Violet was touched. She wanted to run out and say something nice to Elsie, wherever Elsie might be, but she wanted still more to stay in the bedroom and think. She enjoyed being in the bedroom alone. She glanced with pleasure at the shut door, the drawn blind, the solidity of the walls and of the furniture. And she thought of her first honeymoon. A violent, extravagant and passionate week at Southend! What excursions. What distractions! What fishings! What tragi-comical sea-sickness! What winkle-eatings! What promenades and rides on the pier! What jocularities! What gigglings and what enormous laughter! What late risings! What frocks and hats! What hair-brushings! What fastenings of frocks! What arrogant confidence in one's complexion! What emancipations! What grand, free, careless abandonments to the delight of life! What sudden tendernesses! What exhaustless energy! What youth!... And then the swift change in the demeanour of the late Mr. Arb when they got into the London train. Realization then that the man who could play and squander magnificently could also work and save magnificently! A man, in fact, the late Mr. Arb; and never without a grim humour unlike anybody else's! And he was the very devil sometimes, especially at intervals during the few days when he was making up his mind to cut his corns....
She did not gaze backward on that honeymoon with pangs of regret. No! She was not that kind of woman. As she advanced from one time of life to another she had the commonsense of each age. She did not mourn the Southend hoydenish bride who knew nothing. She had a position now, both moral and material. She could put honeymoons in their right perspective. The honeymoon which she was at that moment in the midst of had certainly some remarkable characteristics. That is to say, it was a rather funny sort of honeymoon. But what matter? She was happy—not as the Southend bride had been happy, but still happy. She knew that she could comprehend Henry just as well as she had comprehended the late Mr. Arb. On the subject of men she was catholic. She could submit in one way to one and in another way to another; and the same for manœuvring them. Look at what she had by audacity accomplished in the very first hours of this second marriage! Cleanliness! The brilliance of the results of scientific cleaning astonished even herself, far surpassing her expectations.
And the old satin shoe influenced her. There was something absurd, charming, romantic and inspiring about that shoe. It reminded Violet that security and sagacity and affectionate constancy could not be the sole constituents of a satisfactory existence. Grace, fancifulness, impulsiveness, some foolishness, were needed too. She saw the husband, the house, and even the business, as material upon which she had to work, constructively, adoringly, but also wilfully, and perhaps a bit mischievously. What could be more ridiculous than an old shoe tied to a respectable bedstead? And yet it had changed Violet's mood. For her it had most mysteriously changed the mood of the domestic interior, of all Clerkenwell. It helped Violet to like Clerkenwell, an unlikeable place in her opinion.
After a long time, and reluctantly, she went downstairs again. Nobody had disturbed her—neither her husband nor Elsie nor the workmen. She had heard various movements beyond the citadel of the bedroom—ascents, descents, bumpings—and she now found the upper floors in darkness; the upper floors were finished. The shop also was apparently finished, with the exception of the principal window. She paused at the turn of the stairs and watched her husband attentively watching the operation on the windowful of books. Two workmen were engaged upon it. One handled the books in batches of ten or a dozen; the other manipulated the cleansing, swishing nozzle. Both men seemed to be experts, laborious, conscientious and exact. The volumes were replaced with precision. Mr. Henry Earlforward, in a critical temper, as became a merchant over an important affair which affected him closely but upon which he had been in no wise consulted, stood ready to pounce upon the slightest error or carelessness. Well, he found no occasion to pounce; the bland demon in him was foiled of its spring. He moved away, disappointed, admiring, and caught sight of Violet. His face welcomed her appearance. Undoubtedly he was pleased with and impressed by her capacity, in addition to being in love with her. She looked down demurely, perturbed by the ardour of his glance.
"Been putting things to right in the bedroom?" he murmured, approaching her.
She nodded. He lifted his hand to her shoulder, and there it rested for a moment. She wished to heaven the interminable job was finished and they could walk about the transformed shop alone together.
"Look here," he murmured; the men at the window could not possibly distinguish what he was saying.
"Yes?"
He led her to a corner. One of the sacks in which books were delivered hid a fairly large cubical object. He pulled off the sack and disclosed an old safe which she had never seen before.
"I bought it yesterday," said he, "and they delivered it this morning, I suppose." Bending down, he took a key from his pocket, unlocked the safe, and swung open the massive door. "Two drawers, you see, and two compartments besides."