With a breaking heart, you understand. How much longer I shall be able to stand it, I do not know. Oh, my hands are so cold."

He had noticed a pair of the gardener's gloves lying on the lawn-mower. He handed them to her. She flung them away, a little petulantly it seemed to him.

He rose from the milestone and walked on. Certain words seemed to keep time with his footsteps. "She wants me to write to her. And I ought not. She wants me to write to her. And I ought not."

He pa.s.sed the post-office, and turned back to it again. Went on, and again turned back. This time he entered with his mind all bemused.

"Have you any nice stamps?" he asked.

CHAPTER VII

Mabel looked very enraged as she entered the house. "Anything the matter?" he enquired.

"Yes. You might not think so. As I do, probably you wouldn't. But Ellen's got a new parasol, and Kate's got a swollen knee, and has got to have it up."

"And I suppose it will be just the same with Ellen's parasol. I suppose you wanted it the other way round--Dot to have the parasol and Ellen to have the----"

"I wanted nothing of the kind. Why should I want my cook to go peac.o.c.king about with a pink parasol, making a fool of herself, and bringing disgrace on the house? Why should I want Kate to be incapacitated from doing her proper work?"

"I think," said Luke, "I must go and see it."

"Go and see Kate's knee? Don't be indelicate."

"No, I meant the parasol. I should imagine that Dot's knee has solely a pathological interest at present. But I did mean the parasol--I swear it. How did it come about?"

"Love of finery. Vanity. Pa.s.sion for wasting her money."

"Oh, this time I meant the knee--not the parasol."

"Well, that was just absolute selfishness. All servants love to get swollen knees, and chilblains and chapped hands. They like to make a fuss about themselves. And to make their employer pay a subst.i.tute to do their work. They're all like that. It was just the same before I married. Yes, every housemaid I employ. Contracts these swollen kneeses. They only do it to annoy. Because they know it teases."

"But what are you going to do about it? Have you got medical advice?

Do you think a nurse will be needed? When I had the measles the only things I fancied were----"

"Kate has not got measles. She's got a cold compress, and she's got the entire contents of the plate-chest to clean. And when she's finished that, I'll find her something else. If she thinks she can't work sitting down, she will discover that she is mistaken."

"Wait a minute. I've got a joke. A real one this time. Dot with a swollen knee. We shall have to call her Dot-and-go-one. See? Well, why don't you laugh? I must go into the kitchen and tell them at once."

Mabel sighed deeply. There were simply no words for him. He was right away outside, beyond the limit. In a few minutes he came back again.

"It certainly does look very pink," he said.

"That's the effect of the cold compress. Though why on earth you should----"

"I didn't mean the knee, I meant the parasol. I'll swear I did."

"Well, whatever you meant, I wish you would keep out of the kitchen. I wish you wouldn't address the servants by nicknames. I wish you wouldn't be so abominably familiar with them."

"Familiar? Well, hang it all, when a poor girl's got a swollen knee it's unfriendly not to show a little sympathy. It does no harm. I just chatted her on the peak----"

"You----?"

"As I said, I just patted her on the cheek, and asked her how she was getting on. No harm in that."

"And now perhaps you'll tell me what on earth I'm to do for a subst.i.tute. I don't know of a single girl in this neighborhood who could come in and help."

"I have it. I can save the situation. I have an idea. On the 16th inst., at Jawbones, Halfpenny Hole, Surrey, Mr. Luke Sharper, of an idea. Both doing well."

"Would you mind telling me what you are talking about?"

"I'm talking about old Vessunt. He's a foreman. Up at the factory.

Fine old chap. Religious but quite honest. He's got a daughter, Effie.

Very superior girl. And she's looking for a job. I can get her for you to-morrow morning. Effie Vessunt. Rather bright and sparkling, what?"

"At any rate, I can see her."

"You can, even with the naked eye. But I say, you know, she really is rather superior. She'll have to have her meals with us."

"If I engage her, she will feed in the kitchen."

"Mabel, must you always disagree with me? Have you no spirit of compromise? Can't you meet me half way in a little thing like this?"

"If I met you half way the girl would have her meals in the pa.s.sage.

And I don't suppose she'd like it, and anyhow she'd be in everybody's way."

"And this when I've just been of real use to you."

"So you ought to be. You were indirectly responsible for the accident that gave Kate the swollen knee. It was your wretched old push-bike that she fell over."

Luke wagged his ears. "Indirectly," he said. "There are many of us in it indirectly. Dunlop, for instance. n.i.g.g.e.rs in a rubber plantation.

Factories in Coventry. A retail shop in High Holborn. And me. All working together. Combining and elaborating in order to give Dot a nasty one on the knee-cap. It's rather a great thought when you come to think it out that way."

"I can't see why you want to ride that old job-lot of sc.r.a.p-iron at all. You might just as well go by train, now that the new line is opened. All my friends do it. Why can't you go by train?"

"I believe I know the answer to that one. Don't tell me. I'll go upstairs and think it out."

He went up to the frowsty study-bedroom, and sat down at his table.

Mechanically he drew from his pocket the sheet of thirty stamps with which, after a few disparaging remarks, the lady at the post-office had supplied him. He spread them out before him. Thirty stamps. Thirty letters to Jona. He felt inclined to kiss every one of them.

He did not do so. He reflected that in the ordinary course of affixing them to the envelope he would put them to his lips in any case. It was not sense to do the same piece of work twice over.

Jona.

Should he, or shouldn't he? He knew that he shouldn't. Mabel would not like it. He ought to put Jona out of his mind, and to burn those stamps. But that was not economical. It was possible to have thirty stamps, and yet to avoid writing thirty love-letters to Jona. He folded them up and put them back in his pocket.