Then Reuben Boam entered, erect as a soldier, and with the face of a puritan and prophet.
Mrs. Trupp wondered, as she often had of late years, why the men of her own class never attained the dignity of the great amongst the simple poor.
She rose humiliated, conscious of her own spiritual inferiority; and took his rough paw between her two delicate hands.
"Won't you sit down, Boam?" she suggested, quite modern enough to realize what a topsy-turvy world it was in which she should have to make such a request to an old man in his own home.
His long bare upper lip trembled and nibbled as he spoke.
"She's a good maid," he said huskily—"our Ruth. The Mistus says it were a gentleman. It's hard for a working girl to stand up agen a gentleman that's set on despoilin her. But in my day gentlemen were gentlemen and kept emselves accardin. They tell me it's different now. Accounts for the bit o bitterness, hap." The great hand lying in hers twitched. "She must come back home soon so ever she can move. There's not much. But we'll make out somehow. Rebecca must goo to her. She'll need her mother now. They was always very close—mother and daughter."
The old woman entered, tying her bonnet-strings beneath her chin.
"Yes, I'll take carrier's cart to Ratton. Then I can walk to the Decoy and take train to the East-end."
"Won't you come with me?" said Mrs. Trupp. "I've got the car in the Tye." ...
She dropped her companion at the door of the house in Sea-gate, and herself took a tram home. When Mrs. Boam emerged from the house an hour later a car was still at the door.