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Carruthers—he recognised him at once as the man with the dog called Sally—was worshipping her. Decently, for Carruthers was plainly a decent chap, but worshipping her all right; it was written in every line and twist of him, as he leaned forward eagerly, telling her stories, apparently, for he was talking a great deal and she was only listening,—amusing stories, for she was smiling.
She never smiled with him, thought Jocelyn; not like that, not a real smile of just enjoyment. From the very first day, that day at tea in the Pinner parlour, she had seemed frightened of him. But she couldn’t be much frightened, for here she was openly disregarding his injunctions, and somehow got out of her locked room. That seemed to Jocelyn anything but being frightened; it seemed to him to the last degree fearless and resourceful. And how strangely at variance with her apparent shyness and retiringness that twice in one day she should have allowed strange men to feed her.
He approached their corner, pale and grim. He was tired to death after the vexatious day he had had, and very hungry after not having had anything to eat since breakfast. Carruthers had watched his opportunity, of course—waited somewhere till he had seen him go, and then taken the luggage in and asked for Sally. And Sally, somehow getting out of that room, had defied his orders and come down. Well, he couldn’t do anything with her at that moment. He was too tired to flare up. Besides—scenes; he couldn’t for ever make scenes. What a revolting form of activity to have thrust upon him! But the amount of ideas that would, he perceived, have to be got into her head if life was to be even approaching tolerable was so great that his mind, in his fatigued state, refused to consider it.
She saw him first, and, much pleased with everything, with the beautiful tea, with Mr. Carruthers’ funny stories and with her pleasant afternoon altogether, continued to smile, but at him now, and said to Carruthers, ‘’Ere comes Mr. Luke.’
And on Carruthers getting up and Jocelyn arriving at the table, introduced them.
‘My ’usband,’ introduced Sally; explaining Carruthers to Jocelyn by saying, ‘The gentleman as brought our traps.’
Jocelyn couldn’t be angry with Carruthers; he looked at him so friendlily, and shook his hand with what surely was a perfectly sincere heartiness. And though he was obviously bowled over by Sally—naturally, thought Jocelyn, seeing that he had none of the responsibility and only the fun—there was something curiously sympathetic in his attitude to Jocelyn himself, something that seemed, oddly, to understand.
Sally, his wife, said, for instance, ‘’Ad yer tea?’—just that, and made no attempt to give him any. But what Carruthers said, quickly going across and ringing the bell, was, ‘I bet you haven’t. You’ve had the sort of rotten day there’s no time for anything in but swearing. They’ll bring some fresh stuff in a moment. It’s a jolly good tea they give one in this place,—don’t they, Mrs. Luke.’
‘’Eavenly,’ said Sally. And turning to Jocelyn she said, more timidly, ‘’Ad to come out of the bedroom. The servant——’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ interrupted Jocelyn hastily, earnestly desiring to keep from Carruthers the knowledge that he had locked her in. Things look so different, especially domestic actions, in the eyes of a third person unaware of the attendant circumstances, thought Jocelyn.
He dropped into a chair. What a comfort it was, after a fortnight of being dog alone with Sally, to hear that decent voice. It really was like music. He hadn’t, at Cambridge, cared much for the Oxford way of speaking, but how beautiful it seemed after the Pinner way. He wanted to shut his eyes and just listen to it. ‘Go on, go on,’ he wanted to say, when Carruthers paused for a moment in his pleasant talk; and he sat there, listening and eating and drinking in silence, and Carruthers looked after him, and fed him, and talked pleasantly to him, and talked pleasantly to Sally as well, and did, in fact, all the talking. There was something about Jocelyn that made Carruthers feel maternal. He was so thin. His shoulder blades stuck out so, and his lean, nervous face twitched. Carruthers thought, as he had thought on that first occasion, only this time, knowing who he was and aware of Sally’s class, with ten times more conviction, ‘Poor devil’; but he also thought, his eyes resting on the lovely thing in the corner—he had established her in the farthermost corner of the Thistle and Goat’s drawing-room, for he too had instantly begun to hide her, and she lit up its gloom as a white flower lights up the dusk—he also thought, ‘Poor angel.’