II.
Mary had intended to wait outside the Agency until her George should arrive and explain his mysterious message. But she was scarcely at the building when Miss Ram, also arriving, accosted her—took her upstairs. Miss Ram quite naturally regarded the meeting as evidence that Mary had come for help. Mary, in a flutter as to George's intentions, could but meekly follow.
In the room marked “Private,” settled at her table, Miss Ram icily opened the interview. “I have heard from Mrs. Chater. I did not expect to see you again.”
Mary began: “I don't know what you have heard—”
Miss Ram stretched for a letter.
“Oh, I don't wish to,” Mary cried; put out a hand that stayed the action. “To hear all she says would again begin it all. It would be like her voice. It would be like being with her again. Please, please, Miss Ram, don't tell me.”
“You have your own version?”
“I have the truth.” Mary pointed at the letter-file. “The truth isn't there. Mrs. Chater isn't capable of the truth. She cannot even recognise the truth when she hears it.”
In yet more freezing tones Miss Ram replied: “She is an old and valued client.”
“You only know her in this office,” Mary told her. “You don't know her in her home.”
“I have suited her with other young ladies. I have heard of her from them.”
“And they have spoken well of her?”
“Discounting the prejudice of a late employee, they have spoken well.”
“Was her son there with them?”
“They have not told me so.”
“Ah!” said Mary; sat back in her chair.
“Then your version is about the son?”
Mary nodded. Recollection put a silly lump in her throat.
Miss Ram said: “Miss Humfray, when I received that letter from Mrs. Chater, I said I would have no more to do with you. I told Miss Porter I would not see you. Why, out of all my ladies, do you come back to me characterless from your situations? I will listen to your story. Make it very brief. Don't exaggerate. I have sat in this chair for seventeen years. I can distinguish in a minute between facts and spleen. You desire to tell your version?”
“I must,” Mary said. “What I'd like to do would be to get up and say, 'If you doubt me, I'll not trouble to convince you.' I'd like to walk out and leave you and face anything rather than 'explain.' Why should I 'explain' to anybody? But I'm not going to walk out. I haven't the pluck. I know what it is like to be alone out there.” She gave a little choke. “I've learnt that much, anyway.” She went on. “I'll just tell you, that's all. I don't want your sympathy; I only want your sense of justice.”
“I like your spirit,” Miss Ram said. It was a quality she rarely found in her applicants. “Go on.”
Then Mary told. She phrased bluntly. Her recital was after the manner of the fireworks called “Roman candles.” These, when lit, pour out fire and smoke in a rather weak-kneed dribble. They must be held tightly. When tensely enough constricted, of fire and smoke there is little, but at intervals out there pops an exceedingly luminous ball of flame.
My Mary kept the pressure of pride upon her throat. There was no dribble of emotion. Only the facts popped out—hard and dry, and to Miss Ram intensely illuminative. Mary did not mention George's name. She concluded her narrative with jerky facts relative to the scene in the Park. “Then I ran away,” she said, “and a friend of mine came up. He had seen. And he thrashed him. When I got back to Mrs. Chater's her son had arrived—battered. He told his mother that he had seen me with a man and had interfered. That the man assaulted him. That's all.”
“The miserable hound!” pronounced Miss Ram with extraordinary ferocity.
From a drawer in her desk she took a manuscript book, bound in limp leather, tied with blue ribbon. Herein were contained the remarkable thoughts which from time to time had come to this woman during her seventeen years' occupancy of the chair in which she sat. Upon the flyleaf was inscribed “Aphorisms: by Eugenie Ram.” It was her intent to publish this darling work when beneath each letter of the alphabet twelve aphorisms were written.
“The miserable hound!” cried she, when the full tale of Mr. Bob Chater's vileness was told; drew “Aphorisms” towards her and wrote in hot blood.
Then looked at Mary. “L,” she read, “L. Lust. Lust is the sound meat of natural instinct gone to carrion. Men eat meat, wolves eat carrion. Some men are wolf-men—Hand me the dictionary, Miss Humfray. Two r's in carrion. I thought so. Thank you.”
She replaced “Aphorisms.” “My dear, I will do what I can for you,” she told Mary. “I do believe you. Go into the interview room. I hear a step.”