To Edwin she seemed excessively young and yet far too large and too developed for her age. The girl was obviously a fool. Edwin could perceive in her no charm whatever, except that of her innocence; and it was not easy to imagine that any man, even the barman at the Vaults, could have mistaken her, even momentarily, for the ideal. And then some glance of her spectacled eyes, or some gesture of the great red hand, showed him his own blindness and mysteriously made him realise the immensity of the illusion and the disillusion through which she had passed in her foolish and incontinent simplicity. What had happened to her was miraculous, exquisite, and terrible. He felt the magic of her illusion and the terror of her disillusion. Already in her girlishness and her stupidity she had lived through supreme hours. "Compared to her," he thought, "I don't know what life is. No man does." And he not only suffered for her sorrow, he gave her a sacred quality. It seemed to him that heaven itself ought to endow her with beauty, grace, and wisdom, so that she might meet with triumphant dignity the ordeals that awaited her; and that mankind should supplement the work of heaven by clothing her richly and housing her in secluded splendour, and offering her the service which only victims merit. Surely her caprices ought to be indulged and honoured! ... Edwin was indignant; indignation positively burnt his body. She was helpless and defenceless and she had been exploited by Auntie Hamps. And after having been exploited she had been driven out by ukase on week-night to class-meeting and on Sunday night to chapel, to find Christ, with the result that she had found the barman at the Vaults. The consequences were inevitable. She was definitely ruined, unless the child should bereave her by dying; and even then she might still be ruined. And what about the child, if the child lived? And although Edwin had never seen the silly girl before, he said to himself, while noticing that a crumb or two of the bread dropped by her still remained on the floor: "I'll see that girl through whatever it costs!" He was not indignant against Auntie Hamps. How could he be indignant against an expiring old creature already desperate in the final dilemma. He felt nearly as sorry for Auntie Hamps as for Minnie. He was indignant against destiny, of which Auntie Hamps was only the miserable, unimaginative instrument.
"I'd better go to-night, miss. Let me go to-night!" cried Minnie. And she cried so loudly that Edwin was afraid Auntie Hamps might hear and might make an apparition at the head of the stairs and curse Minnie with fearful Biblical names. And the old woman in the curtained bed upstairs was almost as present to him as the girl kneeling before his eyes on the linoleum of the lobby.
"Minnie! Minnie! Don't be foolish!" said Maggie, standing over her and soothing her, not with her hands but with her voice.
Maggie had shown no perturbation or even surprise at Minnie's behaviour. She stood looking down at her benevolent, deprecating, and calm. And by contrast with Minnie she seemed to be quite middle-aged. Her tone was exactly right. It reminded Edwin of the tone which she would use to himself when, she was sixteen and the housekeeper, and he was twelve. Maggie had long since lost authority over him; she had lost everything; she would die without having lived; she had never begun to live--(No, perhaps once she had just begun to live!)--Minnie had prime knowledge far exceeding hers. And yet she had power over Minnie and could exercise it with skill.
Minnie, hesitating, sobbed more slowly, and then ceased to sob.
"Go back into the kitchen and have something to eat, and then you can go to bed. You'll feel differently in the morning," said Maggie with the same gentle blandness.
And Minnie, as though fascinated, rose from her knees.
Edwin, surmising what had passed between the two in the kitchen while he was in the bedroom, was aware of a fresh, intense admiration for Maggie. She might be dowdy, narrow, dull, obstinate, virgin,--but she was superb. She had terrific reserves. He was proud of her. The tone merely of her voice as she spoke to the girl seemed to prove the greatness of her deeply-hidden soul.
Suddenly Minnie caught sight of Edwin through the doorway, flushed red, had the air of slavishly apologising to the unapproachable male for having disturbed him by her insect-woes, and vanished. Maggie hurried upstairs to the departing. Edwin was alone with the chill draught from the lobby into the room, and with the wonder of life.
IV