“That’s what I thought! So I said ‘Yes’; and, of course, while we walked we talked, and the wind blew my hair into loose ends, and the damp made them curl, and the excitement gave me a colour; and it was so nice to talk to a man again, Claire, after everlasting women! I did look pretty when I saw myself in the glass when I came in, almost as I used to look years before. And he looked handsome, too, big and strong, and so delightfully like a man, and unlike a member of staff! We liked each other very much, and when we got to this door—”
Silence. Mary Rhodes waited wistfully for a helping word. Claire stared into the fire, her brows knitted in suspense.
“Well, naturally, we were sorry to part! He asked if I usually went to Saint C— for the evening service. I didn’t, but I said ‘Yes.’ I knew he meant to meet me again, and I wanted to be met.”
Claire sent her thoughts back and recalled a certain Sunday evening when she had offered to accompany Cecil to church, and had been bluntly informed that her company was not desired. She had taken the hint, and had not offered it again. She was silent, waiting for the revelations which were still to come.
“So after that it became a regular thing. He met me outside the church door, and saw me home. He often asked me to go out with him during the week, but I always refused, until suddenly this term I was so tired, so hungry for a change that I gave in, and promised that I would. I suppose that shocks you into fits!”
“It does rather. You see,” explained Claire laboriously, “I’ve been brought up on the Continent, where such a thing would be impossible. It would be an insult to suggest it. Even here in England it doesn’t seem right. Do you think a really nice man who was attracted by a girl wouldn’t find some other way—get an introduction somehow?”
“How? It’s easy to talk, but how is he to do it? We live in different worlds. I am a High School teacher, living in rooms in London, without a relation or a house open to me where I am intimate enough to take a friend. He is an officer in a crack regiment, visiting at fashionable houses. Can’t you imagine how his hostesses would stare if he asked them to call upon me here, in this poky room! And if he loves me, if I interest him more than the butterflies of Society, if he wants to know me better, what is he to do? Tell me that, my dear, before you blame me for taking a little bit of fun when I get the chance!”
But Claire had no suggestion to make. She herself had been strong enough to refuse a friendship on similar lines, but she had been living a working life for a bare four months, while Cecil had been teaching for twelve years. Twelve years of a second-hand life, living in other women’s houses, teaching other women’s children, obeying other women’s rules; with the one keen personal experience of a slighted love!
The tale of close on four thousand nights represented a dreary parlour and a pile of exercise books. For twelve long years this woman had worked away, losing her youth, losing her bloom, cut off from all that nature intended her to enjoy; and then at the end behold a change in the monotony, the sudden appearance of a man who sought her, admired her, craved her society as a boon!
The tears came to Claire’s eyes as she put herself in such a woman’s place, and realised all that this happening would mean. Renewal of youth, renewal of hope, renewal of interest and zest...