"Very well."
"That's right;" and he gently drew her round towards her audience. "That's our way—side by side, shoulder to shoulder, you and I, facing the world."
"Gentlemen," said Mrs. Thompson firmly, "there's another thing that I must add to what I have said. Mr. Marsden, when he comes into this house as my husband, will come into the business as my partner."
Marsden, with his head raised and his shoulders squared, stood boldly smiling at the silent men.
XI
She was conscious that the whole world had turned against her; in every face she could read her condemnation; when she drove through High Street she felt like a deposed monarch—hats were still removed, but with pitying courtesy instead of with loyal fervour. Constraint and embarrassment sounded in every fresh voice to which she listened. Mr. Prentice, taking her instructions, assumed a ridiculously hollow cheerfulness, as if he had been speaking to somebody who had contracted an incurable disease. The shop staff dared not look at her, and yet could not look away from her with any air of naturalness; up and down the counters male and female assistants, so soon as she appeared, became preposterously busy; and she knew that they avoided meeting her eyes. She knew also that the moment she had passed, their eyes followed her—they were at once frightened and fascinated, as if she had been a person who had confessed to a great crime, who was still at large, but who would be arrested almost immediately.
During the first few days of her engagement she suffered under the heavy sense that every friend had abandoned her. In street, shop, or house, she could find no comforter. Even Yates was cruel.
"Why do you look so glum?" At last she roundly upbraided Yates. "Don't wait upon me at all, if you can only do it as though you were going to a funeral."