“Sophia,” he addressed her, and made preparatory noises in his throat while she waited.
He continued after an interval, now clutching her arm, “Your mother’s been telling me you don’t want to go in the shop.”
She turned her eyes on him, and his anxious, dim gaze met hers. She nodded.
“Nay, Sophia,” he mumbled, with the extreme of slowness. “I’m surprised at ye... Trade’s bad, bad! Ye know trade’s bad?” He was still clutching her arm.
She nodded. She was, in fact, aware of the badness of trade, caused by a vague war in the United States. The words “North” and “South” had a habit of recurring in the conversation of adult persons. That was all she knew, though people were starving in the Five Towns as they were starving in Manchester.
“There’s your mother,” his thought struggled on, like an aged horse over a hilly road. “There’s your mother!” he repeated, as if wishful to direct Sophia’s attention to the spectacle of her mother. “Working hard! Con—Constance and you must help her.... Trade’s bad! What can I do ... lying here?”
The heat from his dry fingers was warming her arm. She wanted to move, but she could not have withdrawn her arm without appearing impatient. For a similar reason she would not avert her glance. A deepening flush increased the lustre of her immature loveliness as she bent over him. But though it was so close he did not feel that radiance. He had long outlived a susceptibility to the strange influences of youth and beauty.
“Teaching!” he muttered. “Nay, nay! I canna’ allow that.”
Then his white beard rose at the tip as he looked up at the ceiling above his head, reflectively.
“You understand me?” he questioned finally.