"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 appet.i.te."

Mrs. Thompson was trifling with her supper--only pretending to eat. The electric light, shining on her hair, made the rounded coils and central ma.s.s 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 s.e.x, 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 gla.s.s, 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 s.l.u.t 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 pa.s.sionate 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, coa.r.s.e 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 s.e.xual 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 pa.s.sing 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.