"There must be no buts, Tom, if—if you want me. Oh, Tom, can't you see? You know that what I say is right and—and——"
He saw her lips quiver; saw the tears start to her eyes. He knew that his association with the daughter of the landlord of the Thorn and Thistle was coarsening him, making him have lower standards of life, making everything poorer, more sordid. Whenever he was with Alice he wanted to be better and truer, and she always made him ashamed of coarse, base things.
"Alice, do you love me?" and his voice became almost hoarse.
"If I didn't would I talk to you like this?" was her answer.
A crisis had come into Tom's life, and he knew it. Two forces were fighting in his heart, two angels were battling for his soul. At that moment it seemed as though his better angel were going to win the victory; he was on the point of telling Alice that he would never go into the Thorn and Thistle again, never speak to Polly Powell again, when he heard a familiar voice close to him.
"I say, Pollard, you are coming to-night, aren't you?"
Tom turned and saw a well-dressed young fellow close beside him. He had come to Brunford some three years before to learn the cotton trade, and during the last few months he and Tom had been very friendly. Tom was rather proud of this, because young Harry Waterman was his superior, both socially and from an educational standpoint. Waterman claimed to be the son of a squire who lived in Warwickshire, who had sent him to Brunford to learn cotton manufacturing because more money was to be made out of it than by sticking to the land.
Waterman was a tall, handsome young fellow, with a florid complexion and light-brown hair. He had met Tom at the Mechanics' Institute Classes, and the young weaver had been much flattered when the other had at various times discarded all social distinctions and been friendly with him. It was he who had laughed Tom out of going to the Young Men's Classes on Sunday afternoon, and told him that religion was only fit for ignorant people and women. Waterman professed to have travelled a good deal, and had told Tom that after leaving an English Public School he had studied in one of the German Universities and taken his degree there. He had described to the simple Lancashire boy the life of Berlin, and Leipzig, Munich, and other German cities. Tom had been a willing pupil and thought what wonderful people the Germans were. He felt proud too that young Harry Waterman had evidently taken a liking to him. "You will come, won't you?" went on Waterman; "just the same lot, you know."
"Ay, I think so," said Tom.
"That's all right, then; we'll look out for you about seven."