Transcriber's Note:
A Table of Contents has been added.

BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

NOVELS.

For Better, For Worse
Glamour
The Mirror and the Lamp
The Devil's Garden
General Mallock's Shadow
In Cotton Wool
Mrs. Thompson
The Rest Cure
Seymour Charlton
Hill Rise
The Guarded Flame
Vivien
The Ragged Messenger
The Countess of Maybury
A Little More

SHORT STORIES.

Life Can Never Be the Same
Odd Lengths
Fabulous Fancies

MRS. THOMPSON
A NOVEL
BY W. B. MAXWELL

AUTHOR OF "THE GUARDED FLAME,"
"VIVIEN," ETC.

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1922

Copyright, 1911, by
Dodd, Mead & Company

PRINTED IN U. S. A.

"Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates."
—Proverbs.

CONTENTS

MRS. THOMPSON

I

It was early-closing day in the town of Mallingbridge; and the Thompson's, "established 1813," had begun to hide its wares from the sunlight of High Street. Outside its windows the iron shutters were rolling down; inside its doors male and female assistants, eager for the weekly half-holiday, were despatching the last dilatory customers, packing their shelves, spreading their dust-sheets, and generally tidying up with anxious speed.

Mrs. Thompson, the sole proprietress, emerging from internal offices and passing through her prosperous realm, cast an attentive eye hither and thither; and, wherever she glanced, saw all things right, and nothing wrong. System, method, practised control visible in each department. Carpets, Bedding, Curtains, House Furnishings, all as they should be—no disturbing note, no hint of a dangerous element in the well-ordered working scheme of Thompson's.

Managerial Mr. Mears, a big elderly man, took his hands from beneath the skirts of his frock-coat; smiled and bowed; and spoke to the proprietress confidentially on one or two important matters.

"By the way," said Mr. Mears. "About Household Crockery—is it to be a promotion, or do you still think of getting someone in? Of course there's a lot of talk—must be while the appointment remains open. But you haven't made up your mind yet, have you?"

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Thompson, arranging her reticule, and not looking at Mr. Mears. "I shall appoint Mr. Marsden."

"Young Marsden? Never!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Thompson firmly.

"You surprise me. I admit it."

"You don't think," said Mrs. Thompson, "that he is old enough for the responsibility. But, Mr. Mears, he has brains and he likes work. Tell the others that the appointment is made."

And big Mr. Mears did then what everyone in Thompson's always did—that is to say, he immediately obeyed orders; and before the last shutter was down, the news had flashed all through the restricted space of the old-fashioned shop.

"Dicky Marsden! Oh, drop me off a roof.... Marsden up again! Well, I'm bust!" Thompson's young gentlemen murmuring their comments, expressed astonishment, and a certain amount of envy. "Marsden over all our heads! This is a rum go, if you like."

"Fancy! What next! Would you believe it?" Thompson's young ladies, after being breathless, became shrill. "Why, on'y six months ago he was Number Three in the Carpets."

"He'll be prouder than ever."

"I shan't dare so much as speak to him."

"He always treated one as dirt under his feet," said a dark-haired, anæmic young lady. "And now!"

"With the increased screw," said a pert, blond young lady, "he'll be able to buy more smart clothes, and he'll look more fetching than ever. Yes, and you'll all be more in love with him than you are a'ready."

"Speak for yourself."

"Well, say I'm as bad as you. We're all a lot of fools together."

Of course there must be talk. The Napoleonic rise of this fortunate shopman had been sufficiently rapid to stir the whole of his little shop-world. Starting thus, to what heights might he not attain in Thompson's? There would be talk and more talk.

But not within the hearing of Mr. Mears.

"Jabber, jabber," said Mr. Mears with unusual severity. "Less of it. You're like so many cackling hens in some back yard—instead of ladies who know how to behave themselves in a high-class emporium."

Evidently Mr. Mears was not pleased with the appointment. He stamped off; and the girls observed the characteristic swish of the coat tails, the manner in which he puffed out his chest, and the faint flush upon his bearded face.

Meanwhile Mrs. Thompson had passed onward and upward, through many departments, to the door of communication on the first floor that led from her public shop to her private house.

Outwardly it was quite an old-fashioned shop, still encased with the red-brick fabric of Georgian days; but inwardly its structure had been almost entirely modernised. The bird-cage art of steel-girdering had swept away division-walls, opened out the department to the widest possible extent and given an unimpeded run of floor area where once the goods used to be stored in rooms the size of pigeon-holes. The best shop-architects had gutted the place, and, so far as they were permitted, had "brought it up to date"; but in all recent improvements the style of substantial, respectable grandeur was preserved. The new mahogany staircases were of a Georgian pattern; there were no fantastic white panellings, no coloured mosaics, no etagères of artificial flowers. Really the vast looking-glasses were the only decoration that one could condemn as altogether belonging to the vulgar new school. The mirrors were perhaps overdone.

So, as Mrs. Thompson ascended the short flight of stairs out of Bedding, Etc., a pleasant, middle-aged woman in stately black with pendent chatelaine, climbed opposing steps to meet her face to face on the landing. As she moved on she was moving in many glasses, so that nearly all the assistants could see her or her reflected image: a procession of Mrs. Thompsons advancing from Woollens and Yarns, another converging column of Mrs. Thompsons from Cretonnes and Chintzes, reinforcements coming forward in the big glass opposite the entrance of Household Linen; while the young men behind the Blankets counter raised their eyes to watch the real Mrs. Thompson march by with a company of false Mrs. Thompsons stretching in perfect line from the right—innumerable Mrs. Thompsons shown by the glasses; some looking bigger, some looking slighter; but all the glasses showing a large-bosomed, broad-hipped woman of forty-five, with florid colouring and robust deportment; a valiant solid creature seeming, as indeed she was, well able to carry the burden of the whole shop on her firm shoulders.

Then the glasses were empty again: Mrs. Thompson had disappeared through the door of communication.

On this side of the door lay all her working life, the struggle, the fight, the courageous plans, and the unflagging labours; on the other side of the door lay the object for which she had toiled, the end and aim of every brave endeavour.

"Enid, my darling, are you there?... Yates, is Miss Enid in?"

"Yes, ma'am, Miss Enid has lunched, and is upstairs—dressing for the drive."

Yates, the old servant, maid, housekeeper, and faithful friend, came bustling and smiling to the welcome sounds of her employer's kind voice.

Mrs. Thompson sat for a few minutes in the vacated dining-room, talking to Yates and hearing the domestic news.

The headache of Miss Enid, Yates reported, was much better; but she had not been out this morning. She seemed to be rather languid, and, as Yates guessed, perhaps felt a little dull and moped after the gaieties and excitements of the country-house visit from which she had just returned.

"Ah, well," said Mrs. Thompson cheerfully, "our drive will do her good. And now that the summer is coming on, she shall not want for occupation and amusement."

All through the snug little box of a house, filched out of the block of shop premises, there was evidence of the occupations and amusements of Miss Enid. Bookcases with choicely bound volumes of romance and poetry, elegant writing-desks, various musical instruments, materials for painting in oil or water colour, new inventions for the practice of miniature sculpture, the most costly photographic cameras, tennis rackets, hockey sticks, and other implements of sport and pastime—on this floor as on the upper floors, in dining-room, drawing-room, boudoir, as well as bedroom and dressing-room, were things that should provide a young lady with occupation and amusement.

The rooms were comfortably furnished and brightly ornamented, and all had a homelike soothing aspect to their busy owner. To other people they might seem lacking in the studious taste by which the rich and idle can make of each apartment a harmonious picture. Here money had been spent profusely but hurriedly, at odd times and not all together: whatever at the moment had appeared to be desirable or necessary had been at once procured. So that comfort and luxury rather jostled each other; the Sheraton cabinets which were so charming to look at were apt to get hidden by the leather armchairs which were so soothing to have a nap in; and the Chelsea china in the glass-fronted corner cupboard completely lost itself behind the Japanese screen that guarded against draughts from the old sashed window.

"Enid, may I come in?" Mrs. Thompson tapped softly at the door of her daughter's dressing-room.

"Mother dear, is that you?" The door was opened, and the two women embraced affectionately.

Miss Thompson, in her fawn-coloured coat and skirt, feathered hat and spotted veil, was a tall, slim, graceful figure, ready now to adorn the hired landau from Mr. Young's livery stables. Her hair was dark and her complexion naturally pallid; with a long straight nose in a narrow face, she resembled her dead father, but what was sheep-like and stupid in him was rather pretty in the girl;—altogether, a decent-looking, fairly attractive young woman of twenty-two, but not likely to obtain from the world at large the gaze of admiring satisfaction with which an adoring mother regarded her.

"The carriage isn't there yet," said Mrs. Thompson, "and I promise not to keep you waiting. I'll change my dress in a flash of lightning."

"What did you think of wearing this afternoon?"

Mrs. Thompson proposed to put on her new mauve gown and the hat with the lilac blossoms; but her daughter made alternative suggestions.

In the shop Mrs. Thompson carried a perpetual black; outside the shop she was perhaps unduly fond of vivid tints, and it was Enid's custom to check this rainbow tendency.

"Very well," said Mrs. Thompson, "it shall be the brown again;" and she laughed good-humouredly. "I bow to your judgment, my dear, if I don't endorse its correctness."

"You look sweet in the brown, mother."

"Do I?... But remember what Miss Macdonald says. With my high complexion, I need colour."

Yates soon braced and laced her mistress into the sober brown cloth and velvet that Enid considered suitable for the occasion; a parlourmaid with light rugs went forward to the carriage; and mother and daughter came down the steep and narrow flight of stairs to their outer door.

There was no ground floor to the dwelling-house—or rather the ground floor formed an integral part of the shop. The street door stood in St. Saviour's Court—the paved footway that leads from High Street to the churchyard,—sandwiched with its staircase between the two side windows that contained basket chairs and garden requisites. The court was sufficiently wide and sufficiently pleasant: a quiet, dignified passage of entry, with the peaceful calm of the old church walls at one end, and the stir and bustle of the brilliant High Street at the other end.

Enid and her mamma, following the neat and mincing parlourmaid, made a stately procession to the main thoroughfare, where the really handsome equipage provided by Mr. Young was awaiting their pleasure.

The liveried coachman touched his hat, idle loungers touched their caps, prosperous citizens uncovered and bowed.

"There goes Mrs. Thompson." People ran to upper windows to see Mrs. Thompson start for her Thursday drive.

"There she goes."

"Who?"

"Mrs. Thompson."

"Oh!"

The genial May sunshine flashed gaily, lighting up the whole street, making both ladies blink their eyes as the carriage rolled away.

"What a crowd there is outside Bence's," said Miss Enid. "How mean it is of him not to close!"

The first shop they passed was Bence's drapery stores, and Mrs. Thompson glanced carelessly at the thronged pavement in front of these improperly open windows.

"Mr. Bence's motto," said Mrs. Thompson, "is cheap and nasty," and she laughed with an amused scorn for so mean a trade rival. "His method of doing business is like the trumpery he offers to the public. I have a rather impudent letter from him in my pocket now, and I want—"

But then Mrs. Thompson's strong eyebrows contracted, and she shrugged her shoulders and looked away from Bence's. She had just noticed two of her own shop-girls going into Bence's to buy his trumpery. Something distinctly irritating in the thought that these feather-headed girls regularly carried half their wages across the road to Bence's!

Throughout the length of High Street there were too many of such signs of the vulgar times: the ever-changing trade, old shops giving place to new ones—an American boot-shop, a branch of the famous cash tobacconists, the nasty cheap restaurant opened by the great London caterers, Parisian jewellery absorbing one window of the historic clocksmiths,—everywhere indications of that love of tawdriness and glitter which slowly atrophies the sense of solid worth, of genuineness and durability.

Yet everywhere, also, signs of the old life of the town still vigorous—aldermen and councillors taking the air; Mr. Wiseman, the wealthy corn-merchant; Mr. Dempsey, the auctioneer-mayor; Mr. Young, owner of a hundred horses besides this pair of gallant greys that were drawing Mrs. Thompson.

Everyone of the solid old townsfolk knew her; all that was respectably permanent bowed and smiled at her. The drive was like a royal progress when they swept through the market square, past the ancient town hall now a museum, under the shadows thrown by the new municipal buildings, and the other and bigger church of Holy Trinity, out beneath the noble gatehouse, and up into the sunlit slope of Hill Street. Hats off on either side, broad masculine faces smiling in the sunlight. All the best of the town knew her and was proud of her.

Her story was of the simplest, and all knew it. Mr. Thompson had been the last and most feeble representative of a powerful dynasty of shop-keepers; at his death it became at once apparent that the grand old shop was nothing but an effete, played out, and utterly exhausted possession; his widow was left practically penniless, with an insolvent business to wind up, and an orphaned little girl to support and rear. And young Mrs. Thompson was ignorant of all business matters, knew nothing more of shops than can be learned by any shop-customer. Nevertheless, with indomitable energy, she threw herself into business life. She did not shut up Thompson's; she kept it going. In two years it was again a paying concern; in a few more years it was a stronger and more flourishing enterprise than it had ever been since its establishment in 1813; now it was immensely prosperous and a credit to the town.

They all knew how she had toiled until the success came, how generously she had used the money that her own force and courage earned—a large-minded, open-handed, self-reliant worker, combining a woman's endurance with a man's strength,—and only one weakness: the pampering devotion to her girl. She was making her daughter too much of a fine lady; she had extravagantly worshipped this idol; she had spoiled the long-nosed Enid. The town knew all about that.

Bowing to right and to left, Mrs. Thompson drove up Hill Street, and then stopped the carriage outside the offices of Mr. Prentice, solicitor and commissioner of oaths.

"Only two or three words with him, Enid. I promise not to be more than five minutes."

Mr. Prentice came to the carriage door; and was asked to read the letter from Mr. Bence the fancy draper.

"Don't you think it's rather impertinent?"

"Of course I do," said Mr. Prentice. "I wouldn't answer it. Throw it into the waste-paper basket."

"Oh, no, I shall answer it ... I can't allow Mr. Bence to suppose that I should ever be afraid of him."

"Afraid of him!" And Mr. Prentice laughed contemptuously. "You afraid of such a little bounder.... Look here. Shall I go round and kick the brute?"

Mrs. Thompson laughed, too. "No, no," she said, "that would scarcely be professional."

"I'll do it after office hours—in my private capacity—and of course without entering it to your account."

Mr. Prentice was a jolly red-faced man of fifty, with healthy clean-shaven cheeks, and small grey whiskers of a sporting cut. Altogether the most eminent solicitor in Mallingbridge, he had clients among all the country gentlefolk of the neighbourhood; he rode to hounds still, and kept his horses at Young's stables; he stood high in the Masonic craft and could sing an excellent comic song. He was at once Mrs. Thompson's trusted legal adviser, her staunch friend, and, as he himself declared, her admiring slave.

"One more word," said Mrs. Thompson. "It is time that I gave another dinner at the Dolphin. There are two new men on the Council—and there will be more new men next November. I shall want your help to act as deputy host for me. Will you think it out—draw up a list of guests—and arrange everything?"

"It is for you to command, and for me to obey," said genial Mr. Prentice. "But, upon my word, I don't know why you should go on feasting people in this way."

"I like to stand well with the town."

"And so you do. So you would, if you never gave them another glass of champagne.... I think your mamma is far too generous."

But Miss Enid, who seemed unutterably bored, was staring out of the carriage in the other direction. She had not been listening to Mr. Prentice, and she did not hear him when he addressed her directly.

"Then good-bye. Drive on, coachman.... There," and Mrs. Thompson turned gaily to her daughter. "That's more than enough business for Thursday afternoon, isn't it, Enid?"

They drove along the London road, through the pretty village of Haggart's Cross, as far as the chalk cliffs beneath the broad downs; and then, descending again, through beech woods and fir plantations to the valley where the river Malling runs and twists beside the railway line all the way home to the town.

The world was fresh and bright, with the May wind blowing softly and the May flowers budding sweetly. Cattle in the green fields, birds in the blue sky, pinafored children chanting a lesson behind the latticed panes of their schoolhouse, primroses peeping from grassy banks, and, far and near, the white hawthorn shedding its perfume, giving its fragrant message of spring, of hope, of life—plenty of things to look at with pleasure, plenty of things to talk about, though one might often have seen them before.

But Enid was somehow languid, listless, even lumpish, and Mrs. Thompson did nearly all the looking and talking.

"I always think that is such an imposing place. The entrance seems to warn one off—to tell one not to forget what a tremendous swell the owner is."

They were passing the lodge-gates of a great nobleman's seat, and one had a rapid impression of much magnificence. Stone piers, sculptured urns, floreated iron, massive chains; and behind the forbidding barrier a vista of swept gravel and mown grass, with solemn conifers proudly ranked, and standard rhododendrons just beginning pompously to bloom—no glimpse of the mansion itself, but an intuitive perception of something vast, remote, unattainable.

Enid looked through the bars at my lord's gravel drive attentively, almost wistfully, perhaps thinking of the few and august people to whom these splendours would be familiar—of the lucky people who are brought up in palaces instead of in shops.

"It is a meet of hounds." Miss Enid broke a long silence to give her mother this information. "And when I was staying at Colonel Salter's, I met a man who had once been to a ball there."

"Ah, well," said Mrs. Thompson, with cheerful briskness, "now you mention hunting, that reminds me. We must get you on horseback again.... You do like your riding, don't you?"

"Oh, yes," said Enid listlessly.

"Mr. Young said you were making such good progress. And," added Mrs. Thompson gently, "it is a pity to take up things and drop them. It is just wasted effort—if one stops before reaching the goal."

The road, turning and crossing the railway, gave them a well-known view of Mallingbridge—the town quite at its best, four miles away in the middle of the broad plain, smoke and haze hanging over it, but with tempered sunlight glistening on countless roofs, and the square tower of St. Saviour's and the tall spire of Holy Trinity rising proudly above the mass of lesser buildings. There, stretched at her feet, was Mrs. Thompson's world, the world that she had conquered.

In another mile they passed a residence that to her mind formed a pleasant contrast with the oppressive splendour of the nobleman's domain. Here there were white gates between mellow brick walls, easy peeps into a terraced garden, stables and barns as at a farm, pigeons settling on some thatch, friendly English trees guarding but not hiding a dear old English country house.

"Look, Enid," and Mrs. Thompson pointed to the broad eaves, the white windows, and the solid chimney stacks, as they showed here and there between the branches of oak and maple. "There. That's a place I fell in love with the first time I saw it.... I would like a house just like that—for you and me to live in when I am able to give up my work...."

"What were you saying, mother?" Enid, not listening or absorbed by her own thoughts, had not heard.

"I was only saying, that's the sort of house I should like for us two—when I retire."

"Mother, I sometimes wish that you had retired years ago."

"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Thompson meekly, "retiring is all very well—but you and I wouldn't be sitting here driving so comfortably if I had been afraid of my work and in a hurry to get done with it."

II

In her marriage she had sacrificed all the natural hopes and inclinations of a healthy young woman. She and her widowed mother were very poor, quite alone in the world; and it seemed a proper and a wise thing to marry Mr. Thompson for his money. No one could guess that the money was already a phantom and no longer a fact. The man was middle-aged, feeble of body and mind, a stupid and a selfish person; but it seemed that he would assure the future of his wife and provide a comfortable home for his mother-in-law.

Then after five years the man and his money were gone forever; the mother for whom the sacrifice had been made was herself dead; only the wife and her little child remained. Five years of dull submission to an unloved husband; five years spent in the nursing of two invalids, with the vapid meaningless monotony of wasted days broken sharply by the pains of child-birth, the agonized cares of early motherhood, and the shock of death;—and at the end of the years, a sudden call for limitless courage and almost impossible energy.

Quiet unobtrusive Mrs. Thompson answered the call fully. Deep-seated fighting instincts arose in her; unsuspected powers were put forth to meet the exigencies of the occasion; the hero-spirit that lies buried in many natures sprang nobly upward.

At first she possessed only one commercial asset, the reputation of Thompson's. For so many years Thompson's had been known as a good shop that here was a legend which might counterbalance debts, exhausted credit, antiquated stock, and incompetent staff.

The town and the country during generations had come to Thompson's for good things—not cheap things, but the things that last: dress fabrics that stand up by themselves, chairs and tables that you can leave intact to your grandchildren, carpets that unborn men will be beating when you yourself are dust.

Mrs. Thompson, in her widow's weeds, went round the big supply houses, telling the great trade chieftains that the legend was still alive, though the man who already owed them so much money was dead; saying in effect to all the people who held her fate in their hands, "Don't let old Thompson's go down. Don't smash me. Help me. Give me time to secure your twenty shillings in the pound, instead of the meagre seven and sixpence which you can get now."

The wholesale trade helped her. Little by little all the world came to her aid. Mr. Prentice the solicitor was a skilful ally. As soon as it could be seen locally that she was keeping her head above water, friends on the bank began to beckon to her. Rich aldermen, advised that there was now small risk, lent her money; and these loans rendered her independent of Trade assistance. Soon she could get whatever sums she required for the restoration and expansion of the business.

In all her dealings she won respect. The confidence that she inspired was her true commercial asset, her capital, her good-will, her everything; and it was always growing. "Very remarkable," said travellers, reporting at headquarters, "how that Mrs. Thompson has pulled the fat out of the fire at Mallingbridge. What she wants now is some sound business man for partner—and there's no knowing what she mightn't do."

Then some other and more philosophic traveller, impressed by the swift revivification of Thompson's, said enthusiastically, "The best business head in this town is on a woman's shoulders." The saying was quoted, misquoted, echoed and garbled, until it concreted itself into an easy popular formula which the whole town used freely. "The best man of business in Mallingbridge is a woman." Everyone knew who that woman was. Mrs. Thompson. And the town, speaking on important occasions through the mouth of its mayor, aldermen, and councillors, for the first time said that it was proud of her.

And then the town began to ask her hand in wedlock.

In these days, at the dawn of her success, Mrs. Thompson was not without obvious personal attraction. She was fair and plump, with light wavy hair, kind grey eyes beneath well-marked eyebrows, and good colour warmly brightening a clean white skin;—she "looked nice" in her widow's black, smiling at a hard world and so bravely tackling her life problem. Quite a large number of well-to-do citizens were smilingly rejected by the buxom widow. Pretenders were slow to believe in the finality of her refusals; as the success became more patent, they tried their luck again, and again, but always with the same emptiness of result. Indeed it was a town joke, as well as an unquestionable fact, that old Chambers the wine-merchant regularly proposed three times a year to nice-looking Mrs. Thompson.

She wanted no second husband. The fight and the child were enough for her. Those deep and unsapped springs of love that might have gushed forth to make a fountain stream of happiness for Alderman Brown or Councillor Jones flowed calmly and steadfastly now in a concentrated channel of motherly affection. To work for the child, to love and tend the child—that was henceforth her destiny. And she felt strong enough to watch in her own face the blurring destructive print of time, if she might watch in her girl's face time's unfolding glories.

For the cruel years took from her irrevocably those physical seductions of neatly rounded form and smooth pinkness and whiteness. The colour that had been sufficient became too much, plumpness changed to stoutness—once, for a year, she was fat. But she tackled this trouble too, bravely and unflinchingly,—went to London for Swedish exercises; banted; brought herself down, down, down, until Dr. Eldridge told her she must stop, or she would kill herself. After that she settled to a steady solidness, a well-maintained amplitude of contour; and the years seemed to leave her untouched as the wide-breasted, rotund-hipped, stalwart Mrs. Thompson of a decade—red-cheeked, bright-eyed, gallant and strong.

Yet still she had suitors. The physical charm was gone, but other charm was present—that blending of kindness and power which wins men's hearts, if it does not stir their pulses, gave her a dominating personality, and made the circle of her influence exactly as large as the circle of her acquaintance. People at the circumference of the circle seemed to be surely drawn, by a straight or vacillating radius, to its centre. The better you knew her, the more you thought about her. So that old friends after years of thought now and then surprised her by suggesting that friendship should be exchanged for a closer bond; pointing out the advantages of a common-sense union, the marriage of convenience, sympathy, and mutual regard, that becomes appropriate when the volcano glow of youth has faded; and inviting her to name an early day for going to St. Saviour's Church with them.

In the shop, among all grades of employees, there had ever been a dread of St. Saviour's Church and wedding bells. They got on so well with their mistress that the idea of a master was extraordinarily abhorrent to them. But one day, a day now long past, Mrs. Thompson told Mr. Mears authoritatively that joy bells would never sound for her again; Mr. Mears, by permission, or in the exercise of his own discretion, passed on the glad tidings; and the only dark thought that could worry a contented staff was removed.

"No, Mr. Mears, I don't say that I have never contemplated the possibility of such an event; but I can say emphatically I have decided that in my case it is impossible."

That was sufficient. What Mrs. Thompson said Mrs. Thompson meant. A decision with her was a decision.

Of all her trusty subordinates none had served her so loyally as big Mr. Mears. His whole life had been spent in Thompson's. Once he had been boy messenger, window-cleaner, boot-blacker; and now, at the age of sixty, he had risen to managerial rank. He was the acknowledged chief of the staff, Mrs. Thompson's right-hand man; and he was as proud of his position and the culminating grandeurs of his career as if he had been a successful general, a prime-minister, or a pope. Mrs. Thompson knew and openly told him that he was invaluable to her. Such words were like wine and music: they intoxicated and enchanted him. Truly he was whole-hearted, faithful, devoted, with a deep veneration for his mistress; with an intense and almost passionate esteem for her skill, her comprehension, her vigour, and for her herself—perhaps too with a love that he scarcely himself understood.

Anyhow this heavy grey-haired shopman and his employer were very close allies, generally thinking as one, and always acting as one, able to talk together with a nearly absolute freedom on any question, however intimately private in its character.

"You see, Mr. Mears, if I ever meant to do it, I should have done it ages ago. Now that my daughter is growing up, her claims for attention are becoming stronger every day."

Mr. Mears and the rest of the staff were more than satisfied. Perhaps they blessed the idolized Enid for an increasing capacity to absorb every energy and volition that Mrs. Thompson could spare from the shop.

Whatever Enid wished for her mother provided. She racked her brains in order to forestall the child's wishes. But the difficulty always was this, one could not be quite sure what Enid really wished. She accepted the pretty gifts, the conditions of her life, the plans for her future, with a calm unruffled acquiescence.

When Mrs. Thompson regretfully decided that it would be advisable to dismiss the expensive governesses and send the home pupil to an expensive school, Enid placidly and immediately agreed. Mrs. Thompson thought that school would open Enid's mind, that school would give her an opportunity of making nice girl-friends. Enid at once thought so, too.

"But, oh, my darling, what a gap there will be in this house! You'll leave a sore and a sad heart behind you. I shall miss you woefully."

"And I shall miss you, mamma."

Then, when Enid had gone to the fashionable seminary at Eastbourne, with the faithful Yates as escort, with a wonderful luncheon-basket of delicacies in the first-class reserved compartment, with several huge boxes of school trousseau in the luggage van, Mrs. Thompson began to suffer torment. Was it not cruel to send the brave little thing away from her? Might not her darling be now a prey to similar yearnings and longings for a swift reunion? The torment became agony; and after two days Mrs. Thompson rushed down to see for herself if the new scholar was all right.

Enid was entirely all right—playing with the other girls at the bottom of the secluded garden.

"Is that you, mummy?" This was a form of greeting peculiar to Enid from very early days. "I am so glad to see you," and she kissed mamma affectionately.

She was uniformly affectionate, whether at school or at home, but never explosive or demonstrative in the manifestations of her affection. There was more warmth in her letters than in her spoken words. "My own dearest mother," she used to write, "I am so looking forward to being with you again. Do meet me at the station." But when the train arrived and Mrs. Thompson, who had been pacing the Mallingbridge platform in a fever of expectation, clasped the beloved object to her heart, she experienced something akin to disappointment. It was a sedately composed young lady that offered a cool cheek to the mother's tremulous lips.

Now and then a school-friend came to stay with Enid. A Miss Salter, whose parents proved large-minded enough to overlook the glaring fact of the shop, was a fairly frequent visitor. During the visit one of Mr. Young's carriages stood at the disposal of the young hostess and her guest all day long; breakfasts were served in bed; a private box at the local theatre might be occupied any evening between the cosy dinner and the dainty little supper; and Mrs. Thompson arranged delightful expeditions to London, where, under the guardianship of Yates, larger sights and more exciting treats could be enjoyed than any attainable in Mallingbridge.

The condescending guest returned to her distinguished circle laden with presents, and frankly owned that she had been given a royal time at the queer shop-house in St. Saviour's Court.

Enid in her turn visited the houses of her friends, and came home to tell Mrs. Thompson of that pleasant gracious world in which people do not work for their living, but derive their ample means from splendidly interred ancestors. With satisfaction, if not with animation, she described how greatly butlers and footmen surpass the art of parlourmaids in waiting at table; how gay an effect is produced by young men dining in red coats, how baronets often shoot with three guns, how lords never use less than two horses in the hunting field, and so on. And Mrs. Thompson was happy in the thought that her daughter should be mingling with fine company and deriving pleasure from strange scenes.

She was careful to obliterate herself in all such social intercourse. Courteous letters were exchanged between her and Enid's hosts; but the girl and Yates were despatched together, and Mrs. Thompson refused even a glimpse of the Salters' mansion.

"Later on," she told Enid, "when we have done with the shop, I shall hope to take my place in society by my pretty daughter's side. But for the present I must just keep to myself.... The old prejudice against retail trade still lingers—more especially among the class that used to be termed country people."

Enid dutifully agreed. Indeed she told her mother that the old prejudice was much more active than anyone could guess who had not personally encountered it. The shop was, so to speak, a very large pill, and needed a considerable amount of swallowing.

"I found that out in my first term at school, mother dear."

"Mother dear" was now Enid's unvaried mode of address when talking to her mamma. All her friends addressed their mammas as mother dear. School was over in these days. Miss Thompson had been finished; she did her country-house visiting with a maid of her own, and no longer with old Yates; as much as she appeared to like anything, she liked staying about at country-houses; she never refused an invitation—except when she was previously engaged.

Something perhaps wanting here in the finished article, as polished and pointed by Eastbourne school-mistresses; something not quite right in Enid's placid acquiescences and too rapid concurrences; something that suggested the smooth surface of a languid shallow stream, and not the broad calm that lies above deep strong currents! Perhaps Mrs. Thompson would have preferred a more exuberant reciprocity in her great love; perhaps she secretly yearned for a full response to the open appeal of her expansive, generous nature.

If so, she never said it. She was generous in thoughts as well as in deeds. In big things as in small things she seemed to think that it was for her to give and for others to receive. From the vicar craving funds for his new organ to the crossing sweeper who ostentatiously slapped his chest on cold mornings, all who asked for largesse received a handsome dole. At the railway-station, when she appeared, ticket-collectors and porters tumbled over one another in their rush to dance attendance—so solid was her reputation as a lavishly tremendous tipper.

"She is making so much money herself that she can afford to be free with it." That was the view of the town, and her own view, too. So all the tradesmen with whom she dealt flagrantly overcharged her—dressmakers, livery stable keepers, wine-merchants, florists, every one of them said it was a privilege to serve her, and then sent in an extortionate bill. And she paid and thanked with a genial smile.

Donations to the hospitals, subscriptions to the police concert, the watermen's regatta, the railway servants' sports—really there was no end to the demands that she met so cheerily. Christmas turkeys for the Corporation underlings; cigars for the advertisement printers; small and big dinners, with salvos of champagne corks threatening the Dolphin ceilings, for aldermen, councillors, and all other urban magnates—really it was no wonder that the town had a good word for her.

Mr. Prentice, the solicitor, always tried and always failed to curb her liberality. Mr. Prentice kept himself outside of the Corporation's affairs, and expressed considerable contempt for the municipal representatives and the local tradesmen. When Mrs. Thompson spoke with gratitude of the kindness of friends who helped her by loans in her early struggle, Mr. Prentice mocked at these spurious benefactors.

"They did nothing for you," said Mr. Prentice.

"Oh, how can you pretend that?"

"They lent you money on excellent security and took high interest; and you have been feasting them and flattering them ever since."

"I do like to feel that I am on good terms with those about me."

Then Mr. Prentice would laugh. "Oh, well, you have certainly got the Corporation in your pocket. You make them your slaves—as you make me and everyone else. So I'll say no more. No doubt you know your own business best."

And she did. That well-used formula of the town might have been a high-flown compliment at the beginning, but it was sober truth now. No man in Mallingbridge could touch her. The years, taking so much from her, had also brought her much. With ripening judgment, widening knowledge, and the accumulated treasure of experience, her business faculty had developed into something very near the highest form of genius. She had insight, sense of organization, the power of launching out boldly and accepting heavy risks to secure large gains; but she had also caution, concentration of purpose in minor aims, and rapid decision in facing a failure and cutting short consequent losses. In a word, she possessed all the best attributes of your good man of business, and the little more that makes up greatness.

She could always do that which very few men consistently achieve. She mastered the situation of the moment, struck directly at the root of the difficulty that confronted her, and, sweeping aside irrelevancies, non-essentials, and entanglements, saw in the cold bright light of logical thought the open road that leads from chaos to security.

And no man could have been a more absolute ruler. Every year of her success made her dominion more complete. Womanlike, she ruled her world by kindness; but man-like, she enforced her law by a show of strength, and weight, and even of mere noise. Not often, but whenever necessary, she acted a man's violence, and used bad language. When Mrs. Thompson swore the whole shop trembled.

The swearing was a purely histrionic effort, but she carried it through nobly.

"Have you heard?" A tremulous whisper ran along the counters. "Mrs. T. went out into the yard, and damned those carters into heaps.... Mrs. T. 'as just bin down into the packing room, and given 'em damson pie—and I'm sure they jolly well deserved it.... Look out. Here she comes!"

The brawny carters hung their heads, the hulking packers cleared their throats huskily, the timorous shop-hands looked at the floor. Mrs. Thompson passed like a silent whirlwind through the shop, and banged the counting-house door behind her.

When Enid was away from home the counting-house was sometimes occupied to a late hour. Staff long since gone, lights out everywhere; but light still shining in that inner room, fighting the darkness above the glass partitions. The night watchman, pacing to and fro, kept himself alert—a real watchman, ready with his lantern to conduct Mrs. Thompson through the shrouded avenues of counter, and upstairs to the door of communication.

When Enid was away the house seemed empty; and the empty house, curiously enough, always seemed smaller. It was as though because the life of the house had contracted, the four walls had themselves drawn nearer together. Yet the little rooms were just big enough to hold ghosts and sad memories.

"You look thoroughly fagged out, ma'am. You overdo it. Let me open you a pint of champagne for your supper."

"No, thank you, Yates.... But sit down, and talk to me."

The old servant sat at the table, and kept her mistress company through what would otherwise have been a lonely meal. In Miss Enid's absence she had no house news to offer, so Mrs. Thompson gave her the shop news.

"I swore at them to-day, Yates."

"Did you indeed, ma'am?"

"Yes."

"What drove you to that, ma'am?"

"Oh, the packing-room again—and those carters. I informed Mr. Mears that I should do it; and he kept his eyes open, and came up quietly and told me when.... Mr. Mears was delighted with it. He told me at closing time that things had gone like clockwork ever since."

In her comfortable bedroom Mrs. Thompson shivered.

"Yates, I feel cold. I suppose it is because I'm tired."

"Shall I make you a glass of hot grog to drink in bed?"

"No.... But come in again when I ring—and stay with me for a few minutes, will you, Yates?"

The old servant sat by the bedside until her mistress became drowsy.

"I'll leave you now, ma'am. Good-night, and pleasant dreams."

"Yates—kiss me."

Yates stooped over her lonely mistress, and kissed her. Then she softly switched off the light, and left Mrs. Thompson alone in the darkness.

III

When old employees looked out of Thompson's windows they sometimes had a queer impression that this side of the street was stationary, and that the other side of the street was moving. Six years ago Bence the fancy-draper had been eight doors off; but he had come nearer and nearer as he absorbed his neighbours' premises one after another. Now the end of Bence's just overlapped Thompson's. For three or four feet he was fairly opposite.

Just as Thompson's represented all that was good and stable in the trade of Mallingbridge, Bence's stood for everything bad and evanescent. A horrid catch-penny shop, increasing its business rapidly, practising the odious modern methods of remorseless rivalry, Bence's was almost universally hated. They outraged the feelings of old established tradesmen by taking up lines which cut into one cruelly: they burst out into books, into trunks, into ironmongery; at Christmas, in what they called their grand annual bazaar, they had a cut at the trade of every shop throughout the length of High Street. But especially, at all seasons of the year, they cut into Thompson's. The marked deliberate attack was when they first regularly took up Manchester goods. Then came Carpets, then Crockery, and then Garden requisites.

But Bence, in the person of Mr. Archibald, the senior partner, always announced the coming attack to Mrs. Thompson. He said she was the superior of all the other traders; he could never forget that she was a lady, and that he himself was one of her most respectful yet most ardent admirers; he desired ever to treat her with the utmost chivalry. Thus now he came over, full of gallant compliments, to make a fresh announcement.

Mrs. Thompson always treated Bence and his dirty little tricks as a joke. She used to laugh at him with a good-humoured tolerance.

"Of course, Mrs. Thompson, I don't like seeming to run you hard in any direction. But lor', how can I hurt you? You're big—you're right up there"—and Mr. Bence waved a thin hand above his bald head—"a colossal statue, made of granite. And I, why I'm just a poor little insect scrabbling about in the mud at your feet."

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Thompson, smiling pleasantly, "you're nothing of the sort. You are a very clever enterprising gentleman. But I'm not in the least afraid of you, Mr. Bence."

"That's right," said Bence delightedly. "And always remember this. I am not fighting you. Any attempt at a real fight is simply foreign from my nature—that is, where you are concerned."

"Never mind me," said Mrs. Thompson once. "But take care on your own account. Vaulting ambition sometimes o'erleaps itself."

"Ah," said Bence. "There you show your marvellous power. You put your finger on the sore spot in a moment. I am ambitious. I might almost say my ambitions are boundless. Work is life to me—and if I was by myself, I don't believe anything would stop me. But," said Bence, with solemn self-pity, "as all the world knows, Mrs. Thompson, there's a leak in my business."

Mrs. Thompson perfectly understood what he meant. This working Bence was a sallow, prematurely bald man with a waxed moustache and a cracked voice, and he toiled incessantly; but there were two younger Bences, bluff, hearty, hirsute men, who were sleeping partners, and eating, drinking, and loose-living partners. While Mr. Archibald laboured in Mallingbridge, Mr. Charles and Mr. George idled and squandered in London.

"That's the trouble with me," said Mr. Archibald sadly. "I'm the captain on his bridge, sending the ship full speed ahead, but knowing full well that there's a leak down below in the hold.... Never sufficient money behind me.... Oh, Mrs. Thompson," cried Bence, in a burst of enthusiasm, "if I only had the money behind me, I'd soon show you what's what and who's who. But I'm a man fighting with tied hands."

"Not fighting me, Mr. Bence. You said so yourself."

"No, no. Never you. I was thinking of the others."

Well then, Bence had come across the road once more. In the letter which Mrs. Thompson, when showing it to her solicitor, had described as impertinent, Bence presented his compliments and begged an early appointment for a communication of some importance. Mr. Bence added that "any hints from Mrs. Thompson in regard to his proposed new departure would be esteemed a privileged favour." Mrs. Thompson considered the suggestion that she should advise the rival in his attack as perhaps something beyond the limits of a joke. Nevertheless, she gave the appointment, and smilingly received the visitor in her own room behind the counting-house.

"May I begin by saying how splendidly well you are looking, Mrs. Thompson?... When I came in at that door, I thought there'd been a mistake. Seeing you sitting there at your desk, I thought, 'But this is Miss Thompson, and not my great friend Mrs. Thompson.' Mistook you for your own daughter, till you turned round and showed me that well-known respected countenance which—"

"Now Mr. Bence," said Mrs. Thompson, laughing, "I can't allow you to waste your valuable time in saying all these flattering things."

"No flattery."

"Please sit down and tell me what new wickedness you are contemplating."

Then Mr. Bence made his announcement. It was Furniture this time. He had bought out two more neighbours—the old-fashioned sadler and the bookseller; and he proposed to convert these two shops into his new furniture department.

Mrs. Thompson's brows gathered in a stern frown; only by a visible effort could she wipe out the aspect of displeasure, and speak with careless urbanity.

"Let me see exactly what it means, Mr. Bence.... I suppose you mean that your Furniture windows will be exactly opposite mine."

"Well, as near as makes no difference."

"That will be very convenient—for both of us, won't it? I think it is an excellent idea, Mr. Bence," and Mrs. Thompson laughed. "Customers who can't see what they want here, can step across and look for it with you."

"Oh, I daren't hope that we should ever draw anybody from your pavement, Mrs. Thompson."

"You are much too modest. But if it should ever happen that you fail to supply any customers with what they desire, you can send them across to us. You'd do that, wouldn't you?"

"Of course I will," said Bence heartily. "That's what I say. We don't clash. We can't clash."

Mrs. Thompson struck the bell on her desk, and summoned a secretary.

"Send Mr. Mears to me."

The sight of Bence always ruffled and disturbed old Mears. Seeing Bence complacently seated near the bureau in the proprietorial sanctum, his face flushed, his grey beard bristled, and his dark eyes rolled angrily.

When Mrs. Thompson told him all about the furniture, he grunted, but did not at first trust himself to words.

"Well, Mr. Mears, what do you think about it?"

"I think," said Mears gruffly, "that it's like Mr. Bence."

"I was remarking," said Bence, nodding and grinning, "that we cannot possibly clash. Our customers are poor little people—not like your rich and influential clientele. Our whole scheme of business is totally different from yours."

"That's true," said Mears, and he gave another grunt.

"You know," said Mrs. Thompson, "Mr. Bence is not fighting us. He is only carrying out his own system."

"Yes," said Mears, "we are acquainted with his system, ma'am."

"Then I think that no more need be said. We are quite prepared for any opposition—or competition."

"Quite, ma'am."

"Then I won't detain you, Mr. Mears."

"Good morning, Mr. Mears," said Bence politely. But Mr. Mears only grunted at him.

"What a sterling character," said Bence, as soon as Mr. Mears had closed the glass door. "One of the good old school, isn't he? I do admire that sort of dignified trustworthy personage. Gives the grand air to an establishment.... But then if it comes to that, I admire all your people, Mrs. Thompson;" and he wound up this morning call with sycophantically profuse compliments. "Your staff strikes me as unique. I don't know where you get 'em from. You seem to spot merit in the twinkling of an eye.... But I have trespassed more than sufficient. I see you wish to get back to your desk. Good morning, Mrs. Thompson. Ever your humble servant;" and Mr. Bence bowed himself out.

IV

Certainly, if Mrs. Thompson could not accept the bulk of Archibald Bence's compliments, she might justly pride herself on being always anxious to spot merit among her people. Unaided by any advice, she had quickly spotted the young man in the Carpets department.

Making her tour of inspection one day, she was drawn towards the wide entrance of Carpets by the unseemly noise of a common female voice. Looking into Carpets, she found the shrewish wife of an old farmer raging and nagging at everybody, because she could not satisfy herself with what was being offered to her. Half the stock was already on the floor; Number One and Number Two were at their wits' ends, becoming idiotic, on the verge of collapse; Number Three had just come to their rescue.

"Oh, take it away.... No—not a bit like what I'm asking for." And the virago turned to her hen-pecked husband. "You were a fool to bring me here. I told you we ought to have gone to London."

"But madam knows the old saying. One may go farther and fare worse. I can assure you, madam, there's nothing in the London houses that we can't supply here."

"Oh, yes, you're glib enough—but if you've got it, why don't you bring it out?"

"If madam will have patience, I guarantee that we will suit her—yes, in less than three minutes."

The young man spoke firmly yet pleasantly; and he looked and smiled at this ugly vixenish customer as though she had been young, gracious, and beautiful.

Mrs. Thompson did not intervene: she stood near the entrance, watching and listening.

"Now, madam, if you want value for your money, look at this.... No?... Very good. This is Axminster—genuine Axminster,—and very charming colouring.... No?... What does madam think of this?... No?"

He spun out the vast webs; with bowed back and quick movements of both hands he trundled the enormous rollers across the polished floor; he ran up the ladders and jerked the folded masses from the shelves; he flopped down the cut squares so fast that the piled heaps seemed to grow by magic before the customer's chair.

Doubtless he knew that he was being observed, but he showed no knowledge of the fact. As he hurried past Mrs. Thompson, she noticed that he was perspiring. He dabbed his white forehead with his handkerchief as he passed again, trundling a roll with one hand.

Mrs. Thompson felt astounded by his personal strength. Mr. Mears was strong, a man of comparatively huge girth and massive limbs; he could lift big weights; but Mears in his prime could not have shifted the carpet rolls as they were shifted by this slim-waisted stripling.

Two minutes gone, and the querulous, nagging tones were modulated to the note of vulgar affability. Two minutes—thirty seconds, and the customer had decided that her carpet should be one of the three which she was prodding at with her umbrella. She asked Mr. Marsden to help her in making the final selection.

Mr. Marsden was standing up now, Numbers One and Two clumsily hovering about him, while he talked easily and confidentially to the 'mollified customer. And while he talked, Mrs. Thompson scrutinized him carefully.

He could not be more than twenty-seven—possibly less. He was gracefully although so strongly built, of medium height, with an excellent poise of the head. His hair was brownish, stiff, cut very short; his small stiff moustache was brushed up in the military fashion; his features were of the firmest masculine type—nose perhaps a shade too thick and not sufficiently well modelled. She could not see the colour of his eyes.

But his manner! It was the salesman's art in its highest and rarest form. He had charmed, fascinated, hypnotised the troublesome customer. She bought her carpets, and two door mats; she smiled and nodded and prattled; she seemed quite sorry to say good-bye to Mr. Marsden.

"I shall tell my friends to come here," and then she giggled stupidly. "And I shall tell them to ask for you."

Without entering Carpets, Mrs. Thompson walked away. She did not utter a word then; but she had determined to promote Number Three, to give him more scope, and to see what she could make of him.

She moved him through the Woollens, the Cretonnes; and then again, upstairs into Crockery.

Crockery, which had of late betrayed sluggishness, was one side of a large department. Beginning with common pots and pans, it shaded off into glass and china; and on this side ran up to the big money which was properly demanded for the most delicate porcelain and ornamental ware—such as best English dinner services and modern Sèvres candelabra. Young Marsden was given charge of the cheaper and quicker-selling stuff, while Miss Woolfrey, a freckled, sandy lady of forty, remained for the present in control of the expensive side. But she was not a titular head; Mears and Mrs. Thompson herself superintended her, allowing her little discretion, and instructing her from day to day.

After a week Marsden, the newcomer, got a distinct move on the sluggish earthenware; and, after three weeks, Mears rather grudgingly confessed that the whole department appeared to be brisker, livelier, more what one would wish it to be.

On the whole, then, Mrs. Thompson was well pleased with her protégé. She spoke to him freely, encouraged him by carefully chosen words of approval.

One day, while talking to a desk-clerk, she saw him in an adjacent mirror that gave one a round-the-corner view of Glass and China. He was standing with a trade catalogue in his hands, surrounded by Miss Woolfrey and three girls. He seemed to be expounding the catalogue, and the women seemed to exhibit a docile attention.

Mrs. Thompson went in and talked to them.

There had been an accident, and Mr. Marsden was looking up the trade price of the destroyed article. Poor Miss Woolfrey had broken a cut-glass decanter—she got upon the steps to fetch it down, and it was heavier than she expected.

"Why," inquired Mrs. Thompson, "didn't you ask someone to help you?"

"I never thought till it was too late, and I'd found out my mistake."

There was no need to offer apologies to the proprietress, because all breakages of this character were made good out of an insurance fund to which all the employees subscribed. The whole shop was therefore interested in each smash, since everybody would pay a share of the damage.

"Mr. Marsden," said Miss Woolfrey, "has so very kindly priced it for me. He will send on the order at once. So it shall be replaced, ma'am, without delay."

The three interested girls lingered at Mr. Marsden's elbows; they watched his face; they hung upon his words. Miss Woolfrey continued to thank him for all the trouble he was taking.

Mrs. Thompson walked away, thinking about Mr. Marsden. These women were too obviously subject to the young man's personal fascination; their silly glances were easy to interpret; and middle-aged Miss Woolfrey and the three immature underlings had all betrayed the same weakness. This implied a situation that must be thought out. Lady-killers, though useful with the customers, may cause a lot of trouble with the staff.

There was no indication of the professional heart-disturber in the young fellow's general air. Mrs. Thompson had found his manner scrupulously correct—except that, as she remembered now, there was perhaps something too hardy in the way he kept his eyes fixed on her face. She attributed this to sheer intentness, mingled with juvenile simplicity. Most of the older men instinctively dropped their eyes in her presence.

After a little thought she called Mears behind the glass, and interrogated him. "Behind the glass" was a shop term for all the sacred region masked by the glass partitions, and containing counting-house, clerks' and secretary's offices, managerial and the proprietorial departments.

"If you want the plain fact," said Mr. Mears, "there's little difference in the pack of 'em."

"Do you mean they are silly about him?"

"Yes," said Mears scornfully. "Spoony sentimental—talking ridiculous over him."

"But is he all right with the girls? What is his attitude?... Find out for me."

Mrs. Thompson was always wisely strict on this most important point of shop discipline. No playing the fool between the young ladies and young gentlemen under the care of Mrs. Thompson.

"I will not permit it," she said sternly; and she laid her open hand upon the desk, to give weightier emphasis to the words. "We must have no condoning of that sort of thing. If I catch him at it—if I catch anyone, out he goes neck and crop."

In the course of a few days Mr. Mears reported, still grudgingly, that young Marsden's demeanour towards the young ladies was absolutely perfect. Stoical indifference, calm disregard, not even a trace of that flirting or innocently philandering tone which is so common, and to which one can scarcely object.

"Good," said Mrs. Thompson. "I'm glad to hear it—because now I shan't be afraid of advancing him."

"But," said Mears, "you have advanced him. You aren't thinking of putting him up again?"

"I am not sure. Something must be done about Miss Woolfrey. I will think about it."

It was not long before Mears, young Marsden and Miss Woolfrey were all summoned together behind the glass. The typewriting girl had been sent out of the room; Mrs. Thompson sat in front of her bureau, looking like a great general; Mr. Mears, at her side, looked like a glum aide-de-camp; the young man looked like a soldier who had been beckoned to step forward from the ranks. He stood at a respectful distance, and his bearing was quite soldierlike—heels together, head well up, the broad shoulders very square, and the muscular back straight and flat. His eyes were on the general's face.

Sandy, freckled Miss Woolfrey merely looked foolish and frightened. She caught her breath and coughed when Mrs. Thompson informed her that Mr. Marsden was to be put in charge of the whole department.

"Over my head, ma'am?"

"It will make no difference to you. Your salary will be no less. And yours, Mr. Marsden, will be no more. But you will have fuller scope."

Miss Woolfrey feebly protested. She had hoped,—she had naturally hoped;—in a customary shop-succession the post should be hers.

"Miss Woolfrey, do you feel yourself competent to fill it? Hitherto you have been under the constant supervision of Mr. Mears. But do you honestly feel you could stand alone?"

"I'd do my best, ma'am."

"Yes," said Mrs. Thompson cordially, "I'm sure you would. But with the best will in the world, there are limits to one's capacity. I have come to the conclusion that this is a man's task;" and she turned to the fortunate salesman. "Mr. Marsden, you will not in any way interfere with Miss Woolfrey—but you will remember that the department is now in your sole charge. If I have to complain, it will be to you. If things go wrong, it is you that I shall call to account."

Nothing went wrong in China and Glass. But sometimes Mrs. Thompson secretly asked herself if she or Mears had been right. Had she acted wisely when pushing an untried man so promptly to the front?

During these pleasant if enervating months of May and June she watched him closely.

Somehow he took liberties. It was difficult to define. He talked humbly. His voice was always humble, and his words too—but his eyes were bold. Something of aggressive virility seemed to meet and attempt to beat down that long-assumed mastership to which everyone else readily submitted. In the shop she was a man by courtesy—the boss, the cock of the walk; and she was never made to remember, when issuing orders to the men who served her, that she was not really and truly male.

All this might be fancy; but it made a slight want of ease and comfort in her intercourse with Mr. Marsden—a necessity felt only with him, an instinct telling her that here was a servant who must be kept in his place.

Once or twice, when she was examining returns with him, his assiduous attention bothered her.

"Thank you, Mr. Marsden, I can see it for myself."

And there was a certain look in his eyes while he talked to her—respectfully admiring, pensively questioning, familiar,—no, not to be analysed. But nevertheless it was a look that she did not at all care about.

The eyes that he used so hardily were of a lightish brown, speckled with darker colour; and above them the dark eyebrows grew close together, making almost an unbroken line across his brow. She saw or guessed that his beard would be tawny, if he let it grow; but he was always beautifully shaved. High on his cheeks there were tiny russet hairs, like down, that he never touched with the razor.

All through May China and Glass did better and better. Miss Woolfrey, meekly submitting to fate, worked loyally under the new chief. "If anyone had to be put above me," said poor Miss Woolfrey, "I'd rather it was him."

When a truly excellent week's returns were shown in June, Mrs. Thompson took an opportunity of praising Mr. Marsden generously. And again, after he had bowed and expressed his gratification, she saw the look that she did not care about.

She read it differently now. It was probably directly traceable to the arrogance bred of youth and strength—and perhaps a fairly full measure of personal conceit. Although so circumspect with the other sex, he had a reliance on his handsome aspect. Perhaps unconsciously he was always falling back on this—because hitherto it might never have failed him.

It was Enid who made her think him handsome. Till Enid used the word, she would have thought it too big.

One morning she had brought her daughter to the China department in order to select a wedding-present for a girlfriend. Miss Woolfrey was serving her, but Mr. Marsden came to assist. Then Mrs. Thompson saw how he looked at Enid.

Some sort of introduction had been made—"Enid, my dear, Mr. Marsden suggests this vase;" and the girl had immediately transferred her attention from the insipid serving woman to the resourceful serving-man. Mr. Marsden showed her more and more things—"This is good value. Two guineas—if that is not beyond your figure. Or this is a quaint notion—Parrots! They paint them so natural, don't they?" And Mrs. Thompson saw the look, and winced. With his eyes on the girl's face, he smiled—and Enid began to smile, too.

"What is the joke, Mr. Marsden?" Mrs. Thompson had spoken coldly and abruptly.

"Joke?" he echoed.

"You appear to be diverted by the idea of my daughter's purchase—when really it is simply a matter of business."

"Exactly—but if I can save you time by—"

"Thank you, Miss Woolfrey is quite competent to show us all that we require;" and Mrs. Thompson turned her broad back on the departmental manager.

Enid, when leaving China and Glass, glanced behind her, and nodded to Mr. Marsden.

"Mother," she whispered, "how handsome he is.... But how sharply you spoke to him. You quite dropped on him."

"Well, my dear, one has to drop on people sometimes; and Mr. Marsden is just a little disposed to be pushing."

"Oh," said Enid, "I thought he was such a favourite of yours."

Alone in her room, Mrs. Thompson felt worried. A thought had made her wince. This young man carried about with him an element of vague danger. Of course Enid would never be foolish; and he would never dare to aspire to such a prize; still Enid should get her next wedding present in another department—or in another shop, if she must have china.

It was only a brief sense of annoyance or discomfort, say five minutes lost in a busy day. Mrs. Thompson dismissed it from her mind. But Mr. Marsden brought it back again.

Towards closing time, when she was signing letters at the big bureau, he came behind the glass and entered her room.

"What is it?" said Mrs. Thompson, without looking up.

"Mrs. Thompson, I want to make an apology and a request."

At the sound of his voice she perceptibly started. His presence down here was unusual and unexpected.

"I have been making myself rather unhappy about what happened when you and Miss Thompson were in my department."

"Nothing happened," said Mrs. Thompson decisively.

"Oh, yes, ma'am, and I offer an apology for my mistake."

"Mr. Marsden," said Mrs. Thompson, with dignity, "there is not the slightest occasion for an apology. Please don't make mountains out of molehills."

"No—but I am in earnest. It is your own great kindness that led me to forget. And I confess that I did for a moment forget the immense difference of social station that lies between us. A shopman should never speak to his employer—much less his employer's relatives—in a tone implying the least friendliness or equality."

"Mr. Marsden, you quite misunderstand."

"You were angry with me?"

"No," said Mrs. Thompson firmly. "To be frank, I was not exactly pleased with you—and I took the liberty of showing it. That is a freedom to which I am accustomed."

"Then I humbly apologise."

"I have told you it is unnecessary.... That will do, Mr. Marsden;" and she took up her pen again.

"But may I make one request—that when I am unfortunate enough to deserve reproof, it may be administered privately and not in public?"

"Mr. Marsden, I make no conditions. If people are discontented with my methods—well, the remedy lies in their own hands."

"Isn't that just a little cruel?"

"It is my answer to your question."

"I don't think, ma'am, you know the chivalrous and devoted feeling that runs through this shop. There's not a man in it to whom your praise and your blame don't mean light and darkness."

Mrs. Thompson flushed.

"Mr. Marsden, you are all very good and loyal. I recognize that. But I don't care about compliments."

"Compliments!... When a person is feeling almost crushed with the burden of gratitude—"

"But, Mr. Marsden, gratitude should be shown and not talked about."

"And I'll show mine some day, please God."

Mrs. Thompson turned right round on her revolving chair, and spoke very gently. "I am sorry that you should have upset yourself about such a trifle."

Then Mr. Marsden asked if he might come down behind the glass for direction and orders when he felt in doubt or perplexity. A few words now and then would be helpful to him.

Mrs. Thompson hesitated, and then answered kindly.

"Certainly. Why not? I am accessible here to any of the staff—from Mr. Mears to the door boy. That has always been a part of my system."

After this the young man appeared from time to time, craving a draught of wisdom at the fountain-head. The department was doing well, and he never brought bad news.

But he was a little too much inclined to begin talking about himself; telling his story—an orphan who had made his own way in the world; describing his efforts to improve a defective education, his speaking at a debating society, his acting with the Kennington Thespian Troupe.

"Your elocution," said Mrs. Thompson, "no doubt profited by the pains you took.... But now, if you please—"

Mrs. Thompson, with business-like firmness, stopped all idle chatter. A hint was enough for him, and he promptly became intent on matters of business.

He worked hard upstairs. He was the first to come and the last to go. Once or twice he brought papers down to the dark ground floor when Mrs. Thompson was toiling late.

One night he showed her the coloured and beautifully printed pictures that had been sent with the new season's lists.

"There. This is my choice."

She laid her hand flat on a picture; and he, pushing about the other pictures and talking, put his hand against hers. He went on talking, as if unconscious that he had touched her, that he was now touching her.

She moved her hand away, and for a moment an angry flame of thought swept through her brain. Had it been an accident, or a monstrous impertinence? He went on talking without a tremor in his voice; and she understood that he was absolutely unconscious of what he had done. He was completely absorbed by consideration of the coloured prints of tea and dinner services.

Mrs. Thompson abruptly struck the desk bell, drew back her chair, and rose.

"Davies," she called loudly, "bring your lantern. I am going through.... Don't bother me any more about all that, Mr. Marsden. Make your own selections—and get them passed by Mr. Mears. Good-night."

V

Miss Enid had again taken up riding, and she seemed unusually energetic in her efforts to acquire a difficult art. During this hot dry weather the roads were too hard to permit of hacking with much pleasure; but Enid spent many afternoons in Mr. Young's fine riding school. She was having jumping lessons; and she threw out hints to Mrs. Thompson that next autumn she would be able not only to ride to meet, but even to follow hounds.

"Oh, my darling, I should never have a moment's peace of mind if I knew you were risking your pretty neck out hunting."

"I could easily get a good pilot," said Enid; "and then I should be quite safe."

One Thursday afternoon—early-closing day—Mr. Marsden, who happened to know that Enid would be at the school, went round to see his friend Mr. Whitehouse, the riding-master. He looked very smart in his blue serge suit, straw hat, and brown boots; and the clerk in Mr. Young's office quite thought he was one of the governor's toffs come to buy horses.

Mr. Marsden sent his card to Mr. Whitehouse; and then waited in a sloping sanded passage, obviously trodden by four-footed as well as two-footed people, from which he could peep into the dark office, a darker little dressing-room, and an open stable where the hind quarters of horses showed in stalls. There was a queer staircase without stairs, and he heard a sound of pawing over his head—horses upstairs as well as downstairs. The whole place looked and smelt very horsey.

The riding-master's horse was presently led past him; the lesson was nearly over, and the young lady was about to take a few leaps. A groom told him that he might go in.

The vast hall had high and narrow double doors to admit the horses; and inside, beneath the dirty glass roof, it was always twilight, with strange echoes and reverberations issuing from the smooth plastered walls; at a considerable height in one of the walls there was a large window, opening out of a room that looked like the royal box of a theatre.

This hall had been the military school; it remained as a last evidence of the demolished barracks, and the town was proud of its noble dimensions—a building worthy of the metropolis.

"How d'ye do," said the riding-master, a slim, tall, elegant young man in check breeches and black boots. "Come and stand by us in the middle."

There was another tall young man, who wore drab breeches and brown gaiters on his long thin legs, and who was helping a stableman to drag the barred hurdle across the tan and put it in position against the wall.

"Now, Miss Thompson.... Steady. Steady. Let her go."

Enid on a heavily bandaged bay mare came slowly round, advanced in a scrambling canter, and hopped over the low obstacle.

"Very good."

She looked charming as she came round again—her usually cold pale face now warm and red, a wisp of her dark hair flying, the short habit showing her neatly booted legs.

"Very good."

"I am lost in admiration," said Marsden; and the strange young man stared hard at him.

"Oh, is that you, Mr. Marsden," said Enid. "I didn't know I had an audience."

Then she jumped again. This time, in obedience to the directions of Mr. Whitehouse, she rode at the hurdle much faster; the mare cocked her ears, charged, and she and Enid sailed over the white bar in grand style.

But the thud of hoofs, the tell-tale reverberations roused the invisible Mr. Young, and brought him to the window of the private box.

"Not so fast—not nearly so fast," shouted Mr. Young. "There's no skill or sense in that.... Mr. Whitehouse, I can't understand you. D'you want that mare over-reaching herself?" And Mr. Young's voice, dropping in tone, still betrayed his irritation. "Who are these gentlemen? We can't have people in the school during lessons."

"All right," said the young man in the brown gaiters. "I've come to look at the new horse—the one you bought from Griffin."

"Very good, Mr. Kenion. I didn't see who you were.... But who's the other gentleman?"

"He is a friend of mine," said Mr. Whitehouse.

"Well, that's against our rules—visitors in lessons. You know that as well as I do."

"I am quite aware of your rules," said Mr. Whitehouse curtly. "But the lesson is finished.... That will be sufficient, Miss Thompson. Three minutes over your hour—and we don't want to tire you."

Mr. Young snorted angrily, and disappeared. The strange young man assisted Miss Enid to dismount and went out with her, the bandaged mare following them with the helper.

"Who," asked Marsden, "was that spindle-shanked ass?"

"Oh, he's not a bad boy," said the riding-master patronisingly. "And he can ride, mind you—which is more than most hunting men can."

"Is he a hunting man? What's his name?"

"Mr. Kenion.... Look here, don't hurry off. I want to have a yarn with you."

"But Mr. Young—"

"Oh, blast Mr. Young. I want to talk to you, my boy, about the ladies."

"Do you?" Marsden half closed his eyes, and showed his strong teeth in a lazy smile. "What do you think of our young lady?"

"Miss Thompson?" Mr. Whitehouse shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, not bad."

Then long thin Mr. Kenion returned.

"Let's try the new crock over your sticks," said Mr. Kenion languidly. "I suppose he is a crock—or he wouldn't be here?"

"I won't bias your judgment," said Mr. Whitehouse as he strolled across the tan. "See for yourself," and he rang a noisy bell. "But I must make you known to each other;" and he introduced Mr. Marsden as "one of the managers at Thompson's."

Mr. Young's new purchase was brought in, and Mr. Kenion rode it. The horse at first appeared to resent the silly jumping performance; but Marsden heard the work of the rider's unspurred heels on the animal's flanks, watched the effective use Mr. Whitehouse made of his whip as he ran behind, and soon saw the hurdle negotiated in flying fashion, again and again—and faster and faster.

"Not so fast! God bless my soul, I think you must all be mad this afternoon." Old Young had come to his window, furious. "Mr. Kenion, I'm surprised at you, yes, I am, sir."

"How can I judge of a horse without trying him?"

"Well, I don't want my horses tried like that. You may buy 'em or leave 'em."

"All right," said Mr. Kenion, laughing. "Come out and have a drink. You've stood me a ride, and I'll stand you a drink."

Mr. Kenion, Mr. Young, and the jumping horse all disappeared, and Marsden and the riding-master were left together on the tan. Here, in the dim twilight that the glass roof made of this bright June day, they had a long quiet chat about women.

"Dicky," said the riding-master, "I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle."

"Fire away."

"All for your own good. See?... Now I suppose when you want a mash, you don't think of looking outside the shop."

"I never have a mash inside it."

"Is that so?" Mr. Whitehouse seemed astonished. "Why, I thought you smart managers with all those shop girls round you were like so many grand Turks with their serrallyhos."

"Not much. That's against etiquette—and a fool's game into the bargain. You're safe to be pinched—and, second, you get so jolly sick of being mewed up with 'em all day that you never want to speak to 'em out of hours."

"Then how do you get along? The customers?"

"Yes," said Marsden; and he stroked his moustache, and smiled. "Customers are often very kind."

"Not real ladies?"

"We don't ask their pedigrees. Go down St. Saviour's Court any fine evening, and see the domestic servants waiting in their best clothes. It'll remind you of Piccadilly Circus;" and both gentlemen laughed.

"There's a parlourmaid," continued Marsden, "out of Adelaide Crescent—who is simply a little lump of all right. Venetian red hair—a picture."

"Red hair," said Mr. Whitehouse reflectively. "They say with us, a good horse has no colour. That means, if the horse is a good 'un, never mind his colour;—and I suppose it's true of women.... I don't object to chestnut horses—or red-haired gells.... But, look here, Master Dick, I tell you frank, you're wasting your opportunities."

"You can't teach me anything, old man."

"Can't I? Never turn a deaf ear to a friendly tip—a chance tip may alter a man's life. That's a motto with me—and I'm acting on it this moment, myself."

Then Mr. Whitehouse told his friend that he was about to leave Mallingbridge forever. Mallingbridge was too small; he intended to throw himself into the larger world of London. He had very nearly fixed up an engagement with the big Bayswater people; it was practically a settled thing.

"That's why I checked the old bloke like I done just now. Mr. Young he twigs there's something up; but he doesn't know what's in store for him. The minute I've got my job definite, I shall open my chest to him—tell him once for all what I think of him. 'E won't forget it;" and the riding-master laughed confidently.

"I'm sorry you're going."

"Thanks. But why am I lighting out so determined and sudden, instead of vegetating here half me life? Well—because I got a straight tip, and all by chance."

"How was that?"

"About a month ago a chap comes in here with a lady for a lesson. Captain Mellish—Meller—I forget the name. Anyhow, he was a son of a gun of a swell to look at—sploshing it about up at the Dolphin; and he brings in this actress from the theatre—not a chorus gell, mind you, but the leading performer—who was drawing her hundred quid a week, so they said. Well, he evidently fancied he was a bit of a horseman himself, and he keeps chipping in. When I told her to get her hands back, and hold her reins long, he says, 'yes, but you'll want to hold a horse shorter by the head, if he balks at his fences.' I answered without hesitation, 'I'm very well aware of refusing horses,' I said, 'and also how easy it is to hang on by a horse's mouth when you land over a fence.... But,' I said, 'let me know who is giving the lesson—you or me. Wait, miss,' I said, 'if the Captain has other directions to give you.' She rounded on him at once, asking him to shut his head. He turned it off with a laugh, and gave me a slap on the back. 'Have it your own way, Mr. Riding-Master.' You'll understand, he said that sneering.

"But I believe he thought the more of me before the lesson was over. Anyhow, when his tart had gone to the dressing-room to change her things, he and I got yarning here—exactly as if it had been you and me—like we're doing now.

"Mind you, he was a wrong 'un. You couldn't talk friendly to him without twigging that. But, Holy Moses, he was fairly up to snuff.... We went yarning on, and presently he says, 'It beats me why a knowledgeable young chap like you should bury himself as a mere servant. Take my tip,' he says, 'Get hold of a bit of money, and light out on your own.'... 'And how am I to get the money?' I asked him.

"'Get it from the ladies,' he says. 'Take my tip. I suppose you make love to all your pupils—you fellows always do. Well, make 'em pay.' I'm giving you what he said, word for word. 'You're wasting yourself,' he says. 'See? You're only young once. You've got something to bring to market, and you're letting it go stale every hour.'

"Then he run on about what women can do for a man nowadays—and he knew, mind you. He'd been there. Who makes the members of parliament, the bishops, the prime ministers? Why, women. Leave them out of your plans—if you want to labour in the sweat of your brow till you drop. But if not, take the tip. It's the women that give a man his short-cut to ease and comfort. See?"

"Yes," said Mr. Marsden. "I see that—but I don't see anything new in it."

"Dicky," said Mr. Whitehouse solemnly, "it's a straight tip.... But you'll never profit by it, my boy, until you stop messing about with your dressed-up slaveys, and light out for something bigger."

"I have told you," said Marsden, smiling, "that you can't teach me anything."

"You're too cock-sure," said Mr. Whitehouse, almost sadly; "but you're just wasting yourself.... Here's the tip of a life-time. I've thought it all out, and I see my own line clear. Drop the gells—and go for the matrons. Pick your chance, and go for it hammer and tongs.... It's what I shall do meself. Bayswater is full of rich Jewesses—some of 'em fairly wallowing in it. And I shan't try to grab some budding beauty. I shall pick a ripe flower."

"I wish you luck."

"Same to you, old pal. But you won't find it the way you're trying just now;" and Mr. Whitehouse laughed enigmatically. "I can't teach you anything, but I can give you a parting warning.... D'you think I don't twig what you were after to-day—wanting to see me especial—and coming round here,—and losing yourself in admiration of Miss Thompson? And I don't say you mightn't have pulled it off, if you'd started a bit earlier. But you're too late. Mr. Kenion has got there first."

"Is that true—bar larks?"

"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.

"Good evening, Mrs. Thompson."—He took off his hat, and bowed very respectfully.

"Oh! Good evening, Mr. Marsden."

"You don't often come this way?"

"Oh, yes, I do," said Mrs. Thompson rather stiffly. "It is a favourite walk of mine."

"I venture to applaud your taste." And he pointed in the direction of the town. "Old Mallingbridge looks quite romantic from along here.... But the gas-works spoil the picture, don't they?"

The town looked pretty enough in the mellow evening glow. Beyond the railway embankment, where signal lamps began to show as spots of faint red and green, the clustered roofs mingled into solid sharp-edged masses, and the two church towers appeared strangely high and ponderous against the infinitely pure depths of a cloudless sky. Soon a soft greyness would rise from the horizon; indistinctness, vagueness, mystery would creep over the town and the fields, blotting out the ugly gas-works, hiding the common works of men, giving the world back to nature; but there would be no real night. In these, the longest days of the year, the light never quite died.

The colour of her blue dress and of the pink roses in her toque was clearly visible, as Mrs. Thompson and the young man walked on side by side. For a minute she politely made conversation.

"I have often wondered," she said, with brisk business-like tones, "what use the railway company will eventually make of all this land."

"Ah! I wonder."

"They would not have bought it unless they had some remote object in view; and they would not have held it if the object had vanished. Sensible people don't keep two hundred acres of land lying idle unless they have a purpose."

"No."

"It has often occurred to me—from what I have heard—that they will one day convert it into some sort of depot. There is nothing in the levels to prevent their doing so. The embankment is no height."

"I should think you have made a very shrewd guess."

"If that were to happen, the question would arise, Will it prove an injury or a benefit to the town?"

Then Mrs. Thompson ceased to make conversation; her manner became very dignified and reserved; and she carried herself stiffly—perhaps wishing to indicate by the slight change of deportment that the interview was now at an end.

But Marsden did not take the hint. He walked by her side, and soon began to talk about himself. An effort was made to check him when he entered on the subject of the great benefits that a kind hand had showered upon him, but presently Mrs. Thompson was listening without remonstrance to his voice. And her own voice, when in turn she spoke, was curiously soft and gentle.

"As this chance has come," he said humbly, "I avail myself of it. Though I could never thank you sufficiently, I have been longing for an opportunity to thank you somehow for the confidence you have reposed in me."

"I'm sure you'll justify it, Mr. Marsden."

"I don't know. I'm afraid you'll think not—when you hear the dreadful confession that I have to make."

Mrs. Thompson drew in her breath, and stopped short on the footpath.

"Mr. Marsden"—she spoke quite gently and kindly—"You really must not tell me about your private affairs. Unless your confession concerns business matters—something to do with the shop—I cannot listen to it."

"Oh, it only amounts to this—but I know it will sound ungrateful ... Mrs. Thompson, in spite of everything, of all you have done for me, I am not very happy down here."

"Indeed?" She had drawn in her breath again, and she walked on while she spoke. "Does that mean that you are thinking of leaving us?"

"Yes, I sometimes think of that."

"To better yourself?"

"Oh, no—I should never find such another situation."

"Then why are you discontented in this one?"

With the permission conveyed by her question, he described at length his queer state of mind—a man on whom fortune had smiled, a man with work that he liked, yet feeling restless and unhappy, feeling alone in the midst of a crowd, longing for sympathy, yearning for companionship.

"That's how I feel," he said sadly, after a long explanation.

Mrs. Thompson had been looking away from him, staring across the river. She held herself rigidly erect, and she spoke now in another voice, with a tone of hardness and coldness.

"I think I recognize the symptoms, Mr. Marsden. When a young man talks like this, the riddle is easy to guess."

"Then guess it."

"Well," she said coldly, "you force me to the only supposition. You are telling me that you have fallen in love."

"Yes."

She winced almost as if he had struck her; and then the parted lips closed, her whole face assumed a stonelike dignity.

"Tell me all about it, Mr. Marsden—since you seem to wish to."

"Love is a great crisis in a man's life. It generally makes him or breaks him forever."

"I hope that fate will read kindly—in your case."

"He either fears his fate too much or his deserts are small—But, Mrs. Thompson, I do fear my fate. It isn't plain-sailing for me. There are difficulties, barriers—it's all darkness before me."

"I hope you haven't made an injudicious choice."

"Yes, I have—in one way. Shall we sit down here? It is still very warm."

It was as though the heated earth panted for breath; no evening breeze stirred the leaves; the air was heavy and languorous. Mrs. Thompson seemed glad to sit upon the Corporation bench. She sank down wearily, leaned her back against the wooden support, and stared at the darkly flowing water.

"So difficult," he murmured. "So many difficulties." He looked behind him at the empty meadows, and up and down the empty path. Then he took off his hat, laid it on the seat beside him; and, bringing a silk handkerchief from his sleeve, wiped his forehead. "There are almost insurmountable barriers between us."

"Have you given your heart to some married woman? Is she not free to respond to your affections?"

"No, she was married, but she's free now.... And I think it amuses her to encourage me—and make me suffer." He had taken one of the hands that lay listlessly in the wide lap. "She is you."

Mrs. Thompson snatched her hand away, sprang up from the seat, and spoke indignantly.

"Mr. Marsden, have you gone out of your senses?"

"Yes, I think I have. And who's to blame? Who's driven me out of them?" He was standing close in front of her, barring the path. "Oh, I can't go on with all this deception. I lied to you just now. I knew you were coming here,—and I followed you. I felt I must once for all be with you alone."

"Not another word. I will not listen.... Oh!"

Suddenly he had seized her. Roughly and fiercely he flung his arms round her, forced her to him, and kissed her.

"Mr. Marsden!... Shame!... How dare you?... Let me go."

She was struggling in his arms, her head down, her two hands trying to keep him off. Her broad bosom panted, her big shoulders heaved; but with remorseless brutal use of his strength he held her tightly and closely against him.

"There," he said. "Don't fight. You'll have to go through it now.... You women think you can play the fool with a man—set all his blood on fire, and then tell him to behave himself."

"Mr. Marsden, let me go—or I shall die of shame."

"No you won't. Rot. D'you hear? Rot. You're a woman all through: and that face was made to be kissed—like this—like this.... There, this is my hour—"

"Will you let me go?"

"Yes, in a minute.... You'll dismiss me to-morrow, won't you? I'd better pack to-night. But I shall always go on loving you.... Oh, my goodness, what is my life to be without you?"

And suddenly he released her, dropped upon the seat, and buried his face in his hands.

She walked fast away—and then slowly returned. He was still sitting, with his head down, motionless.

"Mr. Marsden!... You have insulted me in the most outrageous manner—and the only possible excuse would be the absolute sincerity of the feelings that you have expressed so brutally. If I could for a moment believe—"

"Why can't you believe?"

"Because it is too absurd. I am no longer young—the mother of a girl old enough herself to marry."

"I don't want any pasty-faced girls. I want you."

He spoke without looking up at her, and his face remained hidden by his hands.

"If I sit down and talk to you quietly, will you promise that you won't begin again?"

"Yes."

"You give me your word of honour that you won't—won't touch me?"

"Oh, yes," he said dejectedly, "I promise."

"When you began just now, you implied—you accused me as if you thought I had been—encouraging you. But, Mr. Marsden, you must know that such an accusation is unjust and untrue."

"Is it? I don't think you women much care how you lead people on."

"But indeed I do care. I should be bitterly ashamed of myself if I was not certain that I had never given you the slightest encouragement."

"Oh, never mind. What does it matter? I have made a fool of myself—that's all. Love blinds a man to plain facts."

He had raised his head again, and was looking at her. They sat side by side, and the dusk began to envelope them so that their faces were white and vague.

"At the first," he went on, "I could see that it was hopeless. If social position didn't interfere, the money would prove a barrier there'd be no getting round. You are rich, and I am poor. At the first I saw how unhappy it was going to make me. I saw it was hopeless—most of all, because I'm not a man who could consent to pose as the pensioner of a rich wife.... But then I forgot—and I began to hope. Yes, I did really hope."

"What is it you hoped for?"

"Why, that chance would turn up lucky—that somehow I might be put more on an equality. Or that you would marry me in spite of all—that you'd come to think money isn't everything in this world, and love counts most of all."

"But, Mr. Marsden, how can I for one moment of time credit you with—with the love you will go on talking about?"

"Haven't I shown it to you?"

"I think—I am quite sure you are deceiving yourself. But nothing can deceive me. You mistake the chivalrous romantic feelings of youth for something far different."

"No, I don't mistake."

"The disparity in our years renders such a thing impossible. Between you and me, love—the real love—is out of the question."

"Yes, you can say that easily—because no doubt it's true on your side. If you felt for me what I feel for you—then it would be another story."

"But suppose I had been foolish enough to be taken with you, to let myself be carried away by your eloquence—which I believe was all acting!"

"Acting? That's good—that's devilish good."

"I say, suppose I had believed you—and yielded one day, don't you know very well that all the world would laugh at me?"

"Why?"

"Why—because, my dear boy, I'm almost old enough to be your mother—and I have done with love, and all that sort of thing."

"No, you haven't. You're just ripe for love—I felt that when I was kissing you."

Mrs. Thompson rose abruptly.

"I must go home.... Come;" and they walked side by side through the summer dusk towards the lamp-light of the town.

"This must never be spoken of again," she said firmly; and before they reached the last field gate, she had told him many times that her rejection of his suit was final and irrevocable. Hers was a flat deliberate refusal, and nothing could ever modify it.

"Yes," he said sadly, "it's hopeless. I knew it all along, in my secret heart—quite hopeless."

But she told him that if he promised never to think of it again, she would allow him to remain in the shop.

"Frankly, I would much rather you should go—But that would be a pity. It might break your career—or at least throw you too much on your own resources at a critical point. Stay—at any rate until you get a suitable opening."

"Your word is my law."

"Now leave me. I do not wish anyone to see us walking together."

He obeyed her; and she walked on without an escort, through the dark tunnel and into the lamp-light of Frederick Street.

VII

"You must 'a been a tremendous long walk," said Yates; "but you're looking all the better for it, ma'am—though you aren't brought back an appetite."

Mrs. Thompson was trifling with her supper—only pretending to eat. The electric light, shining on her hair, made the rounded coils and central mass bright, smooth, and glossy; the colour in her cheeks glowed vividly and faded quickly, and, as it came and went, the whole face seemed softened and yet unusually animated; the parted lips were slightly tremulous, and the eyes, with distended pupils, were darker and larger than they had been in the daylight. By a queer chance the old servant began to speak of her mistress's personal appearance.

"Yes," said Yates, "it's the fresh air you want.—Stands to reason you do, shut up in the shop all day. You look another woman to what you did when you went out;" and she studied Mrs. Thompson's face critically and admiringly.

Mrs. Thompson smiled, and her lips were quite tremulous.

"Another woman, Yates? What sort of woman do I look like now?"

"A very handsome one," said Yates affectionately. "And more like the girl Mr. Thompson led up the stairs such a long time ago—the first time I ever set eyes on her, and was thinking however she and I would get on together."

"We've got on well together, haven't we, Yates?"

"That we have," said Yates, with enthusiasm.

"Yates, don't stare so;" and Mrs. Thompson laughed. "You make me nervous. And I don't want you to flatter me.... But tell me, candidly, supposing you met me now as a stranger—how old would you guess I was?"

Yates, with her head slightly on one side, scrutinized her mistress very critically.

"Why, I don't believe that anyone seeing you as I do now would take you for more than forty-two—at the outside."

"Forty-two! Three years less than my real age. Thank you for nothing, Yates." Mrs. Thompson laughed, but with little merriment in her laugh. "You haven't joined my band of flatterers. You have given me an honest answer."

Perhaps, if some faint doubt was lingering in Mrs. Thompson's mind, Yates had provided an answer to that as well as to the direct question.

The mistress did not invite the servant to sit at table this evening and help her through the lonely meal. Her thoughts were sufficient company.

At night she could not sleep. The contact with the fierce strong male had completely upset her—never in all her life had she been so handled by a man. And the extent of the contact seemed mysteriously to have multiplied the effect of its local violences; the dreaded grip of the powerful arms, the resistless pressure of the forcing hands, and the cruel hot print of his kisses were the salient facts in her memory of the embrace; but it seemed that from every point of the surface of her body while compelled to touch him a nerve thrill had been sent vibrating in her brain, and the diffused nerve-messages, concentrating there, had produced overwhelmingly intense disturbance.

And memory gave her back these sensations—the wide thrilling wave from surface to brain, and the explosion of the central nerve-storm flashing its rapid recognition back to the outer boundaries. Lying in her dark room she lived through the experience again—was forced to suffer the embrace not once but again and again.

It was dreadful that a man, simply by reason of his sex, should have this power, dreadful that he should abuse his power in thus treating a woman,—and most dreadful that of all women in the world the woman should be herself.

And she thought of the late Mr. Thompson's timid and maladroit caresses—inspired, monotonous, stereotyped endearments, totally devoid of nervous excitation, dutifully borne by her, day after day, month after month, throughout the long years.

But memory, doing its faithful and accurate work, failed to restore to her that glow of angry protest, that recoil of outraged dignity which she had felt when the young man took her in his arms. She could feel his arms about her still, but the sense of shame had gone.

Here in the darkened room she could see him—she could not help seeing him. Hot tears filled her eyes, she writhed and twisted, she tossed and turned, as the mental pictures came and went; but nothing could drive him away. He had taken possession of her thoughts; and she wept because she understood that he had not achieved this tyrannous rule to-day, or yesterday, but a long time ago, a disgracefully long time ago. In imagination she was watching him among the china and glass, when Woolfrey and the others showed her plainly how dangerous he really was—and it had begun then. Why else should she have felt such a wrathful discontent at the idea of his courting all the silly girls? In imagination, she could see him among the carpets, trundling the great rolls, fascinating, enthralling the rude customer,—and it seemed to her that it had begun even then. She and the shrew were one in their weakness; both had been hypnotised together. Mears said all the women in the shop had submitted to the spell—but not the silliest, most feather-headed slut of them all had fallen into such idiotic depths as those in which their proud and stately chief lay weeping.

She dried her eyes, got out of bed and drank water, stood at the open window, turned on the light, turned off the light, lay down again and tried desperately to sleep.

In a moment her cheeks were burning.—She could feel the hot kisses; she could hear the hurried words. "A face made to be kissed—setting one's blood on fire.... You are a woman all through—you are ripe for love."

Ah, if only one could give way to such a dream of rapture; if one could believe that the lost years might be recovered, that all one has missed in life—its passionate sweetness and its satisfying fullness—might be won by a miraculous interposition of fate. Nothing less than a miracle can bring back the wasted past.

She did not sleep; but with the return of day she grew calmer. Thoughts of Enid helped her. A second marriage—even what the world would call a wise and fitting alliance—was utterly out of the question. It would be the death of her daughter's love; it would render the story of her own life meaningless; it would destroy all the results of twenty-two years' maternal devotion. Enid had been all in all to her: Enid must remain what she had always been. If on the mother's part there was a brave renunciation of self, it belonged to the dim past; it was over and done with—a solid fact, not to be modified, far less overturned.

Least of all by such a marriage as this—laughter mingling with the sound of bells, coarse jokes to be thrown after them instead of pretty confetti, even the sacred words of the priest at the altar echoed by derisive words of rabble in the porch! Enid would never forgive her—were she ever to forgive herself.

In the broad light of day, in the cold light of logic, she saw that it was impossible. Her emotions might be roused, unsuspected sexual instincts might be partially awakened, beneath the matronly time-worn outer case a virginal mechanism might be stirring; but the whole intellectual side of her nature was strong enough to reinforce the special functions of her will. Too late to snatch at lost joys! Reason rejected the impossibility.

She was too old. The chance had gone years ago. The young man, even if she could believe that he loved her now—much as a romantic subject might fancy that he loved his queen,—would soon grow weary. Familiarity would rob her of all queenly attributes; at the best nothing would be left except disappointment, and at the worst disgust. And then she would suffer intolerable torment. She saw it quite clearly—the martyrdom of a middle-aged wife who cannot retain her young husband's love.

None of that. She rose after the sleepless night with her decision fortified.

VIII

But the fortifying of the decision had cost her much, and the after-effects of nerve-strain were easily to be perceived.

She was rather terrible in the shop, and all noticed a sudden and mysterious change. Of a morning she used to appear with dark circles round her eyes; her greetings, or acknowledgments of greetings, were less cordial; she moved more slowly; and in her stern glance it seemed that there was the certainty of finding something amiss, instead of the hope of seeing nothing wrong.

Rather terrible—easily irritated, impatient of argument, quick to resent advice: as the young ladies put it, ready to snap your head off at any minute. A whisper, somehow passing out of house to shop, said she was suffering from continued sleeplessness; and the loyal staff were eager to make allowances. But they wondered how long the change would last; they hoped that she would soon get a comfortable night, and wake up again as their kind and considerate mistress.

In fact, many little things that once would not have worried her now jarred upon tired nerves. She felt worried by Bence's, by her husband's stupid relations, by Mr. Mears; and by Mr. Prentice, the solicitor, who took the liberties permitted to an old friend. He and all other old friends worried her.

She was altogether unable to laugh as of old at the impudence of Bence. She frowned and stamped her foot when, looking across the road, she first read the placard on the shuttered frontage of the ancient sadler and the bookseller. It was not in small print: you could read it from Thompson's without a telescope. "These Premises," said the poster, "will shortly be opened as the new Furniture department of Bence Brothers, and a long-felt want will be supplied by an extensive stock of high-class goods at reasonable prices." And this, if you please, immediately facing the two windows that from immemorial time had exhibited Thompson's solid oak chairs and polished walnut tables! The gross, large-typed piece of impertinence annoyed her excessively.

She had always been extraordinarily good to old Thompson's relatives, who were common and troublesome. They all hung on to her, called her Cousin Jenny, boasted about their prosperous connection by marriage; they received benefits with scant thanks, grumbled when they fancied themselves neglected; and they were all extremely jealous and watchful of one another. Yet till now they had never exhausted her patience and magnanimity.

One of them, John Edward Thompson, a grocer in a small way of business at Haggart's Cross, had often drawn heavily upon her for financial aid. He was a short, squat, bearded man; and he used to come into the shop unexpectedly, and meander about it aimlessly, to the trouble and confusion of the shop-walkers.

"What department, sir?"

He did not answer.

"What can I have the pleasure of showing you, sir?"

"Don't mind me, young man. Go on with your work. I'm just looking round to find my cousin."

"May I be of assistance, sir? If you will be good enough to tell me your cousin's name?"

"My cousin's name," said John Edward shortly, "is Mrs. Thompson.... There. Put that in your pipe and smoke it."

It nearly always happened that he found Mrs. Thompson with her back turned towards him. Then he would put two somewhat grubby hands on her shoulders, with cousinly playfulness pull her round the right way, and publicly kiss her. This was an act of affection, and a triumphant assertion of the relationship—something more for those foppish shopwalkers to put in their pipes and smoke.

"Cousin Jenny, how goes it?"

Then, after the kiss, he would look at her reproachfully, and begin to grumble.

"Cousin Jenny, you drove through Haggart's Cross last Thursday in your carriage and pair. I saw you. But you didn't see me. No, you didn't think of stopping the horses for half a minute, and passing the time of day to your cousin."

Mrs. Thompson used smilingly to lead him into the counting-house, give him kind words, give him good money. He took the money grumblingly, as if it was the least that could be offered as atonement for the neglectfulness of last Thursday; but he went home very happy.

He had done all this scores of times, and Mrs. Thompson had borne it all with unflinching generosity. But now, on a broiling July day, he did it once too often. He got as far as the public salute, and no further.

She was upstairs, standing near a desk, with her back towards China and Glass. He came behind her, playfully laid hold of her, kissed her. She gave a cry, turned upon him in a white fury, and, seeing who he was, snapped his head off.

That day he did not go home happy.

Other cousins were old Mrs. Price and her two daughters, who would all three have been in the workhouse but for Mrs. Thompson. Thanks to her, they were living comfortably at Riverdale, with a pleasant rent-free cottage, garden, and orchard. The Miss Prices made jam and brought it as a present to Mrs. Thompson, keeping up a baseless tradition that she loved their preserve—and taking immense gifts in exchange for it. They visited their cousin twice in July, first to say they would soon make the jam, secondly to bring the jam; and each time they spent a long day at Mallingbridge, coming in and out of house and shop, cackling and giggling, and almost driving Mrs. Thompson mad.

Then there was Gordon Thompson, a farmer at Linkfield, who sometimes came into town on market day, and ate his mid-day meal with his rich cousin in St. Saviour's Court. He used to open the house door without ringing the bell, and whistle a few notes as a familiar signal. "Cousin Jen-ny! Cousin Jen-ny." He would shout this with an ascending intonation, and then come clambering up the steep staircase.

"Any dinner to-day for a poor relation?... Ah, my dear, you're not the sort to turn a hungry man away from your table. Garr—but I can tell you I'm sharp set."

He was a hale and hearty-looking fellow, full of noisy jests, with a great affectation of joviality; but in his twinkling eyes and about his pursed lips there was the peasant's wariness, astuteness, and greed. Truly he took all he could get from everybody, including his fortunate cousin. Enid said his hob-nailed boots were dirty as well as ugly, malodorous too; and she always fled at his approach, and did not reappear while Mrs. Thompson feasted him and made much of him.

Now, when Mrs. Thompson heard the well-known whistle in the hall, she followed her daughter's example; forsaking the luncheon-dishes, she fled back to the shop through the door of communication, and left Yates to entertain hungry Gordon.

Enid was at home, but she failed as a soothing and calming influence. If her mother turned to her, endeavoured to lean upon her for support in an unexpected need, she found a blank void, a totally inadequate buttress. Enid was self-absorbed, busy with her own little affairs, taking lessons from the new riding-master at Young's school, spending long hours away from the house. She seemed like a person who really has no intuitive sympathy to offer: a person locking up her life against intruders, keeping close guard over secret emotions, and neither willing to share her own hopes and fears nor to comprehend those of others.

Perhaps Enid's coldness—so often felt, but never till now admitted in the mother's thoughts—added to the hidden trouble of Mrs. Thompson.

She entered the China department as rarely as possible, and her intercourse with its head was of the most formal and distant character. The conduct of Mr. Marsden was irreproachable: he was composed, polite, respectful; and he never came down behind the glass. But he used his eyes—a mute yet deadly attack, whenever she encountered them. She dreaded the attack, braced herself for it when it could no longer be avoided; and these meetings, however brief, had painful consequences. They enervated her, sapped her energy, and left her with an incredible sense of fatigue, so that after each of them she walked downstairs to her room heavily and wearily, sat at the big desk breathing fast and trembling, feeling for a little while quite unable to work—almost as if she had been worn out by another physical tussle, instead of by a mere exchange of glances.

She was sitting thus, breathless and perturbed, when Mr. Mears came bothering. Earlier in the day she had admonished the second in command very sharply, and it appeared that he could not bear her momentary censure. He said she had snapped at him as she had never, never snapped. The vast ponderous man was completely overcome; his voice shook, his hands shook, and tears trickled down his cheeks while he solemnly tendered his resignation.

"Resign? What nonsense are you talking, Mr. Mears?"

But Mears said it was not nonsense: he meant every word of it. Rather than suffer here, he would go out and brave the world in his old age.

"Sit down, Mr. Mears—and don't be so foolish."

"I don't recognise you these last weeks," said Mears sadly; and he told her of how intensely he had always venerated her. "Everything you did was right—It is almost a religion with me. And now I couldn't bear it—it would break my heart if I was to be pushed aside."

"You won't be pushed aside. No fear of that."

"Or if there was to be any great changes in the shop."

"There will be no great changes in the shop."

"Nor in your private life?"

Then Mrs. Thompson snapped again.

"What do you mean by that? What is my private life to you—or anybody else? What are you insinuating?... Answer me. What do you mean?"

He would not, or he could not say. Perhaps he really did not know what he meant; or some subtle instinct, telling him that a great peril to his peace and comfort was drawing nearer and nearer, had enabled him to pierce the mystery and had prompted the words of the offending question. He sat gasping and gaping while she stormed at him.

"Understand once for all that I won't be watched and spied upon."

"I am no spy," he said huskily; "except when you've made me one."

The door was closed, but her angry voice rang out above the glass partitions. All through the offices it was known that the manager had put Mrs. T. into tantrums.

Suddenly the storm blew itself out. Mrs. Thompson paced the room; then stopped near the empty fireplace, with her hands clasped behind her back. Her attitude was altogether manlike. It was the big man, sitting huddled on the chair, wiping his cheeks, and blowing his nose, who displayed signs of womanish emotion.

"Mr. Mears, don't let's have any more of it. You and I must never quarrel. It would be too absurd. We are friends—we are comrades;" and she went over to the chair, and shook hands with her comrade. "That's right. You and I know each other; you and I can trust each other."

Then she again walked up and down the room, speaking as she moved.

"To show how absolutely I trust you, I'll say to you what I wouldn't say to anyone—no, not to my daughter. I am sorry if I have seemed fretful of late. But the reason is this. I have been passing through a mental struggle—a struggle that has tried me sorely." In her tone and the whole aspect of her face as she made this confession, there was something far above the narrow realm of sex, something that man or woman might be proud to show—a generous candour, a fearless truth, a noble simplicity. "A hard struggle, Mr. Mears—and I'm a little shaken, but quite victorious.... Now this is between ourselves—and it must go no further."

"It never shall," said Mr. Mears earnestly.

"And not a word either about our tiff, or your unkind threat to resign."

"No—er, no. I shan't say another word about that."

But unfortunately Mr. Mears had already said a word or two about it to Mr. Prentice the solicitor; and very soon Mr. Prentice came, tactlessly blundering, to see Mrs. Thompson.

No one could admire her more than Mr. Prentice—truly his admiration was so obviously genuine that people sometimes wondered what Mrs. Prentice thought about it. Staunch friendship, skilled service, as well as the admiration, had won him many privileges; but he overstepped their limits now.

"I say. Is it all serene between you and Mears? Let me advise you—don't allow the breach to widen. I should consider it a great pity if you were to part with your right-hand man because of any trifling difference of—"

Mrs. Thompson cut him short.

"Mr. Prentice, there is one thing I cannot permit—even from you." She was dignified, but terrible. "I cannot, and I will not permit interference in what is my business, and my business only."

"Sorry—very sorry.... No idea I should put you out like this."

Mr. Prentice, with muttered apologies, hurried away, looking scared and abashed, carrying his square bowler all through the shop into the street, as if in his confusion he had forgotten that it belonged to his head.

IX

Shortly after this unlucky visit Mr. Prentice wanted to tell Mrs. Thompson some startling news, but he did not dare. He consulted Mr. Mears, and asked him to tell her; but Mears did not dare either. Mears advised the solicitor to take Yates into his confidence, and let Yates tell her.

So then at last Mrs. Thompson heard what so many people knew already—that Enid was carrying on with a young man in a very unbecoming fashion. Scandalized townsfolk had seen Enid at the school with him, in the museum with him, in the train with him;—they had met her at considerable distances from Mallingbridge, dressed for riding, with this groomlike attendant, but without a horse.

The news shocked and distressed Mrs. Thompson—during her first surprise and pain, it seemed to her as cruel as if Enid had driven a sharp knife into her heart. But was the thing true? Yates thought it was all true—none of it exaggerated.

Mrs. Thompson made a few discreet inquiries, ascertained the correctness of the facts, and then tackled Enid.

"Mother dear," said Enid, with self-possession but slightly ruffled, "no one could help liking Charles. I'm sure you'll like him when you see him."

"Why haven't I seen him? Why have you left me to learn his name from the lips of servants and busybodies? Oh, Enid," said Mrs. Thompson indignantly, yet very sadly, "didn't you ever think how deeply this would wound me?"

"But, mother dear, you must have known that it would happen some day—that sooner or later I should fall in love."

"Yes, but I never guessed that, when the time came, or you fancied it had come, you would keep me in the dark—treat me as if I was a stranger, and not your best friend."

"Charlie didn't wish me to tell you about it just yet."

"And why not?"

"He said we were both old enough to know our own minds, and we ought to be quite sure that we really and truly suited each other before we talked about it. But we are both sure now."

"I think he has behaved very badly—almost wickedly."

"How can you say that, mother?"

"I say it emphatically. He is a man of the world—and he had no right to allow you to act so foolishly."

But Enid appeared not to understand her mother's meaning. She could not measure the enormity of her conduct when indulging in those train-journeys and museum-wanderings. She admitted everything; she was ashamed of nothing.

"Surely," said Mrs. Thompson, "you could see that a girl of your age cannot do such things without malicious people saying unkind things?"

"When one is in love, one cannot trouble to think what malicious people will say."

In fact Enid seemed to believe that she and Mr. Kenion had created a small universe of their own, into which no one else had a right to push themselves.

"Mother dear," and for the first time she spoke pleadingly and anxiously. "Please—please don't try to come between us. I could never give him up."

It was a turn of the knife with which she had stabbed her mother. The words of the appeal would have been appropriate in addressing a harsh and obdurate guardian, instead of an adoring parent.

"If," said Mrs. Thompson sadly, "he is worthy of you, I shall be the last person in the world who will ask you to give him up."

Enid seemed delighted.

"Mother dear, he is more than worthy."

"We shall see.... But it all hangs on that if—a big if, I am much afraid.... You must pull yourself together, Enid, and be a good and brave girl—and you must prepare yourself for disappointment. So far, I do not receive satisfactory reports of him."

"No one on earth ought to be believed if they bring you tales against him."

And then little by little Enid told her mother of Mr. Kenion's many charms and virtues, and of how and why he had won her love so easily.

He came to dinner at the Salters, and he wore a red coat. She had never seen him till she saw him dining in pink, with brass buttons and white silk facings. He was a magnificent horseman—rode two winners at Cambridge undergraduate races;—had since ridden several seconds in point-to-points;—even Mr. Bedford, Young's new riding-master, confessed that he had a perfect seat on a horse. And he belonged to one of the oldest families in England. Although old Mr. Kenion was only a clergyman, he had a cousin who was an English marquis, and another cousin who was an Irish viscount—if six people had died, and a dozen people hadn't legally married, or hadn't been blessed with children, Charles himself would have been a lord.

Even if Mrs. Thompson had heard nothing to his disadvantage, the plain facts of the case would have convinced her that he was a bad lot. As a woman of business, she had little doubt that she was called upon to deal with a worthless unprincipled adventurer. His game had been to force her hand—by compromising the girl, insure the mother's consent to an engagement. If not interrupted in his plan, he would bring matters to a point where the choice lay between an imprudent marriage and the loss of reputation. When Mrs. Thompson thought of her cowardly adversary, anger made the blood beat at her temples. If she had been a father instead of a mother, she would have bought one of the implements of the chase to which he was so much addicted, and have given Mr. Kenion a wholesome horse-whipping.

But when she thought of Enid all her pride smarted, and anger changed to dolorous regret. It was indescribably mortifying to think that Enid, the carefully brought up young lady, the highly finished pupil of sedate private governesses and a majestically fashionable school, should forget the ordinary rules of delicacy, modesty, propriety, and exhibit less reticence in her actions than might be expected from one of Bence's drapery girls. Enid had been pointed at, laughed at, talked about. It was horrible to Mrs. Thompson. It struck directly at her own sense of dignity and importance. In cheapening herself, Enid had lowered the value of everybody connected with her. Enid, slinking out of the house, furtively hurrying to her lover, clandestinely meeting him, and lingering at his side in unseemly obliviousness of the passing hours, had been not only jeopardising her own good fame, but robbing her mother of public esteem.

Yet far worse than the wound to her pride was the bitter blow to her affection. Half her life had been spent in proving that her greatest wish, her single aim was her child's happiness; but all the years counted for nothing. Trust and confidence extinguished; no natural impulse to pour out the heart's secrets to a mother's ear—"Charlie didn't wish me to tell you." Enid said this as if it formed a completely adequate explanation: she must of course implicitly obey the strange voice. The mother who worshipped her had sunk immediately to less than nothing. A man in a red coat, a man in gaiters, the first man who whistled to her—and Enid had gone freely and willingly to exchange the dull old love for the bright new one. There lay the stinging pain of it.

What to do? One must do something. Mrs. Thompson took up the business side of it, and determined as a first step to tackle the young man. Purchased horsewhips impossible; but carefully chosen words may produce some effect.

She told Enid—after several conversations on the disastrous subject—that she desired an interview with Mr. Charles Kenion. Enid might write, inviting him to call upon her mother, or Mrs. Thompson would herself write.

Enid said she would write to him without delay; but she begged that he might be received at the house, and not be asked to enter the shop. She seemed to dread the idea of bringing so fine a gentleman into close touch with the common aspects of mercantile existence.

"No," said Mrs. Thompson firmly. "Let him come to me in my shop. It is purely a business interview, and I prefer to hold it in a place of business."

It was a most unsatisfactory interview.

Mrs. Thompson hated the young man at the very first glimpse of him as he came lounging into her room. He was tall and skinny; his dark, straight hair was plastered back from a low forehead; he had no moustache; and his teeth, which showed too much in a narrow mouth, were ugly, set at a slightly projecting angle, as with parrots. No reasonable being could call him handsome; but of course his general air and manner were gentlemanlike—Mrs. Thompson admitted so much at once, and disliked him all the more for it. Gentlemanlikeness was his sole stock in trade: he would push that for all it was worth, and she was immediately conscious that in his easy tone and careless lounging attitude there was a quiet, steady assumption of his social value as the well-bred young gentleman whose father is related to the peerage.

"Please be seated, Mr. Kenion."

"Thanks."

She had ignored his obvious intention of shaking hands, and he was not apparently in the least disconcerted by her refusal of the friendly overture.

"I feel sure, Mr. Kenion, that if we have a good talk, you and I will be able to understand each other."

"Er—yes, I hope so."

"I think it is important that you and I should understand each other as soon as possible."

"Thanks awfully. I'm sure it's very good of you to let me come. I know how busy you are."

He was looking at various objects in the room, and a slow smile flickered about his small mouth. He looked especially at some files on the desk, and at the massive door of one of the big safes standing ajar and displaying iron shelves. He looked at these things with childish interest; and Mrs. Thompson felt annoyance from the thought that the smile was intended to convey the inference of his never having seen such things before, and of his being rather amused by them.

But she permitted no indication of her thoughts to escape her. The governing powers of her mind were concentrated on the business in hand; her face was a solid mask, expressing quiet strength, firm resolution, worldly shrewdness, and it never changed except in colour, now getting a little redder, now a little paler; she sat squarely, so that her revolving chair did not turn an inch to one side or the other; and throughout the interview she seemed and was redoubtable.

"My daughter tells me that you have proposed to her."

"Yes—I may as well say at once that I'm awfully in love.... And Enid has been good enough to—er—reciprocate. I'm sure I don't know what I've done to deserve such luck."

"Nor do I as yet, Mr. Kenion."

"Exactly. Of course Enid is a stunner."

"But it was about you, and not my daughter, that I wished to talk. Perhaps it will save time if I ask you a few questions. That is usual on these occasions, is it not?"

"Well, as to that, I can't say," and he laughed stupidly. "This is the first time I've been bowled over."

"As a question to begin with—what about your prospects, in whatever career you have planned?"

"My plans, don't you know, would depend more or less on Enid."

"But you can give me some account of your position in the world—and so forth."

"Oh, well, that's pretty well known—such as it is. Not brilliant, don't you know.... But I relied on Enid to tell you all that."

"No, please don't rely on her. Only rely on yourself, Mr. Kenion."

Something of the quiet swagger had evaporated. The sunshine came streaming down from a skylight and fell upon him. Mrs. Thompson had put him where he would get all the light, and she scrutinized him attentively.

His suit of grey flannels, although not of sporting cut or material, suggested nothing but a stable and horses; and beneath his casual air of gentlemanly ease there was raffishness, looseness, disreputability. In the bright sunbeams he looked sallow and bilious; his eyelids drooped, an incipient yawn was lazily suppressed; and she thought that very likely he had been drinking last night and would soon be drinking again this morning.

Mentally she compared him with another young man. In her mind she carried now at all times the vividly detailed picture of a masculine type; and it was impossible not to use it as a standard or measure. Mr. Kenion seemed very weak and mean and valueless, when set beside her standard.

"What is your profession, Mr. Kenion?"

He had no profession: as she well knew, he was what is called a gentleman at large. With vague terms he conveyed the information to her again.

"Really? Not a professional man? Are you a man of property—landed estates, and so on?"

No, Mr. Kenion was acreless.

"But you are expecting property at your father's death? Is it entailed upon you? I mean, are you sure of the succession?"

Mr. Kenion smilingly confessed that his father's death would not bring him land.

"But you are assured that he can supply you with ample means during his lifetime?"

Oh, no. Mr. Kenion explained that the vicar of Chapel-Norton was in no sense a capitalist.

"My governor couldn't do anything more for me—and I shouldn't care to ask him. He has done a good deal for me already—it wouldn't be fair to my brothers and sisters to ask him to stump up again;" and he went on to hint plainly that in his opinion the fact of his being a gentleman—a real gentleman—should counterbalance such a trifle as the deficiency of material resources.

Mrs. Thompson refused to comprehend the hint.

"Surely, Mr. Kenion, if a young man proposes to a young lady—and asks her to engage herself to him without her mother's knowledge, that should imply that he is prepared to take over all responsibilities?"

She had not uttered a single reproach, or even by innuendo upbraided him for the improper course that he had pursued when persuading Enid to defy the laws of chaperonage and go about with him alone. Her pride would not permit her to make the slightest allusion to the girl's folly. Besides, that would be to play his game for him. By her silence she intended to show him that he had not scored a point.

"Don't you admit as much as that, Mr. Kenion? If I were to countenance the suggested engagement, how do you propose to maintain such a wife suitably—in the manner in which she has been brought up?"

"Well, of course I couldn't promise to open a shop for her;" and he laughed with fatuous good-humour, as if what he had said was rather funny, and not an impertinence.

"There are worse things in the world than shops, Mr. Kenion."

"Exactly;" and he laughed again. "As to ways and means—of course I haven't made any inquiries of any sort. But Enid gave me to understand—or I gathered, don't you know, that money was no object."

"Indeed it is an object," said Mrs. Thompson warmly. "I might almost say it has been the object of my life. I know how difficult it is to earn, and how easy to waste.... But I doubt if anything can be gained by further discussion. Your answers to my questions have left me no alternative. I must altogether refuse my sanction to an engagement."

"You won't consent to it?"

"No, Mr. Kenion, the man who marries my daughter with my consent must first prove to me that he is worthy of her."

"But of course as to that—well, Enid tells me she is over twenty-one."

"Oh, yes. I see what you mean. A man might marry her without my consent. But then he would get her—and not one penny with her.... That, Mr. Kenion, is quite final."

He seemed staggered by the downright weight of this final statement.

"Of course," he said, rather feebly, "we are desperately in love with one another."

Contempt flashed from her eyes as she asked him still another question or two.

"What did you expect—that I should welcome your proposal and thank you for it?"

"Well, Enid and I had made up our minds that you wouldn't thwart her wishes."

"But, Mr. Kenion, even if I had agreed and made everything easy and pleasant for you, surely you would not be content to live as a pensioner for the rest of your days?"

She was thinking of what Dick Marsden had said to her in the dusk by the river. "I could not pose as the pensioner of a rich wife." It seemed to her a natural and yet a noble sentiment; and she contrasted the proper manly frame of mind that found expression in such an utterance with the mean-spirited readiness to depend on others that Mr. Kenion confessed so shamelessly. Marsden was perhaps not a gentleman in the snobbish, conventional sense, but how much more a man than this Kenion!

"Don't you know," he was saying feebly; and, as he said it, he stifled another yawn; "I should certainly try to do something myself."

"What?"

"Well, perhaps a little farming. I think I could help to keep the pot on the boil by making and selling hunters—and a good deal can be done with poultry, if you set to work in the right way.... Enid seemed to like the notion of living in the country."

Mrs. Thompson turned the revolving chair round a few inches towards the desk, and politely told Mr. Kenion that she need not detain him any further.

He had come in loungingly, and he went out loungingly; but he was limper after the interview than before it. He probably felt that the stuffing had been more or less knocked out of him; for he presently turned into a saloon bar, and sought to brace himself again with strong stimulants.

No doubt he complained bitterly enough to Enid of the severely chilling reception that he had met with in the queer back room behind the shop. Anyhow Enid complained with bitterness to her mother. Indeed at this crisis of her life Enid was horrid. Yates begged her to be more considerate, and committed a breach of confidence by telling her of how her unkind tone had twice made the mistress weep; but Enid could attend only to one thing at a time. She wanted her sweetheart, and she thought it very hard that anybody should attempt to deprive her of him.

"And it will all be no use, mother—because I never, never can give him up."

Thus the days passed miserably; and a sort of stalemate seemed to have occurred. Kenion had not retired, but he was not coming on; and Enid was horrid.

In her perplexity and distress Mrs. Thompson went to Mr. Prentice, and asked him for advice and aid.

Mr. Prentice, delighted to be restored to favour after his recent disgrace, was jovial and cheering. He pooh-poohed the notion that Enid had in the smallest degree compromised herself; he talked of the wide latitude given to modern girls, of their independence, their capacity to take care of themselves in all circumstances; and stoutly declared his belief that among fashionable people the chaperon had ceased to exist.

"Don't you worry about that, my dear. No one is going to think any the worse of her for being seen with a cavalier dangling at her heels."

Nevertheless he heartily applauded Mrs. Thompson for her firm tackling of the indigent suitor; he offered to find out everything about Kenion and his family, and promised that he would render staunch aid in sending him "to the right-abouts."

When Mrs. Thompson called again Mr. Prentice had collected a formidable dossier, and he read out the damaging details of Mr. Kenion's history with triumphant relish.

"Now this is private detective work, not solicitors' work—and I expect a compliment for the quick way I've got the information.... Well then, there's only one word for Mr. Kenion—he's a thorough rotter."

And Mr. Prentice began to read his notes.

"Our friend," as he called the subject of the memoir, was sent down from Cambridge in dire disgrace. He had attempted an intricately dangerous transaction, with a credit-giving jeweller and three diamond rings at one end of it, and a pawnbroker at the other. The college authorities heard of it—from whom do you suppose? The police! Old Kenion paid the bill, to avoid something worse than the curtailment of the university curriculum. Since then "our friend" had been mixed up with horsedealers of ill repute—riding their horses, taking commissions when he could sell them.

"He gambles," said Mr. Prentice with gusto; "he drinks; he womani—I should say, his morals with the other sex are a minus quantity.... And last of all, I can tell you this. I've seen the fellow—got a man to point him out to me; and there's blackguard written all over him."

"Then how can respectable people like the Salters entertain him?"

"Ah," said Mr. Prentice philosophically, "that's the way we live nowadays. The home is no longer sacred. People don't seem to care who they let into their houses. If a fellow can ride and can show a few decent relations, hunting folk forgive him a good deal. And the Salters very likely hadn't heard—or at any rate didn't know anything against him."

At his own suggestion, jumped at by his client, Mr. Prentice returned with Mrs. Thompson to St. Saviour's Court, and told Miss Enid that it would be madness for her any longer to encourage the attentions of such a ne'er-do-well.

"If you were my own daughter," said Mr. Prentice solemnly, "I should forbid your ever seeing him again. And I give you my word of honour I believe that before a year has past you'll thank Mrs. Thompson for standing firm now."

But Enid was still horrid. She seemed infatuated; she would not credit, she would not listen to, anything of detriment to her sweetheart's character. She spoke almost rudely to her mother; and when Mr. Prentice took it on himself to reprove her, she spoke quite rudely to him. Then she marched out of the room.

"I am afraid," said Mr. Prentice, "there'll be a certain amount of wretchedness before you bring her to reason."

There was wretchedness in the little house—Enid pining and moping, assuming the airs of a victim; her mother trying to soften the disappointment, arguing, consoling, promising better fish in the sea than as yet had come out of it. Enid refused to go away from Mallingbridge. Mrs. Thompson herself longed for change, and the chance of forgetting all troubles; there was nothing to keep her here now, although her presence would be required in September; but Enid seemed tied by invisible strings to the home she was making so very uncomfortable.

She would not go away, and she would not undertake to refrain from seeing or writing to Mr. Kenion. She did give her word that she would not slink out and marry him on the sly. But she could safely promise that, because, under the existing conditions of stalemate, it was very doubtful if Mr. Kenion would abet her in so bold a measure. Probably she was aware that Mr. Kenion's courtship had been successfully checked; and the knowledge made her all the more difficult to deal with. Mr. Kenion was neither retiring, nor coming forward: he was just beating time; and perhaps Enid felt humiliated as well as angry when she observed his stationary position.

A pitiful state of affairs—mother and daughter separated in heart and mind; on one side increasing coldness, on the other lessening hope; an estrangement that widened every day.

Then at last Enid consented to start with her mother for a rapid tour in Switzerland. Mr. Kenion, it appeared, had crossed the Irish Channel on some kind of horse-business; and so Lucerne and Mallingbridge had become all one to Enid.

They stayed in many hotels, visited many new scenes; and Mrs. Thompson, looking at high mountains and broad lakes, was still vainly trying to recover her lost child. Enid was calm again, polite again, even conversational; but between herself and her mother she had made a wall as high as the loftiest mountain and a chasm as wide as the biggest of the lakes.

X

The books of Thompson's were made up and audited at the end of each summer season, and in accordance with an unbroken custom the proprietress immediately afterwards gave a dinner to the heads of departments. Printed invitations were invariably issued for this small annual banquet; the scene of the entertainment was the private house; and the highly glazed cards, with which Mrs. Thompson requested the honour of the company of Mr. Mears and the others in St. Saviour's Court at 6:45 for 7 o'clock, used to be boastfully shown along the counters by the eight or ten happy gentlemen who had received them.

During the course of the dinner—the very best that the Dolphin could send in—Mrs. Thompson would thank her loyal servants, give her views as to where the shop had failed to achieve the highest possible results, and discuss the plan of campaign for the next twelve months. The heads of departments, warmed with the generous food, cheered with the sparkling wine, charmed and almost overwhelmed by Mrs. Thompson's gracious condescension, said the same things every year, made the same suggestions, never by any chance contributed an original idea. But the dinner was doing them good; they would think better and work harder when it was only a memory. At the moment it was sufficient for them to realize that they were here, sitting at the same luxurious table with their venerated employer, revelling in her smiles, seeing her evening robe of splendour instead of the shop black; admiring her bare shoulders and her white gloves, her costly satin and lace, her glittering sequins or shimmering beads; and most of all admiring her herself, the noble presiding spirit of Thompson's.

Jolly Mr. Prentice was always present—acting as a deputy-host; and at the end of dinner he always gave the traditional toast.

"Gentlemen, raise your glasses with me, and drink to the best man of business in Mallingbridge. That is, to Mrs. Thompson.... Mrs. Thompson.... Mrs. Thompson!"

Then little Mr. Ridgway of Silks used to start singing.

"'For she's a jolly good fellow'"....

"Please, please," said Mrs. Thompson, picking up her fan, and rising. "Without musical honours, please;" and the chorus immediately stopped. "Gentlemen, I thank you;" and she sailed out of the room, always turning at the door for a last word. "Mr. Prentice, the cigars are on the side table. Don't let my guests want for anything."

Now once again the night of this annual feast had come round, the champagne corks were popping, the Dolphin waiters were carrying their dainty dishes; and Mrs. Thompson sat at the top of her table, like a kindly queen beaming on her devoted courtiers.

Yates, standing idle as a major-domo while the hirelings bustled to and fro, was ravished by the elegant appearance of the queen. Yates had braced her into some new tremendous fashionable stays from Paris, and she thought the effect of slimness was astonishing. Truly Mrs. Thompson had provided herself with a magnificent dress—a Paris model, of grey satin with lace and seed pearls all over the bodice; and her opulent shoulders, almost bursting from the pretty shoulder-straps, gleamed finely and whitely in the lamp-light. Her hair made a grand full coronet, low across the brow; her face seemed unusually pale; and there were dark shadows about her glowing eyes.

"Yes, Mr. Mears—as you say, travelling opens the mind. But I fear I have brought home no new information."

"What you have brought home," said Mr. Ridgway, gallantly, "is a pleasure to see—and that is, if I may say so"— The little man had intended to pay a courageously direct compliment, by saying that Mrs. Thompson had never looked so attractive as she did now after the brief Continental tour; but suddenly his courage failed him, nervousness overcame him, and, floundering, he tailed off weakly. "You have, I hope, ma'am, brought home replenished health and renewed vigour."

"Thank you, Mr. Ridgway;" and the nervousness seemed to have communicated itself to Mrs. Thompson's voice. "A change of scene is certainly stimulating."

"I've always had a great ambition," said Mr. Fentiman of Woollens, "to get a peep at Switzerland before I die."

"Then you must arrange to do so," said Mrs. Thompson, with kindly significance. "Some autumn—I'm sure it would be easy to arrange."

"I figure it," said Mr. Fentiman sententiously, "as a gigantic panorama—stupefying in its magnitude—and, ah, in all respects unique."

"It is very beautiful," said Mrs. Thompson; and she glanced at Enid, who was pensively playing with her breadcrumbs.

"The Swiss," said Mr. Mears, "are reputed a thrifty race. Did you, madam, observe signs of economic prosperity among the people?"

Mr. Prentice chimed in boisterously from the bottom of the table.

"What no one will ever observe among the Swiss people is a pretty girl. Did you see a pretty girl on all your travels, Mrs. Thompson—except the one you took with you?" And Mr. Prentice bowed to Enid, and then laughed loudly and cheerfully.

"Is that a fact?" asked Mr. Ridgway. "Are they really so ill-favoured?"

"Plainest-headed lot in Europe," shouted Mr. Prentice.

"And do you, madam, endorse the verdict?"

"Oh, no. Far too sweeping;" and Mrs. Thompson laughed nervously, and attempted to draw her daughter into the conversation. "Enid, Mr. Ridgway is asking if we saw no pretty girls in Switzerland."

But Enid was dull. She had volunteered to join the party, but she would not assist the hostess in making it a success. She need not have been here; and it was stupid or unkind of her to come, and yet not try to be pleasant.

"Didn't we, mother? I don't remember."

All this strained talk about Switzerland was heavy and spiritless. One heard the note of effort all through it. In the old days they would have been chattering freely of the shop and themselves. Mrs. Thompson felt painfully conscious that there was something wrong with the feast. No gaiety. Some influence in the air that proved alternately chilling and nerve-disturbing. She knew that Mr. Prentice felt it, too. He was endeavouring to make things go; and when he wanted things to go, he became noisy. He was growing noisier and noisier.

She looked at her guests while Mr. Prentice bellowed in monologue. They were eating and drinking, but somehow failing to enjoy themselves.

Big Mr. Mears, sitting beside her, ate enormously. He wore a black bow tie, with a low-cut black waistcoat and his voluminous frock-coat—he would not go nearer to the conventional dress-clothes, not judging the swallow-tail as befitting to his station in life, or his figure. Scrubby little Mr. Ridgway, on her other side, emptied his glass with surprising rapidity. Mr. Fentiman, a tall skinny man, ate almost as much as Mr. Mears. He had cleared his plate and was looking at the ceiling, with his long neck saliently exposed above a turn-down collar, as he dreamed perhaps of next year's holiday and a foreign trip financed by a liberal patroness. Wherever she turned her eyes, she saw the familiar commonplace faces—bald heads glistening, jaws masticating, hands busy with knife and fork; but nowhere could she see any light-hearted jollity or genuine amusement and interest.

She looked at the head of China and Glass last of all. On this occasion Mr. Marsden made his initial appearance at her hospitable board. It was, of course, impossible to leave him out of the gathering; but great, very great trouble of mind had been aroused by the necessity to include him. She had feared the meeting under the relaxed conditions of friendly informal intercourse. Perhaps, so far as she was concerned, all the nerve-vibrating element in the atmosphere was caused by his quiet unobtrusive presence.

He wore faultless evening-dress, with a piqué shirt, a white waistcoat, and a flower in his button-hole; and, sitting at the other end of the table, near Mr. Prentice, he was very silent—almost as silent as Enid. Not quite, because he spoke easily and naturally when anybody addressed him. And his silence was smiling and gracious. Among the other men he seemed to be a creature from a different world—so firm in his quiet strength, so confident in his own power, so young, so self-possessed, and so extraordinarily, overbearingly handsome.

The dinner was more than half over; the Dolphin waiters were carving and serving some savoury game; Mrs. Thompson exerted herself as a watchful and attentive hostess.

"Mr. Greig, you mustn't refuse the grouse. It was specially sent from Scotland for us."

"Really, madam," said Mr. Greig, the obese chief of Cretonnes etc., "your menoo is that ample I find it difficult not to shirk my duties to it. But still, since you're so kind as to mention it—yes, I thank you."

"That's right, Mr. Greig."

"Greig, my good friend," said Mr. Prentice, "you'd make a poor show at the Guildhall or the Mansion House, if you can't stay the course without all these protestations and excuses."

"I've never dined with the Lord Mayor," said Mr. Greig; "but I cannot believe his lordship offers the most distinguished company a more ample menoo than this."

"Enid," said Mrs. Thompson, "do have some grouse."

"No, thank you, mother."

It was Enid who cast a chill upon everything and everybody; all the cold and depressing influence issued from her. She looked pretty enough in her pink and silver frock, and she ought to have been a charming and welcome addition to the party; but she would not put herself to the trouble of talking and smiling. She made no slightest effort to set these more or less humble folk at their ease. She showed that she was absent-minded, and allowed people to guess that she was also bored. Now Mr. Prentice was rallying her with genial, paternal freedom—and she would not even answer his questions. He turned away, to bellow at Mr. Fentiman; and obviously felt crushed by his failure to make things go.

The point had been reached when it was customary to begin their friendly business talk; but to-night it seemed impossible for them to speak comfortably of the shop. The presence of the fashionable outsider tied all their tongues.

Old Mears ponderously started the ball; but no one could keep it rolling.

"Well, ma'am," said Mr. Mears. "Another year has come and gone. We are in a position to look behind us; and, as usual, before we commence to look ahead of us, any words that fall from your lips will be esteemed a favour."

"Hear, hear," said Mr. Ridgway, shyly and feebly.

"Really, gentlemen," said Mrs. Thompson, "I don't know that I have any words likely to be of value."

"Always valuable—your words," said fat Mr. Greig.

"But I take this opportunity," and Mrs. Thompson looked nervously at her daughter—"this opportunity of thanking you for all you have done for me in the past, and of assuring you that I place the fullest confidence in you—in you all—for the future."

Enid had thrown a blight over the proceedings. She made them all shy and uneasy. Even Mrs. Thompson herself could not speak of the shop without hesitating and stammering.

"So, really," she went on, "that is all I need say, gentlemen. But, as always, I shall be—shall be glad—extremely glad if you will give me your candid views on any subjects—on all subjects.... Have you any suggestions to make, Mr. Mears?"

Mr. Mears coughed, and hummed and hawed before replying.

"We must adhere to our maxims—and not get slack, no matter how good business may be."

"That's it," said Mr. Ridgway. "Keep up the high standard of Thompson's, whatever else we do."

"Any suggestions from you, Mr. Greig?"

"No more," said Mr. Greig, "than the remarks which my confreers have passed. I say the same myself."

She asked them each in turn, hurrying through her questions, scarcely waiting to hear the unusually imbecile answers.

"Mr. Marsden—have you any suggestions to make?"

"None," said Marsden, firmly and unhesitatingly. "Unless, madam, you would authorise me to break the neck of Mr. Archibald Bence."

This sally was received with universal applause and laughter.

"Bravo," cried Mr. Prentice. "Take me with you, my boy, when you go on that job."

"And me, too."

"And I must be there—if it's only to pick up the remains."

"And to bury 'em decently."

"Which is more than Master Bence deserves."

They were all laughing heartily and happily, all talking at once, gesticulating, pantomiming. Even old Mears beat upon the table with a fork to express his satisfaction, and his agreement with the general feeling.

All the tongues were untied by the seasonable facetiousness of Mr. Marsden. The hostess flashed a grateful glance at him; but he was not looking in her direction. He was courteously listening to Mr. Prentice, who had lowered his voice now that things had begun to go of their own accord.

And things continued to go well for the rest of the dinner. The name of Bence had acted like a charm; they all could find something to say about the hated and unworthy rival, and their hitherto frozen tongues now wagged unceasingly.

"Did you ever see such wretched little starveling girls as he puts into the bazaar at Christmas?"

"It's a disgrace to the town, importing such waifs and strays."

"They tell me he gets 'em out of a place in Whitechapel—and they're in charge of a couple of detectives all the time."

"Yes, you bet. Two upon ten, or the poor little beggars would prig his gimcracks as fast as he put them out."

"I don't vouch for it—but I believe it myself: they had three cases of pocket-picking in an hour. And it was one of his shop-girls who done it."

"That's a nice way of doing business! 'Step this way, miss, and look at our twopenny 'a'penny toys'—and pick the customer's pocket as you are serving her."

While they talked so cheerily and pleasantly Mrs. Thompson several times glanced down the table at her youngest manager. She need not have dreaded the meeting. He had made it quite easy for her. He had proved that he possessed the instincts of a true gentleman—not a make-believe gentleman; he had displayed consideration, tact, good breeding; and by his ready wit he had come to her aid and dissipated the dullness of her guests. She sat smiling and nodding in the midst of their lively chatter, and looked at Mr. Marsden's strong, clear-cut profile. It seemed to her statuesque, noble, magnificent; and it did not once change into a full face during all the time she watched it.

Now the guests had eaten their dessert, and the hired waiters had gone from the room. The moment had come for the toast.

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Prentice, "fill your glasses and drink a health. I give you two people rolled into one—that is, the best Man of business in Mallingbridge and Mrs. Thompson.... Mrs. Thompson!"

"Now, all together," said Mr. Ridgway; and he began to sing. "'For she's a jolly good fel-low'"....

"Please, please," said Mrs. Thompson, getting up from her chair, and stopping the chorus. "No musical honours, please.... Gentlemen, I thank you.... And now my daughter and I will leave you to your coffee and cigars."

Then she followed Enid to the door, and turned on the threshold.

"Mr. Prentice, don't let our guests want for anything.... Yates has put the cigars on the side-table."

In the other room Enid walked over to the piano, and, without uttering a word, began to play.

"After all," said Mrs. Thompson, with a sigh of relief, "it didn't go off so badly."

"No," said Enid, looking at her fingers as they slowly struck the notes, "I suppose not."

"What is it you are playing?" Mrs. Thompson asked the question abruptly.

"Chopin."

"Can't you play anything gayer? That's so sad."

"Is it?... I don't feel very gay."

The plaintive and depressing melody continued, while Mrs. Thompson walked about the room restlessly. Then she came to the side of the piano, and leaned her arm upon the folded lid.

"Enid. Stop playing." She spoke eagerly and appealingly; and Enid, looking up, saw that her eyes were wet with tears.

"Mother, what's the matter?"

"Everything is the matter;" and she stretched out her hand above the ivory keys. "Enid, are you purposely, wilfully unkind to me?... Where has my child gone?... It's wicked, and stupid of you. Because I am trying to save you from a great folly, you give me these cold tones; day after day, you—you treat me as a stranger and an enemy."

"Mother, I am sorry. But you must know what I feel about it.... Is it any good going over the ground again?"

"Yes, it is good," said Mrs. Thompson impetuously; and she withdrew the hand that had vainly invited another hand to clasp it. "You and I must come to terms. This sort of thing is what I can't stand—what I won't stand." With a vigorous gesture she brushed away her tears, and began to walk about the room again.

Enid was looking down her long nose at the key-board; and her whole face expressed the sheep-like but unshakable obstinacy that she had inherited from her stupid father.

"Mother," she said slowly, "I told you at the very beginning that I could never give him up."

Then Yates brought in the coffee.

"Put it down there," said Mrs. Thompson, "and leave us."

And Yates, with shrewd and rather scared glances at mother and daughter, went out again.

"I don't believe—I know that this man is not worthy of you. I won't tell you how meanly I think of him."

"No, please don't speak against him any more. You have done that so often already."

"And haven't I the right to state my opinion—and to act on it, too? Am I not your mother? Can I forget that—even if you forget it?"

"Mother, I haven't forgotten. I remember all your goodness—up to now."

"Mr. Kenion simply wants the money that I could give you, if I pleased."

"He only wants us to have just sufficient to live on."

"The money is his first aim."

"Mother, if that were true, nothing would ever make me believe it."

"No doubt he is fond of you—in a way.... Enid, I implore you not to harden yourself against me.... Of course he is attracted by you. Who wouldn't be? You are young and charming—with every grace and spell to win men's love. Any man should love you—and other men will.... Be reasonable—be brave. It isn't as if you could possibly feel that this was the last chance—the last offer of love in a woman's life."

"Mother, it must always be the last chance—the only chance, when one has set one's heart on it."

"Set your heart!" cried Mrs. Thompson, vehemently and passionately. "Your heart? You haven't got a heart—or you couldn't, you couldn't make me so miserably unhappy as you are doing now."

"I am very sorry—but I share the unhappiness, don't I? Mother, I, too, am most miserably unhappy."

Mrs. Thompson was pacing to and fro rapidly and excitedly; her bosom heaved, and the words were beginning to pour out with explosive force.

"He is everything then—the sun, moon, and stars to you; and I am a cipher. The mother who bore you counts for less than any Tom, Dick, or Harry who puts his arms round your waist and pulls your silly face towards him."

"Mother!"

"Yes, mother! That's my name still—and you use it from habit. Only the fact—the plain meaning of the word is gone."

"Mother, they'll hear you in the other room."

"But I'm not a woman to be ignored and slighted—and pushed aside. There's nothing of the patient Griselda in my nature. I am what I am—all alive still—not done for, and on the shelf. I have subordinated my life to yours—let you rule it how you chose. But you must rule it by kindness—not by cold looks and cutting words. I don't submit to that—I won't submit to it."

"Mother dear, I have told you how grateful I am."

"And gratitude—as you understand it—is no use to me. I've a right—yes, a right to your affection—the natural affection that I've striven to retain, that I've done nothing to forfeit."

"No, no. Mother dear, you have my affection."

"Then what's it worth? Not much—no, not very much, if the first time I appeal to your sense of duty too, it isn't to be found. I tell you not to be a fool—and you swear I am wrecking your life. I'm the villain of your trumpery little drama—plotting and scheming to frustrate your love and spoil your life. That's too rich—that's too good, altogether too good."

The expression of Enid's face had changed from obstinacy to alarm. She watched her mother apprehensively, and stammered some calming phrases.

"Mother dear, I'm sorry. Don't, don't get excited—or I'm sure they'll hear us in the other room."

"Your life, yes. And what about my life?" The words were pouring out in an unchecked torrent. "Look back at my life and see what it has been. You're twenty-two, aren't you? And I was that age more than twenty-two years ago—and all the twenty-two years I've given you. Something for something—not something for nothing. We traders like fair exchange—but you've put yourself above all that.... No, leave me alone. Don't touch me, since you have ceased to care for me."

Enid had come from the piano, and was endeavouring to subdue the emotional explosion by a soothing caress.

"Leave me to myself—leave me alone. I'm nothing to you—and you know it."

Enid's caress was roughly repulsed; and Mrs. Thompson sat upon the sofa, hid her flushed face upon her arms, and burst into a fit of almost hysterical sobbing.

"Mother, mother—don't, please don't;" and Enid sat beside her, patted her shoulder, and begged her quickly to compose herself lest the gentlemen should come and see her in her distress.

"It's so cruel," sobbed Mrs. Thompson. "And now—now of all times, I can't bear it.... But I mustn't let myself go like this. I daren't give way like this."

Then very soon her broad back ceased to shake; the convulsing gasping sobs were suppressed, and she sat up and dried her eyes.

"Enid, have I made a horrible fright of myself?" And she rose from the sofa, and went to look in the glass over the fireplace. The tears had left little trace; the reflection in the glass reassured her.

She was comparatively calm when she returned to the sofa and sat down again.

"Enid, my dear, I'm ashamed to have been betrayed into such weakness," and she smiled piteously. "But you have tested me too severely of late—since this unlucky affair began. I have thought myself strong enough; but the strongest things have their snapping point—even iron and steel;—and I am only flesh and blood.... You don't understand, but I warn you that I need the sympathy and the kindness which you withhold from me.... Be nice to me—be kind to me."

But Enid was crying now. Tears trickled down her narrow face. The strange sight of her mother's violent and explosive distress had quite overcome her.

"I do try to do what's right," she whimpered.

"Yes, my darling girl," said Mrs. Thompson tenderly. "And so do I. It's all summed up in that. We must do what's right and wise—not just what seems easy and delightful. There. There.... Use my handkerchief;" and in her turn she reminded Enid that the gentlemen would be with them at any minute.

"Mother, when you ask me to give him up, it's more than I can do."

"But would I ask you if I wasn't certain—as certain as I can be of anything in the world—that you could never be happy with him? You'd be risking a lifetime's regret."

"I am ready to take the risk. Don't come between us."

"Enid, my dearest—my own Enid, trust me—trust the mother who has never, never thwarted you till now. You know I'm not selfish—not greedy of money. Truly I have only worked for you.... And think—though I hate to say it—of the many—the many, many things I have given up for your sake. It wasn't difficult perhaps—because you were everything on earth to me. But any middle-aged woman who knew my life would tell you that I have made great sacrifices—and all for you."

"I know you have, mother. It's dreadful to think of how you have worked, year after year."

"Then can't you make this one sacrifice for me?"

"If it was anything else;" and Enid sniffed, and another tear or two began to trickle. "If it was anything else, I'd obey you implicitly—and know it was my duty."

"Why isn't it your duty now?"

"Because this is so different."

"Enid, stop. Don't say any more."

"But, mother dear, do understand what I mean."

"Yes, I understand too well."

"I'm not ungrateful. If you called on me to pay back some of my debt, I'd work for you till I dropped. I'd try to make every sort of sacrifice that you have made for me. But when it comes to a woman's love, she can't sacrifice herself."

"Then, by God, I'll take you at your word."

Mrs. Thompson had sprung up from the sofa; and once more she paced to and fro, a prey to an increasing excitement.

"Mother? You'll consent?"

"Yes—I consent. A woman can't sacrifice her love! Very good. So be it. That's your law. Then obey it—and, as there's a God in Heaven, I'll obey it, too."

The gentlemen, leaving their dinner table, heard the raised voice, and paused in surprise outside the drawing-room door. When they entered the room, Mrs. Thompson, with blazing cheeks and flashing eyes, turned towards them and gazed eagerly through the open doorway.

"Mr. Marsden, where are you? Come here."

Marsden went to her quickly; and she drew him away to the curtained windows, and spoke in an eager whisper.

"Did you mean what you told me by the river?"

"Yes."

"Do you mean it still?"

"Yes."

"On your honour as a man, is that true?"

"Yes."

Then she took his right hand in her two hands, and held it tightly.

"Gentlemen—listen to me, please;" and she spoke with feverish resolution. "This is not perhaps an opportune moment for making the announcement—but I want you to know, I want all my friends to know without further delay that Mr. Marsden and I are engaged to be married."

Silence like a dead weight seemed to fall upon the room.

Enid had uttered a half-stifled exclamation of horror, but blank amazement rendered the guests dumb. Mr. Prentice, who had become apoplectically red, opened and shut his mouth; but no sound issued from it. Mr. Mears, with bowed head and heavily hanging arms, stared at the carpet. Gradually every eye sank, and all were staring downwards—as if unable to support the sight of the couple who stood hand in hand before them.

At last Mr. Ridgway tried to say something; and then Mr. Fentiman feebly echoed his words.

"You have taken our breath away, madam. But it behoves us to—ah—congratu—to felicitate."

"Or to proffer our good wishes."

"And our best hopes."

But Mrs. Thompson did not look at them or listen to them. Marsden was speaking to her in a low voice.

"Yes, yes, yes. Every word. Every word. I meant all I said then—and I mean it a thousand times more now. You are making me the proudest of mortals—but don't forget one thing."

"What?"

"Why, all I said about the difficulties—the, the inequality of our position, which must somehow be got rid of. But of course you've thought it out."

"What do you mean?" She was gazing at him with love and admiration; but an intense anxiety came into her eyes.

"Well, I mean exactly what I said then. Nothing can change my mind. But, as I told you, I can't have all the world pointing at me as a penniless adventurer who has caught a rich wife.... But you've planned—you mean to prevent—"

His eyes did not meet hers. She dropped his hand, and looked at him now with a passionate, yearning intentness.

"Go on—quickly. Say what it is that you mean."

"I mean, it is to be a thorough partnership—husband and wife on an equal footing. You mean it, too, don't you? Partners in love and partners in everything else!"

"Yes," she said, after a scarcely perceptible hesitation. "I did mean that. You have anticipated what I intended."

"My sweetheart and my wife." As he whispered the words, her whole face lit up with triumphant joy. "I knew that you meant it all along. And I'm the happiest proudest man that ever lived.... Now you'd better tell them. Let them know that, too."

Again she hesitated. She was in a fever of excitement, with all real thought obliterated by the flood of emotion; and yet perhaps already, though unconsciously to herself, she had attained a complete knowledge of the fatal nature of her mistake.

"Do you want me to tell them now—at once?"

"Yes," he said gaily. "No time like the present. Let them know how my dear wife and I mean to stand—and then there'll be nothing for anybody to chatter about."

"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."

Yates, in sorrowful tones said that her glumness was caused by her thoughts.

Then Mrs. Thompson piteously prayed for support from the old servant.

"Are you going to drive me mad among you—make me commit suicide? Oh, Yates, do stand by me."

And Yates wept, and swore that henceforth she would stand by her mistress.

"Say you think I'm right in what I'm doing."

"I'll say this, ma'am—that no one should be the judge except you of what's right. No one hasn't any qualification to interfere with you in what you please to do."

"But, Yates, say you approve of it."

"Well then, I do say it."

Yates said that she approved; but no one else said so. Enid did not pretend to approve—although she talked very little about her mother's plans. She had obtained the desire of her own heart; she and Mr. Kenion were to be made one as soon as possible; she was buying her trousseau, and Mr. Prentice was drawing the marriage settlement.

Both marriages were to be pushed on rapidly. No time like the present, as Marsden joyously declared. "What's the good of waiting, when you have made up your mind?" But Enid was to be cleared out of the way first; and not till Enid had left the little house could her mother throw herself completely into her own dream of bliss.

There were some trifling difficulties, some slight delays. Mr. Kenion, as one about to become a member of the family, frankly confessed that he viewed the Marsden alliance with repugnance. He told Mr. Prentice that it altered the whole condition of affairs, that his relatives begged him to stand out for a much more liberal settlement than would previously have appeared to be ample; and he hinted on his own account that if Mrs. Thompson didn't stump up, he would feel justified in withdrawing altogether. Mr. Prentice, however, made short work of this suitor's questionings and threatenings. He did not mention that, on the strong advice of Mr. Marsden, his client had largely cut down the proposed amount; but he said that in his own opinion the settlement was quite ample.

"Of course," said Kenion, "what we get now is all we shall ever get. I don't value Enid's further expectations at a brass farthing."

"That's as it may be. Possibly you are wise in not building on the future. But my instructions merely concern the present. As to the amount decided on by my client, whether big or little—well, it is to take or leave."

Charlie Kenion, lounging deep in one of the solicitor's leather armchairs, said that he would take it.

At this period Mr. Prentice also received visits from the other suitor. Marsden called several times, to talk about the terms of his partnership, and to urge the importance of not overdoing it with regard to the provision for Enid. These marriage settlements, he reminded the solicitor, are irrevocable things—what you put into them you can't get out of them. Nothing ever comes back to you. A woman in Mrs. Thompson's position should therefore exercise some caution. She is rich now, but she may not always be so rich; she must not give away more than she can spare; it is folly not to keep a reserve fund.

Then, when paying his last call before his departure for London, he slid very naturally from the subject of Enid's settlement to a vague question about a settlement in his own case. Was there any idea of making a permanent provision for him?

"Of course there is. You are to be a partner."

That of course was understood, but Marsden had some doubt as to whether there were other intentions.

"I am only asking," he said pleasantly. "I leave myself entirely in your hands—and I'd like to say that I've the utmost confidence in you."