The Guinea Stamp: A Tale of Modern Glasgow

by Annie S. Swan

'I think you are a wicked, uncharitable girl, Mina,' she said, with icy coldness. 'I wonder you are not ashamed to have such a thought for a moment. I only beg of you not to let it go any further. It may do more harm than you think.'

So saying, Clara gathered up all her wraps and marched off to her own room, leaving her sister feeling rather hurt and humiliated, though not in the least convinced that she had simply given rein to an uncharitable imagination. Mina was indeed so much troubled that she went off her sleep—a most unusual experience for her; and the morning failed to banish, as it often benignly banishes, the misgivings of the night.

Once more Gladys made a pilgrimage to the old home where Walter dwelt alone, working early and late, the monotony of his toil only brightened by one constant hope. It was a strange existence for the lad on the threshold of his young manhood, and many who knew something of his way of life wondered at the steady and dogged persistence with which he pursued his avocation. He appeared to have reached, while yet not much past his boyhood, the grave, passionless calm which comes to most men only after they have outlived the passion of their youth. He was regarded as a sharp, hard-working young man, with a keen eye for business, and honourable and just, but conspicuously hard to deal with—one whose word was as his bond, and who, being so absolutely reliable himself, suffered no equivocation or crooked dealings in others. By slow but certain degrees he had extricated himself from the strange network which old Abel Graham had woven about the business, and established it upon the basis of sound, straightforward dealing. The old customers, in spite of certain advantages the new system offered, dropped away from him one by one, but others took their place. When Walter balanced his books at the end of the first year, he had reason to be not only content, but elated, and he was enabled to carry out at once certain extensions which he had quite expected would only be justifiable after the lapse of some years. But, while prospering beyond his highest anticipations, what of the growth of the true man, the development of the great human soul, which craves a higher destiny than mere grovelling among the sordid things of earth? While supremely unconscious of any change in himself, there was nevertheless a great change—a very great change indeed. It was inevitable. A life so narrow, so circumscribed, so barren of beauty, lived so solitarily, away from every softening influence, was bound to work a subtle and relentless change. The man of one idea is apt to starve his soul in his effort to make it subservient to the furtherance of his solitary aim. To be a successful man, to win by his own unaided effort a position which would entitle him to meet Gladys Graham on equal ground, such was his ambition, and it never did occur to him that this very striving might make him unfit in other ways to be her mate. His isolated life, absolutely unrelieved by any social intercourse with his fellows, made him silent by choice, still and self-contained in manner, abrupt of speech. In his unconsciousness it never occurred to him that it is the little courtesies and graces of speech and action which commend a man first to the notice of the woman he wants to win. He was, though he did not know it, a melancholy spectacle; but his awakening was at hand.

Gladys made her second call at the house in Colquhoun Street, as before, early in the day. It seemed very familiar, though it was many months since she had passed that way. It seemed a more hopeless and squalid street than she had yet thought it. She picked her steps daintily through the greasy mud, holding her skirts high enough to show a most bewitching pair of feet, cased in Parisian boots, only there was nobody visible to admire them but a grimy butcher's boy, with a basket on his head, and he stared with all his might.

The warehouse door, contrary to the old custom, stood wide open, as if inviting all comers. Gladys gave a glance along the passage which led to the living-rooms, but was not moved to revisit them. She went at once up the grimy staircase, giving a little light cough as she neared the landing, a herald of her coming. She heard quite distinctly the grating of the stool on the floor, and a step coming towards her—a step which even now sounded quite familiarly in her ears.

'It is I—Gladys,' she said, trying to speak quite naturally, but conscious of a shrinking embarrassment which made her cheeks nervously flush. 'The door was open, so I came right in. How are you, Walter?'

In his face shone something of the old bright friendliness, but as she looked at the shabby youth, with his unshaved face and threadbare clothes, her fastidious eye disapproved of him just as it had disapproved of him when they met, boy and girl, for the first time in the rooms below.

'I am quite well,' he answered in his quick, abrupt unsmiling manner. 'But why do you always come without any warning? If you let me know, I should be ready for you. I am always busy in the morning, and a fellow who has so much hard work to do can't always be in trim to receive ladies.'

It was rather an ungracious greeting, which Gladys was quick enough to resent. The gentle meekness of the girl had merged itself into the dignity of the woman, which insists upon due deference being paid.

'I am quite sorry if I intrude, Walter,' she said rather stiffly. 'I shall not keep you long. All the same, I am coming in to sit down for a little, as I have something very particular to speak to you about.'