"What you been doing to-day?" she asked, as talk flagged. He told her. He told her a great deal more about himself, and about his aunt. He had had the most marvellous adventures. Sally could not believe them all; but she was charmed by the narrative. Toby talked more freely. He hesitated less, and was more confident. Sally felt sure he must have known other girls. You didn't talk like that if you were new to it. She was again curious. Once she almost blurted out the question; but she stayed the words in time. It would have been a mistake to ask anything at this stage. It would have seemed possessive. It might have alarmed him. Anyway, she thought, if he has, what does that matter? To her it was an added pleasure, that he might be wise and experienced. It was a greater flattery; it called for greater resource in herself.
Once, when they had stopped and Sally had stood close to him so that he might light a fresh cigarette under the shelter of her body, Toby blew forth a puff of smoke and put his arm round her. Very coolly did Sally free herself, perfectly mistress of the situation; but she liked him the better for his boldness. It was the sort of thing she had dreamed—a lover who was ardent, a lover who had to be repelled, so that the delight of ultimate surrender should be fully savoured. Was he a lover? Sally shivered. The attempt and the rebuff made them more intimate, as though an understanding had been reached between them. They walked along elbow to elbow, at first silent, and then talking freely, both in good-humor and with continued interest. In the safe darkness Sally's eyes glistened. The very faintest smile made her mouth enigmatic. Already she carried herself with fresh assurance. She was conscious of her power, and altogether resolved to maintain it by prudence.
viii
All this time Toby had never seen Sally in daylight. He had seen her in a glimpse under the flickering hall gas, and again from time to time in the shine of street lamps; but he had never once been with her in daylight. She herself was conscious of this, at first accidental, but now deliberate, mystification; and she dreaded the disclosure that was bound to come. It was not, she knew, that she was ugly; but only that to a man like Toby her small face and sandy hair might mark her down and ruin everything. She feared to notice a change in him, a change from their present and increasingly confidential relation to an indifference, a contempt, which she might find unbearable. The feeling was acute. It was not solely due to dependence upon Toby, but was a part of her long-suffered self-disparagement and a fear, almost fatalistic, that she could never keep a man's interest. The fear grew more intense as she fell into the bitter-sweets of a lover's doubtings. The day must come, and then what would happen? She longed to twine herself into his life before he could see her clearly. Perhaps then he would not notice? Perhaps even now he knew, and did not mind?
That was one mood. Another was a recognition of her own piquancy. In this stronger mood, she concentrated upon her own prettiness, the slimness of her body, her power to please him. But the confidence did not last, because he had become a necessity to her. Having half-determined to snare him, Sally was herself snared by the gins of love. She was hard, but she was soft. She was cold, but she was warm. And as each day she used the sewing machine or roughly stitched the raw material for Miss Jubb's costumes, Sally always looked to the nights. When it rained, and she had to stay indoors, she chafed irritably and went early to bed. When she met Toby she was full of unwonted high spirits. For a long time she did not know what had happened to her. Then at last the truth flashed out one morning as she lay in bed, and with a little laughing sound Sally knew that she was in love.
She was in love. And Toby, how did he feel? A new stage had been reached, when her caution was directed to an altogether different end. She did not now seek so coolly to play with his inclinations. She had great need for care lest she should betray her own secret. The occasional contacts with him had become an eager need, and must be checked so as to make them appear as accidental as they were deliberate. Sally was not withholding from coquetry, but from dread lest she should give herself away and show herself over-willing. She noticed everything he did, without watchful scrutiny, and with the merest quickness of her caressing glance. She loved everything in him, his speech and his movements, his strength, his stubbornness, his rough carriage and silence. She loved him. She feared him. She did not dare to risk losing him. Above all, she longed to be in Toby's arms, to be desired by him.
Once, when she was examining her face in the mirror, and trying to imagine just how pretty Toby might be made to think her, Sally lost her nerve. She was tearful all that day, tearful and speechless, so that a rebuke from Miss Jubb brought about a real fit of crying. Miss Jubb, astounded at such a collapse, instantly abandoned blame and showed true kindness of heart, while May Pearcey looked on with round saucer eyes above her round apple cheeks. And Sally went home early, ashamed of herself, once more irritable to viciousness, and spent the time before her mother's return lying upon the bed and trying to sleep. There was no walk that night. Toby went out as usual, and even ventured a whistle when she did not come; but Sally remained indoors. She did not, indeed, hear the whistle, as she was at the back of the house; but she knew he was waiting. She dared not go. In half an hour she heard Toby return, and go tramping indignantly up to his room directly above. The sound made her cry more than ever, but very quietly, in case her mother should hear and awaken.
The next night was even more wretched, for Toby went out and was nowhere to be seen when Sally followed him. She walked fruitlessly in the directions they had taken upon previous evenings, and came back disconsolate and exhausted. Pale and ill, Sally could not sleep. She had been living poorly, and her spirit was low. The future was dismal. Toby must have thrown her over. It was in vain that her wits consoled her with the certainty that he must have missed her, that a boy who did not care about her would never have shown such surly pique as his. So great had her love become that she could not listen to such reassurance. Only the worst was convincing enough for her misery. He was gone. He was done with her. She had lost him. No wonder then when she was alone Sally's eyes filled with weak tears.
Fortunately enough the next day was a Saturday, and she was able to go alone up to Waterlow Park, on Highgate Hill. She walked up the Holloway Road alone, and saw the autumn sun flashing upon the cross which stands erect above St. Joseph's dome. The air was already murky with the heaviness of the season. Leaves lay upon the ground and in the pathways. The cable-cars grunted and groaned upon the hill, and the Park looked bleak in the daylight. But the exercise did Sally good, and she saw other people, and watched some children playing touch until the Park bell rang to show that the gates were going to be closed. Even then she lingered, watching the moving figures and noticing the greenness of the grass under the shrivelling leaves.
From that walk she returned more healthy and in better spirits. She determined to go out marketing with her mother in the evening, and walked back past the flaring lamps, at which women were already crowding, with her head in the air and her courage high. She almost forgot Toby while she was bathed in this flustering brilliance of light and noise. Only far below, in her heart, continued that inexhaustible consciousness of her love. Even in this temporary oblivion she shivered as she came to the darker part of the road.