He had not expected to find the other side of the canal quite so bad as it had proved to be. It seemed ages away in point of experience. There was no place for good clothes, a clean collar, and polished boots in the region the other side of the canal. It was very unfortunate that the night school lay in the middle of that area.
Henry Harper was in an unhappy frame of mind when he sat down to dinner with Ginger at one o'clock. A very bad aura enveloped him. The sight of Auntie in her lair would take him some little time to overcome. Then the sense of failure was unpleasant. It was unworthy of a sailor to have shirked his job. Every day made it more necessary for something to be done. His pretence of understanding the newspapers when he could hardly read a word was telling against him with Ginger. His contribution to the after-supper conversation was so feeble, as a rule, that Ginger was almost afraid "he was not all there."
However, he would inquire about the night school that afternoon. The matter was so urgent that he could have no peace until he had moved in it. But fate, having taken his measure, began to marshal silent invisible forces.
To begin with the forces were silent enough, yet they were not exactly invisible. A little after three, while the Sailor, still in the Valley of Decision, was looking into the fire, wondering whether it was possible after all to postpone the task until the following morning when he might be in a better frame of mind, Ginger looked out of the window, announced that "there wasn't half a fog coming over," and that he had a good mind to make himself comfortable indoors for the rest of the day.
This was enough for the Sailor. The fog put the night school out of the question for that afternoon; it must be postponed till the morrow. All the same, he fell into a black and bitter mood in which self-disgust came uppermost.
Ginger's good mind to stay indoors did not materialize. As soon as the clock chimed four he remembered that he had to play a hundred up with Dinkie at the Crown and Cushion.
At quarter-past four, Miss Foldal came in, drew down the blinds, lit the gas, and laid the cloth for tea. She then sought permission, as the fire was such a good one, to toast a muffin at it, which she proceeded to do with the elegance that marked her in everything.
The Sailor had never seen anybody quite so elegant as Miss Foldal in the afternoon. The golden hair was curled and crimped, the blonde complexion freshly powdered, there was a superb display of jewelry upon a fine bosom, she was tightly laced, and the young man watching her with grave curiosity heard her stays creak as she bent down at the fire.
Two ladies further apart than Miss Foldal and Auntie would be hard to conceive. Dimly the young man had begun to realize that it was a very queer cosmos in which he had been called to exercise his being. There were whole stellar spaces between Auntie and Miss Foldal.
The latter lady was not merely elegant, she was kind. Miss Foldal was very kind indeed to Mr. Harper. From the day he had entered her house, she had shown in many subtle ways that she wanted to make him feel at home. And Mr. Harper, who up till now only realized Woman extrinsically, already considered Miss Foldal a very nice lady.