II
As they stepped out of the tranquil, bright house, the cold sprang like a wolf at Paul’s throat and made him gasp. The blackness and the stillness of that night!
“We’ll make a dash for it,” he said, taking Miss Banks’s arm—a very solid little arm it was, too.
“No hurry,” said she. “I like this kind of weather, and I like this awful, dismal little place. At night it doesn’t look like a suburban residential park. It might be Siberia!”
Paul, being a man, was therefore obliged to conceal his extreme discomfort, and to stroll along at the girl’s side, though the cold bit him to the bone and made his throat ache, though his numbed feet struck against stones and caused him anguish. He had to talk, too, and even to laugh, as they went down the long, lonely road.
Then they reached the corner, and turned off down a lane, not yet improved, but full of ruts and ridges of frozen mud. Paul had heard of the good old-fashioned punishment in which the culprit had to walk over red-hot plowshares. He thought that it could not have been much more painful than traversing this lane. The[Pg 64] friendly interest he had felt in Miss Banks was greatly chilled. He thought she was an inhuman little monster.
They came in time to her cottage, all dark and silent, with a low, white fence faintly visible, like a necklace of bones round the stark garden. There wasn’t another house within sight. No one but an inhuman little monster could have endured to live here.
“Now!” said she. “Let’s see you get in!”
She perched herself on the fence, quite blithe and unconcerned. She even whistled.
Paul and Christine had always agreed that woman should be man’s comrade and helper. When woman, however, was not a helper and comrade, but sat upon a fence, whistling, and simply waiting, man was conscious of a new and not displeasing sense of obligation. He felt that he must display the primitive manly qualities of strength and cunning, that he must be practical, energetic, and so on.
Christine would have wanted to help and advise him. If he had insisted upon doing it alone, she would have thought he was “showing off.” Well, perhaps he was. He deserved that privilege, set down as he was on a bitter night before a strange house and told to get into it.
He did get into it. After finding everything locked, he broke a window pane with a stone, inserted his hand, and turned the catch. The window then lifted readily enough, so that he could crawl through. Ingenuity, always ingenuity!
Nothing for him to stumble about in that musty, cold, strange blackness, find a lamp and light it, and open the front door. Nothing for him to light a fire on the hearth of the sitting room and another in the kitchen stove. Nothing to him that his hand and wrist were cut and bleeding. He pretended not to notice that, and Miss Banks really didn’t.
Then he stuffed up the broken window pane with rags, and then Miss Banks had plenty of other little things for him to do—boxes to open, furniture to move, and so on.
“I can’t do a blessed thing for myself,” she observed.
Now Paul was grimy and very weary, and those cuts were painful. The sight of Miss Banks sitting comfortably in an armchair by the fire did not give him the unselfish pleasure it should have given.
“How did you manage to get on, then, in Siberia, or wherever it was?” he demanded.
“I’ve never been in Siberia,” said she, “but I’d get on there—or anywhere. I know how to get things done!”
This struck Paul as a very tactless remark. Such knowledge was not a thing to boast of; but he happened to look at her, and she was looking at him, and his serious face broke reluctantly into a grin.
“Don’t you know,” said she, “that Adam delved while Eve spun? I’m perfectly willing to sit comfortably by the fire and spin, as long as there’s a man to go out in the cold and delve; and there always is!”
Now Paul did not like this attitude. He thought Miss Banks a selfish, unscrupulous, and domineering creature—but challenging. She was quick and clever and audacious, besides being very pretty; and it was necessary to show her that he was not a cat’s-paw.
Of course, he could not very well refuse any of her requests. He had to chop wood, to break open a cupboard door, and to nail up rows and rows of hooks; but he did all this with a bland and superior air. Being unused to such work, it took him a long time. When at last he had done, and had put on his overcoat, instead of thanking him, Miss Banks remarked:
“They say that if you want a thing done well, you must do it yourself: but for my part I’d rather have things done badly—by some one else!”
“Thanks!” said Paul frigidly.
Miss Banks was standing quite close to him, staring at him with candid interest.
“The trouble with you is,” she said, “that you’re spoiled!”
Paul was hard put to it to find a superior smile.
“Thanks!” he said again. “And now, if there’s nothing more you want done I may as—”
“There’ll be lots more things to-morrow,” she interrupted; “but you’ve had enough, haven’t you?”
This was too much for Paul. He saw by her self-satisfied smile that she fancied she had exploited him and made an idiot of him, and was laughing at him.
“No,” he said, in a calm, reasonable tone. “If you want me to help you, I’ll come again to-morrow.”
Then he went off, scarcely feeling the[Pg 65] cold now, because of the wrath and resentment that burned in him.