The thought of her clothes that had entered Sally's mind brought her one step further, prepared her for the silent permission she gave him, when he took the vacant seat beside her and shared the umbrella between them.
"By the time you reached Hammersmith," he said, "you know you'd be soaked."
"It wouldn't be the first time," she replied.
"Probably not—but it might be the last."
"How?"
"Influenza—pneumonia—congestion of the lungs—of such are the kingdom of heaven."
She looked at him quickly—that sudden look of one who for a moment sees into another and a new mind, as passing some strange house, you look with curious surprise through the unexpectedly opened door into another's life. The glance was as quick, as little comprehensive. Just as within that strange house you see schemes of colour that you would never have thought of, furniture and pictures that are not of your taste at all, so Sally saw for one brief moment the glimpse of a mind that could casually make a jest of death and holy-written things. A great deal of that servile obedience to the religion in which she had been brought up had been driven out of her by hard work. You might not get the priesthood to admit it, but religion is a luxury which few of the hard-workers in this world can afford. But she still maintained that sense of conventional awe which strict religious training drives deep into a receptive mind.
"Do you think it amusing to speak like that?" she asked.
"Like what?"
"What you said—the sentence that you quoted?"