"Oh! I don't! Truly. You'll be just as well looked after as if I was here. I do hope you'll stay."
That settled it. And Manresa Road was not far off.
She sat on the table and leaned against him a long time. Then she said she must go upstairs to her room—she had so much to do. He could not forbid, because she was irresistible. She extinguished the kitchen-lamp, and, side by side, they groped up the stairs to the first floor. The cat nonchalantly passed them in the hall.
"Put the lights out here, will you, when you go to bed?" she whispered. He felt flattered.
She offered her face.... The lovely thing slipped away upstairs with unimaginable, ravishing grace. She vanished. There was silence. After a moment George could hear the clock ticking in the kitchen below. He stood motionless, amid the dizzying memories of her glance, her gestures, the softness of her body. What had happened to him was past belief. He completely forgot the existence of the old man in love.
CHAPTER IV
THE LUNCHEON
I
George, having had breakfast in bed, opened his door for the second time that morning, and duly found on the mat the can of hot water (covered with a bit of old blanket) and the can of cold water which comprised the material for his bath. There was no sound in the house. The new spouse might be upstairs or she might be downstairs—he could not tell; but the cans proved that she was immanent and regardful; indeed, she never forgot anything. And George's second state at No. 8 was physically even better than his first. In the transition through autumn from summer to winter—a transition which, according to the experience of tens of thousands of London lodgers, is capable of turning comparative comfort into absolute discomfort—Mrs. Haim had behaved with benevolence and ingenuity. For example, the bedroom fire, laid overnight, was now burning up well from the mere touch of the lodger's own match. Such things are apt to count, and they counted with George.