Sally Bishop | Page 7

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 many another girl in her position be delighted with the experience? That thought warmed her to a greater appreciation of the situation.
But why had he been waiting outside the door of the office? Why had he followed her? How had he known that she was employed in the exacting services of Bonsfield & Co.? All these questions gyrated wildly in her mind, swept about, confused at finding no plausible answers to their importunate demands.
Then, lastly, who was he? There are men who suggest to you that they