There then begins a wrestle with a skeleton disguised as a bank account. They both stand guard over it. An extra packet of cigarettes is a betrayal, a reckless splash at a movie is a crime against a new little home that exists nowhere but in two hearts. So he pays his bill and she pays hers, and all the time the modest little pile grows, leading them to those helpful organizations which give two hundred pounds worth of property for ten per cent down and the rest over eternity.
* * *
They are happy, are these little lovers of London; as all honest, simple things are happy. No great winds of passion or ambition blow like storms in their hearts. They wish to escape from their surroundings into something which is their very own. They dream of the little house, just like every other little house in the row, and they dream of locking the front door on life and opening their arms to each other.
In the great hive of London you can see them meeting, hungrily snatching a moment from their separate labours which are just a means to an end. In the City she comes, lighting his heart with her beauty, and she goes, leaving him feeling that the light has been turned off inside him. At Kew in lilac time you will find them in sweet green avenues; the red buses bear them and their Dream to country places; and one day you will meet them in a tube train bending self-consciously over a furniture catalogue....
* * *
Dante and Beatrice came out of their dream beside the Thames and walked away. Dante's new boots squeaked. Arm-in-arm they went along the sun path, two ordinary little actors in the great play, with that stillness about them that suggests how full two hearts can be.
If one could only peep into their lives again in ten years' time. That, however, is tempting Fate.
In Uncle's Shop
Outside on its rusty supports hung the sign of the proud Medici—three gold balls.