She felt a touch of sharp envy as she looked at the beautiful girl standing there. Though Edith Haworth knew very little of Mrs. Hegner, except that Mrs. Hegner’s sister was her maid, Mrs. Hegner knew a great deal about Miss Haworth. How she had gone up to London just for one month of the season, and how during that one month she had become engaged to a rich young gentleman, a baronet. He was in the Army, too, but he couldn’t be much of a soldier, for he seemed to be a great deal in Witanbury—at least he had been here a great deal during the last three weeks. The two often walked about the town together; once they had stood for quite a long time just opposite the open doors of the Stores, and Mrs. Hegner on that occasion had looked at the handsome couple with sympathetic interest and excitement.
But now, to-night, nothing but sharp envy filled her soul. It was her fate, poor, pretty Polly’s fate, to sit behind that horrid glass partition over there, taking money, paying out endless small change, compelled always to look pleasant, or Manfred, if he caught her looking anything else, even when giving a farthing change out of a penny, would soon know the reason why! The young lady who stood smiling just within the door was not half as “fetching” as she, Polly, had been in her maiden days—and yet she was going to have everything the heart of woman could desire, a rich, handsome, young husband, and plenty of money!
As her eyes strayed out to the moonlit space outside where stood waiting, under the quaint little leafy mall which gives the Market Square of Witanbury such a foreign look, a gentleman in evening dress, Mrs. Hegner repeated mechanically, “Very kind, I’m sure, miss. They’ll appreciate it—that they will.”
“Well, that was all I came to say—only that my father will be very glad indeed to do anything he can. Oh, I did forget one more thing——” She lowered her voice a little. “The Dean thinks it probable, Mr. Hegner, that after to-day no German of military age will be allowed to leave England. You ought to tell everybody that this evening, otherwise some of them, without knowing it, might get into trouble.”
And then Mrs. Hegner, perhaps because she had become nervously aware that her husband had looked at her rather crossly a moment ago, blurted out, “There’s no fear of that, miss. We sent off a lot this morning to Harwich. I expect they’ll have been able to get a boat there all right——” She stopped suddenly, for her husband had just made a terrible face at her—a face full of indignation and wrath.
But Miss Haworth did not seem to have noticed anything.
“Oh, well,” she said, “perhaps it was a mistake to do that, but I don’t suppose it matters much, one way or the other. I must go now. The meeting is due to begin, isn’t it? And—and Sir Hugh is leaving to-night. He expects to find his marching orders when he gets back to town.” A little colour came into her charming face; she sighed, but not very heavily. “War is an awful thing!” she said; “but every soldier, of course, wants to see something of the fighting. I expect the feeling is just as strong in France and Germany as it is here.”
She shook hands warmly with Mr. and Mrs. Hegner, then she turned and tripped out into the dimly lighted and solitary Market Square. They watched her cross the road and take her lover’s arm.
“Fool!” said Mr. Hegner harshly. “Pretty, silly fool!” He mimicked what he thought to be her mincing accents. “Wants to see something of war, does he? I can tell him he will be satisfied before he has done!” There was a scowl on his face. “And you”—he turned on his wife furiously—“what business had you to say that about those young German men? I was waiting—yes, with curiosity—to hear what else you were going to tell her—whether you would tell her that I had paid their fares!”
“Oh, no, Manfred. You know I would never have done that after what you said to me yesterday.”