Paul, being a man, was therefore obliged to conceal his extreme discomfort, and to stroll along at the girl’s side, though the cold bit him to the bone and made his throat ache, though his numbed feet struck against stones and caused him anguish. He had to talk, too, and even to laugh, as they went down the long, lonely road.
Then they reached the corner, and turned off down a lane, not yet improved, but full of ruts and ridges of frozen mud. Paul had heard of the good old-fashioned punishment in which the culprit had to walk over red-hot plowshares. He thought that it could not have been much more painful than traversing this lane. The[Pg 64] friendly interest he had felt in Miss Banks was greatly chilled. He thought she was an inhuman little monster.
They came in time to her cottage, all dark and silent, with a low, white fence faintly visible, like a necklace of bones round the stark garden. There wasn’t another house within sight. No one but an inhuman little monster could have endured to live here.
“Now!” said she. “Let’s see you get in!”
She perched herself on the fence, quite blithe and unconcerned. She even whistled.
Paul and Christine had always agreed that woman should be man’s comrade and helper. When woman, however, was not a helper and comrade, but sat upon a fence, whistling, and simply waiting, man was conscious of a new and not displeasing sense of obligation. He felt that he must display the primitive manly qualities of strength and cunning, that he must be practical, energetic, and so on.
Christine would have wanted to help and advise him. If he had insisted upon doing it alone, she would have thought he was “showing off.” Well, perhaps he was. He deserved that privilege, set down as he was on a bitter night before a strange house and told to get into it.
He did get into it. After finding everything locked, he broke a window pane with a stone, inserted his hand, and turned the catch. The window then lifted readily enough, so that he could crawl through. Ingenuity, always ingenuity!
Nothing for him to stumble about in that musty, cold, strange blackness, find a lamp and light it, and open the front door. Nothing for him to light a fire on the hearth of the sitting room and another in the kitchen stove. Nothing to him that his hand and wrist were cut and bleeding. He pretended not to notice that, and Miss Banks really didn’t.
Then he stuffed up the broken window pane with rags, and then Miss Banks had plenty of other little things for him to do—boxes to open, furniture to move, and so on.