Another week went by, leaving her resolution unchanged; but now her health began to fail beneath the constant strain of her anxieties, and a physical languor that rendered her unfit for long hours of work in a heated shop. Now she lacked the energy to tramp about the Park before her early breakfast; indeed, the advance of autumn, with its rain and fogs, made such exercise impossible. Her first despair, the despair that suggested suicide, had gone by, but then so had the half-defiant mood which followed it. Whatever may have been her faults, Joan was a decent-minded woman, and one who felt her position bitterly. Never for one moment of the day or night could she be free from remorse and care, and the weight of apprehension that seemed to crush all courage out of her. Even if from time to time she could succeed in putting aside her mental troubles, their place was taken by anxieties for the future. Soon she must leave the home that sheltered her, and then where was she to go?
One afternoon, about half-past three o’clock, Joan was standing in the mantle department of Messrs. Black and Parker’s establishment awaiting customers. The morning had been a heavy one, for town was filling rapidly, and she felt very tired. There was, it is true, no fixed rule to prevent Messrs. Black and Parker’s employés from seating themselves when not actually at work; but since a pique had begun between herself and Mr. Waters, in practice Joan found few opportunities of so doing. On two occasions when she ventured to rest thus for a minute, the manager had rated her harshly for indolence, and she did not care to expose herself to another such experience. Now she was standing, the very picture of weariness and melancholy, leaning upon a chair, when of a sudden she looked up and saw before her—Ellen Graves and Emma Levinger. They were speaking.
“Very well, dear,” said Ellen, “you go and buy the gloves while I try on the mantles. I will meet you presently in the doorway.”
“Yes,” said Emma, and went.
Joan’s first impulse was to fly; but flight was impossible, for with Ellen, rubbing his white hands and bowing at intervals, was Mr. Waters.
“I think you asked for velvet mantles, madam, did you not? Now, miss, the velvet mantles—quick, please—those new shapes from Paris.”
Almost automatically Joan obeyed, reaching down cloak after cloak to be submitted to Miss Graves’s critical examination. Three or four of them she put by as unsuitable, but at last one was produced that seemed to take her fancy.
“I should like the young person to try on this one, please,” she said.
“Certainly, madam. Now, miss: no, not that, the other. Where are your wits this afternoon?”
Joan put on the garment in silence, turning herself round to display its perfections, with the vain hope that Ellen’s preoccupation and the gathering gloom in the shop would prevent her from being recognised.