He turned his pointed face to her, and the grey-green eyes wore a gleam of interest that few things could arouse in their cool depths.
'No, not in a shop.' She stopped and leaned against a tree. 'In the street. It was a middle-aged workman. When I caught sight of his back and saw his worn clothes—the coat went up in the middle, and had that despairing sag on both sides—it crossed my mind, here's another of those miserable, unemployed wastrels obstructing my way! Then he looked round and I saw—solid content in his face!' She stopped a moment.
'So he wasn't one of the——'
'Well, I wondered. I couldn't see at first what it was he had looked round at. Then I noticed he had a rope in his hand, and was dragging something. As the people who had been between us hurried on I saw—I saw a child, two or three years old, in a flapping, pink sun-bonnet. He was sitting astride a toy horse. The horse was clumsily made, and had lost its tail. But it had its head still, and the board it was mounted on had fat, wooden rollers. The horse was only about that long, and so near the ground that, for all his advantage in the matter of rollers, still the little rider's feet touched the pavement. They even trailed and lurched, as the horse went on, in that funny, spasmodic gait. The child had to half walk, or, rather, make the motions—you know, without actually bearing any of even his own weight. The slack-shouldered man did it all. I crossed to the other side of the street, and stood and watched them till, as I say, I nearly lost my train. The dingy workman, smoking imperturbably, dragging the grotesque, almost hidden, horse—the delighted child in the flapping sun-bonnet—the crisis when they came to the crossing! The man turned and called out something. The child declined to budge. I wondered what would happen. So did the man. He waited a moment, and puffed smoke and considered. The baby dug his heels in the pavement and shouted. Then I saw the man carefully tilt the toy horse up by the rope. I stood and watched the successful surmounting of the obstacle, and the triumphant progress as before—sun-bonnet flapping, smoke curling. Of course the man was content! He had lost the battle. You saw that in his lined face. What did it matter? He held the future by a string.'
Lord Borrodaile lifted his eyes and looked at her. Without a word the two walked on.
The first to speak after the silence was the man. He pointed out a curious effect of the light, and reminded her who had painted it best—
'Corot could do these things!'—and he flung a stone in passing at the New Impressionists.
At the Lodge Gate they found Lady John with Filey and Hermione.
'We thought if we walked this way we might meet Jean and her bodyguard. But I mustn't go any further.' Lady John consulted her watch. 'The rest of you can take your time, but I have to go and receive my other guest.'