome; if he hadn't, at any rate he was aman. That is to say, he didn't sulk or nag or snap at you; or nip thewords out of your mouth and twist them; he wasn't perverse; he didn't dothings that passed your comprehension, and he let you be. For Ransomethe world of men brought respite. Even at home, in that world of women, of one woman, when things (he meant the one woman) were too much forhim, menacing his as yet invincible hilarity, he could turn his back onthem, and work in the garden or play with the Baby. Or he could leavethem for a while and mount his bicycle and ride out into the opencountry. For Ransome life still had interests and surprises. 

For the Baby surprise and interest lurked in the feeblest of itssensations; every day brought, for the Baby, excitement, discovery, andadventure. And then, it had attached itself to Ransome. It behaved as ifit had some secret understanding with its father. Its sense of comedy, like Ranny's, seemed imperishable. It would respond explosively todevices so old, so stale, so worn by repetition, that the wonder wasthey didn't alienate it, or disgust. The rapid approach and withdrawalof Ranny's hand, his face suddenly hidden behind its pinafore andexposed, still more suddenly, with a cry of "Peep-bo!" its own inspiredseizing of Ranny's hair, would move it to delirious laughter or silentstrangling frenzy. And when Ranny wasn't there, and nobody took anynotice of it, it had its own solitary and mysterious ecstasies of mirth. 

It was all very well for Ranny and the Baby. 

But for Violet it was one interminable, intolerable monotony. Always thesame tiresome things to be done for Granville and for the Baby and forRanny, when she did them; and when she didn't there was nothing to dobut to sit still, with no outlook, no interest, no surprise, nopossibility of variety and adventure. 

Now and then they would leave the Baby at Wandsworth with itsgrandmother, and Ranny would take her to Earl's Court or the Coliseum. But these bright hours were rare, and when they passed the gloom theyhad made visible was gloomier. And brooding over it, she suffered asense of irremediable wrong. 

Nothing to look forward to but bedtime; the slow, soft-footed ascent tothe room with the walls of love knots and rosebuds, Ranny carrying theBaby. Nothing to look forward to but the dark when the Baby slept andRanny (who _would_ hang over it till the last minute) couldn't see theBaby any more, the dark when he would turn to her with the old passionand the old caresses. 

And even into the darkness and into their passion there had come adifference, subtle, estranging, and profound. Between them thereremained that sense of irremediable wrong. In Violet it rousedresentment and in Ransome a tender yet austere responsibility. For heblamed himself for it. 

Violet blamed the Baby. 

And in those three months Winny Dymond came and went. By some fatalityshe contrived to call either on a Sunday when they had all gone toWandsworth or on a Saturday when Ransome was not there. Once or twice insummer, when he was kept at the counting-house during stock-taking orthe sales (for Woolridge's season of high pressure came months earlierthan Starker's), Winny had dropped in toward supper-time, when Violethad asked her to keep her company. But she always left before Rannycould get back, because Violet told her (as if she didn't know it) thatRanny would be too tired to see her home. 

One Saturday evening in August he had come in about nine o'clock after aturn on Wimbledon Common. Granville with its gate, its windows, and allits doors flung open, had a scared, abandoned look. A strange sound camefrom Granville, the sound of a low singing from upstairs, from--yes, itwas from the front bedroom. 

He went through the lower rooms and out into the garden. Nobody wasthere. The Baby's cradle and pram were empty. And still from upstairsthe voice came singing. In all his knowledge of her he had never knownViolet to sing. 

He went upstairs. The door of the front bedroom was closed as if on amystery. He knocked and opened it tentatively, like a man who respectedmysteries. The voice had left off singing, and was saying something. Itwas a voice he knew, but not Violet's voice. 

It was saying, with a lilt that was almost a song, "Upsy daisy, upsydaisy, den!"

There was a pause and then "Diddums!" and a sound of kissing. 

He found Winny Dymond sitting there, alone, with the Baby on her knee. He caught her in the act of slipping a nightgown over its little nakedbody, that was all rosy from its bath. The place was full of thefragrance of soap and violet powder and clean linen. 

"Hello, Winky!" he said. "What a lark!" He stood fascinated. 

But Winky with a baby in her lap was not capable of levity. It struckhim that the Baby was serious, too. 

"Violet's just this minute gone out for a breath of air, " she said. "I'mputting Baby to bed for her. She's been very fretful all day. "

"Who? Virelet?"

"No, Baby. (Did it then!). "

"How's that?" (He sat perched on the footrail of the bedstead, for therewas not much room to spare, what with the wardrobe and Winny and thebath. )

"I don't know. But I fancy she isn't very well. "

The Baby confirmed her judgment by a cry of anguish. 

"I say, what's wrong?"

"I think, " said Winny, "it's the hot weather and the bottles. "

"The what?"

"The bottles. They're nasty things, and you can't be too careful withthem. "

His face was inscrutable. 

"Do you think, " she said, "you could find me a nice clean one somewhere?I've got _two_ in soak. "

He smiled in spite of himself at the gravity, the importance of herair. 

He went off to look all over the house for the nice clean one that Winnywas certain must be somewhere. In a basin by the open window of thebedroom he found the two horrors that she had put there to soak. 

"What's wrong with these?" said he. 

For one moment it was as if Winny were indignant. 

"You put your nose to them and you'll soon see what's wrong. "

He did and saw. It was not for nothing that he had been born over achemist's shop in Wandsworth High Street. He had heard his father andhis mother (and Mercier even) comment on the sluts whose sluttishnesssent up the death rate of the infant population. 

He kept his back to Winny as he stood there by the window. 

"The bi--!" A bad word, a word that he would not for worlds have utteredin a woman's presence, half formed itself on Ranny's lips. He turned. "Well, " he said, aloud, "I _am_--Let's throw the filthy things away. They're poisonous. "

"No, I'll see to it. Just bring me another. "

"There isn't another. "

She gazed at him with eyes where incredulity struggled with terror thatresponded to his fierceness. She didn't believe, and she didn't wantRanny to believe that Violet could be so awful. 

"There _must_ be, Ranny, somewhere. "

"There isn't, I tell you. "

"Then run round to the chemist's and get _three_. "

"All right, but it's no good. The kid's been poisoned. Goodness knowshow long it's been going on. "

She looked at him, reproachfully, this time. 

"No, no; it's only the hot weather come on sudden. "

The Baby set up a sorrowful wail as if it knew better and protestedagainst Winny's softening of the facts. 

"Poor lamb, she's hungry. Jest you run, there's a dear. "

He ran. The chemist, a newcomer, had set up his shop very convenientlyat the corner of Acacia Avenue. 

As Ransome approached, a familiar figure emerged from the shop doorway;it stood there for a moment as if undecided, then turned and disappearedround the corner. 

It was Leonard Mercier. 

"What on earth, " thought Ranny, "is old Jujubes doing here?"

 * * * * *

The flying wonder of it had barely flicked his brain when it was gone. Ranny's thoughts were where his heart was, where he was back again in aninstant, in the bedroom with Winny and the Baby. 

He prepared the child's food under Winny's directions (it was wonderfulhow Winny seemed to know); and before nightfall, what with rocking andsinging, she had soothed the Baby to sleep. 

Nightfall, and Violet hadn't come back. 

"I'm glad she's got out at last, " Winny said. "She's had such an awfulday. "

"You think she doesn't get out enough, then?"

She hesitated. 

"I do. Not really _out_ because of Baby. "

They sat near, they spoke low, so as not to wake the child that slept onWinny's knee. 

"The kid doesn't give her many awful days. It's such a jolly kid. Anyone would think she'd be happy with it. "

"She's so young, Ranny. You should think of that. She's only like achild herself. She's got to be looked after. She doesn't know much aboutbabies. She hasn't had one very long, you see. "

"_You_ know, Winny. How's that? You haven't had one at all. "

"No. I haven't had one. I can't say how it is. "

He smiled. "To look at you any one would say you'd nursed a baby allyour life. "

So she had--in fancy and in dreams. 

"It comes more natural to some, " she said. "All Violet wants is telling. You should tell her, Ranny. "

"Tell her what?"

"Well--tell her to take Baby out more. Tell her to give her a bath night_and_ morning. Tell her little babies get ill and die if you don't keepeverything about them as clean as clean. Tell her anything you like. Butdon't tell her to-night. "

"Why not?"

"Because she's upset. "

"What's upset her?"

"I don't know. _You'll_ upset her if you go flying out at her aboutthose old bottles like you did; and if you go calling her bad names. _I_heard you. "

Was it possible? (Why, he hadn't let it out, or, if he had, it had gone, quite innocently, through the open window. )

"If you're not as gentle as gentle with her you'll upset her somethingawful. You've got to be as gentle with her as you are with Baby. "

So she thought he wasn't gentle, did she? She thought he bullied Violetand upset her? Whatever could Violet have been saying about him?Well--well--he couldn't tell her that he _had_ been as gentle with heras he was with Baby, and that the gentler he was the more Violet wasupset. 

He didn't know that Winky was punishing him in order to punish herselffor having given Violet away. 

"All right, Winky, " he said. "If you think I'm such a brute. "

"I don't think anything of the sort, Ranny. You know I don't. "

She rose with the sleeping child in her arms and carried it to its cot. He followed her and turned back the blanket for her as she laid Babydown. But it was Winny and not Baby that he looked at. 

And he thought, "Little Winky's grown up. "

To be sure, her hair was done differently. He missed the door-knockerplat. 

But that was not what he meant. He had only thought of it after she hadleft him. 

 * * * * *

It was past ten before Violet came back. He found her in thesitting-room, standing in the light of the gas flame she had just lit. Her eyes shone; her face was flushed. She panted a little as if (so hethought) she had hurried, being late. 

"Well, " he said to her, "have you had your little run?"

She stared and flung three words at him. 

"I wanted it!"

And still she stared. 

"Vi--" he began. 

"Well--what's the matter with you?"

"Nothing's the matter with _me_. But I'm afraid Baby's going to be ill. "

She stood before him, her breast heaving. She drew her breath in and letit out again in a snort of exasperation. 

"What makes you think so?"

"Something Winny said. "

"What does she know about it?"

He wanted to say "A jolly sight more than you do, " but he stoppedhimself in time. 

He began to talk gently to her. 

And Violet was horribly upset. 

Wrap it up as tenderly as he might, there was no mistaking the awfulnessof the charge he brought against her. He had as good as taxed her withneglecting Baby. She had recourse to subterfuge; she sheltered herselfbehind lies, laid on one on the top of the other, little sillytransparent lies, but such a thundering lot of them that Ranny could sayof each that it was jolly thin and of the whole that it was a bit toothick. 

That brought her round, and he wondered whether gentleness was the bestmethod for Violet after all. He was disgusted, for he hated subterfuge. 

And she might just as well have owned up at once; for in a day or twoshe was defenseless. The Baby was ill; and the illness was accusationand evidence and proof positive and punishment all rolled into one;Baby's sufferings being due to the cause that Ransome had assigned. Ithad been poisoned, suddenly, from milk gone sour in the abominablebottles, and slowly, subtly poisoned from the still more abominablestate of its Baby's Comforter. Ransome and his wife sat up three nightsrunning, and the doctor came twice a day. And every time, except on thelast night, when the Baby nearly died, the doctor spoke brutally toViolet. _He_ knew that gentleness was not a bit of good. 

CHAPTER XVIII

Still, that was in August, and they could put a good half of it down tothe hot weather. 

Besides, the Baby got over it. With all its accusing and witnessing, itwas, as Ranny said, a forgiving little thing; it had never in its lifedone anybody any harm. It did not hurt Violet now. 

And the hot days passed; weeks passed; months passed, and winter andspring. The Baby had one little attack after another. It marked thepassage of the months by its calamities; and still these might be putdown to the cold weather or the stress of teething. Then, in a temperateweek of May, nineteen-six, it did something decisive. It nearly diedagain of enteritis; and again it was forgiving and got over it. 

There could be no doubt that things would have been simpler if it hadbeen cruel enough to die. For the question was: What were they to donow?

Things, Ransome said, had got to be different. They couldn't go on asthey were. The anxiety and the discomfort were intolerable. Still, thathe had conceived an end to them, showed that he did not yet utterlydespair of Violet. She had been terrified by the behavior of the Babyand by the things, the brutal things, the doctor had said to her, andshe had made another effort. Ransome's trouble was simply that hecouldn't trust her. He said to himself that she had good instincts andgood impulses if you could depend on them. But you couldn't. With allher obstinacy she had no staying-power. He recognized in her alamentable and inveterate flabbiness. 

If he had known all about her he might have formed a larger estimate ofher staying-power. But he did not yet know what she was. That bad wordthat he had once let out through the window had been in Ranny's simplemind a mere figure of speech, a flowering expletive, flung to the dark, devoid of meaning and of fitness. He did not know what Violet's impulsesand her instincts really were. He did not know that what he called herflabbiness was the inertia in which they stored their strength, nor thatin them there remained a vigilant and indestructible soul, biding itstime, holding its own against maternity, making more and more forself-protection, for assertion, for supremacy. He felt her mystery, buthe had never known the ultimate secret of this woman who ate at hisboard and slept in his bed and had borne his child. It was with hiseternal innocence that he put it to her, What were they to do now?

And that implacable and inscrutable soul in her was ready for him. Itprompted her to say that she couldn't do more than she did, and that ifthings were to be different he must get some one else to see to them. Hemust keep a servant. He should have kept one for her long ago. 

Poor Ranny protested that he'd keep twenty servants for her if he couldafford it. As it was, a charwoman every week was more than he couldmanage, and she knew it. And she said, looking at him very straight, that there was one way they could do it. They could do as other peopledid. In half the houses in the Avenue they let apartments. They musttake a lodger. 

Violet had thrown out this suggestion more than once lately. And he hadput his foot down. Neither he nor Granville, he said, could stand alodger. A lodger would make Granville too hot by far to hold him. 

Now in their stress he owned that there was something in it. He wouldthink it over. 

Thinking it over, he saw more than ever how impossible it was. Thecharwoman, advancing more and more, had been a fearful strain on hisresources, and the expenses of the Baby's birth had brought them to thebreaking-point. And then there had been Baby's illnesses. Before thatthere was the perambulator. 

But that was worth it. He remembered how last year he had seen anenormous poster in High Street, with the words in scarlet letters: "Areyou With or Without a Pram for Baby?" He had realized then for the firsttime that he was without one. And the scarlet letters had burntthemselves into his brain, until, for the very anguish of it, he hadgone and bought a pram and wheeled it home under cover of the darkness, disguised in its brown-paper wrappings to heighten the surprise of it. Violet had not been half so pleased nor yet surprised as he hadexpected; but he had got his money back again and again on that pramwith the fun he'd had out of it. 

But before that again, in their first year, things had had to be donefor the house and garden. Ranny shuddered now when he thought of whatthe lawn-mower alone had cost him. And that tree! And then the littlepleasures and the outings--when he totted them all up he found that hehad taken Violet to Earl's Court and the Coliseum far, far oftener thanhe could have believed possible. Looking back on that first year, heseemed to have been always taking her somewhere. She wasn't happy whenhe didn't. 

No, and she hadn't been very happy when he did. He would never forgetthat week they had spent at Southend last Whitsuntide, when he got hisholiday. And it had all eaten into money. Not that he grudged it; butthe fact remained. His margin was gone; half his savings were gone; hisincome had suffered a permanent shrinkage of two pounds a year. 

Impossible to keep a servant without the aid of the lodger he abhorred. But with it not only possible but easy, easy as saying how d'you do. Except for the presence of the loathsome lodger, nothing would bechanged. The back bedroom was there all ready, eating its head off; andfor all they used the front sitting-room, they might just as well nothave had one. 

They could get somebody who would be out all day. 

He thought about it for three weeks; but before he made up his mind hetalked it over with his mother. She had come to see them late oneevening in June, and he had walked back with her. She was tired, shesaid, and they had found a seat in a little three-cornered grove wherethe public footpath goes to Wandsworth High Street. 

In this favorable retreat Ranny disclosed to his mother as much as hecould of his affairs. Mrs. Ransome didn't like the idea of the lodgerany more than he did, but she admitted that it was a way out of it. "Only, " she said, "if I was you I should have a lady. Some one you knowabout. Some one who might look after Vi'let. "

"That's right. But Virelet would have to look after her, you see. "

"Vi'let's no more idea of looking after anybody than the cat. "

"It isn't her fault, Mother. "

"I'm not saying it's her fault. But it's a pity all the same you shouldhave to put up with it. "

"It's larks for me to what Vi puts up with. I shouldn't mind, if--"

He drew back, shy before the trouble of his soul. 

"If what, Ranny?" she said, gently. 

"If she seemed to care a bit more for the kid. Sometimes I think sheactually--"

Though he could not say it, Mrs. Ransome knew. 

"Don't you think that, Ranny. Don't you think it, my dear. "

She was playing at the old game of hiding things, and she expected himto keep it up. She had never admitted for one moment that his fatherdrank; and she wasn't going to admit, or to let him admit, for a momentthat his wife was a bad mother. 

So she changed the subject. 

"That's a nice little girl I see sometimes down at your place. ThatWinny Dymond. Is she a friend of Vi'let's?"

Ranny said she was. 

"Has Vi'let known her long?"

"I think so. I can't say exactly how long. "

"Before she was married?"

"Yes. "

Something in his manner made her pause, pondering. 

"Did _you_ know her before you married, Ran?"

"Ages before. "

His mother sighed. 

"I suppose, " said Ranny, harking back, "some women _are_ like that. "

"Like what now?" She didn't want to go back to it. She was afraid ofwhat she might be driven to say. 

"Not caring much about their own kids. "

"Oh, Ranny, why do you 'arp on it?"

"Because I don't understand it. It's just the one thing I can'tunderstand. What does it _mean_, Mother?"

"Well, my dear, sometimes it means that they can't care for anything buttheir 'usbands. It's 'usband, 'usband with them all the time. There'ssome, " she elaborated, "that care most for their 'usbands, and there'ssome that care most for their children. "

(He wondered which would Winny Dymond care for most?)

"And there's some, " said Mrs. Ransome, "that care most for both, andcare different, and that's best. "

(Winny, he somehow fancied, would have been that sort. )

"Which did _you_ care for most, Mother?"

"You mustn't ask me that question, Ranny. I can't answer it. "

But he knew. He felt her yearning toward him even then. There wassomething very artful, and at the same time very comforting, about hismother. She had made him feel that Violet was all right, that he was allright, that everything, in fact, was all right; that he was, indeed, twice blest since he had a wife who loved him better than her child, anda mother who loved him better than her husband. 

"Talking of husbands, " he said, "how's the Torpichen Badger?"

She shook her head at him in the old way; keeping it up. 

"Oh, Ranny, you mustn't call your father that. "

"Why not?"

"It's a whisky, my dear. "

(He could have sworn there was the ghost of a smile about her softmouth. )

"So it is. I forgot. Well, how's the Hedgehog?"

For all her smile Mrs. Ransome seemed to be breaking down all of asudden, as if in another moment the truth would have come out of her;but she recovered, and she kept it up. 

"He's had the Headache come on more than ever. I've never known a timewhen His Headache has been so bad. Most constant it is. "

Ranny preserved a respectful silence. 

"He's worrying. That's what it is. Your father's got too much on Hismind. The business isn't doing quite so well as it did now He can't seeto things. And here's Mercier saying that he's going to leave. "

"What? Old Eno? What's he want to leave for?"

"To better himself, I suppose. You can't blame him. "

They rose and went on their way that plunged presently into WandsworthHigh Street. 

 * * * * *

By the time he got home again Ransome had braced himself to the prospectof the thing he hated. They might let the rooms, perhaps, for a littlewhile, say, till Michaelmas when he would have got his rise. Yes, perhaps; if they could find a lady. 

But Violet wouldn't hear of a lady. Ladies gave too much trouble; theynagged at you, and they beat you down. 

Well, then, if she liked, a gentleman. A gentleman who would be out allday, and whose hours of occupation would coincide strictly with his own. But he impressed it on her that no rooms were to be let in his absenceto any applicant whom he had not first inspected. 

So they settled it. 

Then, as if they had scented trouble, Mr. And Mrs. Usher came up fromHertfordshire the very next Saturday. They looked strangely at eachother when the idea of the lodger was put before them, and Mr. Ushertook Ranny out into the garden. 

"I wouldn't do it, " Mr. Usher said. "Let her work, let her work with her'ands. A big, strapping girl like her, it won't hurt her. Why, my Missisthere could turn out your little doll-'ouse in a hour. Don't you take nogentlemen lodgers. Don't you let her do it, Randall, my boy, or there'llbe trouble. "

The advice came too late. That very evening Violet informed her husbandthat she had let the rooms. 

And while Ranny raged she assured him that it was all right. She haddone exactly what he had told her. She had let them to a friend ofhis--Leonard Mercier. 

CHAPTER XIX

She gathered from his silence that it was all right. Not a muscle ofRanny's face betrayed to her that it was all wrong. 

Ever since his marriage he had kept Leonard Mercier at a distance. Hehad had to meet him, of course, and Violet had had to meet him, now andagain at dinner or supper in his father's house; but Ranny was not goingto let him hang round his own house if he could help it. When Jujubessuggested dropping in on a Sunday, Ranny assured him that on Sundaysthey were always out. And Mercier had met the statement with hisatrocious smile. He understood that Randall meant to keep himself tohimself. Or was it, Mercier wondered, his young wife that he meant tokeep?

And wondering, he smiled more atrociously than ever. It pleased him, itexcited him to think that young Randall regarded him as dangerous. 

But Randall did not regard him as dangerous in the least. To Ranny, Jujubes, in his increasing flabbiness, was too disgusting to bedangerous. And his conversation, his silly goat's talk, was disgusting, too. Ranny had thought that Violet would find Jujubes and hisconversation every bit as disagreeable as he did. 

Even now, while some instinct warned him of impending crisis, he stillregarded Leonard Mercier as decidedly less dangerous than disgusting. He wasn't going to have the flabby fellow living in his house. That wasall; and it was enough. 

And in this moment that his instinct recognized as critical, he acquireda wisdom and a guile that ages of experience might have failed to teachhim. With no perceptible pause, and in a voice utterly devoid of anytreacherous emotion, he inquired what Mercier was doing there, andlearned that Mercier was leaving Wandsworth next week, on thethirteenth, and would be established as chief assistant in the newchemist's shop in Acacia Avenue. 

He remembered. He remembered how last year he had seen Jujubes comingout of the chemist's shop and looking about him. So _that_ was what hewas after! There had been no chance for him last year; but Southfieldswas a rising suburb, and this summer the new chemist was able toincrease his staff. 

It was not surprising that Mercier should want to leave Wandsworth, northat the new chemist should desire to increase his staff, nor that thesetwo desires should coincide in time. Nothing, indeed, could be morenatural. But still Ranny's instinct told him that there had been acurious persistency about old Eno. 

Well, he would have to interview old Eno, that was all. 

He waited a whole hour, to show that he was not excited; and then, without saying a word to Violet, he whirled himself furiously down toWandsworth. 

The interview took place very quietly over his father's counter. Hefound his quarry alone there in the shop. 

Leonard Mercier greeted him with immense urbanity. He could afford to beurbane. He was dressed, and knew that he was dressed, with absolutecorrectness in the prevailing style, a style that disguised andrestrained his increasing flabbiness, whereas, though Ranny's figure wasfirm and slender, his suit was shabby. Leonard Mercier had theprosperous appearance of a man unencumbered with a wife and family. Andunless you insisted on hard tissues he was good-looking in his owncoarse way. His face, with all its flabbiness, had its dark accent anddistinction; and these were rendered even more emphatic by the growth ofa black mustache which he had trained with care. The ends of it werewaxed and drawn finely to a point. His finger nails and his skin, hishair and his mustache showed that the young chemist did not disdain theuse of the cosmetics that lay so ready to his hand. 

The duologue was brief. 

"Hello, old chappy. So you're going to be my new landlord?"

"Not _much_. "

"What's that?"

"Some error of my wife's, I fancy. "

"As _I_ understand it Mrs. Ransome's let me two rooms, and I've takenthem. "

"That's right. But you can't have 'em. "

"But I've engaged them. "

"Sorry, Jujubes. You were a trifle previous. I'm not letting any roomsjust yet. "

"Mrs. Ransome told me the contrary. "

"Then Mrs. Ransome didn't know what she was talking about. "

"Rats! When _you_ told _her_--"

"It's immaterial, " said Ranny, with great dignity, "what I told her. ForI've changed my mind. See?"

"You can't change it. You can't play fast and loose like that. I'veengaged those rooms from a week to-day. Where am I to go to?"

"You can go to hell if you like, " said Ranny, with marked amiability. 

Up to that point Mercier had been amiable too. But when Ranny told himwhere he might go to he began to look unpleasant. 

Unpleasant, not dangerous; oh no, not dangerous at all. Ranny looked athim and thought how he would go in like a pillow if you prodded him, andof the jelly, the jelly on the floor, he would make if you pounded. 

"You've got to account to me for this, " said Mercier. "Those rooms arelet to me from the thirteenth, and on the thirteenth I come into them, or you pay me fifteen bob for the week's rent. "

"Have you got that down in black and white?" He had not. 

"Well--if you come into those rooms on the thirteenth I shouldn't wonderif you get it down in black and blue. "

Whereupon Mercier pretended that he was only joking. He was glad thatthe counter was between him and young Randall, the silly ass. And Rannysaid it was all right and offered him (magnanimously) the fifteenshillings, which Mercier (magnanimously) refused on the grounds that hehad been joking. Then Ranny, beholding Jujubes for the lamentably flabbything he was, and considering that after all he had not dealt quitefairly with him, undertook to find him quarters equal if not superiorto Granville; where, he assured him, he would not be comfortable. Andhaving shaken hands with Jujubes across the barrier of the counter, hestrode out of the shop with a formidable tightening and rippling ofmuscles under his thin suit. 

Mercier leaned back against the shelves of white jars and pondered. Recovering presently, he made a minute inspection of his finger nails. He then stroked his mustache into a tighter curl that revealed the richred curve of his upper lip. And as he caught the pleasing reflection ofhimself in the looking-glass panel opposite he smiled with a peculiaratrocity. 

Up till then his mood had been the petty fury of a shopman balked of hisbargain and insulted. Now, in that moment, the moment of his recovery, another thought had occurred to Mercier. 

It accounted for his smile. 

 * * * * *

Ransome went back to Granville with his mind unalterably made up. He wasnot going to let any rooms to anybody, ever. The letting of rooms was, if you came to think of it, a desecration of the sanctity of the homeand an outrage to the dignity of Granville. When he thought of Jujubessprawling flabbily in the front sitting-room, strolling flabbily (as hewould stroll) in the garden, sleeping (and oh, with what frightfulflabbiness he would sleep!) in the back bedroom next his own, fillingthe place (as he would) with the loathsome presence and the vision andthe memory of Flabbiness, he realized what it was to let your rooms. Andrealizing it, he had no doubt that he could make Violet see the horrorand the nuisance of it. Come to that, she shrank from trouble, andJujubes would have been ten times more trouble than he was worth. 

In fact, Ranny, having settled the affair so entirely to his ownsatisfaction, could no longer perceive any necessity for caution, andrushed on it recklessly at supper; though experience had taught him toavoid all unpleasant subjects at the table. The unpleasantness soakedthrough into the food, as it were, and made it more unappetizing andmore deleterious than ever. Besides, Violet was apt to be irritable atmeal-times. 

"It's off, Vikes, that letting. "

He saw nothing at all unpleasant in the statement as it stood, and hewas not prepared for the manner in which she received it. 

"Off? What d'you mean?"

"I've been down and I've seen Mercier. "

"He told you what?"

She had raised her head. Her red mouth slackened as if with the passageof some cry inaudible. Her eyes stared, not at her husband, but beyondand a little above him; there was a look in them of terror and enrageddesire, as if the object of their vision were retreating, vanishing. 

But it was all vague, meaningless, incomprehensible to Ranny. He onlyremembered afterward, long afterward, that on that night when he hadspoken of Mercier she had "looked queer. "

And the queerest thing was that she did not know Mercier then, orhardly; hardly to speak to. 

He answered her question. 

"He told me he'd taken the rooms, of course. "

"And so he _did_ take them!"

"Yes, he took them all right. But I had to tell him that he couldn'thave them. "

"But you can't act like that. You can't turn him out if he wants tocome. "

"Oh, _can't_ I? _He_ knows that. Jolly well he knows it. _He_ won't wantto come. Anyhow, he isn't coming. "

"You stopped him?"

"Should think I did. Rather, " said Ranny, cheerfully. 

She shot at him from those covering brows of hers a look that wasmalignant and vindictive. It missed him clean. 

"Y--y--you----!" Whatever word she would have uttered she drew it backwith her vehement breath. "_What_ did you do that for?"

"Why, because I don't want the fellow in the house. "

"Why--don't--you want him?" Her shaking voice crept now as if undercover. 

"Because I don't approve of him. That's why. "

"What have you got against him?"

"Never you mind. I don't approve of him. No more would you if you knewanything about him. Don't you worry. You couldn't stand him, Vi, if youhad him here. "

She pushed her plate violently away from her with its untasted food, andplanted her elbows on the table. She leaned forward, her chin sunk inher hands, the raised arms supporting this bodily collapse. Foreshortened, flattened by its backward tilt, its full jowl strainedback, its chin thrust toward him and sharpened to a V by the pressure ofher hands, its eyes darkened and narrowed under their slant lids, herface was hardly recognizable as the face he knew. 

But its sinister, defiant, menacing quality was lost on Ranny. He saidto himself: "She's rattled, poor girl; and she's worried. That's why shelooks so queer. "

"You haven't told me yet, " she persisted, "what you've got against him. "

And Ranny replied in a voice devoid of rancor: "He's a low swine. If wetook him in I should have to build a pigsty at the bottom of the gardenfor him, and I can't afford it. Granville isn't big enough for him andme. And it wouldn't be big enough for him and you, neither. You'd be thefirst to come and ask me to chuck him out. " He spoke low, for he heardthe neighbors talking in the next garden. 

"Fat lot you think of _me_!" she cried. 

"It's you I _am_ thinking of. "

She rose from the table, dragging the cloth askew in her trailing, hysterical stagger. She lurched to the French window that, thrown backagainst the wall, opened onto the little garden. And she stood there, leaning against the long window and pressing her handkerchief to hermouth till the storm of her sobbing burst through. 

The people in the next garden stopped talking. 

"For God's sake, " said Ranny, "shut that window. "

He got up and shut it himself, moving her inert bulk aside gently forthe purpose. And she stood against the wall and laid her face on it andcried. 

And Ranny called upon the Lord in his helplessness. 

He went and put his arm round her, and she thrust him from her, and thenwhimpered weakly:

"Wh--wh--wh--why are you so unkind to me?"

"Unkind! Oh, my Aunt Eliza!"

"You don't care. You don't care, " she moaned. "You don't care whathappens to me. I might die to-morrow, and you wouldn't care. "

"Oh, come--" he ventured. 

But Violet wouldn't come. She was off, borne from him on the rising tideof hysteria. 

"It's true! It's true!" she cried. "Else you wouldn't use me like youdo. "

"But look here. Whatter you goin' on about? Just because I don't wantyou to have anything to do with Mercier. "

She raised her flaming face at that. 

"It's a lie! It's a beastly lie! I never had anything to do withMercier. "

"Who said you'd had anything to do with him?"

"You did. And I hardly know him. I've hardly seen him. I've hardlyspoken to him be--be--before. "

"I never said you had. "

"You thought it. "

"You know I didn't. How _could_ I think it?"

"You _did_. That's why you wouldn't let him come. You won't trust mewith him. "

"Trust you with him? I should think I _would_ trust you. Him! The flabbyswine!"

Violet's sobs sank lower. They shook her inwardly, which was terrible tosee. 

And as he looked at her he remembered yet again how in the beginning hehad wronged her. _That_ was what made her think he wouldn't trust her. There would always be that wrong between them. 

He drew her (unresisting now) to the other side of the room and loweredher to the couch that stood there. He looked into the teapot, where thedrained leaves were still warm. He filled it up again with boiling waterfrom the kettle on the gas ring, and poured out a cup and gave it her todrink, supporting her stooping head tenderly with his hand. Her foreheadburned to his touch. 

"Poor little Vi, " he said. "Poor little Vi. "

She glanced at him; slantwise, yet the look made his heart ache. 

"Then you _do_ trust me?" she muttered. 

"You _know_ I do. "

They sat there leaning against each other till the room grew dim. Thenthey rose, uncertainly; and hand in hand, as it were under the oldenchantment, they went upstairs into the dark room where the Baby slept. 

To-night he did not look at it. 

CHAPTER XX

That was on the eighth of June. 

He remembered, because it was a Saturday, Saturdays and Sundays beingthe landmarks of his existence by which alone he measured the distancesand marked the order of events. The habit of so regarding them wascontracted in his early days at Woolridge's, when only in and by thosehours snatched from Woolridge's did he live. All other days of the weekwere colored and had value according to their nearness to Saturday andSunday. Monday was black, Tuesday brown, Wednesday a browny gray, Thursday a rather clearer gray (by Thursday you had broken the back ofthe week), Friday distinctly rosy, and Saturday and Sunday, even when itrained, a golden white. 

He hadn't been married a year before all the seven were shady; thecolors ran into each other till even Sundays became a kind of grayishdrab. And still he continued to date things by Saturdays and Sundays; ashe did now in his mind, exultantly, thus: "Saturday, the eighth: Jujubesknocked out in the first round. "

Not that the dates went for very much with Ranny, to whom interestingthings so seldom happened. He remembered this one more because of hisscoring off Jujubes than because of the scene with Violet and itssequel. He was used to scenes and sequels, and was no longer concernedto note their correspondence and significance. So that he never notednow that it was on and after Thursday, the thirteenth, that what hecalled the Great Improvement had begun. 

He meant the improvement in Violet's appearance. He had accepted thefact that, in all household matters, his wife was a slut and a slattern;yet it staggered him when it first dawned on him that, in the awfuldeterioration of Granville and the Baby, the standard of her owntoilette had gradually lowered. Then gradually he got inured to it. Thetousled, tumbling hair, the slipshod feet, the soiled blouse gaping atthe back, were, he reflected bitterly, in perfect harmony withGranville, and of a piece with everything. He had ceased to censurethem; they belonged so inalienably to the drab monotone; they were soindissolubly a part of all his life. And somehow she bloomed in spite ofthem. Ranny's unconquerable soul still cried "Stick it!" as he grappledwith her shameless blouses. 

And now, suddenly, she had changed all that. She had become once morethe creature of mysterious elegance, of beauty charged with magicalreminiscence, in the trim skirt and stainless blouse, clipped by theclose belt; and with the bit of narrow black velvet ribbon round herthroat. Even in the morning she appeared once more with a clear partingin her brushed and burnished hair. Even in the morning her soft skin wasonce more sweet in its sheer cleanness. And in the evening there soakedthrough and fell and hung about her that old fragrance of violets thatinvariably turned his head. 

And she had bought new stockings and new shoes; openwork stockings thatshowed her white feet through, and little, little shoes with immensesteel buckles. And her new mushroom with the big red roses round itassaulted, battered, and beat into cocked hats all the other mushroomsin the Avenue. 

But it was the stockings and the shoes that made him kiss her feet when, on Sunday, the sixteenth, he first saw them coming down the stairs. 

"Do you like my shoes?" she said. And she stuck them out one after theother. As she was standing four steps above him they were on a levelwith his mouth; so he kissed them one after another, on the instep, justabove the buckles. 

"Do you like my dress?"

"It's ripping. "

"Do you like my hat?"

"It's an A 1 hat; but it's those feet that fetch me. "

He had not been so fetched for a whole year. It was a most peculiarfetching. 

They went to church together (they had hired a little girl for the lastweek to mind the toddling Baby in the mornings). It might have been forchurch that she had put on that hat. It could only be for him that shewore the shoes. All through the service Ranny's heart was singing a hymnto the blessed little feet that had so fetched him, the blessed littletootsy-woots in the blessed little shoes. He knelt, adoring, to the hemof the new white dress. He bowed his head under the benediction of thehat. 

The fact that Mercier was established in the chemist's pew opposite, andwas staring at the hat, and under it, did not interfere with hisdevotions in the least. He could even afford to let old Jujubes walkhome with them, though he managed to shake him off adroitly at his shopdoor. Nothing could really interfere with his devotions. For he feltthat those things, especially the shoes, were the outward and visiblesigns of an inward and spiritual grace. Some grace that had descendedout of Heaven upon Violet. 

The signs would be, no doubt, expensive; they should not have been somuch as dreamed of before Michaelmas, when he would get his rise; thatsplendiferous get-up would in all probability just about clean him out, rise and all; but he tried not to look on the dark side of it. He wasnot one to quench the spirit or the smoking flax. 

But, as the hours and the days went by, it was borne in upon him thatthere was absolutely no connection between Violet's inward state andthat regenerated outside. This perturbed him; and it would haveperturbed him more but that he had other things to think of, and that inany case he believed that a woman's clothes do not necessarily point toan end beyond themselves. 

Now, if he had been less preoccupied and had paid more heed to dates, hewould have noted three things: that it was on and after the evening ofThursday, the twentieth, that her mood of gay excitement and ofsatisfaction died and gave place to restlessness, irritation, andexpectancy (a strained and racking, a dismayed and balked expectancy);that Thursday, the twentieth, was early-closing day in Southfields; andthat consequently Leonard Mercier was at large. And having gone thus farin observation, he must have seen that it was on and after Thursday, thetwenty-seventh (early-closing day again) that she became intolerable. 

Intolerable. There was no other word for it. The "_joie de veeve_" wasso intense that it was not to be borne. She had days of stupor now thatfollowed fits of fury. He didn't know which was the worse, the fury orthe stupor. 

But it was the stupor that made him burst out one night (at supper; itwas always at supper that these things happened). 

She had brought it on herself by asking what he wanted _now_ when he hadbroken the frightful silence by addressing her affectionately as"Vikey. "

"What I want, " said Ranny then, "is a change. I want bracing; and brightsurroundings, and entertaining society. I shall go and live atBrookwood. "

At last it was too much for anybody (the fury, this time). It was toomuch for the charwoman, even once a fortnight, and she refused to comeagain. It was too much for the little girl who minded Baby in themornings, and she left. Her mother said she wouldn't "have her putupon, " and complained that Mrs. Ransome had served her somethingshameful. Ransome hardly liked to think how Violet could have served thelittle girl. 

Before long he had an inkling. For presently a new and incrediblequality revealed itself in Violet. 

Up till now she had never been unkind to the Baby. She had neglected it;she had been indifferent to it; but it had seemed impossible, not onlyto Ransome, but to Violet herself, that she could be positively unkind. He had charged the neglect to her ignorance, and the indifference to theperversity of her passion for her husband. It was thus that his motherhad explained the mystery, and at moments it looked as if she might beright. 

But now that the little thing was on its feet, padding about with apathetic and ridiculous uncertainty, stumbling and upsetting itself, sitting down suddenly, and clutching at things as it overbalanced, anddragging them with it in its fall, Violet could only think of it as aperfect and omnipresent nuisance, a thing inspired to torment her withits malignant and deliberate activity. And from this she went on tothink of it as grown-up at fifteen months, a mature person, infinitelyresponsible. Its misfortunes, its infirmities, its innocences werecounted to it as sins. When jam spread itself over Baby's face andburied itself in Baby's neck, and leaped forth and ran down to theskirts of its clothing, Baby was "a nasty little thing!" and "a naughty, naughty girl!"

Then once, in a fit of exasperation, Violet slapped Baby's hands andfound such blessed relief in that exercise that the slapping habit grewon her. Cries of anguish went up from Granville, till the neighbors twodoors on either side complained. 

But tiny hands, slapped till (as she said) she was tired of slappingthem, gave no scope, offered no continuous outlet to the imprisonedspirit within. Violet, under a supreme provocation, advanced toarm-dragging and shaking. 

She found that shaking on the whole did her most good. 

And then, one Sunday morning, Ransome caught her at it. 

He caught her, coming up softly behind her and pinning her, so that herfingers relaxed their hold, and he swung her from him. 

"I'm not going to have that, my girl, " he said. 

He was deadly quiet about it; and the deadliness and quietness subduedher. But he kept the child away from her all day till it dropped off tosleep at bedtime. 

After that he never knew another peaceful moment. All his life wasnarrowed suddenly into the circle of one terror and one care. It waslike a nightmare while it lasted. And it tethered him tight. He couldn'tget off by himself now on Saturdays and Sundays, for he was afraid toleave the child with Violet and Violet with the child. He came poundinghome from Woolridge's at a frantic pace, for he never knew now whatmight be happening, what might have happened in his absence. 

And so on to the last days of July. 

 * * * * *

In that month Granville, so long deteriorating, was at its worst. Thepaper on the walls was blistering here and there like the paint; the redand blue roses and the rosebuds wilted, with an effect of putrefaction, and the love knots faded. 

The front sitting-room, furnished so proudly and expensively, had beenlong abandoned because of the attendance it exacted. In there you couldpositively smell the dust. The pile of the plush held it and piercedthrough it, as grass holds and pierces through the earth. Ranny had alanded estate in his chairs and sofa. And the bright surfaces ofpolished wood and looking-glass were blurred as if the breath ofdissolution had passed over them. Ranny's silver prize cups, standing ina row on the little sideboard, were tarnished every one. Violet had nopride in them. That sitting-room was not supposed to be sat in; yetRanny sat in it sometimes with Baby, as a refuge from the other. 

For the other was awful. It had the look, not only of being lived in, but of having lived; of having lived hard, brutally, squalidly, and ofbeing worn out. A room of which Ranny said that, go into it when youwould, it looked as if it had been up all night. A stained, bleared-eyed, knocked-kneed sinner of a room. 

And oh! the scullery, where the shining sink had grown a gray, roughskin, a sort of fungoid coat, from the grease that clung to it, and thegas stove, furred with rust, skulked like some obscene monster in itscorner. He was afraid, morally and physically afraid, to look at thatthing of infamy behind the back door. He tried to pretend the scullerywasn't there. 

And in the middle of it, and through the fury and the stupor, Violetbloomed. 

That was what he could not understand; how between her own cruelty andthat squalor she had the heart to bloom. 

He dreaded every interruption and delay that detained him atWoolridge's, every chance encounter that kept him from that lamentableplace where he feared and yet desired to be. 

Yet it was in those last days of July that Granville, as if it hadpassed through its mortal crisis, took, suddenly, a turn for the better. 

He came into his house late one evening and found peace and order there, and the strange, pungent smell of a thorough cleaning. There was aclean, white cloth spread in the sitting-room for supper, spoons andforks, and the china on the dresser and the table glistened; everythingthat could be made to shine was shining. From the gas stove in thescullery there came the alluring smell of a beefsteak pie baking. It waswonderful. And it all seemed to have been done by some divine, invisibleagency. There was nobody about; not, at any rate, at the back; andoverhead there was no sound of footsteps. 

He was gripped by a sense of mystery, almost of disaster; as if a wonderso extreme had something ominous in it. Then he went into the frontsitting-room. 

On the plush sofa, which had been moved from its place against the walland drawn right across the bow of the window, Violet lay, veiled fromthe street by white Nottingham lace curtains. Pure white they were; suchwhiteness as was not to be seen in the newest houses in the Avenue. Thefurniture had been polished till it looked like new. All in a rowRanny's silver prize cups shone again as on the day when he bore themfrom the field. The smell of dust was gone. Instead of it there cametoward him a sweet smell of violets and of woman's hair. 

On the sofa in the window Violet lay like a suburban odalisk, voluptuous, heavy-scented. The flesh of her neck and arms showed rosyunder the thin, white muslin of her gown that clung to her in slenderfolds and fell away, revealing the prone beauty of her body. The dimlight came on her through the Nottingham lace curtains, as light mightcome through some Oriental lattice of fretted ivory. She bloomed, like aheavy flower, languid, sullen-sweet, heavy-scented. 

It was Thursday, the twenty-fifth. 

Ransome looked about him and smiled. 

"I say, this is a bit of all right. Did you do it yourself, Vi?"

Her large eyes opened on him in the pale light; dark they were with asensuous mockery in them. 

"Do I look as if I'd done it myself?" she said. 

She certainly didn't. 

"Did you get a woman in, then, or what?"

She hesitated a moment. 

"Yes. I got a woman in. "

And the miracle continued; so that Ranny said that Granville was notsuch a bad little fellow, after all, if you took him the right way andhumored him. 

Then he began to make discoveries. 

The first was on the Sunday morning when he went to his drawer for apair of clean socks. He had no hope of finding so much as one whole one. And yet, there were all his socks sorted, and folded, and laid in a row;and every single one of them had been made whole with exquisite darning. The same with his shirts and vests and things; and they had been in ragswhen he had last looked at them. And something had been done to hiscuffs and collars, too. 

Then there was the Baby. Her hair, that used to cling to her little headin flat rings as her sleep had crushed it, was all brushed up andfluffed into feathery ducks' tails that shone gold in gold. She came tohim lifting up her little clean pinafore and frock to show him. She knewthat she was fascinating. 

"It must be Mother, bless her, " he said to himself. 

But it wasn't Mother; or if it was she lied about it. 

Then Violet let it out. 

It was on the night of Tuesday, the first of August, at bedtime. Ransomewas leaning over the cot where the Baby lay, tossed half naked betweensleep and waking, drowsy with dreams. She was adorable with her LittleRose face half unfolded, and the Honeypot smell of her silken skin. 

Violet stood beside him, looking at the two, sullenly, but with acertain unwonted tolerance. She was strange and still, as if the unquietspirit that had torn her was appeased. 

"I say, it's worth while keeping this kid clean, Vi. It repays you. "

"It pays Winny, I suppose. Else she wouldn't do it. "

"_Winny?_"

"Yes. What are you staring at? She's a pretty kid, " she added, as if theadmission had been wrung from her. 

"She's not been here?" said Ransome. 

"Hasn't she! She was here all morning and all day yesterday, and prettynearly every day last week. "

"But--how did she get off? Why--it's sale-time!"

"She's chucked them. "

"What's she done that for?"

"You'd better ask her. "

His instinct told him that he would do well to let it pass. He said nomore that night. 

But in the morning, over his hurried breakfast, he returned to it. 

"I don't like this about Winny, " he said. "Has she got another job, orwhat?"

"She's got what she wanted. "

"What's that?"

"A job at Johnson's. "

Johnson's was the new drapers at the other corner of Acacia Avenue, opposite the chemist. 

"Johnson's?" Ranny could not conceal his innocent dismay. Johnson'soperations and his premises were so diminutive that for Winny--afterStarker's--the descent seemed awful. 

"Are you sure she wanted it?"

"She must have wanted it pretty badly when she's willing to take sevenbob a week less screw. And if she'd waited till Michaelmas she'd havegot her rise. "

Ranny bent his head low over his cup. He felt his face burning with ashame that he could not comprehend. He knew that Violet was looking athim, and that made it worse. 

"You needn't worry, " she was saying. "It isn't your fault if she makes afool of herself. "

"Makes a fool of herself? What do you mean?"

The heat in his face mounted and flamed in his ears; and he knew that hewas angry. 

"_You_ ought to know, " she sneered. 

He was hotter. He was intolerably hot. 

"I don't, then, " he retorted. 

"You silly cuckoo, d'you mean to say you don't know she's gone on you?Lot of pains she takes to hide it. You've only got to look at her toknow. "

At that the fire in him blazed out. He rose, bringing his fist down onthe table. 

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, " he said. "A low animal wouldn'tsay a thing like that. When she's been so good to you! Where would yoube, I should like to know, if it hadn't been for Winny?"

She looked at him under her lowered brows; and in her look there wasthat strange tolerance, and mockery, and a feigned surprise. And with itall a sort of triumph, as if she were rich in some secret and insolentsatisfaction and could afford her tolerance. 

"Me?" she mocked. "Do you suppose it's me she comes for?"

"I don't know and I don't care. But as long as she does come you've gotto be decent to her. See?"

"I _am_ decent to her. _I_ don't mind her coming. What difference doesit make to _me_?"

"I should say it makes a thundering lot of difference, if you ask me. Considering the work you've managed to get out of her for nothing. "

"It isn't my business. I can't help it, if she likes to come here andwork for nothing. "

"You make me sick, " said Ranny. 

His eyelids stung him as if they had been cut by little, little knivesclose under the eyeballs. He turned from her, shamed, as if he hadwitnessed some indecency, some outrage on a beautiful innocent thing. 

Outside in the sunlight his tears dazzled him an instant and sank backinto their stinging ducts. 

 * * * * *

Yes, it had stung him. And he had got to end it, somehow, for Winny'ssake. He had no idea how to set about it. He could not let the littlething come and do his wife's work for her, like that, on the sly, fornothing. And yet he could not tell her not to come. 

And he asked himself again and again, "Why, why does she do it? Why?Like that--for nothing?"

His heart began to beat uncomfortably, trying to tell him why. But hedid not listen to it. He was angry with his heart for trying to tell himthings he did not know and did not want to know. 

No. He ought not to let her keep on coming. But what was he to do? Howcould he tell her not to come?

He went home through Wandsworth that evening and called at St. Ann'sTerrace. Winny was there. She came down to him where he waited on thedoorstep. As they stood there he could see over the low palings of thegardens the window of the little house where he had climbed in thatnight, that Sunday night, more than two years ago. 

He said he had come to ask her to spend Bank Holiday with them. Theymight go for a sort of picnic to Richmond Park, and she must come backto supper. 

That was his idea, his solution, his inspiration; that she must come;that she must be asked, must be implored to come; but as a guest, inhigh honor, and in festival. 

They settled it. And still he lingered awkwardly. 

"I say--is it true that you've left Starker's?"

"Yes. "

"What did you do that for, Winky?"

He did not know that he was going to ask her that; but somehow he hadto. 

She paused, but with no sign of embarrassment; looking at him with herprofound and placid eyes. It was as if she had to search for the truthbefore she answered him. 

"I thought it best, " she said at last. "I didn't want to stay. "

"Were you wise?"

She smiled. 

"Yes, Ranny. I think so. "

No. There was not a trace of embarrassment about her, such embarrassmentas she would have been bound to feel if Violet had been right. She hadspoken in measured tones, as if from some very serious, secret, andsincere conviction. 

She went on. "You see, Maudie won't want me any more. They're going tobe married when Fred gets his holiday. "

"Yes. But it isn't such a good thing for _you_, is it?"

Her deed thus exposed, presented to her in all the high folly of it, sheseemed to flinch as if she herself were struck with the frightfulindiscretion of her descent from Starker's. 

"It's quieter. That's more what I want. "

He smiled. Pressed home, she was evasive as she had ever been. 

"Look here, " he said, as if he were changing the subject. "_You've_ beenfound out. "

"Found out, Ranny?"

"Yes. What have you been about this last week? I can't have you goingand doing Vi's work for her, you know. "

"Oh _that_! That was nothing. I just put things straight a bit, and nowshe's got to keep them straight. "

He sighed, and reverted. "I don't like your throwing up that good job. Idon't reelly. "

He meant to go, leaving it there, all that she had done, unacknowledged, unexplained between them, as she would have it left. Andinstead of going he stood rooted to that doorstep, and to his amazementhe heard himself saying, "I wish I could do something for you, Winny. "

And then (he took his own breath away with the abruptness of it). "Lookhere--why not come and make your home with us, when Maudie's married?"

She smiled dimly, as if she hardly saw him, as if, instead of standingbeside him on the doorstep, she were saying good-by to him fromsomewhere a long way off. 

"Oh no, Ranny, that would never do. "

"Why not? There's that back room there doing nothing. We don't want it. You'd be welcome to it if it was any good. "

She shook her head slowly. "It's very kind of you, but it wouldn't do. It really wouldn't. I don't mean the room, Ranny--it's a dear littleroom--I mean--I mean, you know----"

Now at last she was embarrassed, helpless, shaken from her defenses bythe suddenness of his proposal. 

"All right, Winky, " he said, gently. 

Then she broke down, but without self-pity, tearless, in her ownfashion. 

"Oh, Ranny, _please_ don't think I'm horrid and ungrateful. "

"That's all right, " he said, feebly. 

He turned as if to go; but she recalled him. 

"There's one thing you could do, " she said. 

"What's that? I'll do anything. "

"Well--You can let me come over Saturdays and Sundays sometimes and lookafter Baby while you take Violet somewhere. "

He said nothing, and she went on. 

"If I were you, Ranny, I'd take her somewhere every week. I'd get herout all I could. "

And he said again for the third time, very humbly:

"All right. "

And as he went he called over his shoulder, "Don't forget Monday. "

As if she was likely to forget it!

CHAPTER XXI

And, after all, Monday, that is to say the day at Richmond, never came. 

On Monday morning when Violet got up she was seized with a slightdizziness and sickness. It passed off. She declared that earthquakesshouldn't stop her going to Richmond, and dressed herself in defiance ofall possible disturbance. Ransome took the Baby over to Wandsworth, tohis mother, to be looked after. At ten o'clock he joined Winny andMaudie and Fred Booty at St. Ann's Terrace, where they had arranged thatViolet was to meet them. Following on her bicycle, she would be there atten sharp, when the five would go on to Richmond by the tram that passedWinny's door. 

Ransome had no sooner left Granville than Violet slipped out to thechemist's at the corner. 

Ten o'clock struck, and the quarter and the half hour, and Violet hadnot appeared at St. Ann's Terrace. 

Ransome proposed that the others should go on without him; he said hethought there must be something wrong, and that he had better go and seewhat had happened. They argued about it for a while, and finally Maudieand Fred Booty started. Winny refused flatly to go with them. She wasconvinced that they would meet Violet on the road to Southfields. Shemust have had a puncture, Winny said. 

But they did not meet her. 

And there was no sign of her downstairs at Granville. 

"Hark! What's that?" said Winny, listening at the foot of the stair. "Oh, Ranny!"

From the room above there came a low, half-stifled sound of sobbing andgroaning. 

He dashed upstairs. 

In a few minutes he returned to Winny in the front sitting-room. 

"What's the matter? Is she ill?" she said. 

"No, I don't think so. She won't tell me. She's horribly upset aboutsomething. "

"Shall I go to her?"

"No; better not, Winny. Look here, she won't come to Richmond. She sayswe're to go without her. "

"We can't, Ranny. "

"I don't know. Upon my word, I think we may as well. She'll be moreupset if we don't go. She says she wants to be left to herself for _one_day. "

A sort of tremor passed over her eyes. They did not look at him; theylooked beyond him, as if somewhere they saw something that frightenedher. 

"You mustn't leave her, Ranny, " she said. 

He laughed. "She doesn't want me. She's just told me so. "

"Whether she wants you or not you've got to stay with her. "

She said it sternly. 

"I say, you needn't talk like that. To hear you any one would think Ifair neglected her. "

She bit her lip. Her eyes wandered in their troubled way. She lookedlike a thing held there under his eyes against its will and seekingsome way of escape. 

"I don't think you neglect her, Ranny, " she said at last. 

"Well, then, what _do_ you think?"

She turned. "I think I'm going for a little spin somewhere by myself. Ishall come back in time for dinner. Then I shall go down to Wandsworthand fetch Baby. "

"I'll do that. "

"No, you won't. You'll stay with Violet, " she said. 

"And what about your holiday?"

"My holiday's all right. Don't you worry. "

She was out of the house and in the garden. Mechanically he wheeled herbicycle out into the road. He was utterly submissive to her will. 

She mounted, and he ran by her side; she pressed on her pedals, compelling him to run fast and faster; she set her mouth hard, grinning, and forced the pace, and he ran at the top of his speed and laughed. Atthe end of the Avenue she turned, waved to him gaily and was gone. 

Upstairs on her bed, in the room of the love knots, Violet lay andwrithed. She lay on her face. She had wetted her pillow with her tears;she had flung it aside and was digging her hands into Ransome's pillowwith a tearing, disemboweling motion. Every now and then, with theregularity of a machine, she gave out a sob and a groan that shook her. 

He found her so. 

She turned on her side as he entered, and showed him her face scarletand swollen with crying. 

"What have you come for?" she said. "I _told_ you to go. "

"I haven't gone. I'm not going. "

"But you've got to go. You shall go. D'you hear? I won't have youhanging about, watching and tormenting me. What are you afraid of? Whatd'you think I'm going to do?"

She turned and raised herself on her elbow and stared about her as if ata host of enemies surrounding her, then she sank back helpless. 

"Won't you tell me what it is, Vi?" he said, tenderly. 

He sat beside her, leaning over into her hot lair, and made as though hewould have put his hand on her shoulder. She writhed from him. 

"Why can't you let me be, " she cried, "when I don't want you? I don'twant you, I tell you, and I wish you'd go away. You've done enough harmas it is. "

He rose and went to the foot of the bed and stood there, regarding hersomberly. 

"What did you mean by that? What harm have I done you?"

She had flung herself down again. 

"You _know_--you _know_, " she moaned into the pillow. 

"My God, I wish I did!"

Then he remembered. 

"Unless--you mean--"

"You ought to know what I mean without my telling you. "

"Well, if I do, you needn't cast it up to me. I married you rightenough, Vi. "

"Yes, that's what you did. And that's why I hate you. "

"It seems to me a queer reason. But, come to that, what else could wedo?"

She sat up, pulling herself together like a woman who had things to sayand meant to say them now. 

"We could have done as I wanted. We could have gone on as we were. "

"That's what you wanted, was it?"

"You know it was. I never asked you to marry me. I asked you not to. Andyou _would_--you _would_. I didn't _want_ to marry you. "

"And why didn't you want? That's what I'd like to get at?"

"Because I knew what it would be. "

"Has it been so very bad then?"

She sat up straighter, wringing her hands as if she wrung her words out. "It's been awful--something awful. All the things I don't like--all thetime. And it's made me hate the sight of you. It's made me wish I'd diedbefore I'd seen you. And I want to get away. I want to get out of thishorrid, hateful little house. I knew I would. I knew--I knew----"

"My God--if _I_'d known----"

"_You_? If _you_'d known! I wish to God you had. I wish you had just! Ifthat would have stopped you marrying me. Oh, you _knew_ all right; onlyyou didn't care. You never have cared. I suppose you think it's what I'mmade for. "

"I don't follow. It may be all wrong. I'll allow it _is_ all wrong, allthe time. What I want to know is what's up now?"

"Can't you see what's up? Can't you think?"

He thought. And presently he saw. 

"You don't mean to say it's--it's another?"

"Of course it is. What else have I been talking about?"

"Are you sure, Vi?"

He was very grave, very gentle. 

"Sure? D'you think I wouldn't make sure, when it's what I'm afraid ofall the time?"

"Don't you want it? Have you never wanted it?"

"Want it? Want it? I'll hate it if it comes. But it won't come. Itsha'n't come. I won't have it. I won't live and have it. I shall dieanyway. "

"Oh no, you won't, " he said. 

But she flung herself back and writhed and sobbed again. He sat down andwatched with her. In silence and utter hopelessness he watched. Presently she lay motionless, worn out. 

 * * * * *

At one o'clock Winny knocked at the door and said dinner was ready. 

Violet stirred. "What's the good of sitting staring there like a stuckox?" She raised herself. "Since you _are_ there you can get me thateau-de-Cologne. "

He brought it. He bathed her hands and forehead and wiped them with hishandkerchief. 

She dragged herself downstairs and sat red-eyed through the dinner, thematerials for the picnic which Winny had unpacked and spread. 

The day wore on. Violet dragged herself to her bed again, and lay thereall afternoon while Ransome hung about the house and garden, unable tothink, unable to work, or take an interest in anything. He was oppressedby a sense of irremediable calamity. 

At four o'clock he made tea and took it to Violet in her room. 

She sat up, weak and submissive, and drank, crying softly. 

She turned her face to him as she sank back on her pillow. "I'm sorry, Ranny, " she said; "but you shouldn't have married me. I'm not that sort. I told you; and you see. "

He could not remember when she had ever told him. But it was clear thathe saw. For he said to himself, "They say a lot of things they don'tmean when they're like this. "

CHAPTER XXII

That was the first and by far the most impressive of their really greatscenes. There was no doubt about it, Violet could make scenes, and therewas no end to the scenes she made. But those that followed, like thosethat had gone before, were beyond all comparison inferior. They lackedvehemence, vividness, intensity. After that first passion of resentmentand revolt Violet declined upon sullenness and flat, monotonousreproach. 

Ransome put it all down to her condition. He set his mouth with a hardgrin and stuck it. He told himself that he had no illusions left, thathe saw the whole enormous folly of his marriage, and that he saw itsanely, as Violet could not see it, without passion, without revolt, without going back for one moment on anything that he or she had done. He saw it simply as it was, as a thing that had to be. She, being themore deeply injured of the two, must be forgiven her inability to see itthat way. He had done her a wrong in the beginning and he had madereparation, and it was not the reparation she had wanted. She had neverreproached him for that wrong as many women would have; on the contrary, he remembered how, on the night when it was done, she had turned tocomfort him with her "It had got to be. " She had been generous. She hadnever hinted at reparation. No; she certainly had not asked him to marryher. 

But that also had had to be. They couldn't help themselves. They hadbeen caught up and flung together and carried away in a maze; like theCombined Maze at the Poly. , it was, when they had to run--to run, lockedtogether. 

What weighed on him most for the moment was the financial problem. Helived in daily fear of not being able to pay his way without breakinginto the rest of his small savings. His schemes, that had looked so fineon paper, had left, even on paper, no margin for anything much beyondrent and clothing and their weekly bills. There had been no margin atall for Baby; Baby who, above all, ought to have been foreseen andprovided for. Baby had been paid for out of capital. So that from thesordid financial point of view Violet's discovery was a calamity. 

It was a mercy he had got his rise at Michaelmas. But even so they werebehindhand with their bills. That, of course, would not have happened ifhe hadn't had to buy a new suit that winter. Ranny had found out thathis bicycle, though it diminished his traveling expenses and kept himfit, was simply "ruination" to his clothes. 

It was awful to be behindhand with the bills. But if they got behindwith the rent they would be done for. He would lose Granville. His rentwas not as any ordinary rent that might be allowed to run on for a weekor two in times of stress. Granville was relentless in exaction of theweekly tribute. If payments lapsed, he lost Granville and he lost thetwenty-five pounds down he paid for it. 

And Granville, that scourged him, was itself scourged of Heaven. Thatwinter the frosts bound the walls too tight and the thaws loosenedthem. The rain, beating through from the southwest, mildewed the backsitting-room and the room above it. The wind made of Granville a pipe, awhistle, a Jew's harp to play its tunes on; such tunes as set your teethon edge. 

Ransome said to himself bitterly that his marriage had not been his onlyfolly. He should have had the sense to do as Booty had done. Fred hadmarried soon after Michaelmas, when he too had got his rise. He andMaudie had not looked upon houses to their destruction; they had simplytaken another room in St. Ann's Terrace where she had lived with Winny. And she had kept her job at Starker's, and meant to keep it for anotheryear or so. Fred wasn't going to have any kids he couldn't provide for. Ranny's case had been a warning to him. 

And Ranny's case was lamentable that winter, after he had paid for hissuit. They lived almost entirely now on hampers sent from Hertfordshire. The hampers were no longer treated as mysterious windfalls; they cameregularly once a week, and were shamefully and openly allowed for in theaccounts. And regularly once a week the young Ransomes had their Sundaydinner at Wandsworth; they reckoned it as one square meal. 

All this squeezing and pinching was to pay for a little girl to lookafter Baby in the mornings. They had found another, and had contrived tokeep her. For Violet, though she went on making scenes with Ranny, wasquiet enough now when Ranny wasn't there, if only Baby was kept well outof her way. In the autumn months and in the early winter she even hadher good days, days of passivity, days of exaltation and of raptbrooding, days when she went as if sustained by some mysterious andsecret satisfaction, some agreeable reminiscence or anticipation. And ifRansome never noticed that these days were generally Thursdays, it wasbecause Thursday (early-closing day in Southfields) had no interest orsignificance for Ranny. And of all Violet's moods he found the onesimple explanation in her state. 

 * * * * *

On the whole, he observed a change for the better in his household. Things were kept straighter. There was less dust about, and Ranny'sprize cups had never ceased to shine. His socks and vests werepunctually mended, and Baby at his homecoming was always neat and clean. He knew that Winny had a hand in it. For Winny, established at Johnson'sat the corner, was free a good half hour before he could get back fromOxford Street; and as often as not he found her putting Baby to bed whenViolet was out or lying down. But he did not know, he was nowhere nearknowing, half the things that Winny did for them. He didn't want toknow. All that he did know made him miserable or pleased him accordingto his mood. Of course it couldn't really please him to think that Winnyworked for him for nothing; but to know that she was there, moving abouthis house, loving and caring for his child as he loved and cared for it, whether it was sick or well, clean or dirty, gave him pleasure that whenhe thought about it too much became as poignant as pain. For there wasnothing, absolutely nothing, that he could do for Winny to repay her. Hedid not know that Winny paid herself in a thousand inimitablesensations every time she touched the things that he had touched, orthat belonged to him; that with every stitch she put into his poorclothes her fingers satisfied their longing, as it were, in anattenuated, reiterated caress; that to feel the silken flesh of hischild against her flesh was for Winny to know motherhood. 

Her life had in it the wonder and beauty and mystery of religion. Allthe religion that she knew was in each service that she did for Ranny inhis house. Acacia Avenue, with its tufted trees, with its rows of absurdand pathetic and diminutive villas, was for Winny a shining walk betweenheavenly mansions. She handled each one of Ranny's prize cups as if ithad been the Holy Grail. 

And religion went hand in hand with an exquisite iniquity. In all thatshe did there was something unsanctioned, something that gave her thesecret and essential thrill of sin. When Winny made that beefsteak piefor Ranny she had her first taste of fearful, delicious, illegitimatejoy. For it was not right that she should be there making beefsteak piesfor Ranny. It was Violet who should have been making beefsteak pies. Butonce plunged in Winny couldn't stop. She went on till she had mended allRanny's clothes and sewed new Poly. Ribbon on all the vests he ran in. She loved those vests more than anything he wore. They belonged to theold splendid Ranny who had once been hers. 

And under it all (if she had cared to justify herself), under themystery and the beauty and the wonder, there was the sound, practicalcommon sense of it all. As long as Violet was comfortable with Rannyshe would stay with him. But she would not be comfortable if she had toomany things to do; and if she became uncomfortable she would leave him;and if she left him Ranny would be unhappy. So that the more you did forher the more likely she was to keep straight. Keeping Violet straighthad always been Winny's job; it always would be; and she was more thanever bound to stick to it now that it meant keeping Ranny's hometogether. In Winny's eyes the breaking up of a home was the most awfulthing that could happen on this earth. In Leonard Mercier (establishedso dangerously near) she recognized a possible leader of the forces ofdisruption. When she left Starker's for Johnson's (where, as she put itto herself, she could look after Violet), she had hurled her small bodyinto the first breach. Johnson's was invaluable as a position whence shecould reconnoiter all the movements of the enemy. 

But it was a strain upon the heart and upon the nerves; and the effecton Winny's physique was so evident that Ranny noticed it. He noticedthat Winny was more slender and less sturdy than she used to be; herfigure, to his expert eye, suggested the hateful possibility offlabbiness. He thought he had traced the deterioration to its sourcewhen he asked her if she had chucked the Poly. 

She had. 

What did she do that for? Well--she didn't think she cared much for thePoly. Now. It was different somehow. At least that was the way she feltabout it. ("Same here, " said Ranny. ) And she couldn't keep up like shedid. The running played her out. 

He saw her, then, a tired, indifferent little figure, padding throughthe circles and the patterns of the Combined Maze; padding listlessly, wearily, with all the magic and the joy gone out of her. 

"We had grand times there together, " he said then. "Do you remember theCombined Maze?"

She remembered. 

"Sometimes I think that life's like that--a maze, Winny. A sort ofCombined Maze--men and women--mixed up together. "

She thought so too. 

 * * * * *

Violet had got used to Winny's being there. She took it for granted, asif it also were one of those things that had to be. She depended on it, and owned herself dependent. When Winny was there, she said, things wentright, and when she wasn't there they went wrong. She didn't know howthey had ever got along without her. 

Ransome was surprised to see in Violet so large a heart and a mind soopen. For not only did she tolerate Winny, she clung, he could see thatshe clung, to her like a child. She even tolerated what he wouldn't havethought a woman would have stood for a single instant, the fact, thepalpable fact, that Ranny couldn't get along without her any more thanshe could. 

And if they could, the Baby couldn't. Baby (she was Dorothy now andDossie) cried for Winny when Winny wasn't there. She would run from hermother's voice to hide her face in Winny's skirts. Baby wasn't everreally happy without Winny. 

That was how she had them, and she knew it, and the Baby knew it; andthe two of them simply rode roughshod over Ranny and his remonstrances. 

"What are you doing there, Winky?" he would say, when he caught her on aSunday morning in the bathroom, with Baby happy on a blanket at herfeet. 

"Washing Dossie's pinafores, " she would sing out. 

"I wish to Goodness I could stop you. "

"But you can't. Can he, Lamby Lamb? Laugh at him, then. Laugh at Daddy. "

And the Lamby Lamb would laugh. 

He knew, and they knew, that he couldn't stop her except by doing thework for her; and the more things he did the more things she found to dothat he couldn't do, such as washing pinafores. So he gave it up; andgradually he too began to take it for granted that Winny should bethere. 

And she was more than ever there after April of nineteen-seven, when thelittle son was born. The little son that they called Stanley Fulleymore. 

When _he_ came more and more of Ranny's savings had to go. He didn'tcare. For he had gone again through deep anguish, again believing thatViolet would die, that she couldn't possibly get over it. And she _had_got over it; beautifully, the doctor said. He assured him that shehadn't turned a hair. And after it she bloomed as she had never bloomedbefore; she bloomed to excess; she coarsened in sheer exuberance andrioting of health. She was built magnificently, built as they don't seemable to build women now, built for maternity. 

"You don't think, " said Ranny to the doctor, "that it really does herany harm?"

For she had tried to frighten him with the harm she said it did her. 

"My dear Ransome, if she had a dozen children it wouldn't do her anyharm. "

It was the same tale as before, and he couldn't understand it. For ofthe flame of maternity, the flame that burned in Winny, it was evidentthat Violet hadn't got a spark. If she had been indifferent to herdaughter Dorothy, she positively hated her son, Stanley Fulleymore. Sheintimated that he was a calamity, and an ugly one at that. One kid, shesaid, was bad enough; what did he expect that she should do with two?

She did nothing; which was what he had expected. She trailed about thehouse, glooming; she sank supine under her burden and lay forever on thesofa. When he tried to rouse her she burst into fury and collapsed instupor. The furies and the stupors were worse than he had ever known. They would have been unendurable if it had not been for Winny. 

And in the long days when Winny was not there he was always afraid ofwhat might happen to the children. He had safeguarded them as far aspossible. He had engaged an older and more expensive girl, who came fromnine to six, five days a week and Saturday morning. Soon after six Winnywould be free to run in and wash the Baby and put Dossie to bed. 

Shamelessly he accepted this service from her; for he was at his wits'end. As often as not he took Violet out somewhere (to appease therestlessness that consumed her), leaving Winny in charge of the babies. Winny had advised it, and he had grown dependent on her judgment. Heconsidered that if anybody understood Violet it was Winny. 

And slowly, month by month, the breach that Winny had hurled herselfinto widened. It was as if she stood in it with arms stretched wide, holding out a desperate hand to each of them. 

Everything conspired to tear the two asunder. In summer the heat of thesmall rooms became intolerable. Ransome proposed that he should sleep inthe back bedroom and leave more air for Violet and the children. 

Violet was sullen but indifferent. "If you do, " she said, "you'll takeDossie. _I_ won't have her. "

He took Dossie. The Baby was safe enough for all her dislike of it, andfor all it looked so sickly. For it slept. It slept astoundingly. Itslept all night and most of the day. There never was such a sleeper. 

He thought it was a good sign. But when he said so to Winny she lookedgrave, so grave that she frightened him. 

Then suddenly the Baby left off sleeping. Instead of sleeping he cried. He cried piteously, inveterately; he cried all night and most of theday. He never gave them any peace at all. His crying woke little Dossie, and she cried; it kept Ransome awake; it kept Violet awake, and shecried, too, hopelessly, helplessly; she was crushed by the everlasting, irremediable wrong. 

And it was then, in those miserable days, that she turned on Winny, until Ransome turned on her. 

"It's shameful the way you treat that girl, after all she's done foryou. "

"What's she been telling you?" There was fright in Violet's eyes. 

"She's not told me anything. I've got eyes. I can see for myself. "

"Oh, you've got eyes, have you? Jolly lot you see!"

But she was penitent that night and asked Winny to forgive her. Sheimplored her not to leave off coming. 

And Winny came and went now in pain instead of joy. Everything inRanny's house pained her. Violet's voice that filled it pained her, andthe crying of the little children. Ranny's face pained her. Most of allit pained her to see Dossie's little cot drawn up beside Ranny's bed inthe back room; they looked so forlorn, the two of them; so outcast andso abandoned. 

She went unhindered and unheeded into Ranny's room, tidying it andputting the little girl to bed. But into Violet's room she would not gomore than she could help. She hated Violet's room; she loathed it; andshe dared not think why. 

 * * * * *

One Saturday evening in the last week of September Ransome had come homelate after a long solitary ride in the country. Violet, who was busymaking a silk blouse for herself, had refused to go with him. Winny hadlaid it down as a law for Ranny that Violet was never to be left forvery long to herself, if he wanted her to be happy. And, of course, hewanted her to be happy. But if ever there was a moment when he couldleave her with a clear conscience it was when she was dressmaking. 

She gave herself to it with passion, with absorption. He had known herto sit for hours over a new blouse in apparently perfect happiness. 

And to-day he could have sworn that she was happy. She had risen of herown accord and kissed him good-by and told him to enjoy himself and nothurry home. She would be all right, and Winny had said she would drop infor tea. He left her sewing white lace onto blue silk in a matchlesstranquillity. 

And he _had_ enjoyed his ride, and he had not hurried home, for he knewthat the children would be all right (even if Violet's happy mood hadchanged) as long as Winny was there to look after them. 

He rode far out into the open country, into the deep-dipping lanes, between fields, and through lands scented with autumn. And as he rode hewas a boy again. Never since his marriage had he known such joy infreedom and such ecstasy in speed. There was a wind that drove him on, and the great clouds challenged him and raced with him as he went. 

He came home against the wind, but that was nothing. The wind was achallenge and a defiance of his strength; it set the blood racing in hisveins, and cooled it in his face when it burned. It was good to bechallenged by the wind and to defy it. It was good to struggle. It wasall good that happened to him on that day. 

Night had fallen when he returned. Granville was lit up behind itsyellow blinds. Winny stood at the open door with the lighted passagewaybehind her. Granville in the autumnal dark, with the gas turned full oninside it, looked all light, all quiet flame, as if the walls that werethe substance of it had been cut clean away, leaving a mere shell, amere framework for its golden incandescence. 

So small, so fragile, so insubstantial was the shell, that Winny'sslight figure in the doorway showed in proportion solid and solitary andimmense, as if it sustained the perishable fabric. 

She was leaning forward now, bearing up the shell on her shoulders. Shewas looking out, up and down the Avenue. 

"That you, Winny?" he said. 

"Yes. I'm looking for Vi. "

"She gone out?"

"Gone into Wandsworth. "

"What did she go for?"

"To have a dress tried on. "

"I say, she _is_ going it!"

"There's a girl in St. Ann's, " said Winny, "what makes for her verycheap. "

He sighed and checked his sigh. "You bin slavin', Win?"

"No. Why?"

"You looked fagged out. "

Winny's face was white under the gaslight. 

She said nothing. She stood there looking out while he propped hisbicycle up against the window sill. 

He followed as she turned slowly and went through the passage to theback room. 

"Kids asleep?"

"Yes. Fast. "

She went to the dresser, and he helped her to take down the cups andplates and set the table for their supper. In all her movements therewas a curious slowness and constraint, as if she were spinning timeout, thread by thread. It was five-and-twenty past eight. 

"Who's that for?" she asked as he laid a third place at the side. 

"Well, I should think it was for you. "

She started ever so slightly, and stared at the three plates, as iftheir number put her out in some intricate calculation. 

"I must be going, " she said. 

"Not you. Not much!"

She submitted, moving uneasily about the place, but busy, folding thingsand putting them away. He ran upstairs to wash. She could hear himoverhead, splashing, rubbing, and brushing. 

When he came down again she was sitting on the sofa with her handsclasped in front of her, her head bent, her eyes fixed, gazing at thefloor. 

"I suppose we've got to wait for Vi, " he said. 

"Oh yes. "

They waited. 

"I say, it's a quarter to nine, you know, " he said, presently. 

"Hungry, Ran?"

"My word! I should think I was just. D'you think she's gone to Motherand had supper there?"

"She--might have. "

"Well, then, let's begin. Come along. "

She shook her head. There was a slight spasm in her throat as if theidea of food sickened her. 

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing--nothing. I'm all right. I don't want to eat anything, that'sall. I must be going soon. "

"You're tired out, Win. You've got past it. Tell you what, I'll make youa cup of tea. "

"No, Ranny, don't. I'd rather not. "

She rose, and yet she did not go. He had never known Winny so undecided. 

Then suddenly she stooped. On the floor of the hearth rug she had caughtsight of some bits of blue silk left from Violet's sewing. With analmost feverish concentration of purpose she picked up each one of thescraps and snippets; she threw them on the hearth. Slowly, deliberately, spinning out her thread of time, she gathered what she had strewed; shegathered into a handful the little scraps and snippets of blue silk, powdered with the gray ashes from the hearth, and dropped them in thefire, watching till the last shred was utterly destroyed. 

There was a faint cry overhead and Ransome started up. 

The cry or his movement clenched her resolution. 

"_I'll_ go, Ranny, " she said. 

And as she went she drew a letter in a sealed envelope from the bosom ofher gown and laid it on the table. 

"Vi said I was to give you that if she wasn't back by eight. It's ninenow. "

He stared and let her go. He waited. He was aware of her footsteps inthe front room upstairs, of the baby crying, and of the sudden stillingof his cry. Then he opened the letter. 

He read in Violet's tottering, formless handwriting:

/# <sc>Dear Randall, </sc>--This is to let you know I've gone and that I'm not coming back again. I stuck to you as long as I could, but it was misery. You and me aren't suited to live together, and it's no use us going on any more pretending. If you'd take me back to-morrow I wouldn't come. I can't live without Leonard Mercier, nor he without me. I dare say you know it's him I've gone with. 

 We're awfully sorry for all the trouble we're bringing on you. But we couldn't help ourselves. We were driven to it. I've been off my head all this year thinking how I must do it, and all the time being afraid to take the step. And ever since I made up my mind to it I've been quiet inside and happy, which looks as if it was meant and had got to be. 

 You needn't blame Leonard. He held off till he couldn't hold off any more, because he was a friend of yours and didn't want to hurt you. It was really me made him. It's a tragedy, but it would be a bigger tragedy if we didn't, for we belong to one another. And he's taking me to Paris to live so as nobody need know anything about it. He's got a post in a shop there. And we're starting on a Saturday so as you can have Sunday to turn round in. 

 You'll forgive me, Ranny dear. It's what I've always told you--you shouldn't have married me. You should have married a girl like Winny. She was always fond of you. It was a lie what I told you once about her not being. I said it because I was mad on you, and I knew you'd marry her if I let you alone. So you can say it's all my fault, if you like. 

 Yours truly, [she had hesitated, with some erasures, over the form of valedictions]

 Vi. #/

There was a postscript:

/# "You can do anything you like to me as long as you don't touch Leonard. It's not his fault my caring for him more than you. "#/

And in a small hand squeezed into the margin he made out with difficultytwo more lines. "You needn't be afraid of being fond of Baby. There wasnever anything between me and Leonard before July of last year. "

He did not read it straight through all at once. He stuck at the openingsentence. It stupefied him. Even when he took it in it did not tell himplainly what it was that she had done besides going away and not comingback again. It was as if his mind were unable to deal with more than oneimage at a time, as if it refused to admit the hidden significance oflanguage. 

Realization came with the shock of the name that struck at him suddenlyout of the page in a flash that annihilated the context. The name andhis intelligence leaped at each other and struck fire across thedarkness. His gorge rose at it as it would have risen at a foul blowunder the belt. 

Leonard Mercier; he saw nothing else; he needed nothing else but that;it showed him her deed as the abomination that it was. If it had beenany other man he thought he could have borne it, for he might still haveheld her clean. 

As it was, the uncleanness was such that his mind turned from itinstinctively as from a thing unspeakable. He closed his eyes, he hidhis face in his hands, as if the two had been there with him in theroom. And still he saw things. There rose before him a sort of welter ofgray slime and darkness in which were things visible, things white andvivid, yet vague, broken and unfinished, because his mind refused tojoin or finish them; things that were faceless and deformed, like whitebodies that tumble and toss in the twilight of evil dreams. These whitethings came tumbling and tossing toward him from the gray confines ofthe slime; urged by a persistent and abominable life, they were borneperpetually on the darkness and were perpetually thrust back into it byhis terror. 

He turned the letter and read it to the end, to the last scribble on themargin: "You should have married a girl like Winny Dymond. " "It was alie what I told you once about her. " "You needn't be afraid of beingfond of Baby. " There was nothing evocative, nothing significant for himin these phrases, not even in the names. His mind had no longer any gripon words. The ideas they stood for were blurred; they were without formor meaning; they rose and shifted like waves, and like waves theydisappeared on the surface of the darkness and the slime. 

He was roused from his sickening contemplation by a child's cryoverhead. It came again; it pierced him; it broke up the horror anddestroyed it. He woke with it to a sense of sheer blank calamity, ofoverpowering bereavement. 

His wife had left him. That was what had happened to him. His wife hadleft him. She had left her little children. 

It was as if Violet had died and her death had cleansed her. 

When the child cried a third time he remembered Winny. He would have totell her. 

CHAPTER XXIII

He rose and went to the fireplace mechanically. His impulse was to tearup and burn Violet's letter and thus utterly destroy all proof and therecord of her shame. He was restrained by that strong subconscioussanity which before now had cared for him when he was at his worst. Itsuggested that he would do well to keep the letter. It was--it was adocument. It might have value. Proofs and records were precisely what hemight most want later on. He folded it and replaced it in its envelopeand thrust it into the breast pocket of his coat. 

And it occurred to him again that he had got to tell Winny. 

He could hear her feet going up and down, up and down, in the front roomoverhead where she walked, hushing the crying baby. Presently the cryingceased and the footsteps, and he heard the low humming of her cradlesong; then silence; and then the sound of her feet coming down thestairs. 

He would have to tell her now. 

He drew himself up, there where he was, standing by his hearth, andwaited for her. 

She came in softly and shut the door behind her and stood there as ifshe were afraid to come too near. Her face was all eyes; all eyes ofterror, as before a grief too great, a bereavement too awful for anyhelp or consolation. She spoke first. 

"What is it, Ranny?" Her low voice went light like a tender hand thatwas afraid to touch his wound. 

"She's left me; that's all. "

Her lips parted, but no words came; they parted to ease the heart thatfluttered with anguish in her breast. She moved a little nearer into theroom, not looking at him, but with her head bowed slightly as if hershoulders bore Violet's shame. She stood a moment by the table, lookingat her own hand as it closed on the edge, the fingers working up anddown on the cloth. It might have been the hand of another person, forall she was aware of its half-convulsive motion. 

"Oh, Ranny, _dear_--" At last she breathed it out, the soul of hercompassion, and all her hushed sense of his bereavement. 

"Did you know?"

She shook her head, slowly, closing in an extremity of negation the eyesthat would not look at him. 

"No--No--" It was as if she had said, "Who _could_ have known it?" Yether voice had an uncertain sound. 

"But you had an idea?"

"No, " she said, taking courage from his incredible calmness. "I wasafraid; that was all. " And then, as one utterly beaten by him anddefenseless, she broke down. "I tried so hard--so hard, so as itshouldn't happen. "

It was as if she had said, "I tried so hard--so hard to save her foryou; but she had to die. "

"I know you did. "

But it was only then, in the long pause of that moment, that he knew;that he saw the whole full, rich meaning and intention of the thingsthat she had done for him. 

And now, as if she were afraid lest he should see too much, as ifsomehow his seeing it would sharpen the perilous edge she stood on, would wind up to the pitch of agony her tense feeling of it all, Winnysuddenly became evasive. She found her subterfuge in stark matter offact. 

"You haven't had any supper, " she said. 

"No more have you. "

"I don't want anything. "

"I'm sure _I_ don't. But you must. You'll be ill, Winny, if you don't. "

White-faced and famished, they kept it up, both struck by the indecencyof eating in the house of sorrow. Then for his sake she gave in, and hefor hers. 

"If you will, I will, " she said. 

"That's right, " said he. 

And together helping each other, they filled the kettle and set it onthe fire to boil, moving in silence and with soft footsteps, as in thehouse where death was. And together they sat down to the table andforced themselves to eat a little, each for the sake of the other, encouraging each other with such difficult, broken speech as mournersuse. They behaved in all ways as if the ghost of a dead Violet sat inher old place, facing Ranny. The feeling, embraced by each of them withthe most profound sincerity, was that Ranny's bereavement wasirreparable, supreme. Each was convinced with an inassailable andimmutable conviction that the thing that had happened was, for each ofthem, the worst that could happen. 

Half through the meal he got up suddenly and left her. He was seizedwith violent sickness, such sickness as he had never yet known, andwould have believed impossible. The sounds of his bodily anguish reachedher from the room above. They stirred her emotion to a passion ofhelpless, agonizing pity. If she could only go up to him and put herhand on his forehead, and do things for him! But she couldn't; and shefelt poignantly that if she did Ranny somehow wouldn't like it. So, asthere was nothing she could do for him, she laid her head down on herarms and wept. 

She raised it suddenly, like a guilty thing, and dashed the tears fromher eyes, as if she were angry with them for betraying her. 

Ranny had recovered and was coming downstairs again. As he came in hesaw at once what she had been doing. 

"You've been crying, Winny?"

She said nothing. 

"I wouldn't if I were you, " he said. "There's no need. "

She rose and faced him bravely, for there were things that must bethought of. 

"What are you going to do, Ranny?" she said. 

"Nothing. What is there to be done?"

"Well--" She paused, breathing painfully. 

"Look here, Winny, you're dead-beat and you must go home to bed. Do youknow it's past ten?"

She drew herself up. "I'm not going. "

"You must, dear, I'm afraid. "

He smiled, and the smile and his white face made her heart ache. Alsothey made her more determined. 

"You must have somebody. You can't be left like this all by yourself. Doyou think I can go and leave you, when you're ill and all?"

"I'm all right now. I wish I could see you home, but I can't leave thehouse with the kids, you see, all alone. "

"Ranny, " she said, "I'm not going. " She was very grave, very earnest, absolutely determined, and, child that she still was, absolutely unawareof the impossibility of the thing that she proposed. She was blind toherself, blind to all appearances, blind to all aspects of the case, butone, his desolation and his necessity. 

"I can't leave you. I wouldn't be happy if I didn't stay. You might betaken bad or something, in the night. "

"You can't stay, Winny. It wouldn't do. " They were the words she hadused to him, in her wisdom, when he had asked her to make her home withhim and Violet. 

But the vision of propriety, which he raised and presented thus for herconsideration, it was nothing to her. She swept it all aside. 

"But I _must_, " she said. "There's Baby. "

He remembered then that little one, above in Violet's deserted room. Almost she had persuaded him, but for that secret sanity which had himin its care. 

"I'll take him. You must go now, " he said, firmly. "Now this minute. "

He looked for her hat and coat, found them and put her into them, handling her with an extreme inflexibility of manner and tenderness oftouch, as if she had been a child. 

"Well, then, " she compromised. "Let me help you move him. "

He let her; and they went upstairs and into Violet's room. Winny hadremoved every sign of disorder left by Violet in the precipitancy of herflight. Between them, very gently, they carried the cot, with thesleeping baby in it, out of the room of the love knots and the rosebudsinto Ranny's room. They set the cot close up against the side of his bedwith the rail down so that Ranny's arms might reach out to Baby where helay. Dossie's little bed was drawn up at the foot. They stood togetherfor a moment, looking at the two children, at Dossie, all curled up andburrowing into her pillow, and at Baby, lying by Ranny's bed as anursling lies by its mother. 

They were silent as the same thought tore at them. 

Night after night, for years, as long as Dossie and Baby were little, Ranny would lie like that, on that narrow bed of his, shut in by the twocots, one at his side and the other at his feet. And to Winny it hadcome, for Ranny had rubbed it into her (tenderly enough; but he hadrubbed it in), that this was the last night when she could stand besidehim there. She had tried so hard to hold him and Violet together; andall the time it had been Violet who had held her and him. It wasViolet's presence that had made it possible for her to go in and outwith Ranny in his house. 

She stooped for a final, reassuring look at Baby. 

"Can you manage with him?" she whispered. 

He nodded. 

"I've made him his food in that saucepan. You'll have to heat it on thegas ring--in there. "

"In there" was Violet's room. 

They went downstairs together. 

"I wish I could see you home, " he said again. 

"I'm all right. " But she paused on the doorstep. "You ought to havesomebody. You can't be left all alone like this. Mayn't I run down andfetch your mother?"

"No, " he said, "you mayn't. I'll go down myself to-morrow morning, ifyou wouldn't mind coming in and looking after the kids for a bit. "

"Of course I'll come. Good night, Ranny. "

"Good night, Winky. And thanks--" His throat closed with a sharpcontraction on the words. She slipped into the darkness and was gone. 

 * * * * *

He was thankful that he had had the sense to see the impossibility ofit, of her spending the night in his house with nobody in it but the twoof them and the two children. 

But it was only when, in the act of undressing, he was reminded ofViolet's letter by its bulging in his breast pocket, that he glimpsedthe danger they had escaped. Up till then he had only thought of Winny, of her reputation, of her post at Johnson's (imperiled if she were notin by eleven), of all that she would not and could not think of in herthought for him. Now, that inner sanity, that secret wisdom which hadmade him preserve Violet's letter as a possibly valuable document, suggested that if Winny had stayed all night in the house with him thatdocument would have lost its value. Not that he had meant to do anythingwith it, that he had any plan, or any certain knowledge. Those twoideas, or rather, those two instinctive appreciations, of the value ofthe document, and of the awfulness of the risk they ran, were connectedin his mind obscurely as the stuff of some tale that he had been told, or as something he had seen sometime in the papers. He put them from himas things that he himself had no immediate use for; while all the timesubconscious sanity guarded them and did not let them go. 

But that was all it did for him. It did not lift from him hisoppression, or fill with intelligible detail his blank sense ofcalamity, of inconsolable bereavement. This oppression, this morbidsense, amounted almost to hallucination; it prevented him from thinkingas clearly as he might about all that, the value of the document, andthe rest of it, and about what he ought to do. It was with him as he layawake on his bed, shut in by the two cots; it, and the fear offorgetting to feed Baby, got into his dreams and troubled them; theywatched by him in his sleep; they woke him early and were with him whenhe woke. 

Dossie woke too. He took her into his bed and played with her, and inplaying he forgot his grief. A little before seven he got up anddressed. He washed Dossie and dressed her as well as he could, withtender, clumsy fingers that fumbled over all her little strings andbuttons. Pain, and pleasure poignant as pain, thrilled him with everysoft contact with her darling body. He tried to brush her hair as Winnybrushed it, all in ducks' tails and in feathers. 

He went down and busied himself, hours earlier than he need, making thefire, getting ready Dossie's breakfast and Baby's and his own. Foragingin the larder, he came upon a beefsteak pie that, evidently, Winny hadmade for him, as if in foreknowledge of his need. When he had washed upthe breakfast things and the things that were left over from last night, he went upstairs and made his bed, clumsily. Then he went down again andtidied the sitting-room. In all this he was driven by his determinationto leave nothing for Winny to do for him when she came. He went to andfro, with Dossie toddling after him and laughing. 

Upstairs, Baby laughed in his cot. 

And all the time, Ranny, with his obsession of bereavement and calamity, was unaware of the peace, the exquisite, the unimaginable peace that hadsettled upon Granville. 

 * * * * *

At half past eight Winny looked in (entering by the open door ofGranville) to see what she could do. 

She found him in the bathroom, trying to wash Baby. He had put thelittle zinc bath with Baby in it inside the big one. 

"Whatever did you do that for, Ranny?" Winny asked, while her heartyearned to him. 

He said he had to. The little beggar splashed so. Good idea, wasn't it?

Almost he had forgotten his bereavement. 

Winny shook her head. 

"Anyhow, I've washed him all right. "

"Yes, " said she. "But you'll never dry him. "

"Why not?"

"You can't. Not in here. There isn't room for you to set. Where's yourchair and your flannel apron?"

"Flannel apron?"

"Yes. If you don't wear one you'll not get any hold on him. He'll slipbetween your knees before you know he's gone. "

"Not if I keep 'em together. "

"_Then_ there's no lap for him. What he wants is petticoats. "

(Petticoats? That was the secret, was it? He had tried to soap Baby, bitby bit, as he had seen Winny do, holding him, wrapped in a towel, on hisknees--a disastrous failure. It was incredible how slippery he was. )

"There's his blanket. I thought I'd dry him on the floor. "

"He'll catch his death of cold, Ranny, if you do. There, give him to me. We'll take him downstairs to the fire. "

He gave her the little naked, dripping body, and she wrapped it in thewarm blanket and carried it downstairs. 

"You bring the towels and the powder puff, and all his vests andflannels and things, " said Winny. 

He brought them. She established herself in the low chair by the firedownstairs. He played with Dossie as he watched her. And all the time, through all the play, his obscure instinct told him that she ought notto be there. It suggested that if he desired to preserve the integrityof the document, Winny and he must not be known to be alone in the housetogether. 

But it was a question of petticoats. He realized it when he saw Babysprawling in the safe hollow of her lap. He had meant to tell Winnythat she mustn't stay; but she had him by those absurd petticoats ofhers, and behind her petticoats he shielded himself from the upbraidingsof his sanity. 

But Winny knew. She was not going to stay, to be there with him morethan was strictly necessary. When, with exquisite gentleness, she hadinserted Baby into all his little vests and things, she put on him hisknitted Baby's coat and hat, and gave him to Ranny to hold while shearrayed Dossie in her Sunday best. Then she packed them both into thewonderful pram, and wheeled them out into the Avenue, far from Ranny. 

For she knew that Ranny didn't want her. He wanted to be left alone tothink. 

CHAPTER XXIV

He had been incapable of thinking until now, the first moment (since ithad happened) that he had been left alone. Last night the thing hadstupefied him so that he could not think. If he had tried to describewhat had been before him last night, he would have said there was a lotof cotton wool about. It had been all like wool, cotton wool, nothingthat the mind could bite on, nothing that it could grasp. Last nightWinny had been there, and that had stopped his thinking. It was absurdto say that what had happened had disturbed his night's rest. What haddisturbed his night's rest had been his fear lest he should forget tofeed Baby. And in the morning there had been too many things to do, there had been Dossie and Baby. And then Winny again. 

And now they were all gone. There was silence and a clear space to thinkin. His brain too was clear and clean. The clouds of cotton wool hadbeen dispersed in his movements to and fro. 

As an aid to thinking he brought out of his breast pocket Violet'sletter. He spread it on the table in the back sitting-room and sat downto it, seriously, as to a document that he would have to master, a thingthat would yield its secret only under the closest examination. He wasaware that he had not by any means taken it all in last night. 

That she had gone off with Leonard Mercier, _that_ he had indeedgrasped, _that_ he knew. But beyond that the letter gave him no solidpractical information. It did not and it was not meant to give him anyclue. In going off Violet had disappeared and had meant to disappear. Hegathered from it that she had been possessed by one thought and by onefear, that he would go after her and bring her back. 

"What on earth, " he said to himself, "should I go after her for?"

She made that clear to him as he read on. Her idea was that he would goafter her, not so much to bring her back as to do something to Mercier, to inflict punishment on him, to hurt Mercier and hurt him badly. Thatwas what Violet was afraid of; that was why she tried to shield Mercier, to excuse him, to take the whole blame on herself. And, evidently, thatwas what Mercier was afraid of too. That was why he had bolted with herto Paris. They must have had that in their minds, they must have plannedit months before. He must have been trying for the post he'd got there. Ransome could see further, with a fierce shrewdness, that it wasMercier's "funk" and not his loyalty that accounted for his "holdingoff. " "He held off because I was his friend, did he? He held off to savehis own skin, the swine!"

And now she drew him up. What was all this about Winny Dymond? He musthave missed it last night. "She was always fond of you. It was a liewhat I told you about her not being. I said it because I was mad on you. I knew you'd have married her if I'd let you alone. "

She was cool, the way she showed herself up. That's what she'd done, had she? Lied, so that he might think Winny didn't care for him? Lied, so that he mightn't marry her? Lied, so that she might get him forherself? For her fancy, for no more than a low animal would feel. Hecould see it now. He could see what she was. A woman who could fancyMercier must have been a low animal all through and all the time. 

How he had ever cared for her he couldn't think. There must have beensome beastliness in him. Men _were_ beasts sometimes. But he was worse. He was a fool to have believed her lie. Even her beastliness sank out ofsight beside that treachery. 

Well--she'd been frank enough about it now. She must have had a face, toown that she'd lied to him and trapped him! After that, what did itmatter if she _had_ left him? "I dare say you know who I've gone with. "What did it matter who she'd gone with? Good God! What did it matterwhat she'd done?

He could smile at her fear and at the cause of it. Mercier must haveterrified her with his funk. The postscript said as much. "You can doanything you like to me, so long as you don't hurt Leonard. " He smiledagain at that. What did she imagine he'd like to do to her? As forMercier, what should he want to hurt the beast for? He wouldn't touchhim--now--with the end of a barge-pole. 

Oh, well, yes, he supposed he'd have to leather him if he came acrosshim. But he wouldn't have any pleasure in it--now. Last year he wouldhave leathered him with joy; his feet had fairly ached to get at him, tokick the swine out of the house before he did any harm in it. Now it wasas if he loathed him too much in his flabbiness to care for the contactthat personal violence involved. 

Yet, through all the miserable workings of his mind the thought ofMercier's flabbiness was sweet to him. It gave him a curious consolationand support. True, it had been the chief agent in the process ofdeception; it had blinded him to Mercier's dangerous quality; it hadgiven him a sense of false security; he could see, now, the fool he'dbeen to imagine that it would act as any deterrent to a woman soforedoomed as Violet. Thus it had in a measure brought about the wholecatastrophe. At the same time it had saved him from the peculiarpersonal mortification such catastrophes entail. In comparison withMercier he sustained no injury to his pride and vanity of sex. AndMercier's flabbiness did more for him than that. It took the sharpeststing from Violet's infidelity. It removed it to the region of insaneperversities. It removed Violet herself from her place in memory, thatplace of magic and of charm where if she had remained she would have hadpower to hurt him. 

When he considered her letter yet again in the calmness of that thought, it struck him that Violet herself was offering him support andconsolation. "You shouldn't have married me. You should have married agirl like Winny Dymond. "--"I knew you'd marry her if I let you alone. "Why, after all these years, had she confessed her treachery? Why had sheconfessed it now at the precise moment when she had left him? There wasno need. It couldn't help her. No, but it was just possible (for she wasquite intelligent) that she had seen how it might help him. It waspossible that some sort of contrition had visited her in that lasthour, and that she had meant to remind him that he was not utterlyabandoned, that there was something left. 

That brought him to the lines, almost indecipherable, squeezed in herlast hurried moment into the margin of the letter. "You mustn't beafraid of being fond of Baby. There was nothing between me and Leonardbefore July of last year. "

She had foreseen the supreme issue; she had provided for the worststing, the unspeakable suspicion, the intolerable terror. It was as ifshe had calculated the precise point where her infidelity would touchhim. 

Faced with that issue, Ranny's mind, like a young thing forced to suddentragic maturity by a mortal crisis, worked with an incredible clearnessand capacity. It developed an almost superhuman subtlety ofcomprehension. He looked at the thing all round; he controlled hispassion so that he might look at it. It was of course open to him totake it that she had lied. Passion indeed clamored at him, insistingthat she did lie, that lying came easier to her than the truth. But, looking at it all round without passion, he was inclined to think thatViolet had not lied. She had not given herself time or space to lie forlying's sake. If she had lied, then, she had lied for a purpose. Apurpose that he could very well conceive. But if she lied for _that_purpose she would have given importance and prominence to her lie. Shewouldn't have hidden it away in an almost invisible scrawl on aninadequate margin. 

Of course, she might have lied to deceive him for another purpose, forhis own good. But there again conscious deception would have made forlegibility at the least. 

Besides, she had put it in a way that left no room for doubt. "Youneedn't be afraid of being fond of Baby. " Even passion had to own thatthe words had the ring of remorse, of insight, of certainty, and, aboveall, of haste. Such haste as precluded all deliberation. Evidently itwas an afterthought. It had come to her, inopportunely, in the lastmoment before flight, and she had given it the place and the importanceshe would naturally give to a subject in which she herself was not inany way concerned. 

There remained the possibility that she might be mistaken. But the datesupheld her. In the beginning he and she had, of necessity, gone verycarefully into the question of dates. He remembered that there had beena whole body of evidence establishing the all-important point beyond adoubt. All of his honor that he most cared for she had spared. She hadnot profaned the ultimate sanctity, nor poisoned for him the verysweetness of his life. 

 * * * * *

There were sounds in the front garden. Winny was bringing in thechildren. He went out to meet them as they came up the flagged walk. Dossie toddled, clinging to the skirts of Winny, who in all hertenderness and absurdity, with her most earnest air of gravity andabsorption in the adventure, pushed the pram. In the pram, tiltedbackward, with his little pink legs upturned, Baby fondled, deliciously, his own toes. He was jerking himself up and down and making for thebenefit of all whom it might concern his very nicest noises. 

Ranny stood in the doorway, silent, almost austere, like a man escapedby a hair's breadth from great peril. 

When he caught sight of the silent and austere young man in the doorway, Baby let go his fascinating toes. He chuckled with delight. He jerkedhimself more than ever up and down. He struggled to be free, to belifted up and embraced by the young man. Silence and austerity were nodeterrent to Baby, so assured was he of his position, of his welcome, ofthe safe, warm, tingling place that would presently be his in the hollowof the young man's arm. The desire of it made Baby's arms and his bodywrithe, with a heartrending agitation, in his little knitted coat. 

All this innocent ecstasy of Baby the young man met with silence andausterity and somber eyes. 

With Winny's eyes on him he indeed lifted Baby up, disclosing, first, his pathetically bunched and bundled back, and then his face, exquisitely contorted. 

And Winny, who had _forgotten_ for a minute, laughed. 

"He is funny, isn't he? He smiles just like you do, all up in thecorners like. "

At that the young man's arms tightened, and he gripped Baby with passionto his breast. He kissed him, looking down at him, passionately, somberly. 

Winny saw, and the impulse seized her to efface herself, to vanish. 

"I must be going, " she said, "or I shall be late for dinner. Can youmanage, Ranny? There's a beefsteak pie. I made it yesterday. "

As she turned Dossie trotted after her; and as she vanished Dossiecried, inconsolably. 

He managed, beautifully, with the beefsteak pie. 

His sense of bereavement which still weighed on him was no longerattached in any way to Violet. He could not say precisely what it _was_attached to. There it was. Only, when he thought of Violet it seemed tohim incomprehensible, not to say absurd, that he should feel it. 

CHAPTER XXV

In the afternoon Winny came again for the children, so that he could goto Wandsworth unencumbered. The weather was favorable to her idea, whichwas not to be in Ranny's house more than she could help, but to be seen, if seen she must be, out of doors with the children, in a publicinnocence, affording the presumption that Violet was still there. 

Above all, she was not going to be seen with Ranny, or to be seen by himtoo much, if she could help it. With her sense of the sadness of hiserrand, the sense (that came to her more acutely with the afternoon) ofthings imminent, of things, she knew not what, that would have to bedone, she avoided him as she would have avoided a bereaved personpreoccupied with some lamentable business relating to the departed. 

He was aware of her attitude; he was aware, further, that it would betheir attitude at Wandsworth. They would all treat him like that, as ifhe were bereaved. They would not lose, nor allow him to lose for aninstant, their awestruck sense of it. That was why he dreaded goingthere, why he had put it off till the last possible moment, which wasabout three o'clock in the afternoon. His Uncle Randall would be there. He would have to be told. He might as well tell him while he was aboutit. His wife's action had been patent and public; it was not a thingthat could be hushed up, or minimized, or explained away. 

As he thought of all this, of what he would have to say, to go into, tohandle, every moment wound him up to a higher and higher pitch ofnervous tension. 

His mother opened the door to him. She greeted him with a certaintimidity, an ominous hesitation; and from the expression of her face youmight have gathered, in spite of her kiss, that she was not entirelyglad to see him; that she had something up her sleeve, something thatshe desired to conceal from him. It was as if by way of concealing itthat she let him in stealthily with no more opening of the door than wasabsolutely necessary for his entrance. 

"You haven't brought Vi'let?" she whispered. 

"No. "

They went softly together through the shop, darkened by the blinds thatwere drawn for Sunday. In the little passage beyond he paused at thedoor of the back parlor. 

"Where's Father?"

She winced at the word "Father, " so out of keeping with his habituallevity. It was the first intimation that there was something wrong withhim. 

"He's upstairs, my dear, in His bed. "

"What's the matter with him?"

"It's the Headache. " She went on to explain, taking him as it weresurreptitiously into the little room, that the Headache had beenfrequent lately, not to say continuous; not even Sundays were exempt. 

"He's a sad sufferer, " she said. 

Instead of replying with something suitable, Ranny set his teeth. 

She had sat down helplessly, and as she spoke she gazed up at him wherehe remained standing by the chimney-piece; her look pleaded, deprecated, yet obstinately endeavored to deceive. But for once Ranny was blind tothe pathos of her deception. Vaguely her foolish secrecy irritated him. 

"Look here, Mother, " he said, "I want to talk to you. I've got to tellyou something. "

"It's not anything about your Father, Ranny?"

"No, it is not. "

(She turned to him from her trouble with visible relief. )

"It's about my wife. "

"Vi'let?"

"She's left me. "

"Left you? What d'you mean, Ranny?"

"She's gone off--Bolted. "

"When?"

"Last night, I suppose--to Paris. "

She stared at him strangely, without sympathy, without comprehension. Itwas almost as if in her mind she accused him of harboring some monstroushallucination. With her eternal instinct for suppression she foughtagainst it, she refused to take it in. He felt himself unequal topressing it on her more than that. 

"Would she go there--all that way--by herself, Ranny?" she brought outat last. 

"By herself? Not much!"

"Well--how--"

And still she would not face the thing straight enough to say, "How didshe go, then?"

He flung it at her brutally, exasperated by her obstinacy. 

"She went with Mercier. "

"With _'im_--? _She_--"

Her face seemed suddenly to give way under his eyes, to becomediscolored in a frightful pallor, to fall piteously into the lines ofage. 

This face that his words had so crushed and broken looked up at him withall its motherhood, mute yet vibrant, brimming in its eyes. 

"Sit down, dear, " she said. "You'll be tired standing. "

He sat down, mechanically, in the nearest chair, bending forward, contemplating his clenched hands. His posture put him at her mercy. Shecame over to him and laid one hand on his shoulder; the other touchedhis hair, stroking it. He shrank as if she had hurt him and leaned back. She moved away, and took up a position in a seat that faced him. Thereshe sat and gazed at him, helpless and passive, panting a little withemotion; until a thought occurred to her. 

"Who's looking after the little children?"

"Winny--Winny Dymond. "

"Why didn't you send for _me_, Ranny?"

"It was too late--last night. "

"I'd have come, my dear. I'd have got out of me bed. "

"It wouldn't have done any good. "

There was a long pause. 

"Were you alone in the house, dear?"

He looked up, angry. "Of course I was alone in the house. "

She sat silent and continued to gaze at him with her tender, woundedeyes. 

Outside in the passage the front-door bell rang. She rose inperturbation. 

"That's them. Do you want to see them?"

"I don't care whether I see them or not. "

She stood deliberating. 

"You'd better--p'raps--see your uncle. I'll tell him, Ranny. YourFather's not fit for it to-day. "

"All right. "

He rose uneasily and prepared himself to take it standing. 

He heard them come into the shop, his Uncle and his Aunt Randall. Heheard his uncle's salutation checked in mid-career. He heard hismother's penetrating whisper, then mutterings, commiserations. Theircommunion lasted long enough for him to gather that his mother wouldhave about told them everything. 

They came in, marking their shocked sense of it by soft shufflings atthe door of the parlor, his sanctuary. He felt obscurely that he hadbecome important to them, the chief figure of a little infamous tragedy. He had a moment's intense and painful prescience of the way they wouldtake it; they would treat him with an excruciating respect, an awfuldeference, as a person visited by God and afflicted with unspeakablecalamity. 

And they did. It was an affair of downcast eyes and silent, embarrassedand embarrassing hand-shakings. Ransome met it with his head in the air, clear-eyed, defiant of their sympathy. 

"I think, " his mother said, "we'd better come upstairs if we don't wantto be interrupted. " For on Sundays the back parlor was assigned to theyoung chemist, Mercier's successor, who assisted Mr. Ransome. 

Upstairs, the ordered room, polished to perfection, steadfast in itsshining Sunday state, appeared as the irremovable seat of middle-classtradition, of family virtue, of fidelity and cleanliness, of sacredimmutable propriety. And into the bosom of these safe and comfortablesanctities Ranny had brought horror and defilement and destruction. 

His Uncle Randall, try as he would, could not disguise from him thatthis was what he had done. Because of Ranny's wife, Respectability, theenduring soul of the Randalls and the Ransomes, could never lift up itshead superbly any more. All infamies and all abominations that coulddefile a family were summed up for John Randall in the one word, adultery. It was worse than robbery or forgery or bankruptcy; it struckmore home; it did more deadly havoc among the generations. It excitedmore interest; it caused more talk; and therefore it marked you more andwas not so easily forgotten. It reverberated. The more respectable youwere the worse it was for you. If, among the Randalls and the Ransomes, such a plunge as Violet's was unheard of, it made the more terrificsplash, a splash that covered the whole family. The Ransomes, to besure, stood more in the center, they were more deplorably bespattered, and more, much more intimately tainted. But, by the very closeness oftheir family attachment, the mud of Violet's plungings would adherelargely to the Randalls, too. The taint would hang for years around him, John Randall, in his shop. He had hardly entered his sister's roombefore he had calculated about how long it would be before the scandalspread through Wandsworth High Street. It wasn't as if he hadn't beenwell known. As a member of the Borough Council he stuck in the publiceye where other men would have slipped through into obscurity. It wasreally worse for him than any of them. 

All this was present in the back of John Randall's mind as he preparedto deal efficiently with the catastrophe. Having unbuttoned his coat andtaken off his gloves with exasperating, slow, and measured movements, hefairly sat down to it at the table, preserving his very finest militaryair. The situation required before all things a policy. And the policywhich most appealed to Mr. Randall, in which he showed himself mostefficient, was the policy of a kindly hushing up. It was thus that foryears he had dealt with his brother-in-laws' inebriety. Ranny's case, tobe sure, was not quite so simple; still, on the essential point Mr. Randall had made up his mind--that, in the discussion that must follow, the idea of adultery should not once appear. If they were all of them asa family splashed more or less from head to foot with mud of a kind thatwas going to stick to them, why, there was nothing to be done but tocover it up as soon as possible. 

It was in the spirit of this policy that he approached his nephew. Itinvolved dealing with young Mrs. Ransome throughout as a good woman whohad become, somehow, mysteriously unfortunate. 

"I'm sorry to hear this about your wife, Randall. It's a sad business, asad business for you, my boy. "

From her seat on the sofa beside Ranny's mother, Aunt Randall murmuredinarticulate corroboration of that view. 

Ranny had remained standing. It gave him an advantage in defiance. 

"I've never heard anything, " his uncle continued, heavily, "that'sshocked and grieved me more. "

"I wouldn't worry about it if I were you, Uncle. "

At that Mr. Randall fumed a little feebly, thereby losing some of thefineness of his military air. It was as if his nephew had disparaged hisimportance, ignored his stake in the family's reputation, and as good astold him it was no business of his. 

"But I _must_ worry about it. _I_ can't take it like you do, as cool asif nothing had happened. Such a thing's never been known, never so muchas been named in your mother's family, or your father's, either. It's--it's so unexpected. "

"I didn't expect it any more than you did. "

"You needn't take that tone, Randall, my boy. I'm sorry for you, butyou're not the only one concerned. Still, I'm putting all that aside, and I'm here to help you. "

"You can't help me. How can you?"

"I can help you to consider what's to be done. "

"There isn't anything to be done that I can see. "

"There are several things, " said Mr. Randall, "that can be done. " Hesaid it as if he were counsel giving an opinion. "You can take her back;you can leave her alone; or you can divorce her. First of all I want toknow one thing. Did you give her any provocation?"

"What do you mean by provocation?"

"Well--did you give her any cause for jealousy?"

Ranny's mother struck in. "He wouldn't, John. " And his Aunt Randallmurmured half-audible and shocked negation. 

Ranny stared at his uncle as if he wondered where he was coming outnext. 

"Of course I didn't. "

"Are--you--quite--sure about that?"

"You needn't ask him such a thing, " said Ranny's mother; and Rannyfairly squared himself. 

"Look here, Uncle, what d'you want to get at?"

"The facts, my boy. "

"You've got all there are. "

"How about that young woman up at your place?"

"What young woman?"

"That Miss--"

Ranny's mother supplied his loss. "Miss Dymond. "

"What's she got to do with it?" said Ranny. 

"I'm asking you. What _has_ she?"

"Nothing. You can keep her out of it. "

"That's what I should advise _you_ to do, my boy. "

Ranny dropped his defiance and sank his flushed forehead. "I _have_ kepther out of it. " His voice was grave and very low. 

"Not if she's there. Taking everything upon her and looking after yourchildren. "

"What harm's she doing looking after them?"

"You'll soon know if you take it into a court of law. "

"Who told you I was going to take it?"

"That's what I'm trying to get at. _Are_ you?"

"Am I going to divorce her, you mean?"

That was what he had meant. It was also what he was afraid of, what hehoped to dissuade his nephew from. Above all things he dreaded thepublic scandal of divorce. 

"Yes, " he said. "Is it bad enough for that?"

"It's bad enough for anything. But I don't know what I'm going to do. "

"Well, it won't do to have that young woman's name brought forward inthe evidence. "

"Who'd bring it?"

"Why, _she_ might" (Randall's face was blank). "Your wife, if shedefends the suit. That would be her game, you may be sure. "

It would, Randall reflected. That was the very point suggested lastnight by his inner sanity, the use that might be made of Winny. Winny'sinnocent presence in his house might ruin his case if it were known. What was worse, far worse, it would ruin Winny. Whatever he did he mustkeep Winny out of it. 

"I haven't said I was going to bring an action. "

"Well--and I don't advise you to. Why have the scandal and the publicitywhen you can avoid it?"

"Why, Ranny, " his mother cried, "it would kill your Father. "

Ranny scowled. Her cry failed to touch him. 

Mr. Randall went on. He felt that he was bringing his nephew round, thathe was getting the case into his own hands, the hands that were mostcompetent to deal with it. It was only to be expected that with hisexperience he could see farther than the young man, his nephew. What Mr. Randall saw beyond the scandal of the Divorce Court was a vision ofyoung Mrs. Ransome, wanton with liberty and plunging deeper, splashingas she had not yet splashed, bespattering them all to the farthestlimits of her range. The question for Mr. Randall was how to stop her, how to get her out of it, how to bring her to her sober senses beforeshe had done more damage than she had. 

He wondered, had it occurred to Randall that he might take her back?

"Have you any idea, " he said, "what made her do it?"

"Good God, what a question!"

Mr. Randall made a measured, balancing movement of his body while hedrummed with his fingers on the table. 

"Well--" It was as if he took his question back, conceding its enormity. He leaned forward now in his balancing, and lowered his voice to theextreme of confidence. 

"Have you any idea how far she's gone?" (It was as near as he could getto it. )

"She's gone as far as Paris, " said Ranny, with a grin. "Is that farenough for you?"

Mr. Randall leaned back as with relief, and stopped balancing. "It mightbe worse, " he said, "far worse. "

"How d'you mean--worse? Seems to me about as bad as it can be. "

"It's unfortunate--but not so serious as if--" He paused profoundly. Hewas visibly considering it from some private and personal point of view. "She might have stayed in London. She might have carried on at your owndoor or here in Wandsworth. "

His nephew, Randall, was now regarding him with an attention the natureof which he entirely misconceived. It gave him courage to speak out--hiswhole mind and no mincing matters. 

"If I were you, Randall, the first thing I should do is to get rid ofthat young woman--that Dymond girl--" He put up his hand to ward off theimminent explosion. "Yes, yes, I know _all_ you've got to say, my boy, but it won't do. She's a young girl--"

"She's as good as they make them, " said Ranny, glaring at him, "as goodas my mother there. "

"Yes, yes, yes. I know all about it. But you mustn't have her there. "

"Have her where?"

"Where I know she's been--where your mother says she's been--in yourhouse. Now, don't turn on your mother; she hasn't said a word againsther. I'm not saying a word. But you mustn't--have--her--about, Randall. You mustn't have her about. There'd be talk and all, before you knowwhere you are. It isn't right and it isn't proper. "

"No, Ranny, it isn't proper, " said his mother; and his aunt said, No, itwasn't, too. 

Ranny laughed unpleasantly. 

"You think it's as improper as the other thing, do you?"

He addressed his uncle. 

"What other thing?" said Mr. Randall. It had made him wince even whilehe pretended not to see it. It had brought him so near. 

"What my wife's done. "

"Well, Randall, since you ask me, to all appearances--appearances, mindyou--it is. "

"Appearances?"

"Well, you must save appearances, and you must save 'em while you can. "

"How am I to save them, I should like to know?"

"By actin' at once. By stoppin' it all before it gets about. You can'thave your wife over there in Paris carryin' on. You must juststart--soon as you can--to-morrow--and bring her back. "

"Not much!"

"It's what you got to do, Randall. She's been unfortunate, I know; butshe's young, and you don't know how she may have been led on. 'Slikely's not you haven't looked after her enough. You don't know butwhat you may have been responsible. You got to take her back. "

"What should I take her back for?" said Ranny, with false suavity. 

"To save scandal. To save trouble and misery and disgrace all round. Yougot to think of your family. "

"What do you mean by my family? Me and my children?"

"I mean the family name, my boy. "

A frightful lucidity had come upon Ranny, born of the calamity itself. It was not for nothing that he had attained that sudden violent maturityof his. He saw things as they were. 

"You mean yourself, " he said. "Jolly lot you think of me and my childrenif you ask me to take her back. Not me! I'll be damned first. "

"You married her, Randall, against the wishes of your family; and you'reresponsible to your family for the way she conducts herself. "

"I should rather think I _was_ responsible! If I wasn't--if I was abletherin' idiot--I might take her back--"

"I don't say if she leaves you again you'll take her back a second time. But you got to give her a chance. After all, she's the mother of yourchildren. You married her. "

"Yes. That's where I went wrong. That's what made her do it, if you wantto know. _That's_ the provocation I gave her. It's what she always hadagainst me--the children, and my marrying her. And she was right. Shenever ought to have had children. I never ought to have marriedher--against her will. "

"Well, I can't think what you did it for--in such haste. "

"I did it, " said Ranny, in his maturity, his lucidity, "because it wasthe way I was brought up. I suppose, come to that, I did it for allyou. "

He saw everything now as it was. 

"How d'you make that out? Did it for us!"

Then Ranny delivered his soul, and the escape, the outburst wastremendous, cataclysmic. 

"For you and your rotten respectability! What you brought me up on. Whatyou've rammed down my throat all along. What you're thinking of now. You're not thinking of me; you're thinking of yourself, and howrespectable you are, and how I've dished you. You don't want me to takemy wife back because you care a rap about me and my children. It'sbecause you're afraid. That's what it is, you're afraid. You're afraidof the rotten scandal; you're afraid of what people'll say; you'reafraid of not looking respectable any more. You know what my wife'sdone--you know what she _is_--"

"She's a woman, Randall, she's a woman. "

"She's a--Well, she _is_, and you know it. You know what she is, and youwant me to take her back so as you can lie about it and hush it all upand pretend it isn't there. Same as you've done with my father. He's adrunkard--"

"For shame, Randall, " said his uncle. 

"He is, and you know it, and he knows it, and my mother knows it. Andyet you go on lying about him and pretending. I'm sick of it. I'm sickof hearing about how good he is, and his Headaches--Headaches!"

"Oh! Ranny, dear, " his mother wailed, piteously. 

"I'm not blaming him, Mother. Poor old Humming-bird, he can't help it. It's the way he's made. I'm not blaming Virelet. She can't help it, either. It's my fault. If I'd wanted her to stick to me I oughtn't tohave married her. "

"What ought you to have done then?" his uncle inquired, sternly. 

"Anything but that. That's what started her. She couldn't stand it. She'll stick to Mercier all right, you'll see, because she isn't marriedto the swine; whereas if I took her back to-night she'd chuck meto-morrow. Can't you see that she's like that? She's done the best day'swork she ever did for herself and me, too. "

"Well, how you can speak about it so, Ranny, " said his mother. 

"There you're at it again, you know--pretendin'. You go on as if it wasthe most horrible thing that could happen to any one, her boltin', whenyou know the most horrible thing would be her comin' back again. To lookat you and Uncle and Aunt there, any one would think that Virelet wasthe best wife and mother that ever lived, and that she'd only left me togo to heaven. "

"Well, there's no good my saying any more, I can see, " said Mr. Randall. And he rose, buttoning his coat with dignity that struggled in vainagainst his deep depression. He was profoundly troubled by his nephew'soutburst. It was as if peace and honesty and honor, the solid, steadfast tradition by which he lived, had been first outraged, thendestroyed in sheer brutality. He didn't know himself. He had beencharged with untruthfulness and dishonesty; he, who had been held thesoul of honesty and truth; who had always held himself at least sincere. 

And he didn't know his nephew Randall. He had always supposed thatRandall was refined and that he had a good heart. And to think that hecould break out like this, and be coarse and cruel, and say thingsbefore ladies that were downright immoral--

"Well, " he said, as he shook hands with him, "I can't understand you, myboy. "

"Sorry, Uncle. "

"There--leave it alone. I don't ask you to apologize to me. But there'syour mother. You've done your best to hurt her. Good-by. "

"He's upset, John, " said Ranny's mother, "and no wonder. You should havelet him be. "

"I'm not upset, " said Ranny, wearily. "What beats me is the rottenhumbug of it all. "

And no sooner did Mr. Randall find himself in the High Street with hiswife than he took her by the arm in confidence. 

"He was quite right about that wife of his. Only I thought--if he couldhave patched it up--"

"Ah, I dare say he knows more than we do. What I can't get over is theway he spoke about his poor father. "

"Well--I wouldn't say it to Emma, but Fulleymore _does_ drink. Like afish he does. "

(It was his sacrifice to honesty. )

"But Randall was wild. He didn't quite know what he was saying. Poorchap! It's hit him harder than he thinks. "

 * * * * *

Ranny, alone with his mother, put his arm round her neck and kissed her. (She had gone into her room and returned dressed, ready to go back withhim to Southfields. )

"I'm sorry, Mother, if I hurt you. "

"Never mind, Ranny, I know how hurt you must have been before you coulddo it. It was what you said about your Father, dear. But there--you'vealways been good to him no matter what he's been. "

"Is he _very_ bad, Mother?"

"He is. I don't know, I'm sure, how I'm going to leave him; unless hecan manage with Mabel and Mr. Ponting. She's a good girl, Mabel. Andhe's got a kind heart, Ranny, that young man. "

"D'you think I haven't?"

"I wasn't meaning you, my dear. Come, I'm ready now. "

They went downstairs. Mrs. Ransome paused at the kitchen door to givesome final directions to Mabel, the maid, and a message for Mr. Ponting, the assistant; and they went out. 

As they were going down the High Street, her thoughts reverted toRanny's awful outburst. 

"Ranny, I wish you hadn't spoken to your uncle like you did. "

"I _know_, Mother--but he set my back up. He was talkin' through hisSunday hat all the time, pretendin' to stick up for Virelet, knowin'perfectly well what she is, and cussin' and swearin' at her for it inhis heart, and naggin' at me because there wasn't anybody else to gofor. "

"He was trying to help you, Ranny. "

"If God can't help me, strikes me it's pretty fair cheek of Uncle topresume--" He meditated. 

"But he wasn't tryin' to help me. He was thinkin' how he could help hisown damned respectability all the blessed time. He knows what a bloomin'hell it's been for Virelet and me this last year--and he'd have forcedus back into it--into all that misery--just to save his own silly skin. "

"No, dear, it isn't that. He doesn't think Vi'let should be let go onliving like she is if you can stop her. He thinks it isn't proper. "

"Well, that's what I say. It's his old blinkin', bletherin' moralityhe's takin' care of, not me. Everybody's got to live like he thinks theyought to, no matter how they hate it. If two Kilkenny cats he knew wasto get married and one of them was to bolt he'd fetch her back and tie'em both up, heads together, so as she shouldn't do it again. And ifthey clawed each other's guts out he wouldn't care. He'd say they werelivin' a nice, virtuous, respectable and moral life. 

"What rot it all is!

"Stop her? As if any one could stop her! God knows she can't stopherself, poor girl. She's made like that. I'm not blamin' her. "

For, with whatever wildness Ranny started, he always came back tothat--He didn't blame her. He knew whereof she was made. It was proof ofhis sudden, forced maturity, that unfaltering acceptance of the fact. 

"Talk of helpin'! Strikes me poor Vi's helpin' more than anybody, byclearin' out like she's done. "

That was how, with a final incomparable serenity, he made it out. 

But his mother took it all as so much wildness, the delirium, themadness, born of his calamity. 

"He'd have been all right if I'd been ass enough to play into his handsand gone blowin' me nose and grizzlin', and whinin' about my misfortune, and let _him_ go gassin' about the sadness of it and all that. Butbecause I kept my end up he went for me. 

"Sadness! He doesn't know what sadness is _or_ misfortune. 

"My God! If every poor beggar had the luck I've had--to be let offwithout having to pay for it!"

Up till then his mother had kept silence. She had let him rave. "Poorboy, " she had said to herself, "he doesn't mean it. It'll do him good. "

But when he talked about not having to pay for it, that reminded herthat paying for it was just what he would have to do. 

"How'll you manage, " she said now, "about the children? I can take themfor a week or two or more while you get settled. "

"Would you?"

It _was_ a way out for the present. 

"I'd take them altogether--I'd love to, Ranny--if it wasn't for yourFather bein' ill. "

In spite of the cataclysm, she still by sheer force of habit kept it up. 

"I don't want you to take them altogether, " he said. 

"I could do it--if you was to come with them--"

That, indeed, was what she wanted, the heavenly possibility she hadsighted from the first. But she had hardly dared to suggest it. Evennow, putting out her tremorous feeler, she shrank back from his refusal. 

"If you could let Granville--and come and live with us. "

His silence and his embarrassment pierced her to the heart. 

"Won't you?" she ventured. 

"Well--I've got to think of them. For them, in some ways, the poor oldHumming-bird might, you see, be almost as bad as Virelet. "

She knew. She had known it all the time. She had even got so far inknowledge as to see that Ranny's father was in a measure responsible forRanny's marriage. If Ranny had had more life, more freedom, and morehappiness around him in his home, he would not have been driven, as hewas, to Violet. 

"Well, dear, you just think it over. If you don't come you must getsomebody. "

Yes. He must get somebody. He had thought of that. 

"It can't be Winny Dymond, dear. "

"No, " he assented. "It can't be Winny Dymond. "

"And you'll have to come to me until I can find you some one. "

They left it so. After all, it made things easier, the method that hismother had brought to such perfection, her way of skating rapidly overbrittle surfaces, of circumnavigating all profound unpleasantness, andof plunging, when she did plunge, only into the vague, the void. 

And through it all he was aware of the brittleness, the unpleasantness, the profundity of what was immediately before him, how to deal with poorWinny and her innocent enormity; the impropriety, as it had beenpresented to him, of her devotion. 

But even this problem, so torturing to his nerves, was presently lostsight of in the simple, practical difficulty of detaching Winny from thechildren; or rather, of detaching the children from Winny, of tearing, as they had to tear, them from her, piecemeal, first Baby, then Dossie, with every circumstance of barbarous cruelty. 

It was a spectacle, an operation of such naked agony that before it themost persistent, the most incorruptible sense of propriety broke down. It was too much altogether for Mrs. Ransome. 

Dossie was the worst. She had strength in her little fingers, and sheclung. 

And the crying, the crying of the two, terrible to Ranny, terrible toWinny, the passionate screams, the strangled sobs, the long, irremediable wailing, the terrifying convulsive silences, the awfulintermissions and shattering recoveries of anguish--it was as if theirinnocence had insight, had premonition of the monstrous, imminentseparation, of the wrong that he and she were about to do to each otherin the name of such sanctities as innocence knows nothing of. Foroutrage and wrong it was to the holy primal instincts, drawing them, asit had drawn them long ago, seeking to bind them again, body and soul, breaking all other bonds; insult and violence to honest love, tofatherhood and motherhood, to the one (one and threefold) perfectionthat they could stand for, he and she. 

It ended by its sheer terror in Winny's staying just for that evening, to put the little things to sleep. For nobody else, not Ranny, and nothis mother, was able to do that. The dark design of their torturers wasto take these innocent ones by night, drugged with their sleep, and packthem in the pram, snugly blanketed, and thus convey them in secrecy toWandsworth, where, it was hoped, they would wake up, poor lambs, to amorning without memory. 

"Well--Winky, " he said. But it was not yet well. He had to stand by andsee Winky stoop over Baby's cot (it was her right) for the last look. 

She knew it was her last look, in that room--in that way that had beenthe way of innocence. 

"Well, I never!" said Ranny's mother, as he returned from seeing Winkyhome. (So much was permitted him. It was even imperative. )

"Did they ever cry like that for their Mammy?"

He smiled grimly. His illumination was more than he could bear. 

CHAPTER XXVI

It was in the cruelty of it, in that sudden barbarous tearing of thechildren from Winny, of Winny from Ransome, and of Ransome from hishome, in that hurried, surreptitious flight through the darkness, thathe most felt the pressure and the malignant pinch of poverty. Owing tohis straitened circumstances, with all his mother's forethought and goodwill, with all the combined resources of their ingenuity, they could dono better to meet his lamentable case than this. "This, " indeed, wasimperative, inevitable. He reflected bitterly that, if he had been arich man, like the manager or the secretary of Woolridge's, instead of aledger clerk (that was all that his last rise had made him) at a hundredand fifty a year, he would have been spared "this. " It would have beenneither inevitable nor imperative. It simply wouldn't have happened. Hewould have had a house with a staff of competent servants, a nurse forthe children, a cook, and maybe a housemaid to manage for him, and soforth. Winny wouldn't have come into it. It would never have occurred toher to run the risks she had run for him. There would have been no need. She would have remained, serene, beautiful in sympathy, outside hiscalamity, untouched by its sordidness, its taint. All the machinery ofhis household would have gone on in spite of it, without any hitch ordislocation, working all the more smoothly in the absence of itsmistress. 

That was how rich people came out of this sort of thing, right side up, smiling, knowing as they did that there was nothing to spoil the peaceof it for them, or make them apt to mistake it for anything but theblessing that it was. Thus they got, as you may say, the whole good outof it without any waste. At the worst, if they didn't like it, richpeople, driven to flight, depart from the scene of their disaster withdignity, in cabs. 

But Ranny's departure, with all its ignominy, was not by any means theworst. The worst, incomparably, was the going back on Monday evening tosettle up. There was a man coming from Wandsworth with a handcart forthe cots, the high chair and all the babies' furniture, and the kids'toys and the little clothes, their whole diminutive outfit, and for whathe needed of his own. And when all the packing was done he would stillhave to go into things. 

By the things he had to go into he meant the drawers and the cupboardsin his wife's room. 

And such things! It was as if the whole tale of her adultery, with allits secret infamy, its squalor, its utter callousness, was there in thatroom of the love-knots and the rosebuds. 

In the locked wardrobe--the key was on the chimney piece where he couldfind it--he came on her old skirts, draggled and torn and stained as hehad known them, on the muslin gown of last year, loathsome and limp, bent like a hanged corpse; and on her very nightgown of the other night, dreadfully familiar, shrinking, poor ghost of an abomination, in itscorner. And under them, in a row, the shoes that her feet had gone in, misshapen, trodden down at heel, gaping to deliver up her shame. 

These things Winny had collected and put away in order, and hidden outof his sight as best she could. Seeing, she too, the tale they told, shehad hung a sheet in front of them and locked the door on them and laidthe key aside, to break in some degree the shock of them. For they werethings that had been good enough for him, but not good enough forViolet's lover. She had gone to him in all her bravery, leaving thembehind, not caring who found them. 

And there was more to be gone through before he had finished with it. There were the drawers, crammed with little things, the collars, theribbons and the laces, and one or two trinkets that he had given her, cast off with the rest, all folded and tidied by Winny, smoothed andcoaxed out of the memories they held, the creases that betrayed theslattern; and with them, tucked away by Winny, defiled beyondredemption, almost beyond recognition, the sachet, smelling of violetsand with the word "Violet" sprawling all across it in embroidery. 

All these things, the dresses, the shoes, and the rest of them, hegathered up in handfuls and flung into an old trunk which he locked andpushed under the bed. 

Then he set his teeth and went on with his task. In the soiled linenbasket, among his own handkerchiefs as he counted them, he found onequeerly scented and of a strange, arresting pattern. It had the monogram"L. M. " stitched into the corner. She must have borrowed it from thebeast. Or else--the beast had been in the house and had left it there. 

That finished him. 

 * * * * *

Finished as he was in every sense, thoroughly instructed, furnished withdetails that fitted out and rounded off all that was vague andincomplete in his vision of the thing, he was still unprepared for thequestion with which his mother met him. 

"Have you told Mr. And Mrs. Usher?"

He hadn't. 

He had forgotten Mr. And Mrs. Usher, forgotten that this prolongation ofhis ordeal would be necessary. 

"Well, you'll have to. "

"Of course I'll have to. "

"Will you go and see him?"

"No. I--can't. I'll write. "

He wrote in the afternoon of the next day at Woolridge's, in theluncheon hour when he had the ledger clerks' pen to himself. He was verybrief. 

He received his father-in-law's reply by return. Mr. Usher made nocomment beyond an almost perfunctory expression of regret. But he saidthat he must see Randall. And, as the journey between Elstree andWandsworth was somewhat long to be undertaken after office hours, heproposed the "Bald-Faced Stag, " Edgware, as a convenient halfway housefor them to meet at, and Wednesday, at seven or thereabouts, as the dayand hour. Thus he allowed time for Randall to receive his letter and, ifnecessary, to answer it. No telegraphing for Mr. Usher, except in caseof death, actual or imminent. 

Ransome supposed that he would have to see him and get it over. Soonafter seven on Wednesday, then, Mr. Usher having ridden over on his marePolly and Ransome on his bicycle, they met in the parlor of the"Bald-Faced Stag, " Edgware. Mr. Usher's friend the landlord hadundertaken that they should not be disturbed. 

It was impossible for Ransome not to notice something queer about hisfather-in-law, something utterly unlike the bluff and genial presence hehad known. Mr. Usher seemed to have shrunk somehow and withered, so thatyou might have said the catastrophe had hit him hard, if that, his merebodily shrinkage, had been all. What struck Ransome as specially queerabout Mr. Usher was his manner and the expression of his face. You couldalmost have called it crafty. Guilty it was, too, consciously guilty, the furtive face of a man on the defensive, armed with all his littlecunning against a possible attack, having entrenched himself in theparlor of the "Bald-Faced Stag" as on neutral territory. 

"What say to a bit of supper, my boy, before we begin business?"

It was a false and feeble imitation of his old heartiness. 

Over a supper of cold ham and cheese and beer they discussed Ransome'sfather's health and his mother's health, and Mrs. Usher's health, whichwas poor, and Mr. Usher's prospects, which were poorer, not to say bad. He leaned on this point and returned to it, as if it might have apossible bearing on the matter actually in hand, and with a certaindisagreeable effect of craftiness and intention. It was as if he wishedto rub it in that whatever else Randall forgot, he wasn't to forget_that_, that he had nothing to look to, nothing to hope for in hisfather-in-law's prospects; as if he, Mr. Usher, had arranged thismeeting at the "Bald-Faced Stag" for the express purpose of making thatclear, of forestalling all possible misunderstanding. He kept it beforehim, with the cheese and beer, on the brown oil-cloth of the table fromwhich poor Randall found it increasingly difficult to lift his eyes. 

It was almost a relief to him when Mr. Usher pushed his plate away witha groan of satiety, and began. 

"Well, what's all this I hear about Virelet?"

Randall intimated that he had heard all there was. 

"Yes, but what's the meaning of it? That's what I want to know. "

Randall put it that its meaning was that it had simply happened, andsuggested that his father-in-law was in every bit as good a position forunderstanding it as he. 

"I dare say. But what I'm trying to get at is--did you do anything tomake it happen?"

"What on earth do you suppose I did?"

"There might be faults on both sides, though I don't say as there were. But did you do anything to prevent it? Tell me that. "

"What could I do? I didn't know it was going to happen. "

"You should have known. You was warned fair enough. "

"Was I? Who warned me, I should like to know?"

"Why, I did, and her mother did. Told you straight. Don't you go for tosay that I let you marry the girl under false pretenses, or her mothereither. I told you what sort Virelet was, straight as I could, withoutvilifying my own flesh and blood. Did you want me to tell youstraighter? Did you want me to put a name to it?"

His little eyes shot sidelong at Randall, out of his fallen, shrunkenfatness, more than ever crafty and intent. 

He was pitiful. Randall could have been sorry for him but that he showedhimself so mean. His little eyes gave him so villainously away. Theydisclosed the fullness of his knowledge; they said he had known thingsabout Violet; he had known them all the time, things that he, Randall, never knew. And he hadn't let on, not he. Why should he? He had been tooeager, poor man, to get Violet married. His eagerness, that had appearedas the hardy flower of his geniality, betrayed itself now as thesinister thing it was--when you thought of the name that he could havegiven her!

Randall did not blame him. He was past blaming anybody. He only said tohimself that this explained what had seemed so inexplicable--theattitude, the incredible attitude of Mr. And Mrs. Usher; how they hadleaped at him in all his glaring impossibility, an utter stranger, withno adequate income and no prospects; how they had hurried on themarriage past all prudence; how they had driven him on and fooled himand helped him to his folly. 

But he was not going to let them fool him any more. 

"Look here, Mr. Usher, I don't know what your game is and I don't care. I dare say you _think_ you told me what you say you did. But youdidn't. You didn't tell me anything--not one blessed thing. And if youhad it wouldn't have done any good. I wouldn't have believed you. Youneedn't reproach yourself. I was mad on Virelet. I meant to marry herand I did marry her. That's all. "

"Well, " said Mr. Usher, partially abandoning his position, "so long asyou don't hold me responsible--"

"Of course, I don't hold you responsible. "

"I'm sure me and the Missis we've done what we could to make it easierfor you. "

He gazed before him, conjuring up between them a quiet vision of thelong procession of hampers, a reminder to Randall of how deeply, as itwas, he stood indebted. 

"And we can't do no more. That's how it is. No more we can't do. "

"I'm not asking you to do anything. What do you _want_?"

"I want to know what you're going to do, my boy. "

"Do?"

"Yes, do. "

"About what?"

"About Virelet. Talk of responsibility, you took it on yourself contraryto the warnings what you had, when you married her. And having taken ityou ought to have looked after her. Knowing what she is you ought tohave looked after her better than you've done. "

"How _could_ I have looked after her?"

"How? Why, as any other man would. You should have made her work, workwith her 'ands, as I told you, 'stead of giving her her head, like youdid, and lettin' her sit bone-idle in that gimcrack doll-house of yoursfrom morning till night. Why, you should have taken a stick to her. There's many a man as would, before he'd 'a' let it come to that. Damnme if I know why you didn't. "

"Well, really, Mr. Usher, I suppose I couldn't forget she was a woman. "

"Woman? Woman? I'd 'a' womaned 'er! Look 'ere, my boy, it's a sadbusiness, and there's no one sorrier for you than I am, but there's nogood you and me broodin' mournful over what she's done. Course she'd doit, 's long's you let her. You hadn't ought to 'ave let 'er. And seein'as how you have, seems to me what you've got to do now is to take herback again. "

"I can't take her back again. "

"And why not?"

"Because of the children--for one thing. "

That argument had its crushing effect on Mr. Usher. It made him pause aperceptible moment before he answered. 

"Well--you needn't look to me and her mother to 'ave her--"

Randall rose, as much as to say that this was enough; it was too much;it was the end. 

"We've done with her. You took her out of our 'ands what 'ad a hold onher, and you owe it to her mother and me to take her back. "

"If that's all you've got to say, Mr. Usher--"

"It isn't all I've got to say. What I got to say is this. Before you wasmarried, Randall, I don't mind telling you now, my girl was a bit tooclose about you for my fancy. I've never rightly understood how you twocame together. "

There, as they fixed him, his little eyes took on their craftiness againand his mouth a smile, a smile of sensual tolerance and understanding, as between one man of the world and another. 

"I don't know, and I don't want to know. But however it was--I'm notaskin', mind you--however it was"--He was all solemn now--"you madeyourself responsible for that girl. And responsible you will be held. "

It may have been that Mr. Usher drew a bow at a venture; it may havebeen that he really knew, that he had always known. Anyhow, that laststroke of his was, in its way, consummate. It made it impossible forRandall to hit back effectively; impossible for him to say now, if hehad wished to say it, that he had not been warned (for it seemed toimply that if Mr. Usher's suspicions were correct, Randall had had anall-sufficient warning); impossible for him to maintain, as against afather whom he, upon the supposition, had profoundly injured, anattitude of superior injury. If Mr. Usher had deceived Randall, hadn'tRandall, in the first instance, deceived Mr. Usher? In short, it leftthem quits. It closed Randall's mouth, and with it the discussion, andso that the balance as between them leaned if anything to Mr. Usher'sside. 

"Well, I'm sorry for you, Randall. "

As if he could afford it now, Mr. Usher permitted himself a return togeniality. He paused in the doorway. 

"If at any time you should want a hamper, you've only got to say so. "

And Randall did not blame him. He said to himself: "Poor old thing. It'sfunk--pure funk. He's afraid he may have to take her back himself. Andwho could blame him?"

Funny that his father-in-law should have taken the same line as hisUncle Randall. Only, whereas his Uncle Randall had reckoned with thealternative of divorce, his father-in-law had not so much as hinted atthe possibility. 

 * * * * *

It was almost as if Mr. Usher had had a glimpse of what was to come whenhe had been in such haste, haste that had seemed in the circumstanceshardly decent, to saddle Ransome with the responsibility. 

For, if Ransome had really thought that Violet was going to let him offwithout his paying for it, the weeks that followed brought him proofmore than sufficient of his error. He had sown to the winds in therecklessness of his marriage and of his housekeeping, and he reaped thewhirlwind in Violet's bills that autumn shot into the letter box atGranville. 

He called there every other day for letters; for he was not yetprepared, definitely, to abandon Granville. 

The bills, when he had gathered them all in, amounted in their awfultotal to twenty pounds odd, a sum that exceeded his worst dreams ofViolet's possible expenditure. He had realized, in the late summer andautumn of last year, before the period of compulsory retirement had setin, that his wife was beginning to cost him more than she had ever done, more than any woman of his class, so far as he knew, would have dreamedof costing; and this summer, no sooner had she emerged triumphantthan--with two children now to provide for--she had launched out upon ascale that fairly terrified him. But all her past extravagance didnothing to prepare him for the extent to which, as he expressed it, shecould "go it, " when she had, as you might say, an incentive. 

The most astounding of the bills his whirlwind swept him was the billfrom Starker's--from Oxford Street, if you please--and the bill (sent inwith a cynical promptitude) from the chemist in Acacia Avenue at thecorner. That, the chemist's, was in a way the worst. It was for scent, for toilette articles, strange yet familiar to him from their presencein his father's shop, for all manner of cosmetics, for things sooutrageous, so unnecessary, that they witnessed chiefly to the shiftsshe had been put to, to her anxieties and hastes, to the feverishmultiplication of pretexts and occasions. Still, they amounted but to afew pounds and an odd shilling or two. Starker's bill did the rest. 

That, the high, resplendent "cheek" of it, showed what she was capableof; it gave him the measure of her father's "funk, " for, of not one ofthe items, from the three-guinea costumes (there were several of them)down to the dozen of openwork Lisle-thread hose at two and eleven thepair, had Ransome so much as suspected the existence. The three-guineacostumes he could understand. It was the three nightgowns, trimmed lace, at thirteen, fifteen, and sixteen shillings apiece, that took his breathaway, as with a vision of her purposes. Still, to him, her husband, Starker's statement of account represented directly, with the perfectionof business precision, the cost of getting rid of her; it was so simplyand openly the cost of her outfit, of all that she had trailed with herin her flight. 

Yet, as he grasped it, he saw with that mature comprehension which wasnow his, that, awful as it was, that total of twenty pounds oddrepresented, perfectly, the price of peace. It was open to him torepudiate his wife's debts, in which case she would appear in the CountyCourt, which, with its effect of publicity, with the things that wouldbe certain to come out there, was almost as bad as the Divorce Court. Then the unfortunate tradespeople would not be paid, a result of herconduct which was intolerable to Ranny's decency. Besides, he wanted tobe rather more than decent, to be handsome, in his squaring of accountswith the woman whom, after all, in the beginning he had wronged. Hecould even reflect with a humor surviving all calamity, that thoughtwenty-odd pounds was a devil of a lot to pay, his deliverance wascheap, dirt cheap, at the money. 

But that was not all. There was Granville. 

He hated Granville. He could not believe how he ever could have lovedit. The fact that he was gradually becoming his own landlord only madethings worse. It gave Granville a malignant power over him, that powerwhich he had once or twice suspected, the power to round on him andinjure him and pay him back. He knew he was partly responsible forGranville's degradation. He had done nothing for this property of his. He had not given it a distinctive character; he had not covered it withcreepers or painted it green or built a balcony. He had left it toitself. 

He asked himself what it would look like in seventeen years' time whenit would be his. In seventeen years' time he would be forty-two. Whatgood would he be then? And what good would Granville be to him? Whatgood was it now? In its malignancy it demanded large sums to keep itgoing and if it didn't get them it knew how to avenge itself. Slowlyperishing, it would fall to dust in seventeen years' time when it cameinto his hands. 

 * * * * *

But he had not dreamed of the extent to which Granville could put on thescrew. 

He was enlightened by the agent of the Estate Company to which Granvilleowed its being. The agent, after a thorough inspection of the premises, broke it to Ransome that if he did not wish to lose Granville, he wouldhave to undertake certain necessary repairs, the estimate for whichsoared to the gay tune of ten pounds eight shillings and eightpence. Itwas the state of the roof, of the southwest wall, and of the scullerydrain that most shocked the agent. Of the scullery drain he could hardlybring himself to speak, remarking only that a little washing down fromtime to time with soda would have saved it all. The state of that drainwas a fair disgrace; and it was not a thing of days; it dated frommonths back--years, he shouldn't be surprised. It was fit to breed afever. 

Of course, it wasn't quite as bad as the agent had made out. But Ranny, knowing Violet, believed him. It gave him a feeling of immenseresponsibility toward Granville, and the Estate Company, and the agent. 

Finally, owing to Violet's reckless management, his debts to the grocer, the butcher, and the milkman had reached the considerable total of ninepounds eighteen shillings and eleven pence. It would take about fortypounds odd to clear his obligations. 

The question was how on earth was he to raise the money? Out of a salaryof twelve pounds a month?

He would have to borrow it. But from whom? Not from his father. Towhatever height his mother kept it up, she could not conceal from himthat his father was in difficulties. Wandsworth was going ahead, caughtby the tide of progress. The new Drug Stores over the way were drawingall the business from Fulleymore Ransome's little shop. Even with theassistance of the young man, Mr. Ponting, Fulleymore Ransome was not ina state to hold his own. But John Randall, the draper, if you like, wasprosperous. He might be willing, Ransome thought, to lend him the money, or a part of it, at a fair rate of interest. 

And John Randall indeed lent him thirty pounds; but not willingly. Hisreluctance, however, was sufficiently explained by the fact that he hadrecently advanced more than that sum to Fulleymore. He was careful topoint out to Randall that he was helping him to meet only thosecatastrophes which might be regarded as the act of God--Violet's billsand the deterioration of Granville. He was as anxious as Randall himselfto prevent Violet's appearance in the County Court, and he certainlythought it was a pity that good house property should go out of hisnephew's hands. But he refused flatly to advance the ten pounds for theweekly arrears, in order to teach Randall a lesson, to make him feelthat he had some responsibility, and to show that there was a limit towhat he, John Randall, was prepared to do. 

For days Ransome went distracted. The ten pounds still owing was like amillstone round his neck. If he didn't look sharp and pay up _he_ wouldbe County-Courted too. He couldn't come down on his father-in-law. Hisfather-in-law would tell him that he had already received the equivalentof ten pounds in hampers. There was nobody he _could_ come down on. Sohe called at a place he had heard of in Shaftesbury Avenue, where therewas a "josser" who arranged it for him quite simply by means of a billof sale upon his furniture. After all, he did get some good out of thatfurniture. 

And he got some good, too, out of Granville when he let it to Fred Bootyfor fifteen shillings a week. 

He was now established definitely in his father's house. The young manMr. Ponting had shown how kind his heart was by turning out of his niceroom on the second floor into Ranny's old attic. The little back room, used for storage, served also as a day nursery for Ranny's children. Sixdays in the week a little girl came in to mind them. At night Rannyminded them where they lay in their cots by his bed. 

It was all that could be done; and with the little girl's board and thechildren's and his own breakfast and supper and his Sunday dinner, itcost him thirty shillings a week. There was no way in which it could bedone for less, since it was not in him to take advantage of hismother's offer to let him have the rooms rent free. 

 * * * * *

And underneath Ranny's rooms, between the bedroom at the back and theback parlor, between the parlor and the shop, between the shop and thedispensing-room, Fulleymore Ransome dragged himself to and fro, morethan ever weedy, more than ever morose, more than ever sublime in hisappearance of integrity; and with it all so irritable that Ranny'schildren had to be kept out of his way. He would snarl when he heardthem overhead; he would scowl horribly when he came across the "pram, "pushed by the little girl, in its necessary progress through the shopinto the street and back again. 

But at Ranny he neither snarled nor scowled, nor had he spoken any wordto him on the subject of the great calamity. No reproach, no reminder ofwarnings given, none of that reiterated, "I told you so, " in which, Ranny reflected, he might have taken it out of him. He also seemed toregard his son Randall as one smitten by God and afflicted, to whosehigh and sacred suffering silence was the appropriate tribute. His verymoroseness provided the sanctuary of silence. 

And all the time he drank; he drank worse than ever; furtively, continuously he drank. Nobody could stop him, for nobody ever saw himdoing it. He did it, they could only suppose, behind Mr. Ponting's backin the dispensing-room. 

They were free to suppose anything now; for, since Ranny's greatdelivering outburst, they could discuss it; and in discussion theyfound relief. Ranny's mother owned as much. She had suffered (that alsoshe owned) from the strain of keeping it up. Ranny's outburst had savedher, vicariously. It was as if she had burst out herself. 

There were, of course, lengths to which she would never go, admissionswhich she could not bring herself to make. There had to be somesubterfuge, some poor last shelter for her pride. And so, of thedepression in Fulleymore's business she would say before Mr. Ponting, "It's those Drug Stores that are ruining him, " and Mr. Ponting wouldreply, gravely, "They'd ruin anybody. "

Mr. Ponting was a fresh-colored young man and good-looking, with hisblue eyes and his yellow hair sleeked backward like folded wings, sodifferent from Mercier. Mr. Ponting had conceived an affection for Rannyand the children. He would find excuses to go up to the storeroom, wherehe would pretend to be looking for things while he was really playingwith Dossie. He would sit on Ranny's bed while Ranny was undressing, andtogether they would consider, piously, the grave case of theHumming-bird, and how, between them, they could best "keep him off it. "

"It's the dispensary spirits that he gets at, " Mr. Ponting said. "That'sthe trouble. "

(And it always had been. )

"The queer thing is, " said Ranny, "that you never fairly see him tight. Not to speak of. "

"That's the worst of it, " said Mr. Ponting. "I wish I _could_ see yourfather tight--tumbling about a bit, I mean, and being funny. The beastlystuff's going for him inside, all the time--undermining him. Thereisn't an organ, " said Mr. Ponting, solemnly, "in your father's body thatit hasn't gone for. "

"How d'you know?"

"Why, by the medicines he takes. He's giving himself strophanthus now, for his heart. "

"I say--d'you think my mother knows that?"

"It's impossible to say what your mother knows. More than she lets on, Ishouldn't be surprised. "

Mr. Ponting pondered. 

"It's wonderful how he keeps it up. His dignity, I mean. "

"It's rum, isn't it?" said Ranny. He was apparently absorbed in tyingthe strings of his sleeping-suit into loops of absolutely even length. "But he always _was_ that mysterious kind of bird. "

He began to step slowly backward as he buttoned up his jacket. Then, byway of throwing off the care that oppressed him, and lightening somewhatMr. Ponting's burden, he ran forward and took a flying leap over theBaby's cot into his own bed. 

Mr. Ponting looked, if anything, a little graver. "I wouldn't do that, if I were you, " he said. 

"Why not?" said Ranny over his blankets, snuggling comfortably. 

"Oh, I don't know, " said Mr. Ponting, vaguely. 

In a day or two Ranny himself knew. 

His arrangements had carried him well on into October. In the last weekof that month, on a Tuesday evening, he appeared at the Regent StreetPolytechnic, where he had not been seen since far back in the last year. It was not at the Gymnasium that he now presented himself, but at thedoor of that room where every Tuesday evening, from seven-thirty toeight-thirty, a qualified practitioner was in attendance. 

It was the first time that Ransome had availed himself of this privilegeconferred on him by the Poly. 

He said he wouldn't keep the medical man a minute. 

But the medical man kept Ranny many minutes, thumping, sounding, intimately and extensively overhauling him. For more minutes than Rannyat all liked, he played about him with a stethoscope. Then he fired offwhat Ranny supposed to be the usual questions. 

"Had any shock, worry, or excitement lately?

"Been overdoing it in any way?

"Gone in much for athletics?"

Ranny replied with regret that it was more than three years since he hadlast run in the Wandsworth Hurdle Race. 

He was then told that he must avoid all shock, worry, or excitement. Hemustn't overdo it. He must drop his hurdle-racing. He mustn't bicycleuphill, or against the wind; he mustn't jump; he mustn't run--

"Not even to catch a train?"

"Not to catch anything. "

And the doctor gave him a prescription that ran:

/P Sodæ Bicarb. , one dram. Tinct. Strophanthi, two drams--P/

He remembered. That was the stuff he'd measured for old Mr. Beasley'sheart mixture. It was the stuff that Ponting said his father was takingnow. 

If any one had told him three years ago that his heart was rocky he'dhave told them where to go to. It had been as sound as a bell when heentered for the Poly. Gym. 

Well, he supposed that was about the finishing touch--if they wanted todo the thing in style. 

He went slowly over Wandsworth Bridge and up the High Street, dejected, under the autumn moon that had once watched his glad sprinting. 

CHAPTER XXVII

And in all this time he had not heard again from Violet, nor had hewritten to her. 

Then--it was in the first week of November--Violet wrote. 

She wrote imploring him to set her free. It was rooted in her, the fearthat he would compel her to come back, that he had the power to makeher. She wanted (he seemed to see it) to feel safe from him forever. Leonard had promised to marry her if she were free. She intimated thatLeonard was everything that was generous and honorable. She wanted (shewho had abused him so for having married her), she wanted to marryMercier, to have a hold on him and be safe. Marriage was her idea ofsafety now. 

She went on to say that if he would consent to divorce her, it would bemade easy for him, she would not defend the suit. 

That meant--he puzzled it out--that meant that it would lie between thetwo of them. Nobody else would be dragged into it. Winny's name wouldnot by any possibility be dragged in. Violet would have no use forWinny, since she was not going to defend the suit. She might--at theworst--have to appear as witness, if the evidence of Violet's letters(her own admission) was not sufficient. It looked as if it would besimple enough. Why should he not release her? He had no business not togive her the chance to marry Mercier, to regulate the relation, if thatwas what she wanted. 

It was his own chance, too, his one chance. He would be a fool not totake it. 

And as it came over him in its fullness, all that it meant and would yetmean, Ranny felt his heart thumping and bounding, dangerously, in itsweakened state. 

On a Wednesday evening in November, he presented himself once more atthe Regent Street Polytechnic and at the door of an office where, onWednesday evenings, an experienced legal adviser held himself inreadiness to give advice, that legal adviser who had been the jest ofhis adolescence, whose services he had not conceived it possible that heshould require. 

He had a curiously uplifting sense of the gravity and impressiveness ofthe business upon which at last, inconceivably, he came. But this oddelation was controlled and finally overpowered by disgust and shame, asone by one, under the kind but acute examination of the legal man, hebrought out for his inspection the atrocious details. And he had to showViolet's letter of September, the document, supremely valuable, supremely infamous, supported by the further communication of November. The keen man asked him, as his uncle and his father-in-law had asked, ifhe had given any provocation, any cause for jealousy, misunderstanding, or the like? Had his own conduct been irreproachable? When all this partof it was over, settled to the keen man's satisfaction, Ranny was toldthat there was little doubt that he could get his divorce if--that wasthe question--he could afford to pay. Divorce was, yes, it was a costlymatter, almost, you might say, the luxury of the rich. A matter, forhim, probably of forty or fifty pounds--well, say, thirty, when you'dcut expenses down to the very lowest limit. Could he, the keen butkindly man inquired, afford thirty?

No, he couldn't. He couldn't afford twenty even. With all his existingdebts upon him he couldn't now raise ten. 

He asked whether he could get his divorce if he put it off a bit untilhe could afford it?

The legal man looked grave. 

"Well--yes. If you can show poverty--"

Ranny thought he could undertake to show _that_ all right. 

At the legal man's suggestion he wrote a letter to his wife assuring herthat it was impossible for her to desire a divorce more than he did;that he meant to bring an action at the very moment when he could affordit, pointing out to her that her debts which he had paid had not madethis any easier for him; that in the meanwhile she need not be anxious;that he would not follow her or molest her in any way; and that in nocircumstances would he take her back. 

And now Ranny's soul and all his energy were set upon the one aim ofraising money for his divorce. It was impossible to lay his hands uponthat money all at once. He could not do it this year, nor yet the next, for his expenses and his debts together exceeded the amount of hisincome; but gradually, by pinching and scraping, it might be doneperhaps in two or three years' time. 

His chief trouble was that in all these weeks he had seen nothing ofWinny. He had called twice at the side door of Johnson's, but they hadtold him that she was not in; and, hampered as he was with the children, he had not had time to call again. Besides, he knew he had to becareful, and Winny knew it too. That, of course, would always help him, her perception of the necessity for care. There were ways of managingthese things, but they required his mother's or his friends'co-operation; and so far Mrs. Ransome had shown no disposition toco-operate. Winny was not likely to present herself at Wandsworthwithout encouragement, and she had apparently declined to lend herselfto any scheme of Maudie's or of Fred Booty's. With Winny lying low therewas nothing left for him but the way he shrank from, of persistent andunsolicited pursuit. 

November passed and they were in December, and he had not seen her. After having recovered somewhat under the influence of the drugstrophanthus, he now became depressed, listless, easily fatigued. 

Up till now there had been something not altogether disagreeable to Mrs. Ransome in the misfortunes of her son. They had brought him back to her. But he had not wanted to come back; and now she wondered whether she haddone well to make him come, whether (after all he had gone through) itwas not too much for him, realizing as he did his father's awful state. It had gone so far, Mr. Ransome's state, that there was no way in whichit could be taken lightly. 

And she was depressed herself, perceiving it. Mr. Ransome's state madehim unfit for business now, unfit to appear in the shop, above allunfit for the dispensary. Fit only to crawl from room to room andtrouble them with the sad state of his peaked and peevish face. Herequired watching. He himself recognized that in his handling of trickydrugs there was a danger. The business was getting out of hand. It wassmall and growing smaller every month, yet it was too much for Mr. Ponting to cope with unassisted. They were living, all three of them, ina state of tension most fretting to the nerves. 

The whole house fairly vibrated with it. It was as if the fearfulinstability of Mr. Ransome's nervous system communicated itself toeverybody around him. At the cry or the sudden patter of Ranny'schildren overhead, Mr. Ransome would be set quivering and shaking, andthis disturbance of his reverberated. Ranny set his teeth and sat tightand "stuck it"; but he felt the shattering effect of it all the same. 

And the children felt it too, subtly, insidiously. Dossie becamepeevish, easily frightened; she was neither so good nor so happy withher Granny and the little girl as she had been with Winny. Baby criedoftener. Ranny sometimes would be up half the night with him. 

All this Mrs. Ransome saw and grieved over and was powerless to help. 

In Christmas week the state of Mr. Ransome became terrible, not to beborne. Ranny was working hard at the counting-house; he was worn out, and he looked it. 

The sight of him, so changed, broke Mrs. Ransome down. 

"Ranny, " she said, "I wish you'd get away somewhere for Christmas. Meand Mabel'll look after the children. You go. "

He said there wasn't anywhere he cared to go to. 

"Well--is there anything you'd like to do?"

"To do?"

"For Christmas, dear. To make it not so sad like. Is there anybody, " shesaid, "you'd like to ask?"

No, there wasn't. At any rate, if there was he wouldn't ask them. Itwouldn't be exactly what you'd call fun for them, with the poor oldHumming-bird making faces at them all the time. 

His mother looked at him shrewdly and said nothing. But she sat down andwrote a letter to Winny Dymond, asking her to come and spend ChristmasDay with them, if, said Mrs. Ransome, she hadn't anywhere better to goto and didn't mind a sad house. 

And Winny came. She hadn't anywhere better to go to, and she didn't minda sad house in the least. 

They wondered, Ranny and his mother, how they were ever going to breakit to the Humming-bird. 

"Your Father won't like it, Ranny. He's not fit for it. He'll think usheartless, having strangers in the house when he's suffering so. "

But Mr. Ransome, when asked if he was fit for it, replied astoundinglythat he was fit enough if it would make Randall any happier. 

It did. It made him so happy that his recovery dated from that moment. He had only one fear, that Dossie would have forgotten Winky. 

But Dossie hadn't, though after two months of Wandsworth she hadforgotten many things, and had cultivated reserve. When Ranny said, "Who's this, Dossie?" she tucked her head into her shoulder and smiledshyly and said, "Winty. " But they had to pretend that Baby remembered, too. He hadn't really got what you would call a memory. 

And, after all, it was Ranny (Winny said to herself) who rememberedmost. For he gave her for a Christmas present, not only a beautifulwhite satin "sashy, " scented with lavender (lavender, not violets, thistime), but a wonderful hot-water bag with a shaggy red coat that madeyou warm to look at it. 

"Ranny! Fancy you remembering that I had cold feet!"

That night he went home with her to Johnson's side door, carrying thesachet and the hot-water bag and the things his mother had given her. 

Upstairs, in the attic she shared with three other young ladies, thefirst thing Winny did was to turn to the Cookery Book she had bought ayear ago and read the directions: "How to Preserve Hot-Water Bags"--topreserve them forever. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

Thus nineteen-seven, that dreadful year, rolled over intonineteen-eight. By nineteen-ten, at the very latest, Ransome looked toget his divorce. He had no doubt that he could do it, for he found itfar less expensive to live with his mother at Wandsworth than withViolet at Granville. He knew exactly where he was, he had not to allowso considerably for the unforeseen. His income had a margin out of whichhe saved. To make this margin wider he pinched, he scraped, he went asshabby as he dared, he left off smoking, he renounced his afternoon cupof tea and reduced the necessary dinner at his A B C shop to its verysimplest terms. 

The two years passed. 

By January, nineteen-ten, he had only paid off what he already owed. Hehad not raised the thirty pounds required for his divorce. Indomitable, but somewhat desperate, he applied to his Uncle Randall for a secondloan at the same interest. He did not conceal from him that divorce washis object. He put it to him that his mind was made up unalterably, andthat since the thing had got to be, sooner or later, it was better foreverybody's sake that it should be sooner. 

But Mr. Randall was inexorable. He refused, flatly, to lend his moneyfor a purpose that he persisted in regarding as iniquitous. Even if hehad not advanced a further sum to young Randall's father, he was notgoing to help young Randall through the Divorce Court, stirring all thatmud again. Not he. 

"You should wash your dirty linen at home, " he said. 

"You mean keep it there and never wash it. That's what it comes to, "said young Randall, furiously. 

"It's been kept. And everybody's forgotten that it's there by this time. Why rake it up again?" said his Uncle Randall. 

And there was no making him see why. There was no making any of themsee. Mrs. Ransome wouldn't hear of the divorce. "It'll kill your Father, Ranny, " she said, and stuck to it. 

And Ranny set his mouth hard and said nothing. He calculated that if heput by twelve shillings a week for twenty-five weeks that would befifteen pounds. He could borrow the other fifteen in Shaftesbury Avenueas he had done before, and in six months he would be filing hispetition. 

As soon as he was ready to file it he would tell Winny he cared for her. He would ask her to be his wife. 

He had not told any of them about Winny. But they knew. They knew andyet they had no pity on him, nor yet on her. When he thought of it Rannyset his face harder. 

 * * * * *

Yet Winny came and went, untroubled and apparently unconscious. She wasnot only allowed to come and go at Wandsworth as she had come and goneat Granville, by right of her enduring competence; she was desired andimplored to come. For if she had (and Mrs. Ransome owned it) a "way"with the children, she had also a way with Mrs. Ransome, and with Mr. Ransome. The Humming-bird, growing weedier and weaker, revived in herpresence; he relaxed a little of his moroseness and austerity. "I don'tknow how it is, " said Ranny's mother, "but your Father takes to her. Helikes to see her about. "

Saturday afternoons, and Sundays, and late evenings in summer were hertimes, so that of necessity she and Ranny met. 

Not that they pleaded necessity for meeting. Since his awfulenlightenment and maturity, Ransome had never thought of pleadinganything; for he did not hold himself accountable to anybody or requireanybody to tell him what was decent and what wasn't. And Winny was likehim. He couldn't imagine Winny driven to plead. She had gone her own waywithout troubling her head about what people thought of her, withoutthinking very much about herself. As long as she was sure he wanted her, she would be there, where he was. He felt rather than knew that shewaited for him, and would wait for him through interminable years, untroubled as to her peace, profoundly pure. He was not even certainthat she was aware that she was waiting and that he waited too. 

 * * * * *

In the spring of nineteen-ten it looked as if they would not have verylong to wait. He had measured his resources with such accuracy that byJune, if all went well, he could set about filing his petition. 

And now, seeing the thing so near and yet not accomplished, Ranny'snerve went. He began to be afraid, childishly and ridiculously afraid, of something happening to prevent it. He had a clear and precise idea ofthat something. He would die before he could file his petition, beforehe could get his divorce and marry Winny. His heart to be sure wasbetter; but at any moment it might get worse. It might get like hisfather's. It might stop altogether. He thought of it as he had neverthought of it before. He humored it. He never ran. He never jumped. Henever rode uphill on his bicycle. He thought twice before hurrying foranything. 

Against these things he could protect himself. 

But who could protect him against excitement and worry and anxiety? Why, this fear that he had was itself the worst thing for him imaginable. Andthen worry. He _had_ to worry. You couldn't look on and see the poor oldHumming-bird going from bad to worse, you couldn't see everybody elseworrying about him, and not worry too. He would go away and forget aboutit for a time, and when he came back again the terrible and intolerablething was there. 

And at the heart of the trouble there was a still more terrible andintolerable peace. It was as if Mr. Ransome had made strange terms withthe youth and joy and innocent life that had once roused him to suchprofound resentment and disgust. His vindictive ubiquity had ceased. When the spring came he could no longer drag himself up and down stairs. His feet and legs were swollen; they were like enormous weightsattached to his pitifully weedy body. His skin had the sallowsmoothness, the waxen substance that marked the deadly, unmistakableprogress of his disease. He could not always lie down in his bed. Sometimes he lived, day and night, motionless in his invalid's chair, with his legs propped before him on a footrest. He would sit for hoursstaring at them in lamentable contemplation. He could measure his spanof life from day to day as the swelling rose or sank. On his good daysthey wheeled him from his bedroom at the back to the front sitting-room. 

And through it all, as by some miracle, he preserved his air ofsuffering integrity. 

It was quite plain to Ranny that his father could not live long. And ifhe died? Even in his pity and his grief Ranny could not help wonderingwhether, if his father died any time that year, it would not make adifference, whether it would not, perhaps, at the last moment preventhis marrying?

Partly in defiance of this fear, partly by way of committing himselfirretrievably, he resolved to speak to Winny. He desired to beirretrievably committed, so that, whatever happened, decency alone wouldprevent him from drawing back. Though he could not in as many words askWinny to marry him before he was actually free, there were things thatcould be said, and he saw no earthly reason why he should not say them. 

For this purpose he chose, in sheer decency, one of his father's gooddays which happened to be a fine, warm one in May and a Saturday. He hadarranged with Winny beforehand that she should come over as early aspossible in the afternoon and stay for tea. He now suggested that, asthis Saturday was such a Saturday as they might never see again, itwould be a good plan if they were to go somewhere together. 

"Where?" said Winny. 

Wherever she liked, he said, provided it was somewhere where they'dnever been before. And Winny, trying to think of something not tooexpensive, said, "How about the tram to Putney Heath?"

"Putney Heath, " Ranny said, "be blowed!"

"Well, then--how about Hampton Court or Kew?"

But he was "on to" her. "Rot!" he said. "You've been there. "

"Well--" Obviously she was meditating something equally absurd. 

"What d'you say to Windsor?"

But Winny absolutely refused to go to Windsor. She said there was oneplace she'd never been to, and that was Golder's Hill. You could get teathere. 

"Right--O!" said Ranny. "We'll go to Golder's Hill. "

"And take the children, " Winny said. 

Well, no, he rather thought he'd leave the kids behind for once. 

"Oh, Ranny!" Voice and eyes reproached him. "You couldn't! You may neverget a day like this again. "

"I know. That's why, " said Ranny. 

The kids, Stanley, aged three, and Dossie, aged five, understandingperfectly well that they were being thrown over, began to cry. 

"Daddy, take _me_--take _me_, " sobbed Dossie. 

"And me!" Stanley positively screamed it. 

"I say, you know, if they're going to howl, " said Ranny. 

"You _must_--"

"That's it, I mustn't. They can't have everything they choose to howlfor. "

"There, " said Winny. "See! Daddy can't take you if you cry. He can't, really. "

(She had gone--perfidious Winny!--to the drawer where she knew Stanley'sclean suit was. Stanley knew it too. )

The children stopped crying as by magic. With eyes where pathos andresentment mingled they gazed at their incredible father. Tears, largecrystal tears, hung on the flame-red crests of their hot cheeks. 

Winny turned before she actually opened the drawer. 

"Who wants, " said she, "to go with Daddy?"

"Me, " said Dossie. 

"Me, " said Stanley. 

"Well, then, give Daddy a kiss and ask him nicely. Then perhaps he'lltake you. "

And they did, and he had to take them. But it was mean, it wastreacherous of Winny. 

"What did you do that for, Winky?" he said, going over to her where sherummaged in the drawer. 

"Because, " she said, "you promised. "

"Promised what?"

"Promised you'd take them. Promised Stanny he should wear his knickers. They told me you'd promised. "

And he had. 

"I forgot, " he said. 

"_They'd_ never have forgotten. "

She was holding them, the ridiculous knickers, to the nursery fire. 

It took ten minutes to get Stanley into them, into the little blue linenknickers he had never worn before, and into his tight little whitejersey; and then there was Dossie and her wonderful rig-out, the clean, white frock and the serge jacket of turquoise blue and the tiny mushroomhat with the white ribbon. It took five minutes more to find Stanley'shat, the little soft hat of white felt, in which he was so adorable. They found it on Ranny's bed, and then they started. 

It was a great, an immense adventure, right away to the other side ofLondon. 

"We'll take everything we can, " said Ranny. And they did. They took themotor bus to Earl's Court Tube Station, and the Tube (two Tubes they hadto take) to Golder's Green. The adventure began in the first lift. 

"Where we goin'?" the children cried. "Where we goin', Daddy?"

"We're going down--down--ever so far down, with London on the top ofus--All the horses"--Winny worked the excitement up and up--"All thepeople--All the motor buses on the top of us--"

"On top of me?"

"And on me?" cried Dossie. "And on Daddy and on Winky?"

"Will it make us _dead_?" said Stanley. He was thrilled at the prospect. 

"No. More alive than ever. We shall come rushing out, like bunnyrabbits, into the country on the other side. "

Ever so far down into the earth they went, with London, and then CamdenTown, and then Hampstead Heath--a great big high hill--right on the topof them; and then, all of a sudden, just as Winny had said, they camerushing out, more alive than ever, into the country, into the greenfields. 

But there was something wrong with Ranny. He wasn't like himself. Hewasn't excited or amused or interested in anything. He looked as if hewere trying not to hear what Winny was saying to the children. He wasabstracted. He went like a man in a dream. He behaved almost as if hewanted to show that he didn't really belong to them. 

Of course, he did all the proper things. He carried his little son. Helifted him and Dossie in and out of the trains as if they had beenparcels labeled "Fragile, with Care. " But he did it like a porter, asulky porter who was tired of lifting things; and they might really havebeen somebody else's glass and china for all he seemed to care. 

Ranny was angry. He was angry with the little things for being there. Hewas angry with himself for having brought them, and with Winny forhaving made him bring them; and he was angry with himself for beingangry. But he couldn't help it. Their voices exasperated him. Thechildren's voices, the high, reiterated singsong, "Where we goin'?"Winny's voice, poignantly soft, insufferably patient, answering themwith all that tender silliness, that persistent, gentle, intolerablygentle tommy-rot. 

For all the time he was saying to himself, "She doesn't care. Shedoesn't care a hang. It's them she cares for. It's them she wants. It'sthem she's wanted all the time. She's that sort. "

And as he brooded on it, hatred of Winky, who had so fooled him, creptinto his heart. 

"Oh, Daddy!" Dossie shouted, with excitement. (They had emerged into thebeautiful open space in front of Golder's Green Station. ) "Daddy, we'rebunnies now! We'll be dea' little baby bunnies. You'll be Father Bunny, and Winky'll be Mrs. Mother Bun! _Be_ a bunny, Daddy?"

Perceiving his cruel abstraction, Dossie entreated and implored. "_Be_it!"

But Daddy refused to be a bunny or anything that was required of him. Sosilent was he and so stern that even Winny saw that there was somethingwrong. She knew by the way he let Stanny down from his shoulder to theground, a way which implied that Stanny was not so young nor yet sosmall and helpless as he seemed. He could walk. 

Stanny felt it; he felt it in the jerk that landed him; but he didn'tcare, he was far too happy. 

"He's a young Turk, " said Winny, and he was. By his whole manner, by theswing of his tiny arms, by his tilted, roguish smile, by his eyes, impudent and joyous (blue they were, like his mother's, but clear, tilted, and curled like Ranny's), Stanny intimated that Daddy was soldif he imagined that to walk was not just what Stanny wanted. And inspite of it he was heartrending, pathetic; so small he was, with all hisbaby roundness accentuated absurdly by the knickers. 

"He's just such another as you, Ranny, " Winny said. (She wasuncontrollable!) "Such a little man as he is, in those knickers. "

"Damn his knickers, " said Ranny to himself, behind his set teeth. But hesmiled all the same; and by the time they had got into the wonderfulwalled garden of Golder's Hill he had recovered almost completely. 

It was not decent to keep on sulking in a place which had so laid itselfout to make you happy; where the sunshine flowed round you and soakedinto you and warmed you as if you were in a bath. The garden, inclosedin rose-red walls and green hedges, was like a great tank filled withsunshine; sunshine that was visible, palpable, audible almost in itsintensity; sunshine caught and contained and brimming over, thatquivered and flowed in and around the wall-flowers, tulips andnarcissus, that drenched them through and through and covered them likewater, and was thick with all their scents. You walked on golden pathsthrough labyrinths of brilliant flowers, through arches, tunnels andbowers of green. You were netted in sunshine, drugged with sweet livesmells, caged in with blossoms, pink and white, of the espaliers thatclung, branch and bud, like carved latticework, flat to the garden wall. 

Neither could he well have sulked in the great space outside, where thegreen lawns unrolled and flung themselves generously, joyously to thesun, or where, on the light slope of the field beyond, the trees hungout their drooping vans, lifted up green roof above green roof, sheltering a happy crowd. 

And even if these things, in their benignant, admonishing, remindingbeauty, had not restored his decency, he was bound to soften and unbend, when, as they were going over the rustic bridge, Stanny tried to turnhimself upside down among the water lilies. And as he captured Stanny bya miracle of dexterity, just in time, he realized, as if it had beensome new and remarkable discovery, that his little son was dear to him. 

By slow stages, after many adventures and delays, they reached themanagerie on the south side. 

"Oh, Daddy, Daddy, look at that funny bird!"

Dossie tugged and shouted. 

In a corner of his yard, round and round, with inconceivable rapidityand an astounding innocence, as if he imagined himself alone andunobserved, the Emu danced like a bird demented. On tiptoe, absurdlyelongated, round and round, ecstatically, deliriously, he danced. Hedanced till his legs and his neck were as one high perpendicular poleand his body a mere whorl of feathers spinning round it, driven by theflapping of his wings. 

"He _is_ making an almighty fool of himself, " said Ranny. 

"What does he do it for, Daddy?"

"Let's ask the keeper. "

And they asked him. 

"'E's a Emu, that's what 'e is, " said the keeper. "That's what he doeswhen he goes courtin'. Only there won't be no courtin' for him thistime. 'Is mate died yesterday. "

"And yet he dances, " Winny said. 

"And yet he dances. Heartless bird!" said Ranny. 

They looked at the Emu, who went on dancing as if unobserved. 

"Scandalous, I call it, " Ranny said. "Unfeelin'. "

"Perhaps, " said Winny, "the poor thing doesn't know. "

"Per'aps he does know, and that's why he's dancin'. "

Winny gazed, fascinated, at the uplifted and ecstatic head. 

"_I_ know, " she said. "It's his grief. It's affected his brain. "

"It's Nacher, " said the keeper, "that's what it is. Nacher's wound 'imup to go, and he goes, you see, whether or no. It's the instint in 'imand the time of year. 'E don't know no more than that. "

"But that, " said Winny, "makes it all the sadder. "

She was sorry for the Emu, so bereaved and so deluded, dancing hisfruitless, lamentable dance. 

"He _is_ funny, isn't he?" said Stanny. 

And they went slowly, spinning out their pleasure, back to that part ofthe lawn where there were innumerable little tables covered with pinkcloths, set out under the trees, and seated at the tables innumerablefamily parties, innumerable pairs of lovers, pairs of married people, pairs of working women and of working girls on holiday; all happy fortheir hour, all whispering, laughing, chattering, and drinking tea. 

On the terrace in front of the big red house were other tables withwhite covers under awnings like huge sunshades, where people who couldafford the terrace sat in splendor and in isolation and listened to themusic, played on the veranda, of violins and cello and piano. 

Ransome and Winny and the children chose a pink-covered table on thelawn under a holly tree in a place all by themselves. And they had teathere, such a tea as stands out forever in memory, beautiful andsolitary. What the children didn't have for tea, Ranny said, was notworth mentioning. 

And after tea they sat in luxurious folding-chairs under the terrace andlistened to the violins, the cello, and piano. Other people were doingthe same thing as if they had been invited to do it, as if they were allone party, with somewhere a friendly host and hostess imploring them tobe seated, to be happy and to make themselves at home. 

And down the slope of the lawn, Stanny and Dossie rolled over and overin the joy of life. And up the slope they toiled, laughing, to rollinterminably down. 

And the moments while they rolled were golden, priceless to Ranny. Winny, seated beside him on her chair, watched them rolling. 

"It's Stanny's knickers, " she said, "that I can't get over!"

"I don't want to hear of them again" (the golden moments were so few). "You make me wish I hadn't brought those kids. "

"Oh, Ranny!" Her eyes were serious and reproachful. 

"Well--I can't get you to myself one minute. "

"But aren't we having quite a happy day?" she said. "What with thebeautiful flowers and the music and the Emu--"

"You were sorry, Winky, for that disgraceful bird, and you're not a bitsorry for me. "

"Why should I be?"

"My case is similar. "

Her eyes were serious still, but round the corners of her mouth a littlesmile was playing in secret by itself. She didn't know it was there, orshe never would have let it play. 

"Don't you know that I want to say things to you?"

She looked at him and was frightened by the hunger in his eyes. 

"Not now, Ranny, " she said. "Not yet. "

"Why not?"

"I want"--she was desperate--"I want to listen to the music. "

At that moment the violins and the cello were struggling together in acry of anguish and of passion. 

"You _don't_, " he said, savagely. 

He was right. She didn't. The music, yearning and struggling, tore ather heart, set her nerves vibrating, her breast heaving. It was as if itdrew her to Ranny, urgently, irresistibly, against her will. 

"Not now, Ranny, " she said, "not now. " And it was as if she asked him totake pity on her. 

"No, " he said. "Not now. But presently, when I see you home. "

"No. Not even then. Not at all. You mustn't, dear, " she whispered. 

"I shall. "

They sat silent and let the music do with them as it would. 

And the sun dropped to the fields and flooded them and sank far away, behind Harrow on the Hill. And they called the children, the tiredchildren, to them and went home. 

Stanny had to be carried all the way. He hung on his father's shoulder, utterly limp, utterly helpless, utterly pathetic. 

"He's nothing but a baby after all, " said Winny. 

They were going over Wandsworth Bridge. 

"Do you remember, Ranny, the first time you ever saw me home, going overthis bridge? What a moon there was!"

"I do. That _was_ a moon, " said Ranny. 

 * * * * *

There was no moon for them to-night. 

It was in a clear twilight, an hour later, that he saw her home. 

They went half the way without speaking, till they came to the littlethree-cornered grove beside the public footpath. It was deserted. Heproposed that they should sit there for a while. 

"It's the only chance I'll ever get, " he said to himself. 

She consented. The plane trees sheltered them and made darkness for themwhere they sat. 

"Winky, " he said, after an agonizing pause, "you must have thought itqueer that I've never thanked you for all you've done for me. "

"Why should you? It's so little. It's nothing. "

"Do you suppose I don't know what it is and what you've done it for?"

"Yes, Ranny, you know what I did it for, and you see, it's been nogood. "

"How d'you mean, no good?"

"It didn't do what I thought it would. "

"What was that?"

"It didn't keep poor Vi and you together. "

"Reelly"--She went on as if she were delivering her soul at last of theburden that had been too heavy for it--"I can see it all now. It didmore harm than good. "

"How do you make that out?"

"D'you mind talking about it?"

"Not a bit. "

"Well, don't you see--it made it easier for her. It gave her the timeand everything she wanted. If I hadn't been there that night shecouldn't have gone, Ranny. She wouldn't have left the children. Shewouldn't, reelly. And I hadn't the sense to see it then. "

"I'm glad you hadn't. "

"Oh, why?"

"Because then you wouldn't have been there. I knew you were trying tokeep it all together. But it was bound to go. It couldn't have lasted. _She'd_ have gone anyhow. You don't worry about that now, do you?"

"Sometimes I can't help thinking of it. "

"Don't think of it. "

"I won't so long as you know what I did it for. "

He meditated. 

"I know what you did it for in the beginning. But--Winks--you were there_afterward_. "

"Afterward--?"

"After Virelet went you were doing things. "

"Well--and didn't you want me?"

"Of course I wanted you. Did you never wonder why I let you do things?Why I can bear to take it from you? Don't you know I couldn't let anyother woman do what you do for me?"

"I'm glad if you feel like that about it. "

"I don't believe you've any idea how I feel about it. I don't believeyou understand it yet. " His voice thickened. 

"I couldn't have let you, Winny, if I hadn't cared for you. I shouldhave been a low animal, a mean swine to let you if I hadn't cared. I'mnot talking as if my caring paid you back in any way. I couldn't pay youback if I worked for you for the rest of my life. But that's what I'mgoing to do if I can get the chance. "

She could feel him trembling beside her and she was afraid. 

"Would you let me?" he said. "Would you have me, Winny? Do you care forme enough to have me?"

"You know I've always cared for you. "

"Would you marry me if I was free?"

"Don't talk about it, dear. You mustn't. "

"And why mustn't I?"

"It's no good. You're not free. You married Vi, dear, and whatever she'sdone you can't un-marry her. "

"Can't I? That's precisely what I can do; and it's what I'm going todo. "

"You're not. You couldn't. "

It seemed to him that she shrank from him in horror. 

"You don't understand. You're talking as if she and I cared for eachother. That's at an end. It's done for. She's asked me to divorce her. "

"Asked you? When?"

"More than two years ago, and I promised. She wants to marry Mercier, and she'd better. I'd have been free two years ago if I'd had the money. But I've got it now. I've been saving for it. I've been doing nothingelse, thinking of nothing else from morning till night for more than twoyears, because I meant to ask you to marry me. "

"All that time?"

"All that time. "

"But Ranny, you know you _needn't_. I'm quite happy. "

"Are you?"

"Yes. You mustn't think I'm not and that you've got to make anything upto me, because that would make me feel as if I'd--there's a word for it, I know, but I can't think of it. It's what horrid girls do to men whenthey're trying to get hold of them--as if I'd comp--comprised--"

"D'you mean compromised?"

"Yes. "

"I make you feel as if you'd compromised me?"

"That's right. "

"Well, I _am_ jiggered! If that doesn't about take the biscuit! Winky, you're a blessing, you're a treasure, you're a treat; I could live for afortnight on the things you find to say. "

He would have drawn her to him, but she held herself rigid. 

"Well, but--I haven't--have I?"

"If you mean, have you made me want to marry you, you _have_. Haven't Itold you I've thought of nothing else for more than two years?"

"D'you want it so badly, Ranny?"

"I want _you_ so badly. Didn't you know I did? Of course you knew. "

"No, Ranny, I didn't. I thought all the time perhaps some day poorVirelet would come back. "

"She'll never come back. "

"But, if she did? If she changed her mind? Perhaps she's changed it nowand wants to come back and be good. "

"If she did I wouldn't take her. "

He felt her eyes turn on him through the dark in wonder. 

"But you'd have to. You couldn't not. "

"I could, and I would. "

"No, Ranny, you wouldn't. You'd never be cruel to poor Vi. "

"Don't talk about her. Don't think about her. "

"But we must. There she is. There she's always been--"

"And here we are. And here we've always been. Have you ever thought fora minute of _yourself_? Have you ever thought of _me_? I'm sick ofhearing you say 'poor Vi. ' Poor Vi! D'you know why I won't take herback? Why I can't forgive her? It's not for what you know she's done. It's for something you never knew about. I've a good mind to tell you. "

"No--don't. I'd rather not know. Whatever it was, she couldn't help it. "

"You ought to know. It was something she did to you. "

"She never did anything to me, Ranny. "

"Didn't she? She did something to me that came to the same thing. Isuppose you think I cared for her before I cared for you?"

"Well--yes. "

"I didn't then. It was the other way about. And she knew it. And shelied to me about you. She told me you didn't care for me. "

"She told you--?"

"She told me. "

"I didn't think that Virelet would have done that. "

"Nor I. "

She paused, considering it. 

"How did you find out it was a lie, Ranny? Oh--oh--I suppose I showedyou--"

"Not you. She owned up herself. "

"When?"

"That night she went off. She wrote it in that letter. She told me whyshe did it, too. It was because she knew I cared for you and was afraidI'd marry you. She wasn't going to have that. Now you know what she is. "

"Why did you believe her?"

"Why, Winky, you, you little wretch, you took care of that all right. "

"But, Ranny, if you cared for me, why did you marry her?"

"Because I was mad and she was mad, and we neither of us knew what wewere doing. It was something that got hold of us. "

"Aren't you mad now, Ranny?"

"Rather! But I know what I'm doing all the same. I didn't know when Imarried Violet. "

"Don't talk as if you didn't care for her. You _did_ care. "

"Of course I cared for her. But even that was different somehow. _She_was different. Why do you bother about her?"

"I'm only wondering how you'd feel if you was to see her again. "

"I shouldn't feel anything--anything at all. Seeing her would have nomore effect on me than if she was a piece of clockwork. " He paused. 

"I say--you're not afraid of her?" he said. 

"No. I've been through all that and got over it. I'm not afraid ofanything. "

"You mean you're not afraid to marry me?"

"No. I'm not afraid. "

He felt her smile flicker in the darkness. 

It was then that in the darkness he drew her to him, and she let herselfbe drawn, her breast to his breast and her head against his shoulder. And as she rested there she trembled, she shivered with delight andfear. 

CHAPTER XXIX

He had seen her home. At her door in the quiet Avenue he had held her inhis arms again and kissed her. Her eyes shone at his under thelamplight. 

He went back slowly, reviving the sweet sense of her. 

A great calm had followed his excitement. He was sustained by anabsolute certainty of happiness. It was in his grasp, nothing could takeit from him. He would raise the rest of the money on Monday. He wouldsee that lawyer on Wednesday. Then he would take proceedings. Once hehad set the machinery going it couldn't be stopped. The law simply tookthe thing over, took it out of his hands, and he ceased to beresponsible. 

So he argued; for at the back of his mind he saw more clearly than ever(he could not help seeing) something that might stop it all, disaster sogreat, so overwhelming that when it came his affairs would be swallowedup in it. In the face of that disaster it would be indecent of him tohave any affairs of his own, or at any rate to insist on them. But herefused to dwell on this possibility. He persuaded himself that hisfather was better, that he would even recover, and that the businesswould recover too. For the last six months Ponting had been running itwith an assistant under him, and between them they had done wonders withit, considering. 

And on the Sunday something occurred that confirmed him in his rosyoptimism. 

His father was having another good day, and they had wheeled him intothe front sitting-room. Upstairs in the small back room Ransome wasgetting the children ready for their Sunday walk, when his mother cameto him. 

"Ranny, " she said, "take off their hats and coats, dear. Your Fatherwants them. "

"What does he want them for?"

"It's his fancy. He's gettin' better, I think. I don't know when I'veseen him so bright and contented as he's been these last two days. Andso pleased with everything you do for him--There, take them down, dear, quick. "

He took them down and led them into the room. But they refused to lookat their grandfather; they turned from him at once; they hid their facesbehind Ranny's legs. 

"They're afraid of me, I suppose, " said Mr. Ransome. 

"No, " said Ranny, "they're not. " But he had to take Stanny in his armsand comfort him lest he should cry. 

"You're not afraid of Gran, are you? Show Gran your pretty pinny, Doss. "

He gave her a gentle push, and the child stood there holding out herpinafore and gazing over it at her grandfather with large, frightenedeyes. Mr. Ransome's eyes looked back at her. They were sunken, somber, wistful, unutterably sad. He did not speak. He did not smile. It wasimpossible to say what he was thinking. 

This mutual inspection lasted for a moment so intense that it seemedimmeasurable. Then Mr. Ransome closed his eyes as if pained andexhausted. 

And Ranny stooped and whispered, "Kiss him, Dossie, kiss poor Gran. "

The child, perceiving pity somewhere and awed into submission, did herbest, but her kiss barely brushed the sallow, waxen face. And as he felther there Mr. Ransome opened his eyes suddenly and looked at her again, and Dossie, terrified, turned away and burst out crying. 

"She's shy. She's a silly little girl, " said Ranny, as he led her away. He knew that, in the moment when the child had turned from him, hisfather had felt outcast from life and utterly alone. 

Mr. Ransome stirred and looked after him. "You come back here, " he said. "I've something to say to you. "

Ranny took the children to his mother and went back. Mr. Ransome wassitting up in his chair. He had roused himself. He looked strangelyintelligent and alert. 

He signed to his son to sit near him. 

"How old are those children?" he said. 

"Dossie was five in March, and Stanny was three in April. "

"And they've been--how long without their mother?"

"It'll be three years next October. "

"Why don't you get rid of that woman?" said Mr. Ransome. It was as ifwith effort and with pain and out of the secret, ultimate sources of hisbeing that he drew the energy to say it. They would never know what hewas thinking, never know (as Ranny had once said) what was going oninside him. And of all impossible things, _this_ was what he had comeout with now!

"Do you mean that, Father?"

"Of course I mean it. "

"Well, then--as it happens--it's what I'm going to do. "

"You should have done it before. "

"I couldn't. "

"Why not?"

"I hadn't the money. "

Mr. Ransome closed his eyes again as if in pain. 

"I'd have given it you, Randall, " he said, presently. He had opened hiseyes, but they wandered uneasily, avoiding his son's gaze. "If I'd hadit. But I hadn't. I've been doing badly. "

And again his eyelids dropped and lifted. 

"Things have gone wrong that hadn't ought to if I'd been what I shouldbe. "

There was anguish in Ranny's father's eyes now. They turned to him forreassurance. As if in some final act of humility and contrition, heunbared and abased himself, he laid down the pretension of integrity. 

His shawl had slipped from his knees. His hands moved over it as if, having unbared, he now sought to cover himself. Ransome stooped over himand drew the shawl up higher and wrapped it closer with careful, tendertouches. 

"Don't worry about that, " he said. 

"Your Mother'll be all right, Randall. She's got a bit of her own. It'sall there, except what she put into the business. You won't have totrouble about her. " He paused. "Have you got the money now?" he said. 

"I shall have. To-morrow, probably. "

"Then don't you wait. "

"It'll be beastly work, you know, Father. Are you sure you don't mind?"

"What _I_ mind is your being married to that woman. I never liked it, Randall. "

He closed his eyes. His face became more than ever drawn and peaked. Hismouth opened. With short, hard gasps he fought for the breath he had sospent. 

Ransome's heart reproached him because he had not cared enough about hisfather. And he said to himself, "He must have cared a lot more than heever let on. "

The way to the Divorce Court had been made marvelously smooth for him. His mother couldn't say now that it would kill his father. 

But on Monday morning things did not go with Ransome entirely as he hadexpected. Shaftesbury Avenue refused to lend him more than ten pounds onthe security of his furniture. Still, that was a trifling hitch. Nowthat the proceedings had been consecrated by his father's sanction, there could be no doubt that his mother would be glad to lend him thefive pounds. He would ask her for it that evening as soon as he gothome. 

 * * * * *

But he did not ask her that evening, nor yet the next. He did not askher for it at all. For as soon as he got home she came to him out of hisfather's room. She stood at the head of the stairs by the door of theroom, leaning against the banisters. And she was crying. 

"Is Father worse?" he said. 

"He's going, my dear. There's a trained nurse just come. She's in therewith the doctor. But they can't do anything. "

He drew her into the front room, and she told him what had happened. 

"He was sittin' in his chair there like he was yesterday--so bright--andI thought he was better, and I made him a drop of chicken broth and satwith him while he took it. Then I left him there for a bit and wentupstairs to the children--Dossie was sick this morning--"

"Dossie--?"

"It's nothing--she's upset with something she's eaten--and I was therewith her ten minutes per'aps, and when I came back I found your Fatherin a fit. A convulsion, the doctor says it was; he said all along hemight have them, but I thought he was better. And he's had another thisevening, and he hasn't come round out of it right. He doesn't know me, Ranny. "

He had nothing to say to her. It was as if he had known that it wouldhappen, and that it would happen like this, that he would come home atthis hour and find his mother standing at the head of the stairs, andthat she would tell him these things in these words. He even had thefeeling that he ought to have told _her_, to have warned her that itwould be so. 

On Wednesday evening, at eight o'clock, when Ransome should have been inthe lawyer's room at the Polytechnic, he was standing by his father'sbed. Mr. Ransome had partially recovered consciousness, and he laysupported by his son's arms in preference to his own bed. For his bedhad become odious to him, sinking under him, falling from himtreacherously as he sank and fell, whereas Ranny's muscles adjustedthemselves to all his sinkings and fallings. They remained and could befelt in the disintegration that presently separated them from the restof Ranny, Ranny's arms being there, close under him, and Ranny's face along way off at the other end of the room. 

The process of dissolution had nothing to do with Mr. Ransome. It wenton, not in him but outside him, in the room. He was almost unaware ofit, it was so inconceivably gradual, so immeasurably slow. First of allthe room began to fill with gray fog, and for ages and ages Ranny's faceand his wife's face hung over him, bodiless, like pale lumps in the fog. Then for ages and for ages they were blurred, and then withdrawn fromhim, then blotted out. 

This dying, which was so eternally tedious to Mr. Ransome, lasted abouttwenty minutes, so that at half past eight, when Ranny should have beenlistening to his legal adviser, he was trying to understand what thedoctor was trying to tell him about the causes, the very complicatedcauses of his father's death. 

 * * * * *

And with Mr. Ransome's death there came again on Ranny and his mother, and on all of them, the innocence and the immense delusion in which theyhad lived, in which they had kept it up, in the days before Ranny's wifehad run away from him and before Ranny's enlightenment and his awfuloutburst. Only the innocence was ten times more persistent, the delusionten times more solemn and more unutterably sacred now. Mr. Ransome'sdeath made it impossible for them to speak or think or feel about himotherwise than if he had been a good man. If Ranny could have doubted ithe would have stood reproved. From the doctor's manner, from his UncleRandall's manner and his Aunt Randall's, from Mr. Ponting's and theassistant's manner, and from the manner, the swollen grief, uncontrolledand uncontrollable, of the servant Mabel, he would have gathered thathis father was a good man. 

But Ransome never doubted it. He spoke, he thought, he felt as if hisfather's death had left him inconsolable. It was the death of a man whohad made them all ashamed and miserable; who had tried to take the joyout of Ranny's life as he had already taken it out of Ranny's mother'sface; who had hardly ever spoken a kind word to him; who, if it came tothat, had never done anything for him beyond contributing, infinitesimally, to his existence. And even this Mr. Ransome had done byaccident and inadvertence, thinking (if he could be said to have beenthinking at all) of his own pleasure and not of his son's interests; forRanny, if he had been consulted, would probably have preferred to owehis existence to some other parent. 

And even in his last act, his dying, in his choice of that hour, of allhours open to him to die in, Mr. Ransome had inflicted an incurableinjury upon his son. He had timed it to a minute. And Ranny knew it. Hehad had the idea firmly fixed in his head that if he did not go to thePolytechnic and find out how to set about filing his petition thatWednesday night, he would never get his divorce. Things would happen, they were bound to happen if he gave them time. 

And yet that death, so ill-timed, so disastrous for Ranny in itsconsequences, Ranny mourned as if it had been in itself an affliction, an irreparable loss. He felt with the most entire sincerity that nowthat the Humming-bird was dead he would never be happy again. 

On the Sunday after the funeral, which was on the Saturday, he sat inthe front parlor with his mother and Mr. And Mrs. Randall, listeningwith a dumb but poignant acquiescence to all that they were saying abouthis father. Their idea now was that Mr. Ransome was not only a good man, a man of indissoluble integrity, but a man of unimaginably profoundemotions, of passionate affections concealed under the appearance ofausterity. 

"No one knows, " Mrs. Ransome was saying, "what 'E was thinking and what'E was feeling--what went on inside him no one ever knew. For all hesaid about it you'd have thought he didn't take much notice of whathappened--Ranny's trouble--and yet I know he felt it something awful. Itpreyed on 'is mind, poor Ranny being left like that. Why, it was afterthat, if you remember, that he began to break up. I put all his illnessdown to that. 

"And then the children--you might say he didn't take much notice ofthem, but 'E was thinking about them all the time, you may depend uponit. 'E sent for them the Sunday before he died. I'm glad he did, too. Aren't you, Ranny?"

"Yes, Mother, " Ranny said, and choked. 

"It'll be something for them to remember him by when they grow up. Butthey'll never know what was in his heart. None of us ever knew nor everwill know, now. "

"He was a good man, Emmy, and a kind man--and just. I never knew any onemore just than Fulleymore. We were saying so only last night, weren'twe?"

"Yes, John, " said Mrs. Randall. "We were saying you could always dependupon his word. And, as _you_ say, there were things in him we neverknew--and never shall know. "

And so it went on, with tearful breaks and long, oppressive silences, until some one would think of some as yet unmentioned quality of Mr. Ransome's. Every now and then, in the silences, one of them would bevisited by some involuntary memory of his unpleasantness and of thefurtive vice that had destroyed him, and would thrust the thought backwith horror, as outrageous, indecent, and impossible. They all spoke invoices of profound emotion and with absolute, unfaltering conviction. 

"We shall never know what was in him. " Always they came back to that, they dwelt on it, they clung to it. Under all the innocence and thedelusion it was as if, through their grief, they touched reality, theyfelt the unaltered, unapparent splendor, and testified to the mystery, to the ultimate and secret sanctity of man's soul. 

 * * * * *

Of all that Ransome was aware obscurely, he shared their sense of thathidden and incalculable and enduring life. But his own grief wasdifferent from theirs. It was something unique, peculiar to himself andincommunicable. 

Even he had not realized what was at the bottom of his grief until hefound himself alone with it, walking with it on the road to Southfields. He had left the Randalls with his mother and had escaped, with anirritable longing for the darkness and the open air. He knew that thereason why he wanted to get away from them was that his grief was sodifferent from theirs. 

For they were innocent; they had nothing to reproach themselves with. Ifthey had not loved his father quite so much as they thought they did, they had done the next best thing; they had never let him know it. Theyhad behaved to him, they had thought of him, in consequence, morekindly, more tenderly than if they _had_ loved him; in which case theywould not have felt the same obligation to be careful. They had neverhurt him. Whereas he--

That was why he would give anything to have his father back again. Itwas all right for them. He couldn't think what they were making such afuss about. They had carried their behavior to such a pitch ofperfection that they could perfectly well afford to let him go. Therewas no reason why they should want him back again, to show him--

All this Ranny felt obscurely. And the more he thought about it the moreit seemed to him horrible that anybody should have lived as his fatherhad lived and die as he had died, without anybody having really lovedhim. It was horrible that he, Ranny, should not have loved him. For thatwas what it came to; that was what he knew about himself; that andnothing else was at the bottom of his grief, and it was what made it sodifferent from theirs. It was as if he realized for the first time inhis life what pity was. He had never known what a terrible, what anintolerable thing was this feeling that was so like love, that shouldhave been love and yet was not. For he didn't deceive himself about itas his mother (mercifully for her) was deceiving herself at this moment. This intolerable and terrible feeling was not love. In love there wouldhave been some happiness. 

Walking slowly, thinking these things, or rather feeling them, vaguelyand incoherently, he had come to the grove by the public footpath. Itwas there that he had sat with his mother more than six years ago, whenshe had as good as confessed to him that she had not loved her husband;not, that was to say, as she had loved her child. 

And it was there, only the other night, that he had sat with Winny. Onetime seemed as long ago as the other. 

And it was there that Winny was sitting now, on their seat, alone, facing the way he came, as if positively she had known that he wouldcome. 

He realized then that it was Winny that he wanted, and that the grief hefound so terrible and intolerable was driving him to her, though when hestarted he had not meant to go to her, he had not known that he wouldgo. 

She rose when she saw him and came forward. 

"Ranny! Were you coming to me?"

"Yes. " (He knew it now. ) "Let's stay here a bit. I've left Uncle andAunt with Mother. "

"How is she?"

"Oh--well, it's pretty awful for her. "

"It must be. "

He was sitting near her but a little apart, staring at the lamplit road. She felt him utterly removed from her. Yet he was there. He had come toher. 

"I don't think, " he said, presently, "Mother'll ever be happy again. _I_sha'n't, either. "

She put her hand on his hand that lay palm downward between them on theseat and that was stretched toward her, not as if it sought herconsciously, but in utter helplessness. There was no response in itbeyond a nervous quivering that struck through her fingers to her heart. 

He went on. "It's not as if _he_ had been happy. He wasn't. Couldn'thave been. "

She fell to stroking gently that hand under her own. Its nervousquivering ceased. 

"You know that funny way he had--the way he used to go poppin' in andout as if he was lookin' for somebody? That's what I can't bear to thinkof. Like as if he'd wanted something badly and wouldn't let on toanybody about it. Nobody knew what was going on inside him all theseyears. That's the horrible thing. We ought to have known and we didn't. There he was, poppin' in and out, and he might have been a mile off forall we could get at him. We didn't know anything about him--not reelly. "

He mused. 

"That's it. We don't know anything about anybody--ever. I didn't knowanything about Virelet--don't know now. I never shall know. Come tothat, I don't know anything about you. Nor you about me--reelly. "

"Oh, Ranny, " she whispered. It was her one protest against the agony hewas making her share with him. 

"What do we know about anything? What does it all mean? The wholebloomin' show? The Combined Maze? They shove us into it without ourleave. They make us do things we don't want to do and never meant to do. I didn't want to care for Virelet. I wanted to care for you. I didn'twant to marry her, nor she me. I didn't mean to. I meant to marry you. But I did care for her, and I did marry her. I don't suppose _he_ wantedto do like he did or ever meant to. And look how he was treated--shovedin--livin' his horrible little life down there--doin' the things hedidn't mean--lookin' for things he never got--and then shunted likethis, all anyhow, God knows where--before he could put a hand onanything. There's no sense in it. 

"I wouldn't mind so much if I'd only cared for him. But I didn't. Iwanted to--I meant to--but I didn't. There you are again. It's all likethat and there's no sense in it. "

"But you _did_ care, Ran, dear. You're caring now. You couldn't talklike this about him if you didn't care. "

"No. I'm talkin' like this--because I didn't care. Not a rap. My God! IfI thought Stanny would ever feel to me as I felt to my father, I'd goand kill myself. "

"But he won't, dear. You haven't behaved to him like your father behavedto you, " said Winny, calmly. 

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. At any rate, you will know presently when you canlook at it as it reelly is. Nobody could have done more for your fatherthan you did. If he'd been the best father in the world you couldn'thave done more. "

"Doin' things is nothing. Besides, I didn't. D'you know, I wouldn't gointo his business when he wanted me to? I wouldn't do it, just because Icouldn't bear bein' with him all the time. And he knew it. "

"I don't care if he did know it, Ranny. You'd a perfect right to liveyour own life. You'd a right to choose what you'd do and where you'd be. As it was, you never had any life of your own where your father wasabout. I can remember how it was, dear, if you don't. If you'd given inbecause he wanted you to; if you'd been boxed up with him down therefrom morning till night, you'd never have had any life at all. Not asmuch as _that_! And then, instead of caring for him as you did, you'dhave got to hate him, and then he'd have hated you; and your motherwould have been torn between you. That's how it would have been, and youknew it. Else you'd never have left him. "

"I say--fancy your knowin' all that!"

"Of course I know it. I knew it all the time. "

"Who told you?"

"You don't have to be told things like that, Ranny. "

The hand she was stroking moved from under her hand and caught it andgrasped it tight. 

"Didn't I always know you were a dear?" she went on. "You said I didn'tknow anything about you. But I knew that much. "

"Yes--but--how did you know I cared for him?"

"Oh, why--because--you couldn't have called him the Humming-bird andall those funny names you did if you hadn't cared. And, of course, heknew that too. That's what he wouldn't let on, dear--the lot he knew. Itmust have made him feel so nice and comfortable inside him to know thatwhatever he was to do you'd go on calling him a Humming-bird. "

"D'you think it did--reelly?"

"Why--don't you remember how it used to make your mother smile? Well, then. "

Well, then, she seemed to say, it was all right. 

That was how she brought him round, to sanity when he thought his brainwas going and to happiness when he felt it so improbable, not to sayimpossible, that he should ever be happy again. 

 * * * * *

A fortnight passed. 

In the three days following the death he had not thought once about hisown concerns. He simply hadn't time to think of them. Every minute hecould spare was taken up with the arrangements for his father's funeral. Sunday had been given over to mourning and remorse. It was Mondaymorning and the weeks following it that brought back the thought of hisdivorce. They brought it back, first, in all its urgency, as a thingvehemently and terribly desired, then as a thing, urgent indeed, butprivate and personal and, therefore, of secondary importance, a thingthat must perforce stand over until the settlement of his father'saffairs, till finally (emerging from the inextricable tangle in which ithad become involved) it presented itself as it was, a thing hopeless andunattainable. 

His father's affairs were worse than anything he had believed. For, except for that terror born of his own private superstition, he had notreally looked forward to disaster on an overwhelming scale.... He hadimagined his father's business as surviving him only for a little while, and his father's debts as entailing perhaps strict economy for years. But for the actual figures he was not prepared. 

And how his father, limited as he was in his resources and destitute, you would have thought, of all opportunity for wild expenditure, how hecould have contrived to owe the amount he did owe passed Ranny'sunderstanding. 

Into that pit of insolvency there went all that was fetched by the saleof the stock and the goodwill of the business and all that Mrs. Ransomehad put into the business, including what she had saved out of her tinyincome. As for Ranny's savings and the sum he had borrowed--the wholethirty pounds--they went to pay for the funeral and the grave and themonumental stone. 

There could be no divorce. Divorce was not to be thought of for morethan two years, when he would have got his rise. 

He broke the news to Winny, sitting with her in their little halfwaygrove, the place consecrated to Ranny's confidences. 

"I can't do different, " he said, summing it all up. 

"Of course, you can't. Never mind, dear. Let's go on as we are. "

It was what Violet had said to him, but with how different a meaning!

"But Winky--it means waiting years. It'll be more than two before I canget a divorce--and we can't marry till six months after. That's threeyears. I can't bear to ask you to wait so long. "

"Don't worry about me. I'm quite happy. "

"You don't know how much happier you would be. Me too. "

She pressed her face against his shoulder. 

"I don't think I could be any happier than I am. "

"You don't know, " he repeated. "You don't know anything at all. "

"I know I love you and you me, and that's enough. "

"Oh--_is_ it?"

"It's the great thing. "

"Winny, d'you know, that if poor Father hadn't died when he did--wemissed it by a day. To think it could happen like that!"

He clinched it with, "This Combined Maze has been a bit too much for youand me. "

CHAPTER XXX

Mrs. Ransome for the first time in her life was thinking. She called itthinking, although that was no word for it, for its richness, itsamplitude, its peculiar secret certainty. You might say that for thefirst time in her life Mrs. Ransome was fully conscious; that, with anextraordinary vividness and clarity she saw things, not as she believedand desired them to be, but as they were. 

She saw, for the first time since Mr. Ransome's death, that she washappy; or rather, that she had been happy for more than two years, thatis to say, ever since Mr. Ransome's death. And this vision of herhappiness, of her iniquitous and disgraceful satisfaction, was shockingto Mrs. Ransome. She would have preferred to think that ever since Mr. Ransome's death she had been heartbroken. 

But it was not so. Never in all her life had she been so at peace; neversince her girlhood had she been so gay. This state of hers had lastedexactly two years and four months, thus clearly dating from herbereavement. For it was in May of nineteen-ten that he had died, and shewas now in September nineteen-twelve. 

She might not have been aware of it but that it, her happiness, had onlysix months more to run. 

For two years and four months she had had her son Ranny to herself. Shehad been the mistress of his house, the little house that she loved, and the mother of his children whom (next to her son Ranny) she adored. For two years and four months she had made him comfortable with acomfort he had never dreamed of, which most certainly he had neverknown. With tenderness and care and vigilance unabridged and unremitted, she had brought Granville and Stanley and Dossie to perfection. It hadnot been so hard. Stanley and Dossie she had found almost perfect fromthe first, more perfect than Ranny she had found them, because they werenot so near to her own flesh, and not loved so passionately as he. 

And Granville, once far from perfect, had responded to treatment like aliving thing. Maudie and Fred Booty had cherished it, they handed it onto Mrs. Ransome spotless and intact. Spotless and intact she had keptit. Spotless and intact no doubt it would be kept when, in six months'time, she in turn would hand it over to Winny Dymond, to Ranny's secondwife. 

He had only just told her. 

That was what hurt her most, that she had only just been told, when formore than two years he had been thinking of it. It was no use sayingthat he couldn't have told her before, because he wasn't free. He wasn'tfree now; not properly, like a widower. 

That he would, after all, get rid of poor Violet, who hadn't, in allthose years, troubled him or done him any harm, _that_ had been a blowto her. She hadn't believed it possible. She had thought the question ofdivorce had been settled once for all, five years ago, by his UncleRandall. And John Randall in the meanwhile had justified his claim tobe heard, and his right to settle things. He had canceled the debt thatpoor Fulleymore had owed him. To be sure, he could afford it. He wasmore prosperous and prominent than ever. He was, therefore, less thanever likely to approve of the divorce. 

If the idea of divorce had been appalling five years ago, it was stillmore appalling now. Since, after all, poor Violet had removed herself sofar and kept so quiet, the scandal of her original disappearance hadsomehow diminished with every year, while, proportionately, with everyyear, the scandal, the indecency, the horror of the Divorce Court hadincreased, until now it seemed to be a monstrous thing. 

And that Ranny should have chosen this time of all times! When they'dpaid off all the creditors and got clear, and stood respected andrespectable again. As if his poor father's insolvency, which, after all, he couldn't help (since it was the Drug Stores that had ruined him), asif that wasn't enough disgrace for one family, he must needs go and rakeup all that awful shame and trouble, after all these years, wheneverybody had forgotten that there _had_ been any trouble and any shame. 

That was what Mrs. Ransome found so hard to bear. And that she had beendeceived; that he should have let her go on thinking that it wasn'tpossible, up to the last minute (it was Saturday and he was going to thelawyer on Monday), she who had the first right to be told. 

All these years he had deceived her. All these years he had meant to doit the very minute he had got his rise. 

For Ransome had attained the summit of his ambition. He was now a pettycashier with a pen all to himself at the top of the counting-house, andan income of two hundred a year. Short of making him assistant secretary(which was ridiculous) Woolridge's could do no more for him. 

And Winny Dymond (Mrs. Ransome reflected bitterly), though he hadn'tbeen free to speak to her, though he was practically (it didn't occur toMrs. Ransome that what she meant was theoretically) a married man, Winnyhad known it all the time. 

It was extraordinary, but Mrs. Ransome, who was really fond of Winny, felt toward her more acute and concentrated bitterness than she had felttoward Violet, whom she hated. She was able to think of Ranny's firstwife as poor Violet, though Violet had made him miserable and destroyedhis home and had left him and his children. And the thought of hismarrying Winny Dymond was intolerable to Mrs. Ransome, though she hadrecognized her as the one woman Ranny ought to have married, the onewoman worthy of him, and she would have continued to welcome her in thatcapacity as long as Ranny had refrained from marrying her. 

For Ranny's mother knew that in Violet her motherhood had had no rival. Violet's passion for Ranny, Ranny's passion for Violet, had not robbedher of her son. Violet, not having in her one atom of natural feeling, and caring only for her husband's manhood and his physical perfection, had left to Mrs. Ransome all that was most dear to her in Ranny. Marriedto Violet, he was still dependent on his mother. He clung to her, hedeferred to her judgment, he came to her for comfort. If he had beenill it was she and not Violet who would have nursed him. Whereas Winnywould take all that away from her. She would take--she could not helptaking--Ranny utterly away; not from malice, not from selfishness, notbecause she wanted to take him, but because she could not help it. Shewas so made as to be all in all to him, so made as to draw him to herall in all. There would be absolutely nothing of Ranny left over for hismother, except the affection he had always felt for her, which, for awoman of Mrs. Ransome's temperament, was the least thing that sheclaimed. Her instinct had divined Winny infallibly, not only as a wifeto Ranny, but as a mother. A mother Winny was and would be to him farmore than if she had used her womanhood to bear him children. 

So that, without the smallest preparation, she saw herself required atsix months' notice to give up her son. And while she blamed him for nothaving told her, she overlooked the fact that if she had been told shecould not have borne the knowledge. It would have poisoned for her everyday of the eight hundred and forty-five days for which in her ignoranceshe had been so happy. 

She did not attempt to deny that she had been happy. But what she had_said_ to Ranny when he told her was, "It's a mercy your poor fatherdoesn't know. "

And in that moment she thought of her happiness with a sharp pang as ifit had been unfaithfulness to her dead husband. 

It was at half past seven on a Saturday evening in the last week ofSeptember, nineteen-twelve, that Mrs. Randall sat alone in the backsitting-room at Granville and meditated miserably on those things. 

Upstairs in his bedroom overhead she could hear Ranny moving verysoftly, for fear of waking Stanley. She knew what he was doing. He waschanging, making himself smart enough to take Winny Dymond to the Earl'sCourt Exhibition. 

 * * * * *

Upstairs in his bedroom overhead, Ranny moved very softly, for fear ofwaking Stanley. He was changing into a new gray suit, making himselfmore smart than he had been for years to take Winny to the Earl's CourtExhibition. 

In that shirt, glistening, high-collared, in a gray-blue tie, ingray-blue socks and brown boots, Ranny looked very smart indeed. And thesuit, the suit looked splendid, the fold down the legs of the trousersbeing as yet unimpaired. 

And Ranny looked young, ever so young still, though he was thirty-two. The faint lines at the corner of his eyes and of his mouth accentuatedagreeably their upward tilt. He had gained distinction by the increasingfirmness of his face. Virile in its adolescence, it had kept its youthin its maturity. Ranny's face expressed him. It was fine and clean; ithad not one mean or faltering line in it. And his figure had not, afterall, deteriorated. Flabbiness was as far from him as it had been in hisyouth. 

With infinite precautions, Ranny opened a drawer where he found a smalljapanned tin box, very new. This he unlocked softly, and from a littlecanvas bag that lay in the compartment specially reserved for it he tooka sovereign, one of four, that represented rather more than a week'sproportion of his new salary. 

He had made up his mind that when the day came he would spend no less asum. So great a rise could not be celebrated on less. If a cashier ofWoolridge's could have been capable of saving, say, one and ninepenceout of that sovereign, the man who was engaged to Winny Dymond wouldhave died rather. 

Of course, it was a thundering lot to spend. But then Ranny desired, hewas determined to spend a thundering lot. It was extravagant, but hewished to be extravagant. It was reckless, irresponsible, but recklessand irresponsible was what he felt. He meant to go it. He meant to havehis fling just for once. And he meant that Winny, who had never hadhers, nor any share in anybody else's, should taste, just for once, therapture of a fling. She should have it for three solid hours of thatdelicious night, in one mad, flaming, stupendous orgy at the Earl'sCourt Exhibition. 

For it wasn't really his rise that called for it. That was only a meansto his divorce and marriage. It was his engagement that he proposed tocelebrate. 

The engagement, though he could hardly believe it, was a fact. True, itcould not be made public until a decent interval after the divorce; butit had been acknowledged and settled between him and Winny as soon asever he knew that he had got his rise. They would never celebrate it atall if they didn't celebrate it now before all the beastliness began. 

For he knew perfectly well that it would be beastly. Winny would feel iteven more than he did. She would feel it for him. Things that they hadboth forgotten would be raked up again, all the misery and all theshame. Now that it was imminent he dreaded the Divorce Court. His UncleRandall could not have shrunk more painfully from this public washing ofhis dirty linen. He would come out of the Great Washhouse feelingalmost, but not quite as unclean as if his linen had been kept at homeand never washed at all. 

And the trail of all that nastiness would spread over the six months oftheir engagement; it would poison everything. 

He didn't mean to think about it or let Winny think. They were going toenjoy themselves to-night while they could, while they still feltinnocent and clean and jolly. 

 * * * * *

He stooped for a moment over the crib where his little son lay curledand snuggling, his face hidden, his head, with its crop of dark hair, showing like the fur of some soft burrowing animal. He freed the littlemouth muffled in bedclothes, and tucked the blankets closer. He pickedup Stanny's Teddy bear that had fallen lamentably to the floor, and laidit where Stanny would find it beside him when he woke. 

Treading softly, he went into the next room where Dossie lay in her ownlittle bed beside his mother's, her little seven-year-old girl bodystretched out in all its dainty slenderness (so unlike Stanny's. He sawwith a pang of sudden passion the sweet difference). Her face, laidsideways in her golden-brown hair, showed already a fine edge, nose, andmouth and chin turned subtly, and carved out of their baby softness tothe likeness of his own. He stooped and kissed Dossie's hair, and tookwithout touching the sweetness of her mouth. Then he ran softly down thestairs. 

His mother heard him running and came to the door of the room. "You'renot going out like that, " she said, "without an overcoat? It'll rainbefore you're back, I know, and that new suit'll be ruined. "

"Rot! It _can't_ rain on a night like this. Good night, Mother. Don't gosittin' up. I don't know when I'll be in. "

"I'll hot some cocoa for you last thing and leave it on the trivet. "

"Sha'n't want cocoa. "

"What shall you want then?"

"Oh, Lord!" His nerves were all on edge. He couldn't bear it. "_Nothing!_" he cried, as he rushed out. 

At the gate it struck him that he had been a brute to her. He turned. Herushed back to her. He put his arm round her and kissed her. 

"You're all right now, aren't you?"

"Yes, Ran, dear, I'm all right. " She smiled. "Run away and don't keepWinny waiting. "

(Heaven only knew what it cost her. )

And Ranny looked back, laughing, through the doorway. "You know, Mother, it reelly _is_ all right. And you're an angel. "

And she said, "There! Go along with you. "

He went. 

 * * * * *

"Ranny, how nice you look!"

Winny herself was looking nice and knew it. She wore a green cottongown trimmed with white pipings, and a thing she called a Peggy hat thatwas half a bell and half a bonnet and had diminutive roses sewn on ithere and there like buttons. 

They were going down the long entrance to the Exhibition, betweenpainted walls, in brilliant illumination, and in publicity that mighthave been trying if they had had eyes for anything except each other. 

Winny's eyes were brimming with joy and tenderness as she looked at him. If she loved the new gray suit, the brown boots, and the Trilby hat, shedid not love them more than the shabby blue serge with the place sheknew in the lining where she had mended it. All the same, it wasimpossible to see him in such things without that little breathlessthrill of wonder and excitement. There wasn't one man at Earl's Courtthat night who could compare with Ranny. He made them all look weedy, flabby; pitiful, uninteresting things. 

And then, all of a sudden (they were at the paygate), as she looked, astonishment, grief, and anxiety appeared on Winny's face. Something haddismayed her tenderness, dashed her joy. She had seen Ranny take out ofhis waistcoat pocket gold--not ten shillings, but a whole sovereign. Anda dreadful fear awoke in her. 

He was going to spend it all. 

She knew it, something told her; she could see by the way he smacked itdown, careless like. And Winny couldn't bear it; she couldn't bear tothink that Ranny, who had pinched and scraped and done without thingsfor years, should go and throw away all that on her!

But anybody could see that he was going to do it, by the strangeexcitement and abstraction in his eyes, by the way he gathered up thechange and took Winny by the arm and walked off with her. His eyes andthe close crook of his arm drawing her along with him in his course, theslight leaning of his body toward hers as they went, his stride and theset of his head proclaimed that he had got her, that she couldn'tescape, that he meant to go it, that he had the right to spend on hermore than he could possibly afford. 

She could see what he was thinking. In one tremendous burst he was goingto make up to her now for all that she had missed. What was more, he wasgoing to rub it into her that he had the right to. She couldn't realizetheir happiness as he did. They had been cheated out of it so long thatshe couldn't believe in it, couldn't believe that it was actually intheir grasp, the shining, palpitating joy that for five years had beendangled before them only to be jerked out of their hands. He wanted tomake her feel it; to make her taste and touch and handle the thing thatseemed impossible and yet was certain. 

Ranny was intoxicated, he was reckless with certainty. 

And Winny couldn't bear it. All the way up between the painted walls shewas trying to think what she could do to prevent his spending a wholesovereign. She knew that it was no use fighting Ranny. The more she hungon to him to stop him, the more Ranny would struggle and break loose. Persuasion was no good. The more she reasoned, the more determined hewould be to spend that sovereign, and the more ways he would find tospend it. 

It was to be one of those mortal combats between man's will and woman'swit. Winny meant to circumvent Ranny and to defeat him by guile. 

And at first it looked as if it could be done easily. For at first theExhibition seemed to be on Winny's side. 

They had emerged from between the painted walls into Shakespeare'sEngland, into the narrow, crooked streets under the queer oldoverhanging houses with the swinging signs--hundreds of years old Rannysaid they were. And in the streets there were strange crowds, young menand young women who went shouting and singing and were marvelously andfantastically dressed. And they had glimpses through lattice windows ofmarvelous and fantastic merchandise. Marvelous and fantastic it seemedto Winny at first sight. But when she saw that it was just what theywere selling in the shops to-day the delicious confusion in her mindheightened the effect of fantasy and of enchantment. 

"I didn't think it would be like this, " she said. 

But why it was like that and why it was called Shakespeare's England, what on earth Shakespeare had to do with it, Winny couldn't think. 

"Shakespeare? Why, he wrote books, didn't he?"

"Plays, Winky, plays. "

"Plays then. "

And when Ranny told her that it meant that England was like this inShakespeare's time, hundreds of years ago, and reminded her that theyhad a scene from one of his plays on at the Coliseum the other day, Winny thought that only made it more marvelous and more like a dreamthan ever. 

And she thought Ranny was more marvelous than ever, with the things heknew. 

And then, having lured him into this tangled side issue, she began, ascool and offhand as you please. He gave her the opening when he askedher what she'd like to do next. 

"This is good enough for me, " she said. 

For the most marvelous thing about Shakespeare's England was that youcould walk about in it free of charge. 

He looked at her almost as if he knew what she was up to. 

"But you've seen it, Winky. You've seen all there is of it. You don'twant to stay here all night, do you?"

He had her there, with his reminder of the hours they had to put in. 

"Well"--she was lingering in the most natural manner, as if fascinatedby the exterior of the Globe Theater. For she wished to spin out thetime. 

She saw Ranny's hand sliding toward his pocket. 

"Would you like to go inside it?" he said. 

"No, Ranny, dear, I wouldn't. At least, I'd rather not if you've noobjection. "

She spoke firmly, seriously, as if she knew something against the GlobeTheater, as if the Globe Theater were disreputable or improper. 

Then (it was wonderful how she contrived the little air of excitedinspiration), "Tell you what, " she said, "let's go and sit downsomewhere and listen to the band. There's nothing I love so much aslistening to a band. "

She knew that they charged nothing for listening to the band. 

It was a prompting from the Exhibition itself, proving, here again, thatit was on her side, an entirely friendly and benignant power. 

"All right, " said Ranny. "_That's_ in the Western Garden. "

He took her by the arm and drew her, not to the Western Garden, but to astreet (he seemed to know it by instinct) through which Shakespeare'sEngland, iniquitously, treacherously, led them to their doom, the WaterChute. 

For there the Exhibition threw off her mask and revealed herself as thedangerous Enchantress that she was. Hung with millions of electricbulbs, crowned and diademed, and laced with jewels of white flame, shesignaled to them out of the mystery and immensity of the night. For amoment they were dumb, they stood still, as if they paused on the brinkand struggled, protesting against this ravishing of their souls by theExhibition. Straight in front of them, monstrous yet fragile, itssubstance withdrawn into the darkness, its form outlined delicately inbeads of light, in brilliants, in crystals strung on invisible threads, the Water Chute reared itself like a stairway to the sky, arch abovearch, peak above peak, diadem above diadem, tilted at a frightful pitch. Chains of light, slung like garlands from tall standards, ringed thelong lake that stretched from their feet to the bottom of the stair. Thewater, dark as the sky, showed mystic and enchanted, bordered withtrembling reeds of light. 

From somewhere up in the sky, under the topmost diamonded arch, therecame a rumbling and a rushing--

It thrilled them, agitated them. 

And their youth rose up in them. They looked at each other, and theireyes, the eyes of their youth, shone with the same excitement and thesame desire. 

She knew that he had deceived her, that this was not the Western Garden, where the band played; she was aware that the Exhibition was not to betrusted either; that it was in league with him against her; that if sheyielded to it they were lost. And yet she yielded. The deep and highenchantment was upon her. The Exhibition had her by the hair. She wasborne on, breathless, unprotesting, to the white palings where thepaygate was. 

It was worth it. She had to own it. Never before had either of themtasted such ecstasy; from the precipitous climb in the truck that hauledthem, up and up, to the head of the high diamonded stair; the brief, exciting passage along the gangway to the boat that waited for them, itsprow positively overhanging the topmost edge, the sliding lip of danger, where the rails plunged shining to the blackness below; the race theyhad for the front seat where, Ranny said, they would get the best of it;and then--the downrush!

It was as if they had been shot, exulting, from the sky to the water, sitting close, sitting tight, linked together, each with an arm roundthe other's waist, and the hand that was free grasping the rail, theirbodies bowed to the hurricane of their speed, with the rapture in theirthroats mounting and mounting, a towering, toppling climax of delightand fear, as the boat shot from the rails into the water and rose likea winged thing and leaped, urging to the heights that had sent it forth, and dropped, perilously again, with a shudder and a smack, once, twice;so tremendous was the impetus. 

They heard young girls behind them scream for joy; but they were dumb, they were motionless; they drank rapture through set teeth; it wentthrobbing through them and thrilling, prolonging its brief life inexquisite reverberations. 

And as if that wasn't enough, they went and did it all over again. 

And Winny struggled; she tried to hold him back; she put forth all herinnocent guile; she pitted her fragile charm against the stupendousmagic of the Exhibition. She loitered, spellbound to all appearance, inthe bazaar, before the streaming, shining booths that poured out theirstrange merchandise, Italian, French, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese. 

"I don't want to do anything but walk about and look at things, " shesaid. "Why, we might have traveled for years and not seen as much. "

Winny seemed to be scoring points in the bazaar. 

Then, before she knew where she was, Ranny, with all the power of theExhibition at his back, had bought her a present, a little heart-shapedbrooch made of Florentine turquoises. 

That came of looking at things. She might have known it would. 

"I'm tired of these shops, " said Winny. "We shall be too late to hearanything of the band. "

Thus she drew him to the Western Garden, so that for the moment sheseemed to have it all in her own hands. For here there were morelights, and even more extravagant and fantastic display of electricjewelry, more garlands of diamond and crystal, illuminating, decoratingeverything. And there were rubies hanging in strange trees, and at theirfeet the glamour of light dissolved, half of it perished, gone from theworld, drunk up by the earth, half living on where gray walks wound likepaths in a dream, between rings of spectral green, islands of dimmed, mysterious red, so transformed, so unclothed and clothed again byglamour, as to be hardly discernible as beds of geraniums in grass. 

Here they wandered for what seemed an eternity of bliss. 

"What more do you want?" said Winny. "Isn't this beautiful enough foranybody?" Neither of them had any idea that the beauty and the glamourof it was in their own souls as they drank each other's mystery. 

"Let's just sit and listen to the band, " she said. And they sat andlistened to it for another eternity, till Ranny became restless. Forthirteen and eleven pence halfpenny was burning in his pocket. 

The thought of it made him take her to a restaurant where they sat forquite a long time and drank coffee and ate ices. Winny submitted to theices. They were delicious, and she enjoyed them without a shadow ofmisgiving. She was, in fact, triumphant, for she looked on ices as theclose and crown of everything, and she calculated that out of thatsovereign there would be exactly eleven and twopence halfpenny left. 

"Well--it's been lovely. And now we must go home, " she said. 

"Go home? Not much. Why, we've only just begun. " He looked at her. "D'you suppose I don't know what _you're_ up to? You're jolly clever, but you can't take _me_ in, Winky. Not for a single minute. "

"Well, then, Ranny, let me pay for _something_. " And she took out herlittle purse. 

After that it was sheer headlong, shameful defeat for Winky. He hadfound her out, he had seen through her man[oe]uvers, and he and theExhibition, the destructive and terrible Enchantress, had been laughingat her all the time. A delirious devil had entered into Ranny with thecoffee and the ices, urging him to spend. And Winny ceased to struggle. He knew at what point she would yield, he knew what temptations would beirresistible. He got round her with the Alpine Ride; the Joy Wheelfairly undermined her moral being; and on the Crazy Bridge Ranny'sdelirious devil seized her and carried her away, reckless, into theDragon's Gorge. 

Emerging as it were from the very jaws of the Dragon, they careered armin arm through the rest of the Exhibition, two rushing portents of youthand extravagance and laughter; till, as if the Enchantress had twistedher wand and whisked them there, they found themselves inside thepalisades of the Igorrote Village. 

A swarm of half-naked savages leaped at them. 

It was Ranny who recovered first. 

"It's all right, Winky. They're the Philippine Islanders. "

"Well, I never--"

"Nor I. Talk of travelin'--"

But it was all very well to talk. The sight had sobered them. Gravelyand silently they went through that village. At last, Ranny pausedoutside a hut no bigger than a dog-kennel. It bore the label: "Beda AndHis Fiancée Kodpat Undergoing Trial Marriage. "

Ranny laughed. "By Jove, that tickles _me_!" he said. 

"What does it mean, Ranny?"

"Why, I suppose it means they try it first and if they don't like itthey can chuck it. "

"What an idea!"

"It's a rippin' good idea, Winky. Shows what a thunderin' lot of sensethese simple savages have got. You bet they're not quite so simple asthey seem. They know a thing or two. Why, they must be hundreds of yearsahead of us in civilization, to have thought it all out like that. Thinkof it, that fellow Beda's had a better chance than me. "

They turned away from Beda and Kodpat, and presently Winny stoodentranced before the little house that contained Baby Francis (born inthe Exhibition) and his mother. She looked so long at Baby Francis thatRanny couldn't bear it. 

"Oh, look at him, Ranny! Isn't he a little lamb?" Winny's eyes weretender, and her face quivered with a little dreamy smile. 

"D'you want to take him home and play with him? Shall I ask if he's forsale?"

"Oh, Ranny!"

She turned away. And he drew her arm in his. "You won't be happy tillyou've got him, Winky. "

She said nothing to that; only her mouth, without her knowing it, keptfor him its little dreamy smile. 

"I believe, " said Ranny, "you've never reelly got over Stanley's goin'into knickers. "

"I _love_ his knickers, " she protested. 

"Yes, but you'd love _him_ better if he was that size, wouldn't you?"

"I couldn't love him better than I do, Ranny. You know I couldn't. And Iwouldn't like him to be any different to what he is. "

She was very serious, very earnest, almost as if she thought he'd reallymeant it. 

Silent in the grip of an emotion too thick and close for utterance, theywandered back again to the enchanted garden where the band had playedfor them. The garden was silent, too. The bandstand was empty, black, unearthly as if haunted by some thin ghost of passionate sound; andempty, row after row of seats in the great parterre, except for a fewcouples who sat leaning to each other, hand in hand, finding a happysolitude in that twilight desolation. 

Like worshipers strayed into some church, they joined this enraptured, oblivious company of devotees, choosing seats as far as possible fromany other pair. 

 * * * * *

"Hadn't we better be going?"

They had sat there in silence, holding each other's hands. Theexcitement, the delirious devil in them, had spent itself, and under itthey felt the heaving, dragging groundswell of their passion. 

To Winny it had never come before like this. Up till now it had beenenough simply to be with Ranny. Merely to look at him gave her profoundand poignant pleasure. To touch him in those rare accidental contactsthe adventure brought them, to feel the firm muscles of his arm underhis coat sleeve, stopped her breath with a kind of awe and wonder, as ifin Ranny's body thus discerned she came unaware upon some transcendentmystery. 

Yet Winny knew now why, in what way, and with what terrible strength sheloved him and he her. She loved him, primarily and supremely, forhimself, for the simple fact that he was Ranny. She loved him also forhis body, for his slenderness, and for his strong-clipping limbs, andshe loved him for his face because it could not by any possibility beanybody else's. 

And in her joy and tenderness, in their engagement and in the wholeadventure, this going out with him and all the rare, shy contacts itoccasioned, instalments of delight, windfalls of bliss that Heaven senther to be going on with, in the very secrecy and mystery of it all, Winny felt that disturbing yet delicious sense of something iniquitous, something perilous, something, at any rate, unlawful. It was the samesense that she had known and enjoyed in the days when she went into thescullery at Granville to make beefsteak pies for Ranny; the same sense, but far more exquisite, far more exciting. 

She did not connect it in any way with Violet. Violet had ceased toexist for them. Violet had of her own act annihilated herself. But Winnyknew that until Ranny was divorced from his wife the law continued toregard him as married to her. So that, while firm land held and wouldalways hold her, she was aware that he and she were walking on thebrink, and that by the rule of the road Ranny went, so to speak, uponthe outer edge where it was far more dangerous. She knew that he hadmore than once looked over; and she knew (though nothing would induce_her_ to look) that the gulf was there, not far from her adventurousfeet. 

Still, it was wonderful how all these years they had kept their heads. 

So she said: "Hadn't we better be going? I think we ought to. "

She had unlaced her hand from his, and had turned in her seat to facehim with her decision. 

"Not yet. "

"Well--soon. It's getting rather chilly, don't you think?"

At that he jumped up. "Are you cold, Winky?"

"My feet are, sitting. "

"I forgot your little feet. "

He raised her. 

"It isn't late, " he said. "We can walk about a bit. "

They walked about, for he was very restless again. 

"Wherever does that music come from?" Winny said. 

Sounds came to them of violins and 'cellos, of trombones and clarinets, playing a gay measure, a dance, insistent, luring, irresistible. 

They followed it. 

In a vast room fronted by a latticed screen, all green and white, roofedby a green and white awning, and having a pattern of latticework, greenand white, upon its inner walls, on a vast polished floor was a crowd ofcouples dancing to the music they had heard. It came loud through theopen lattices, the insistent, luring, irresistible measure, violent nowin solicitation, in appeal; and over it and under went the trailing, shuffling slur of the feet of the dancers and the delicate swish ofwomen's gowns as they whirled. 

Standing close outside, they could see into the hall through thelattices of the screen. They saw forty or fifty couples whirling slowlyround and round to the irresistible measure; some were stiff andawkward, palpably shy; some with invincible propriety whirled uprightand rigid, like toys wound up to whirl; some were abandoned to themeasure with madness, with passion, with a corybantic joy. Here andthere a girl leaned as if swooning in her lover's arms; her head hungback; her lower lip drooped; her face showed the looseness and blanknessof a sensuous stupor. Other faces, staring, upraised, wore a look ofexaltation and of ecstasy. All were superbly unaware. 

Winny's face pressed closer and closer to the lattice. One of her littlefeet went tap-tapping on the gravel, beating the measure of the waltz. For at the sound of the music, at the sight of the locked and whirlingcouples, her memory revived; she heard again the beating of the measureold as time; she felt in her limbs the start and strain of the wildenergy; and instinct, savage and shy, moved in the rhythm of her blood, and desire for the joy of the swift running, of the lacing arms andflying feet. 

In her body she was standing outside the Dancing Saloon at the Earl'sCourt Exhibition, with her face pressed to the lattice; she wastwenty-seven last birthday in her body; but in her soul she wasseventeen, and she stood on the floor of the Polytechnic Gymnasium, beating time to the thud of the barbell. She was Winny of the shorttunic and the knickers, and the long black stockings, and had her hair(tied by a great bow of ribbon) in a door-knocker plat. 

"Oh, Ranny--" She looked at him with her shining eyes, half tender andhalf wild. "If we only _could_--"

Something gave way in him and dissolved, and he was weak as water whenhe looked at her. 

The violins gave forth a penetrating, excruciating cry. And he felt inhim the tumult evoked, long ago, one Sunday evening by the music in theMission Church of St. Matthias's. 

Only he knew now what it meant. 

His voice went thick in his throat. 

"I mustn't, Winky. I daren't. Some day--you and I--"

It was the supreme temptation of the great Enchantress; and they fledfrom it. The violins shrieked out and cried their yearning as they went. 

 * * * * *

A scud of rain lashed the carriage windows as their train shot out ofthe Underground at Walham Green. When they stepped out onto the platformat Southfields, the big drops leaped up at them. 

"Well, I never, " said Winny. "Who'd have thought it would have donethat?"

They scuttled into shelter. 

"It'll be a score for Mother. She said it would come, and I said itwouldn't. "

"It'll ruin your new suit. "

"And there won't be much left of your dress. "

"My dress'll iron out again. It's me poor hat. "

(The Peggy hat was not made for rain. )

"I'll take it off and pin it up in me skirt. It's you I'm thinking of. "

She felt his coat to see what resistance it would offer to the rain. Itoffered none. It made no pretense about it. 

"It'll be soaked, and it 'll never be the same again, " she wailed. 

But Ranny remained godlike in his calm. There was still one and sixpenceof his sovereign left. 

"You can keep your hat on. We're going to take a cab. "

If he had said he was going to take an aeroplane she couldn't have beenmore amazed. It was only seven minutes' walk to Acacia Avenue. And itwas not a common cab, it was Parker's fly that he was taking. 

She surrendered because of the new suit. 

"I can count the times I've ridden in a cab, " she said. "This is thethird. First time it was going to Father's funeral. Second time it waspoor Mother's funeral. I've never been happy in a cab till now. "

"Poor little girl! Next time it'll be coming from our wedding. Will yoube happy then?"

"I'm so happy now, Ranny, that I can't believe it. "

"It'll only be six months, or seven at the outside. "

"Are you sure?"

"Certain. "

The worst of the cab was that it cut short their moments. 

It had been standing a whole minute before Johnson's side door. He sentit away. 

For fifteen seconds, measured by hammer strokes of their hearts, theywere alone. On the streaming doorstep, under the dripping eaves, he heldher. He kissed her sweet face all wet with rain. 

"Little Winky--little darling Winky. " He pushed back her Peggy hat, andhis voice lost itself in her hair. 

"They're coming, " she whispered. 

There was a sound of footsteps and of a bolt drawn back. Somebody behindthe door opened it just wide enough to let Winny through, then shut iton him. 

It was intolerable, unthinkable, that she should disappear like that. Through a foot of space, in a hair's breadth of time, she had slippedfrom him. 

CHAPTER XXXI

Nobody had seen them, for at this hour Acacia Avenue was deserted. Thelong monotonous pattern of it stretched before him, splendidly blurred, rich with lamplight and rain, bordered with streaming stars, stripedwith watered light and darkness, glowing, from lamp to lamp, with dimreds and purples that the daylight never sees, and with the strangegas-lit green of its tree tufts shivering under the rain. 

Otherwise the Avenue was depressing in its desolation. The more sobecause it was not quite deserted. At the far end of it the lamplightshowed a woman's figure, indistinct and diminished. This figure, visiblyunsheltered, moved obliquely as if it were driven by the slanting rainand shrank from its whipping. 

He could not tell whether it were approaching or going from him. Itseemed somehow to recede, to have got almost to the end of the road, past all the turnings; in which case, he reflected, the poor thing couldnot be far from her own door. 

There was no mistaking his. Among all those monotonous diminutive housesit was distinct because of its lamp-post and its luxuriantly tuftedtree. The gas was still turned on in the passage, so that above the doorthe white letters of its name, Granville, could be seen. There was noother light in the windows. Entering, he closed the door noiselessly, locked it, slipped the chain, and turned the gas out in the passage. Thelamplight from outside came in a turbid dusk through the thick glass ofthe front door. A small bead of gas made twilight in the sitting-room atthe back. 

The house was very still. 

His mother had evidently gone to bed; but she had left a fire burning inthe sitting-room, and she had set a kettle all ready for boiling on thegas ring, and on the table a cup and saucer, a tin of cocoa, and a plateof bread and cheese. 

He turned up the gas, put the tin of cocoa back into its cupboard, andcarried the bread and cheese to the larder in the scullery. He tried theback door to make sure that it was locked, and paused for a moment onthe mat. He was thinking whether he had better not undress in there bythe fire and spread his damp things round the hearth to dry. 

And as he stood there at the end of the passage he was aware ofsomething odd about the window of the front door. Properly speaking, when the passage was dark, the window should have shown clear againstthe light of the lamp outside, with its broad framework marking uponthis transparency the four arms of a cross. Now it showed a darkness, aqueer shadowy patch on the pane under the left arm of the cross. 

The patch moved sideways to and fro along the lower panes; then suddenlyit rose, it shot up and broadened out, darkening half the window, itsform indiscernible under the covering cross. 

And as it stood still there came a light tapping on the pane. He thoughtthat it was Winny, that she had run after him with some message, orthat perhaps somebody else had run to tell him that something waswrong. 

He went to the door; and as he went the tapping began again, louder, faster, a nervous, desperate appeal. 

He opened the door, and the lamplight showed them to each other. 

"Good God!" He muttered it. "What are you doing here?"

It was his instinct, not his eyes that knew her. 

She had not come forward as the door opened; she had swerved and steppedback rather, gripping her skirts tighter round her as she cowered. Sleeked by the rain, supple, sinuous, and shivering, she cowered like abeaten bitch. 

Yet she faced him. Shrinking from him, cowering like a bitch, backing tothe edge of the porch where the rain beat her, she faced him for amoment. 

Then she crept to him cowering; and as she cowered, her hands, as if inhelplessness and fear, let fall the skirts they had gathered from therain. Her eyes, as she came, gazed strangely at him; eyes that cowered, bitchlike, imploring, agonized, desirous. 

She crept to the very threshold. 

"Let me in, " she said. "You will, won't you?"

"I can't, " he whispered. "You know that as well as I do. "

Her eyes looked up sideways from their cowering. They were surprised, bewildered, incredulous. 

"But I'm soaked through. I'm wet to me skin. "

She was on the threshold. She had her hand to the door. 

He could see her leaning forward a little, ready to fling her body uponthe door if he tried, brutally, to shut it in her face. It was as ifshe actually thought that he would try. 

He knew then that he was not going to shut the door. 

"Come in out of the rain. And for God's sake don't make a noise. "

"I'm not making a noise. I didn't even ring the bell. "

He drew back before her as she came in, creeping softly in a pitifulsubmission. Though the passage was lighted from the street through thewide-open door, she went as if feeling her way along it, with a hand onthe wall. 

Ransome turned. He had no desire to look at her. 

He struck a match and lit the gas, raised it to the full flame, andthen, though he had no desire to look at her, he looked. He staredrather. 

Outside in the half darkness he had known her, as if she stirred in himsome sense, subtler or grosser than mere sight. Now, in the full lightof the hanging lamp, he did not know her. He might have passed her inthe street a score of times without recognizing this woman who had beenhis wife; though he would have stared at her, as indeed he would havebeen bound to stare. It was not only that her body was different, thather figure was taller, slenderer, and more sinuous than he had ever seenit, or that her face was different, fined down to the last expression ofits beauty, changed, physically, with a difference that seemed to himabsolute and supreme. It was that this strange dissimilarity, if hecould have analyzed it, would have struck him as amounting to adifference of soul. Or rather, it was as if Violet's face had nevergiven up her soul's secret until now; never until now had it so much ashinted that Violet had any soul at all. The comparative fineness andsharpness of outline might have reminded him of his wife as she hadlooked when she came out of her torture after the birth of her firstchild, but that no implacable resentment and no revolt was there. It wasplainly to be seen (nor did Ransome altogether miss it) that here were abody and a soul that had suffered to extremity, and were now utterlybeaten, utterly submissive. 

This suggestion of frightful things endured was more lamentable bycontrast with the shining sleekness, the drenched splendor of herattire. Ransome saw that her clothes helped to build up the impressionof her strangeness. Violet was dressed as his wife, at the most frenziedheight of her extravagance, had never dressed, as even Mercier's wifecould not have dressed, nor yet his mistress. The black satin coat andgown that clung to her body like a sheath showed flawless, though theystreamed with rain; the lace at her throat, the black velvet hat withthe raking plume that had once been yellow, the design and quality ofthe flat bag slung on her arm were details that belonged (and Ransomeknew it) to a world that was not his nor Mercier's either. And as hetook them in he conceived from them an abominable suspicion. 

His eyes must have conveyed his repulsion, for she spoke as if answeringthem. 

"You mustn't mind my clothes. They're done for. "

She looked down, self-pitying, at her poor slippered feet standing in apool of rain. 

"I'm making such a mess of your nice hall. "

A little laugh shook in her throat and turned into a fit of coughing. Hesaw how instantly one hand went to her mouth and pressed there while theother struggled blindly, frantically, with the opening of her bag. 

"What is it?"

"My hanky--" She coughed the words out. It, the childish word, moved himto a momentary compassion. 

"Here you are. "

She stepped back from him as she stretched out her arm; then she turnedand leaned against the wall, hiding her face and muffling her cough inRansome's pocket handkerchief. 

Each gesture, each surreptitious and yet frantic effort at suppression, showed her a creature that some brute had beaten, had terrified andcowed. The old Violet would have come swinging up the path; she wouldhave pushed past him into the warm and lighted room; this one had comecreeping to his door. She took no step to which he did not himselfinvite her. 

"Come in here a minute, " he said. 

He put his hand upon her arm to guide her. He led her into the warm roomand drew up a chair for her before the fire. 

"Sit down and get warm. "

She shook her head; and by that sign he conceived the hope that shewould soon be gone. She looked after him as he went to the door of theroom to close it. When she heard the click of the latch her cough burstout violently and ceased. 

She crouched down by the hearth, holding out her hands to the blaze. Hestood against the chimney-piece, looking down at her, silent, notknowing what he might be required to say. 

She peeled off the wet gloves that were plastered to her skin; she drewout the long pins from her hat, took it off, and gazed ruefully at thelean plume lashed to its raking stem. With the coquetry of pathos, sheheld it out to him. 

"Look at me poor feather, Ranny, " she said. 

He shuddered as she spoke his name. 

"You'd better take your shoes off, and that coat, " he said. 

She took them off. He set the shoes in the fender. He hung the coat overthe back of the chair to dry. As she stood upright the damp streamedfrom her skirts and drifted toward the fire. 

"How about that skirt?"

"I could slip it off, and me stockings, too, if you didn't mind. "

"All right, " he muttered, and turned from her. He could hear thedelicate silken swish of her draperies as they slid from her to thefloor. 

She was slenderer than ever in the short satin petticoat that was herinner sheath. Her naked feet, spread to the floor, showed white butunshapely. She stood there like some beautiful flower rising superblyfrom two ugly, livid, and distorted roots. 

But neither her beauty nor her ugliness could touch him now. 

"Look here, " he said, "I'll get you some dry things. "

His mind was dulled by the shock of seeing her, so that it was unable toattach any real importance or significance to her return. He knew her tobe both callous and capricious; therefore, he told himself that therewas no need to take her seriously now. The thing was to get rid of heras soon as possible. He smothered the instinct that had warned him ofhis danger, and persuaded himself that dry things would meet thetriviality of her case. 

He went upstairs very softly to his room. In a jar on the chimney-piecehe found a small key. Still going softly, he let himself into the littleunfurnished room over the porch where boxes were stored. Among them wasthe trunk which contained Violet's long-abandoned clothes. He unlockedit, rummaged, deliberated, selected finally a serge skirt, draggled butwarm; a pair of woolen stockings, and shoes, stout for all theirshabbiness. 

And as he knelt over the trunk his mind cleared suddenly, and he knewwhat he was going to do. He was going to fetch a cab, if he could getone, and take her away in it. If she was staying in London he would takeher straight back to whatever place she had come from. If she came froma distance he would see her started on her journey home. He wasprepared, if necessary, to hang about for hours in any station, waitingfor any train that would remove her. If the worst came to the worst hewould take a room for her in some hotel and leave her there. But hewould not have her sitting with him till past midnight in his house. Itwas too risky. He knew what he was about. He knew that there was dangerin any course that could give rise to the suspicion of cohabitation. Heknew, not only that cohabitation in itself was fatal, but that theinjured husband who invoked the law must refrain from the veryappearance of that evil. 

Of course, he knew what Violet had come for. She was beginning to getuneasy about her divorce. And, personally, he couldn't see where therisk came in unless the suit was defended. And it wasn't going to bedefended. It couldn't be. The suspicion of collusion would in his casebe a far more dangerous thing. It was what he had been specially warnedagainst. 

These two ideas, collusion and cohabitation, struggled for supremacy inRanny's brain. They seemed to him mutually exclusive; and all it came towas that, with his suit so imminent, he couldn't be too careful. He mustnot, even for the sake of decency, show Violet any consideration thatwould be prejudicial to his case. 

Whereupon it struck him that the most perilous, most embarrassing detailof the situation was the disgusting accident of the weather. In commondecency he couldn't have turned her out of doors in that rain. 

And under all the confused working of his intelligence his instinct toldhim that what happened was not an accident at all. His inmost presciencehinted at foredoomed, irremediable suffering; profound, irreparabledisaster. 

 * * * * *

But with his mind set upon its purpose he gathered up the shabby skirt, the stockings, and the shoes, he took his own thick overcoat from itspeg in the passage; he warmed them well before the sitting-room fire. 

Violet watched him with an air of detachment, of innocentincomprehension, as if these preparations in no way concerned herself. She was sitting in the chair now, with her bare feet in the fender. 

He then put the kettle on the fire, and her eyes kindled and looked upat him. 

"What are you going to do?" she asked. 

"I'm going to make you a cup of hot tea before you go. "

"I _can't_ go, " she whispered. 

He was firm. 

"I'm awfully sorry, Violet. But you've got to. "

"But, Ranny--you couldn't turn a cat out on a night like this. "

"Don't talk nonsense about turning out. You know you can't stay here. Ican't think what on earth possessed you to come. You haven't told meyet. "

She did not tell him now. She did not look at him. She sat bowedforward, her elbows on her knees, and her chin propped on her hands, while she cried, quietly, with slow tears that rolled down her bare, undefended face. 

He made the tea and poured it out for her, and she took the cup from himand drank, without looking at him, without speaking. And still she criedquietly. Now and then a soft sob came from her in the pauses of herdrinking. 

Ransome sat on the table and delivered himself of what he had to say. 

"I don't know what's upsetting you, " he said. "And you don't seeminclined to tell me. But if you're worrying about that divorce, youneedn't. You'll get it all right. The--the thing'll be sent you in aweek or a fortnight. "

"Ranny, " she said, "are you really doin' it?"

"Of course I'm doing it. "

"I didn't know. "

"Well--you might have known. "

He was deaf to the terror in her voice. 

"I'd have done it years ago if I'd had the money. It isn't my faultwe've had to wait for it. It was hard luck on both of us. "

He stopped to look at her, still, like some sick animal, meeklydrinking, and still crying. 

He waited till her cup was empty and took it from her. 

"More?"

"No, thank you. "

He put down the cup, turned, and went toward the door. There was asavage misery in his heart and in all his movements an awful gentleness. 

She started up. 

"Don't go, Ranny. Don't leave me. "

Her voice was dreadful to his instinct. 

"I must. "

"You're going to do something. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to leave you to change into those things. I'm going to lookfor a cab, and I'm going to take you back to wherever you came from. "

"You don't know where I came from. You don't know why I've come. "

There was the throb of all disaster in her voice. His instinct heard it. But his intelligence refused to hear. It went on reasoning with her whowas unreasonable. 

"I don't know, " it said, "why you want to stick here. It won't do eitherof us any good. "

"Has it began?" she said. "Can't anything stop it?"

"Yes. You can stop it if you stay here all night. If you want it to goright you must keep away. It's madness your coming here at this time ofnight. I can't think why you--I should have thought you'd have known--"

"Oh, Ranny, don't be hard on me. "

"I'm not hard on you. You're hard on yourself. You want a divorce and Iwant it. Don't you know we sha'n't get it--if--"

"But I _don't_ want it--I don't indeed. "

"What's that?"

"I don't want it. I didn't know you were divorcing me. I never thoughtyou'd go and do it after all these years. "

"Rot! You knew I was going to do it the minute I had the money. "

"You don't understand. I've come to ask you if you'll forgive me--andtake me back. "

"I forgave you long ago. But I can't take you back. You know _that_ wellenough. "

She made as if she had not heard him. 

"I'll be good, Ranny. I _want_ to be good. "

He also made as if he had not heard. 

"Why do you want me to take you back?"

"That's why. So as I can be good. Father's turned me out, Ranny. "

"Your father?"

"I went to him first. I didn't think I'd any right to come to you--afterI'd served you like I did. "

"Oh, never mind how you served me. What's Mercier been doing?"

"He's got married. "

"Just like him. I thought he was going to marry _you_?"

"He wouldn't wait for me. He couldn't. He thought you were never goingto get your divorce. He _had_ to settle down so as to get on in hisbusiness. He wanted a Frenchwoman who could help him, and he daren't somuch as look at me--after, for fear she'd divorce him. "

"I told you he was a swine. "

"He wasn't. It wasn't _his_ fault. He'd have married me two years ago ifyou could have divorced me then. "

Her mouth was loose to the passage of her sigh, as if for a moment shefelt a sensuous pleasure in her own self-pity. She did not see how hismouth tightened to the torture as she turned the screw. 

She went on. "Lenny was all right. He was good to me as long as I waswith him. _He_ wouldn't have turned me into the street to starve. "

"Who _has_ turned you into the street?" He could not disguise hisexasperation. 

Then he remembered. "Oh--your father. "

"I don't mean Father. I mean the other one. "

"There _was_ another one? And you expect me to take you back?"

"I'm only _asking_ you, " she said. "Don't be so hard on me. I _had_ tohave some one when Lenny left me. He's been the only one since Lenny. And he was all right until he tired of me. "

"Who's the brute you're talking about?"

"He's a gentleman. That's all I can tell you. "

"Sounds pretty high class. And where does this gentleman hang out?"

"I oughtn't to tell you. He's a painter, and he's awfully well known. Well--it's somewhere in the West End, and we had a flat in Bloomsbury. "

She answered his wonder. "I met him in Paris. He took me away fromthere, and I've been with him all the time. There wasn't anybody else. Iswear there wasn't--I swear. "

"Oh, you needn't. "

He got up and walked away. 

"Ranny--don't go for the cab until I've told you everything. "

"I'm _not_ going. What more have you got to say?"

"Don't look at me like that, as if you could murder me. You wouldn't ifyou knew how he's served me. He beat me, Ranny. He beat me with hishands and with his stick. "

She rolled up the sleeves of her thin blouse. 

"Look here--and here. That's what he was always doing to me. And I'vegot worse--bigger ones--on me breast and on me body. "

"Good God--" The words came from him under his breath, and not even hisinstinct knew what he would say next. 

He said--or rather some unknown power took hold of him and said it--"Whydidn't you come to me before?"

She hesitated. 

"He never turned me out until last night. "

Her pause gave him time to measure the significance of what she said. 

"He didn't really tire of me till I got ill. I had pneumonia lastspring. I nearly died of it, and I've not been right since. That's how Igot me cough. He couldn't stand it. "

She paused. 

"I ought to have gone when he told me to. But I didn't. I was awfullygone on him. 

"And--last night--we were to have gone to the theater together; but he'dbeen drinkin' and I said I wouldn't go with him. Then he swore at me andstruck me, and said I might go by myself. And I went. And when I camehome he shut the door on me and turned me into the street with nothingbut the clothes on me back and what I had in me purse. And he said if Icame back he'd do for me. "

She got it out, the abominable history, in a succession of jerks, in avoice dulled to utter apathy. 

And an intolerable pity held him silent before this beaten thing, although with every word she dragged him nearer to the ultimate, foreseen disaster. 

She went on. 

"I was scared to walk about the streets all night in these things. Ialways was more afraid of that than anything. Though _he_ never wouldbelieve me when I said so. You don't know the names he called me. So Itook a taxi and I went to the first hotel I could think of--theThackeray. But I hadn't enough money with me, and they wouldn't take mein. Then I went and sat in the waiting-room at Euston Station till theyclosed. Then I sat outside on the platform and pretended to be waitin'for a train. _He_ wouldn't believe me if I told him I'd spent the nightin that station. But I did. And I got me death of cold. And in themorning me cough started, and they wouldn't take me in any of the shopsbecause of it. 

"I tried all morning. Starker's first. Then in the afternoon I went toFather, and he wouldn't have me. He won't believe I haven't been bad, because of me things and me cough. I suppose he thinks I've gotconsumption or something. He saw me coming in at the gate and he turnedme out straight. I didn't even get to the door. "

"He couldn't--"

"He did--reelly, Ranny, he did. He said he'd washed his hands of me andI could go back to you. He said--No, I can't tell you what he said. "

There was no need to tell. He knew. 

She looked at him now, straight, for the first time. 

"Ranny--he knows. He knows what we did. "

"Did you tell him?"

"Not me! He'd guessed it. He'd guessed it all the time. Trust _him_. Andhe taxed me with it. And I lied. I wasn't goin' to have him thinkin'_that_ of you. "

"Of _me_?"

"Yes--_you_. " It was her first flash of feeling since she began hertale. "It doesn't matter what he thinks of me. I told him so. "

"Well? Then?"

"Then I started lookin' for work again. Couldn't get any. Then I camehere. If you turn me out there'll be nothing but the streets. If I wasto get work nobody'll keep me. I haven't properly got over that illness. I'm so weak I couldn't stand to do anything long. There are times when Ican hardly hold myself together. "

And still there was no feeling in her voice, and barely the suggestionof appeal; only the flat tones of the last extremity. 

"I've come here because I'm afraid of going to the bad. I don't want tobe bad--not reelly bad. But I'll be driven to it if you turn me out. "

It might have been a threat she held out to him but that her voicelacked the passion of all menace. Passion could not have served herbetter than her dull, unvibrating statement of the fact. 

"If you won't take me back--"

Her spent voice dropped dead on the last word and her cough broke outagain. 

Ransome's next movement averted it. She revived suddenly. 

"Ranny--are you going for that cab?"

He turned. 

"No, " he said. "You know I'm not. "

"Then, what are you thinking of?"

 * * * * *

He was thinking: "I won't have Dossie and Stanny sleeping with her. AndI can't turn Mother out. So there's no room for her. Yes, there is. Ican get a camp bed and put it in the box room. I shall be all right inthere, and she can have my room to herself. "

No other arrangement seemed endurable or possible to him. 

And yet, while his flesh cried out in the agony of its repulsion, itknew that in the years, the terrible, interminable years before them, itcould not be as he had planned. There would be a will stronger than hisown will that would not be frustrated. 

And he told himself that he could have borne it if it had not been forthat. 

There was a knocking at the door. The handle turned, and through theslender opening which was all she dared make, Mrs. Ransome spoke to herson. 

"Ranny, do you know you've left the front door open? Who's thatcoughing?" she said. 

Neither of them answered. 

"Hasn't Winny gone yet? You shouldn't keep her out so late, dear. It'stime both of you were in bed. "

At that he rose and went to her. 

 * * * * *

Presently they could be heard moving Stanny's little cot into hisgrandmother's room. 

That night Violet slept in Ransome's bed. 

Ransome lay on the sofa in the front sitting-room. He did not sleep, andat dawn he got up and looked out. The rain had ceased. It was thebeginning of a perfect day. 

He remembered then that he had promised Winny to walk with her toWimbledon Common. 

CHAPTER XXXII

"She's ill. Fair gone to pieces. But the doctor says she'll soon be allright again if we take care of her. "

It was early evening of Sunday. They were going slowly up the steep hillthat winds, westward and southward, toward the heights of Wimbledon. 

He had just told her that Violet had come back. 

"I couldn't in common decency turn her out. "

In a long silence he struggled to find words for what he had to saynext. She saw him struggling and came to his help. 

"Ranny, you're going to take her back, " she said. 

"What must you think of me?"

"Think of you? I wouldn't have you different. " The whole spirit of herlove for him was in those words. 

She continued. "You see, dear, it comes to the same thing. If you didn'ttake her back I couldn't marry you, for it wouldn't be you. You'll haveto take her. "

"You talk as if I'd nobody but her to think of. Look what she's makingme do to you--"

"I'm strong enough to bear it and she isn't. She'll go straight to thebad if we don't look after her. "

"That's it. She said there was nothing but the streets for her. " Hebrooded. "If I was a rich man I could divorce her and give her anallowance to live away. I can't stand it, Winny, when I think of you. "

"You needn't think of me, dear. It isn't as if I hadn't known. "

"How _could_ you know?"

"I knew all the time she'd come back--some day. "

"Yes. But if Father hadn't died when he did we should have been safemarried. We missed it by a day. Mercier'd have married her two yearsago. If I'd had thirty pounds then it couldn't have happened. But I wasa damned fool. I should have thought of you _then_--I should have leteverything else go and married you. "

Slowly, drop by drop, he drank his misery. But she had savored sorrow sofar off that now that the cup was brought to her it had lost half itsbitterness. 

"You couldn't have done different, even then, dear. Don't worry aboutme. It's not as if I hadn't been happy with you. I've hadyou--reelly--Ranny, all these years. "

But the happiness that by way of comfort she held out to him was thevery dregs of Ranny's cup. 

"That's it, " he said. "I don't know how it's going to be now. She's thesame, somehow, and yet different. "

It was his way of expressing the fact that Violet's suffering had givenher a soul, and that this soul, this subtler and more inscrutableessence of her, would not necessarily be good. It might even bemalignant. Most certainly it would be hostile. It would come betweenthem. 

"It's a good thing the children'll be at school now--out of her way. "

"P'raps she's better--kinder, p'raps. "

"I don't know about that, Winny. I'm afraid. Anyhow, it'll never be thesame for you and me. "

He paused, and then seeing suddenly the full extent of their calamity, he broke out. 

"What'll you _do_, Winny?"

"I'll ask Mr. Randall if he'll take me on. "

"You won't stay here?"

"No. Better not. I mustn't be too near, this time. That was the mistakeI made before. And you've got your mother. "

"And what have _you_ got?" he cried, fiercely. 

"I've got plenty--all I've ever had. These things don't go away, dear. "

They stood still, looking before them, with their unspoken misery intheir eyes. 

At their feet, down there, creeping low on the ground, spreading itspacked roofs for miles over the land that had once been green fields, its red and purple smoldering and smoking in the autumn mist and sunset, there lay the Paradise of Little Clerks. 

They turned and went slowly toward it down the hill. 

THE END