'And some more books are coming to-day?' she said.

'Yes, this afternoon.'

'Mr. Egremont, may I come and help to put up a few to-morrow morning?'

Again her tongue uttered words in defiance of herself. She could not believe it when the words were spoken.

Egremont perused the floor. The slight frown had returned.

'But perhaps I shall be in your way,' she continued, hastily. 'I didn't think. I am troublesome.'

'Indeed you are not at all, Miss Trent. I should be very glad. If--if you are sure you can spare the time?'

'I can quite well. I do a little work for Mrs. Grail, but that doesn't take anything like all the morning.'

A word was on his tongue. He was about to say that perhaps it would be as well, after all, to tell Grail, and for Thyrza to ask the latter's permission. He even began to speak, but hesitated, ceased.

'Shall I come at this same time?' Thyrza inquired, her voice almost failing her.

'I shall be here at about eleven; certainly by half-past.'

'Then I will come. I shall be so glad to help.'

A pronoun was lost; something prevented its utterance. Egremont made no reply. Thyrza found power to hold her hand out and take leave. How often they seemed to have held each other's hand!

CHAPTER XXI

MISCHIEF AFOOT

It would have been a remarkable thing if Egremont had succeeded, even for a day or two, in keeping secret his work at the library. The vulgar in Lambeth are not a jot less diligent in prying and gossip than are their kin in Mayfair. And chance is wont to be mischief-making all the world over.

When Mr. Bower passed the library in the dinner-hour on Monday, and, after seeing Thyrza Trent come out, forthwith observed Mr. Egremont standing within at the window, his mind busied itself with the coincidence very much as it might have been expected to do. When he reached home he privately reported the little incident to his wife.

They looked at each other, and Mr. Bower lowered first one eyelid, then the other.

'Is Grail still at his work?' Mrs. Bower inquired.

'Safe enough. He goes on till Saturday. Ackroyd told me so yesterday.'

'And her sister's at work too?'

'Safe enough.'

'Is the workmen there still?'

'No, they're all out. Safe enough.'

Mr. Bower seemed to find a satisfaction in repeating the significant phrase. He chuckled disagreeably.

'It looks queer,' remarked his wife, with a certain contemptuousness.

'It looks uncommon queer. I wonder whether old Mrs. Butterfield happened to be safe likewise.' He nodded. 'I'll look in and have a word with the old lady to-night, eh?'

Mrs. Butterfield's husband, some years deceased, had been a fellow-workman with Bower. The latter, prying about the school-building as soon as he heard that Egremont was going to convert it into a library, had discovered that the caretaker was known to him. There seemed at the time no particular profit to be derived from the circumstance, but Mr. Bower regarded it much as he would have done a piece of lumber that might have come into his possession, as a thing just to be kept in mind, if perchance some use for it should some day be discovered. It is this habit of thought that helps the Bower species to become petty capitalists. We call it thrift, and--respecting public opinion--we do not refuse our admiration.

On Monday evening, about eight o'clock, Mr. Bower went up to the house-door in the rear of the building, and knocked. The door was opened about two inches, and an aged voice asked who was there.

'It's me, Mrs. Butterfield--Bower,' was the pleasantly modulated reply.

The door opened a little wider.

'Does Mr. Egremont happen to be here?' the visitor went on to ask.

'No, Mr. Bower, he ain't here, nor likely to come again to night, I shouldn't think.'

'Never mind. I dare say you'd let me have a look in, just to see how things is goin' on. I saw him at the window as I passed at dinner-time, and we just nodded to each other, but I hadn't time to stop.'

The old woman admitted him. In the house was an exultant savour of frying onions; a hissing sound came from the sitting-room.

'Cooking your supper, eh, Mrs. Butterfield?' said Bower, with genial familiarity. 'Why, that's right make yourself comfortable. Don't you fuss about, now; I'll sit down here; I like the smell.'

Mrs. Butterfield was not at all the same woman with this visitor that she was with strangers. For one thing, he brought back to her the memory of days when she had possessed a home of her own, and had not yet been soured by ill-hap; then again, Bower belonged to her own class, for all his money saved up and his pomposities of manner. There is a freemasonry between the members of the pure-blooded proletariat; they are ever ready in recognition of each other, and their suspicion of all above them, whether by rank or by nature, is a sense of the utmost keenness. Mrs. Butterfield varied somewhat from the type, inasmuch as she did not care to cringe before her superiors; but that was an accident; in essentials of feeling she and Bower were at one.

The table was half covered with a dirty cloth, on which stood a loaf of bread (plateless), a small dish ready to receive the fry, and a jug of beer. In the midst of the newly painted and papered room, which seemed ready to receive furniture of a more elegant kind than that of working-class homes, these things had an incongruity.

'And how does the world use _you_, Mrs. Butterfield, ma'am?' Bower asked, as he settled his bulky body on the small chair.

'I earn my bed and my victuals, Mr. Bower,' was the reply, as the old woman stirred her hissing mess with a fork.

'And a thing to be proud of at your age, ma'am.'

From such friendly dialogue, Bower gradually turned the talk to Egremont, of whom he spoke at first as a respected intimate.

Observation of his collocutor led him shortly to alter his tone a little. When he had heard that books were already arriving, he remarked:

'That's as much as to say that you'll soon be turned out, Mrs.

Butterfield. Well, I call it hard at your age, ma'am. Now if Egremont had acted like a gentleman and had offered _me_ to be librarian, you'd still have kept your place here. I don't want to say disagreeable things, but if ever there was a mean and indecent action, it was when he passed over _me_ and gave the place to a stranger. Why, Mrs.

Butterfield, he has to thank _me_ for everything! But for _me_ he'd never have had a soul to hear his lectures. Well, well, it don't matter. And what do you think o' the young girl as is coming to keep house here after you?'

Mrs. Butterfield was turning out her supper into the dish. She gave him a peculiar look.

'When's she goin' to be wed?' was her question in reply.

'Next Monday.'

'And does the man as is goin' to marry her know as she comes here to meet this young gent?'