Cytherea reigned in Mr. Earlforward's office behind the shop—invisible, but she was there—probably reclining—ask not how!—on the full red lips (which fascinated Mrs. Arb) of Mr. Earlforward. It was just after four o'clock in the January following their first acquaintance. They sat on opposite sides of Henry's desk, with the electric light extravagantly burning above them. At the front of the shop the day was expiring in faint gleams of grey twilight. Dirt was nothing; disorder was nothing; Mr. Earlforward loved. For weeks he had been steadfastly intending to put the place to rights for his bride, and he had not put it to rights. Dirt and disorder were repugnant to Mrs. Arb, but she had said not a word. She would not interfere or even suggest, before the time. She knew her place; she was a bit prim. The time was approaching, and she could wait.
"I suppose we can use that ring," said Henry, pointing to the wedding-ring on Mrs. Arb's hand, which lay on the desk like the defenceless treasure of an invaded city.
Despite a recent experience, Mrs. Arb was startled by this remark delivered in a tone so easy, benevolent and matter-of-fact. The recent experience had consisted in Mr. Earlforward's bland ultimatum, after a discussion in which Mrs. Arb had womanishly and prettily favoured a religious ceremony, that they would be married at a Registry because it was on the whole cheaper. Upon that point she had taken pleasure in yielding to him. So long as you were genuinely married, the method had only a secondary importance. She admitted—to herself—that in desiring the church she might have been conventional, superstitious. She was eager to yield, as some women are eager to be beaten. Morbidity, of course! But not wholly. Self-preservation was in it, as well as voluptuousness. Mr. Earlforward's individuality frightened while enchanting her. She found she could cure the fright by intense acquiescence. And why not acquiesce? He was her fate. She would grasp her fate with both hands.
And there was this point: if he was her fate, she was his; she had already been married once, whereas he was an innocent; he had to learn. She saw an advantage there. Her day was coming—at least, she persuaded herself that it was.
Thus the question of the wedding ceremony had been quite satisfactorily dissolved; and so well that Mrs. Arb now scorned the notion of marriage in a church. But the incident of the ring touched her closer; it touched the aboriginal cave-woman in the very heart of her. Do you know, she had faintly suspected that to purchase a wedding-ring formed no part of his programme! An absurd, an impossible suspicion! How could he espouse without a ring? But there the suspicion had lain! She ought to have been revolted by the idea of a second husband marrying her with the ring of the first. However, she was not. Mr. Earlforward's natural, casual tone precluded that. And she answered quietly, as it were hypnotized, with a smile:
"We can't use this. It won't come off."
She displayed the finger. Obviously the ring would not pass the joint. Mrs. Arb was slim, but she had been slimmer.
He said:
"But you can't be married with that on. You can't wear two." (Something of the cave-creature in him also!)
"I know. But I was going to have it filed off to-morrow morning. There wouldn't be time to have it made larger."