“She must not be angry. How does she dare to show her anger to you? You had visitors. I know: my mother.”
“Oh, Mr. Markham!” Janet said again, faintly, drooping her head; and then there was a momentary pause.
“I know,” he said.
He did not know, and could not tell afterwards by what impulse he did it. Some infatuation took possession of him. He took her hand in the middle of the street, in sight of any one that might be looking. There was nobody looking, which vexed Janet, but he did it without thought of that. It would have made no difference if all the world had been there.
“That is how it is, I suppose,” he said, holding her hand. And then he added, somewhat drearily, “If there is anything wrong in it, it is their own doing, there is always that to be said.”
This somewhat chilled Janet, who expected a warmer address; but she reflected that the street was scarcely a place for love-making; and Miss Stichel, though not so important as usual, had still to be considered.
“Let me go, please, Mr. Markham,” she said; “I mustn’t be late: for whatever may happen afterwards I am still their servant at the shop.”
He dropped her hand as if it burnt him, and grew red with anger and uneasy shame.
“This must not be,” he said. “I will go and speak to Spears.”
Though he was so firm in his democratic principles, the idea that any one connected with himself should be under the orders of a mistress galled him beyond bearing. It was a thing that could not be.