Clayhanger

"Excuse me," she said coldly; "I saw a light quite five minutes ago."

"Oh yes!" he apologised. "I remember. When I came up the cellar steps."

"I dare say you think it's very queer of me," she continued.

"Not at all," he said quickly.

"Yes you do," she bitterly insisted. "But I want to know. Did you mean it when you said--you know, at supper--that there's no virtue in believing?"

"Did I say there was no virtue in believing?" he stammeringly demanded.

"Of course you did!" she remonstrated. "Do you mean to say you can say a thing like that and then forget about it? If it's true, it's one of the most wonderful things that were ever said. And that's why I wanted to know if you meant it or whether you were only saying it because it sounded clever. That's what they're always doing in that house, you know, being clever!" Her tone was invariably harsh.

"Yes," he said simply, "I meant it. Why?"

"You did?" Her voice seemed to search for insincerity. "Well, thank you. That's all. It may mean a new life to me. I'm always trying to believe; always! Aren't you?"

"I don't know," he mumbled. "How do you mean?"

"Well--you know!" she said, as if impatiently smas.h.i.+ng his pretence of not understanding her. "But perhaps you do believe?"

He thought he detected scorn for a facile believer. "No," he said, "I don't."

"And it doesn't worry you? Honestly? Don't be clever! I hate that!"

"No," he said.

"Don't you ever think about it?"

"No. Not often."

"Charlie does."

"Has he told you?" ("So she talks to the Sunday too!" he reflected.)

"Yes; but of course I quite see why it doesn't worry you--if you honestly think there's no virtue in believing."

"Well," said Edwin. "Is there?" The more he looked at it through her eyes, the more wonderful profundities he discovered in that remark of his, which at the time of uttering it had appeared to him a simple plat.i.tude. It went exceedingly deep in many directions.

"I hope you are right," she replied. Her voice shook.

FIVE.

There was silence. To ease the strain of his self-consciousness Edwin stepped down from the stone floor of the porch to the garden. He felt rain. And he noticed that the sky was very much darker.

"By Jove!" he said. "It's beginning to rain, I do believe."

"I thought it would," she answered.

A squall of wind suddenly surged rustling through the high trees in the garden of

"You'd better stand against the other wall," he suggested. "You'll catch it there, if it keeps on."

She obeyed. He returned to the porch, but remained in the exposed portion of it.

"Better come here," she said, indicating somehow her side.

"Oh! I'm all right."

"You needn't be afraid of me," she snapped.

He grinned awkwardly, but said nothing, for he could not express his secret resentment. He considered the girl to be of exceedingly unpleasant manners.

"Would you mind telling me the time?" she asked.

He took out his watch, but peer as he might, he could not discern the position of the hands.

"Half a second," he said, and struck a match. The match was blown out before he could look at the dial, but by its momentary flash he saw Hilda, pressed against the wall. Her lips were tight, her eyes blazing, her hands clenched. She frowned; she was pale, and especially pale by contrast with the black of her plain austere dress.

"If you'll come into the house," he said, "I can get a light there."

The door was ajar.

"No thanks," she declined. "It doesn't really matter what time it is, does it? Good night!"

He divined that she was offering her hand. He clasped it blindly in the dark. He could not refuse to shake hands. Her hand gave his a feverish and lingering squeeze, which was like a contradicting message in the dark night; as though she were sending through her hand a secret denial of her spoken accents and her frown. He forgot to answer her 'good night.' A trap rattled furiously up the road. (Yes; only six yards off, on the other side of the boundary wall, was the public road! And he standing hidden there in the porch with this girl whom he had seen for the first time that evening!) It was the mail-cart, rus.h.i.+ng to Knype.

She did not move. She had said 'good night' and shaken hands; and yet she remained. They stood speechless.

Then without warning, after perhaps a minute that seemed like ten minutes, she walked away, slowly, into the rain. And as she did so, Edwin could just see her straightening her spine and throwing back her shoulders with a proud gesture.

"I say, Miss Lessways!" he called in a low voice. But he had no notion of what he wanted to say. Only her departure had unlocked his throat.

She made no sign. Again he grinned awkwardly, a little ashamed of her and a little ashamed of himself, because neither had behaved as woman or man of the world.

After a short interval he followed in her steps as far as the gap in the hedge, which he did not find easily. There was no sign of her. The gas burned serenely in her bedroom, and the window was open. Then he saw the window close up a little, and an arm in front of the drawn blind.

The rain had apparently ceased.

SIX.

"Well, that's an eye-opener, that is!" he murmured, and thereby expressed the situation. "Of all the d.a.m.ned impudence!" He somewhat overstated his feelings, because he was posing a little to himself: an accident that sooner or later happens to every man! "And she'll go back and make out to Master Tom that she's just had a stroll in the garden!

Garden, indeed! And yet they're all so fearfully stuck on her."

He nodded his head several times reflectively, as if saying, "Well, well! What next?" And he murmured aloud: "So that's how they carry on, is it!" He meant, of course, women... He was very genuinely astounded.

But the chief of all his acute sensations in that moment was pride: sheer pride. He thought, what ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have thought in such circ.u.mstances: "She's taken a fancy to me!"