“You do not go walkingly?” he bellowed from the pavement. Poor little man; left there with his day and his loneliness till six o’clock.
“All right,” she said, jumping off, “we’ll walk. I’ll be late. I don’t mind.”
They swept quickly along, looking ahead in silence. Presently he began to sing. Miriam dropped her eyes to the pavement, listening. How unconsciously wise he was. How awful it would have been if she had gone on the omnibus. Here he was safe, healing and forgetting. There was some truth in the Frenchman’s judgment. It wasn’t that he was a dull philosopher. Lahitte was utterly incapable of measuring his big sunlit mind; but there was something, in his manner, or bearing, something that many people would not like, an absence of gaiety; it was true, the Frenchman’s quick eye had fastened on it. Who wanted gaiety? There was a deep joyfulness in his booming song that was more than gaiety. His rich dark vitality challenged the English air as he plunged along, beard first, without thoughts, his eyebrows raised in the effort of his eager singing. He was quite unaware that there was no room for singing more than below one’s breath, however quickly one walked, in the Euston Road in the morning.
She disposed herself to walk unconcernedly past the row of lounging overalled figures. Sullen hostile staring would not satisfy them this morning. The song would rouse them to some open demonstration. They were endless; muttering motionlessly to each other in their immovable lounging. Surely he must feel them. “Go ’ome” she heard, away behind.... “Blooming foreigner;” close by, the tall lean swarthy fellow, with the handsome grubby face. That he must have heard. She fancied his song recoiled, and wheeled sharply back, confronting the speaker, who had just spat into the middle of the pavement.
“Yes,” she said, “he is a foreigner, and he is my friend. What do you mean?” The man’s gazing face was broken up into embarrassed awkward youth. Mr. Shatov was safely ahead. She waited, her eyes on the black-rimmed expressionless blue of the eyes staring from above a rising flush. In a moment she would say, it is abominable and simply disgraceful, and sweep away and never come up this side of the road again. A little man was speaking at her side, his cap in his hand. They were all moving and staring. “Excuse me miss,” he began again in a quiet, thick, hurrying voice, as she turned to him. “Miss, we know the sight of you going up and down. Miss he ain’t good enough forya.”
“Oh” said Miriam, the sky falling about her. She lingered a moment speechless, looking at no one, sweeping over them a general disclaiming smile, hoping she told them how mistaken they all were and how nice she thought them, she hurried away to meet Mr. Shatov waiting a few yards off. The darlings. In all these years of invisible going up and down...
“Well?” he laughed, “what is this?”
“British workmen. I’ve been lecturing them.”
“On what?”
“In general. Telling them what I think.”