Sally Bishop | Page 7

thought of denying him the information had not occurred to her.
Undoubtedly it was foolish to refuse his offer. She would get wet
through before she reached Hammersmith. The tarpaulin only covered

her skirt, and in the lap that it made was already a pool of water
swilling backwards and forwards with the rocking of the 'bus. Through
her mind raced a swift calculation, estimating the benefits she would
gain by keeping dry. They were not many in number, but they entered
the balance, dragged down the scales of her decision. The hat she was
wearing--it was not a best hat--but some few evenings before, she had
retrimmed it; there was matter for consideration in that. The frame was
a good one. It could be trimmed again and again, so long as it met with
those requirements which in Sally's mind were governed by a vogue of
fashion that she followed reverently, though always, perhaps, some few
paces in the rear. A severe wetting might so alter the shape of that
frame as to make it for ever unwearable. Her coat was serge--short,
ending at the waist; the feather boa that clung round her neck, they
would inevitably suffer without protection. For the moment she felt
angry with herself. She hoped almost, since he was there, that he would
make his offer again. It is these little things--the saving of a feather boa,
the destruction of a flimsy hat frame--that are the seed of big issues.
Every book, as is this, is in its way a study in the evolution of a crisis,
the germ of tiny incident which through a thousand stages grows in
strength and magnitude until it takes upon itself the stature of some
giant event.
The thought of her clothes that had entered Sally's mind brought her
one step further, prepared her for the silent permission she gave him,
when he took the vacant seat beside her and shared the umbrella
between them.
"By the time you reached Hammersmith," he said, "you know you'd be
soaked."
"It wouldn't be the first time," she replied.
"Probably not--but it might be the last."
"How?"
"Influenza--pneumonia--congestion of the lungs--of such are the
kingdom of heaven."

She looked at him quickly--that sudden look of one who for a moment
sees into another and a new mind, as passing some strange house, you
look with curious surprise through the unexpectedly opened door into
another's life. The glance was as quick, as little comprehensive. Just as
within that strange house you see schemes of colour that you would
never have thought of, furniture and pictures that are not of your taste
at all, so Sally saw for one brief moment the glimpse of a mind that
could casually make a jest of death and holy-written things. A great
deal of that servile obedience to the religion in which she had been
brought up had been driven out of her by hard work. You might not get
the priesthood to admit it, but religion is a luxury which few of the
hard-workers in this world can afford. But she still maintained that
sense of conventional awe which strict religious training drives deep
into a receptive mind.
"Do you think it amusing to speak like that?" she asked.
"Like what?"
"What you said--the sentence that you quoted?"
"Of such are the kingdom of heaven?"
"Yes."
"Well--I don't think it's the best joke I've ever made--but it was meant
to be amusing."
At this, she laughed--laughed in spite of herself. His absolute
inconsequence was in itself humorous. She snatched a swift glance at
him under cover of a pretence to look behind her. As her eyes returned,
she was conscious that she was interested.
He was clean shaven. The lines were hard about his mouth, cutting
character--the chin was strong, the jaw well-moulded. It was not a type
of face that belonged to the class in which she moved. These men were
of the unreliable type--some definite weakness somewhere in every
face. So far as she could see in that one sudden glance, this man had

none. His face dominated, his voice too. The hardness of his features
carried with it a sense of cruelty; but a woman is seldom thwarted by
that.
Then returned again the spirit of adventure. By the peculiar
inconsequence of his conversation, he had succeeded in driving
timidity from her. No man whom she knew would, in the first moments
of acquaintance, have spoken as he did. The fact of that alone was an
interest in itself. This was an adventure. Again she thrilled to it. The
unexpectedness of the whole affair, this riding homewards on the top of
a 'bus with a man who had come out of nowhere into her life--even if it
were only for a few moments. Would not