"You may bet your boots on it. He's here every time she comes. After the lessons he sees her home—by a round-about way. The only reason he didn't go with her this afternoon is because the shop is shut, and they're afraid of meeting the old lady.... No, my little boy, your Miss Enid is booked."
VI
Enid was away again, staying for a few days with some friends or friends of the Salters; and during her absence her mother suffered from an unusual depression of spirits. In the shop it was noticed that Mrs. Thompson seemed, if not irritable, at least rather difficult to please; but all understood that she felt lonely while deprived of the young woman's society, and all sympathised with her. Assistants, who happened to meet her after closing time, taking a solitary walk outside the boundaries of the town, were especially sympathetic, and perhaps ventured to think that fashionable Miss Enid left her too much alone.
One evening after a blazing airless day, Dick Marsden, very carefully dressed in his neat blue serge, with his straw hat jauntily cocked, came swaggering through St. Saviour's Court, and attracted, as he passed, many feminine glances of admiration. The pretty housemaid from Adelaide Crescent ogled and languished; but he merely bowed and passed by. He could not waste his time with her to-night. There was bigger game on foot.
At the bottom of Frederick Street he hurried down the walled passage that leads to the railway embankment; thence through the vaultlike tunnel under the line, past the gas-works; over the iron bridge that spans the black water of the canal, and out into the open meadows.
These meadows, a broad flat between the canal and the river, belonged to the railway company; and almost every gate and post reminded one of their legal owners. Notices in metal frames somewhat churlishly announced that, "This gate will be closed and locked on one day in each year"; "There is no right of way here"; "The public, who are only admitted as visitors, will kindly act as visitors and refrain from damage, or the privilege will be withdrawn." The public, enjoying the privilege freely but not arrogantly, ranged about the pleasant fields, played foot-ball in winter, picked buttercups and daisies in spring, and even provided themselves with Corporation seats—to be removed at a moment's notice if the Corporation should be bidden to remove them. On warm summer evenings like this, the public were principally represented by lovers strolling in linked pairs, looking into each other's eyes, and making of the railway fields a road through dreamland to paradise.
Marsden walked swiftly across the parched grass, moving with strong light tread, and gazing here and there with clear keen vision. As he moved thus lightly and swiftly, looking so strong and yet so agile, he seemed a personification of masculine youth and vigour, the coarse male animal in its pride of brutal health. Or, if one merely noticed the catlike tread, so springy and easy in its muscular power, he might suggest the graceful yet fierce beast of prey who paces through failing sunlight and falling shadows in search of the inoffensive creature that he will surely destroy.
A solitary figure moving slowly between the trees by the river—Mr. Marsden hurried on.