| "'Your heart mine, and mine in your keeping, |
| List while I sing to you love's tender song.'" |
As she sang, Sally looked up and at the doorway. There, adoringly, stood Gaga, all his love making a radiance in his face which she had not previously seen so distinctly. He came slowly towards her, and as she continued her song he kissed the back of her neck where the hair was brushed up in the first soft incalculable wave. Sally for the first time shrank a little; but she pursued her song unhesitatingly, so schooled was she in her determination that the price she was paying was to be borne.
| "'When you and I go down the love path together, |
| Stars shall be shining and the night so fair.'" |
"We'll go ... go walking in the moonlight to-night ... shall we?" whispered Gaga. Sally nodded, making her voice quaver by the motion. Gaga could not see her face; but Sally knew that even if he had done so he would have been quite unable to read her thoughts, which were dry and inflexible. He remained by her side until she had finished the song, and then fiercely pressed her head back until he was able by stooping to kiss her lips from above. His hand was under her chin. He kissed her many times, oppressively—little ravenous pecks that were febrile rather than loving; and assertive of his new proprietorship. His kisses left Sally unmoved and slightly frowning. She was surprised at Gaga's simplicity in imagining that any girl valued or could possibly value such ceaseless demonstrative action, such ugly hard little parrot-like caresses.
"Only a soppy kid would," she thought. "She'd like it, I suppose. Think quantity meant love. It doesn't. Like a beak. Silly fool!" And aloud she said quite firmly: "There, that's enough. Shan't have any face left, at this rate. I shall come out in spots. What's the time?"
To soften her words she held and pressed his hand; but only for an instant. Then she rose abruptly from the piano and walked over to the window. With his arm immediately at her waist Gaga followed, like a long, abject greyhound.
"The tide's out," he said, indicating the sun illumined mud by the opposite wall.
"Ugh!" shuddered Sally. "Fancy getting your feet in that stuff! You'd never get out.... Gives me the horrors, it does!" She leaned back into his arms.
iv
They left Penterby by a very early train on the Monday morning, and while Gaga took the two bags to an hotel where the Merricks were to stay for the present Sally went direct to Madame Gala's. She had obtained special permission to be an hour late in the morning, and so she entered the workroom without confusion. It was the same as it had always been—the long benches, and the girls, and Miss Summers sitting apart, as plump and feline as ever. There was, of course, curiosity about Sally. Few of the girls supposed that she had been away with a girl friend, which had been the story; and all looked at her with a knowing suspicion. Only Miss Summers was completely trusting. Sally had slipped off her wedding-ring, and it lay in her purse. She took in the whole scene as she entered, and measured the assumptions of the girls with cool indifference. But she would have done that in any case; for Sally had nothing to learn about workgirls and their thoughts and interpretations, and she had also none of the false self-consciousness which makes wrong-doers imagine that their actions have been providentially revealed to all observers. Had she and Gaga arrived together the case would have been different; but nothing had occurred to make the girls suppose that there was any relation between them, and Sally was perfectly safe from that most dangerous of all recognitions. She was still, to the girls, Sally Minto; and to some of them still the white-faced cocket of Rose Anstey's jealous outburst. Sally looked boldly at Rose as she sat industriously working. Then, with greater stealth, at Miss Summers. That plump face had a solemnly preoccupied expression that gave Sally a faint start of doubt. Immediately, however, she knew that Miss Summers must be worried, not upon Sally's account, but on account of some message respecting Madam which had been received earlier in the morning. This made her seize an excuse to approach Miss Summers.