"Mr Thorold would find out and be furious. You must help openly, or not at all. You have helped by keeping him company all these weeks."

He hitched his shoulders, and made a grimace of disparagement.

"It's a long time since my company could be called cheering, I'm afraid.

Thorold is 'down and out' himself, and he ought to have happy people about him." He turned his dark eyes upon me with sudden interest.

"Like _you_!" he said emphatically, "like _you_! Excuse a personal remark, Miss Harding, but you seem to have an eternal flow of vitality.

Thorold and I were talking about you last night, comparing you with other women of your--er--your generation. We agreed that you left an extraordinary impression of youth!" He looked at me with wistful eyes.

He was a lonely man, and I was a woman, conveniently at hand, and possessed of a "feeling heart". An impulse towards confidence struggled to birth. In his eyes I could see it grow.

"I suppose," he began tentatively, "you have had an easy life?"

"In a material sense--yes! But I have had my trials." A wave of self-pity engulfed me and quivered in my voice. "I have been separated, by death or distance, from all my relatives. My best friend is abroad."

"Death--or distance!" he repeated the words in his deep, slow tones, as though they had struck a note in his own heart. "But distance _is_ death, Miss Harding! The worst kind of death. Desolation without peace! Thorold thinks himself brokenhearted, but there are men who would envy him his clean, sweet grief. His sorrow is for himself alone.

She is at peace!"

"Ah," I said quickly, "I know what you mean. When we are quite young, death seems the crowning loss, but there are worse things--I've discovered that! I realised it in those terrible days when we feared for Billie's brain. When you love people very much, it would be a daily death to know that they were suffering."

He gazed gloomily into the fire.

"It is extraordinary--the capacity for suffering of the human heart!

Physically we are so easily destroyed. An invisible germ will do it, the p.r.i.c.k of a finger, a draught of cold air; but a man can live on, suffering mental torture, month after month, year after year, and his weight will hardly decrease by a pound. You read of broken hearts, but there are no such things! Hearts are invulnerable, torture-proof, guaranteed to endure all shocks!"

It occurred to me that it was time that Miss Harding exerted her vitality and stopped this flow of repining. The poor man had evidently had some tragedy in his life which had warped his outlook. He needed cheering--we all needed cheering; proverbially the surest way of cheering yourself is to cheer other people; therefore the sane and obvious way of spending his money was in providing cheer for the company. I said as much, and he said, "Certainly; but how? It was winter time. A winter's day in London holds an insuperable barrier against any possibility of enjoyment." I said, "Not at all! There were heaps of things--heaps of ways." He said, "Would I kindly specify one or two of the 'heaps'?" I said, "Certainly not! The essence of a treat lay in its quality of surprise. It was for him to think." He smiled at me with whimsical amus.e.m.e.nt, and cried, "You said that just like a girl.

You are a girl at heart, Miss Harding, in spite of your grey hairs.

What a pity you did not marry, you would have given some man and some kiddies such a thundering good time. I know, of course, that it was your own doing. There must have been--"

"Oh, there were!" I cried glibly. "Several!"

"But you couldn't--You were never tempted?"

"No, never. At least--" Suddenly I found that it was necessary to qualify that denial. "There are two things which are always tempting to a woman, Mr Hallett--love and strength! Every woman would be glad to have a strong, loving man to take care of her--if he were the right man!"

"Well!" he sighed, and rose heavily from his seat. "No doubt you knew best, but--I hope you gave him his chance! We men have many sides, but the best side is apt to remain hidden until some woman brings it out.

If he loved you, you owed him something. I hope you played fair and gave him his chance!"

He turned towards the door; we shook hands, and he left without another word. I turned back to the fire, sat me down, and thought.

Ralph Maplestone had demanded his chance, and I had thought myself n.o.ble and brave in refusing to give it. He was strong and he was loving; he had asked nothing better than to take care of me. Would the time ever come, when I was really old, when I should sit by a lonely hearth and look back and regret? I thought of Mr Hallett's voice as he spoke those last words, and saw a vision of his face. It is a beautiful face, and I dearly love beauty. What a satisfaction it would be to go through life looking at the curve of that nose and the modelling of that chin and jaw! I thought of the Squire's stern voice, and his blunt, plain-featured face. Always, always, so long as I lived, I should long to take a pair of pincers and tweak that nose into shape, and nip little pieces of flesh from the neck, and pad them on the hollows beneath the cheek-bones. Suddenly I began to laugh. I imagined myself doing it-- saw the expression in the blue, startled eyes.

Strange how plain faces can fascinate more than beautiful ones! My laughter died away. It is difficult to keep on laughing by oneself. I was tired, and had been giving out sympathy all day; depression clutched me, and a restless irritability. At this auspicious moment the orphan knocked at the door and announced that Number 19 would be glad to speak a few words.

"Show her in!" I said, and in she came--a pretty, thin, little woman, with a tempery eye.

"I am sorry to intrude, but you must really understand that this is too much! When people live in flats, it is essential that they show some consideration for their neighbours. Will you kindly listen to that?"

I listened. Winifred and Marion were playing at "bears," and chasing Bridget to her death. Engrossed in my own thoughts, I had paid no attention, beyond a subconscious satisfaction that they were enjoying themselves. The roars did not annoy me, but they were certainly fairly loud. I tendered a civil explanation.

"It's Mr Thorold's little girls. Their brother has been dangerously ill. They are staying with me."

"Is there any necessity for them to shriek at the pitch of their voices?"

"They are out for hours every day. This is their play-time before they go to bed. They go at seven."

"And wake at six! For the last fortnight we have been disturbed every morning. My husband wishes me to say that if it goes on he will complain to the landlord. I have complained before, as you know, but without effect. Ever since you came we have been annoyed."

I was furious. Whatever had happened during the last fortnight, no one could have been quieter before. "And what about themselves?" I said coldly. "Do you imagine that the landlord will be able to make children sleep beyond their usual hour?"

"Certainly not, but they can be kept quiet. When people go to bed late"--she stopped short, arrested by my expression, stared for a moment, and then concluded--"they naturally object to being disturbed in the morning. We breakfast at nine. This morning we were kept awake by quarrelling voices for over an hour."

I bowed politely.

"I am sorry. It is most disagreeable. I have had the same experience myself, but at the beginning of the night."

The words jumped out. The moment I had said them I was sorry, and when I saw her poor startled face I could have cried. The slow red rose in her cheeks; we stared into each other's eyes, and both spoke at the same time. She said:--

"Oh-oh! Can you _hear_?"

I said:--

"Oh, I'm sorry! I should not have said it. Forgive me! I'm tired and cross after nursing upstairs. I want to quarrel myself. I'm sorry!

I'll keep the children quiet. They will soon be going home. Please always let me know if I'm a bother. I'll do everything I can!"

She looked at me--a puzzled look--and mumbled cold thanks. This was a case when my apparent years were against me. If I had been Evelyn--a girl like herself--we would have clasped hands and made friends. As it was, she distrusted the elderly woman who showed an impulsiveness foreign to her years. She departed hurriedly, leaving me plunged in fresh woe.

A nice person _I_ am, to blame a man for having a bad temper! I have hurt a sister woman, who has the hardest lot which any woman can have in life--a loveless home!

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

MR MAPLESTONE IS PLEASED.

As a result of my suggestion, Mr Hallett has taken Mr Thorold to several concerts, and as a crowning effort actually lured him to a week-end at Brighton. That was last week; and as the day was mild and-- almost!--sunny, I suggested to the little girls that we should go holiday-making on our own account, and pay a visit to the Zoo.

The proposal excited great enthusiasm, and an early lunch was ordered so that we could set forth in good time, so as to have a couple of hours with the animals before adjourning to a confectioner's for tea. I remembered my own childhood too well to suggest returning home for the meal. To drink tea out of strange cups, in a strange room, to have a practically unlimited choice of strange cakes--this is a very orgie of bliss to anything "in one figure," and when the tea is followed by a drive home in a taxi, satisfaction approaches delirium. I remembered Mr Thorold's pathetic "Make them happy!" and determined that, if it were in my power, this should be a day to be remembered.

Lunch was finished, I dressed the little girls in their new hats and coats, wriggled their fingers into new gloves, saw to it that there was not a crease in their stockings nor a c.h.i.n.k in the lacing of their boots, and had just settled them on the sofa in the drawing-room to wait quietly until I rushed through my own hasty toilette, when--the door opened, and who should walk in but Ralph Maplestone himself!

For different reasons his appearance struck consternation into the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of all three beholders. I was naturally overcome with embarra.s.sment as to what he had come for now; the little girls were seized with a devastating fear lest his arrival should interfere with their treat. They leapt to their feet, and rent the air with protestations.

"Oh, oh! It's the Same Man!"

"We're going out! We're going out! We've got on our hats."

"To the Zoo! So's Miss Harding. She's just going to put on her hat."

"It's our treat. Father's away. He's having a treat, and she promised--she promised we could go!"