seen her from the
outside. But now he saw the right side of her face instead of the left. It
was wonderful to him that within the space of a few minutes he should
have developed from an absolute stranger to her into an acquaintance of
the house, walking about in it, peering into its recesses, disturbing its
secrets, which were hers. But she remained as mysterious, as
withdrawn and intangible, as ever. And then she shifted round suddenly
on the chair, and her absorbed, intent face softened into a most
beautiful, simple smile--a smile of welcome. An astonishing and
celestial change!... She was not one of those queer girls, as perhaps she
might have been. She was a girl of natural impulses. He smiled back,
uplifted.
"My daughter designs bookbindings," said Mr. Haim. "Happens to be
very busy to-night on something urgent."
He advanced towards her, George following.
"Awfully good!" George murmured enthusiastically, and quite
sincerely, though he was not at all in a condition to judge the design.
Strange, that he should come to the basement of an ordinary stock-size
house in Alexandra Grove to see bookbindings in the making! This was
a design for a boy's book. He had possessed many such books. But it
had never occurred to him that the gay bindings of them were each the
result of individual human thought and labour. He pulled at his
cigarette.
There was a sound of pushing and rattling outside.
"What's that?" exclaimed Mr. Haim.
"It's the area door. I bolted it. I dare say it's Mrs. Lobley," said the girl
indifferently.
Mr. Haim moved sharply.
"Why did you bolt it, Marguerite? No, I'll go myself."
He picked up the lamp, which he had put down, and shuffled quickly
out in his red morocco slippers, closing the door.
Marguerite? Yes, it suited her; and it was among the most romantic of
names. It completed the picture. She now seemed to be listening and
waiting, her attention on the unseen area door. He felt shy and yet very
happy alone with her. Voices were distinctly heard. Who was Mrs.
Lobley? Was Mr. Haim a little annoyed with his daughter, and was
Marguerite exquisitely defiant? Time hung. The situation was slightly
awkward, he thought. And it was obscure, alluring.... He stood there,
below the level of the street, shut in with those beings unknown,
provocative, and full of half-divined implications. And all Chelsea was
around him and all London around Chelsea.
"Father won't be a moment," said the girl. "It's only the charwoman."
"Oh! That's quite all right," he answered effusively, and turning to the
design: "The outlining of that lettering fairly beats me, you know."
"Not really!... I get that from father, of course."
Mr. Haim was famous in the office as a letterer.
She sat idly glancing at her own design, her plump, small hands lying
in the blue lap. George compared her, unspeakably to her advantage,
with the kind, coarse young woman at the chop-house, whom he had
asked to telephone to the Orgreaves for him, and for whom he had been
conscious of a faint penchant.
"I can't colour it by gaslight," said Marguerite Haim. "I shall have to do
that in the morning."
He imagined her at work again early in the morning. Within a week or
so he might be living in this house with this girl. He would
be,--watching her life! Seducing prospect, scarcely credible! He
remembered having heard when he first went to Lucas & Enwright's
that old Haim was a widower.
"Do excuse me," said Mr. Haim, urgently apologetic, reappearing.
A quarter of an hour later, George had left the house, having accepted
Mr. Haim's terms without the least argument. In five days he was to be
an inmate of No. 8 Alexandra Grove. The episode presented itself to
him as a vast, romantic adventure, staggering and enchanting. His luck
continued, for the rain-cloud was spent. He got into an Earl's Court bus.
The dimly perceived travellers in it seemed all of them in a new sense
to be romantic and mysterious.... "Yes," he thought, "I did say
good-night to her, but I didn't shake hands."
CHAPTER II
MARGUERITE
I
More than two months later George came into the office in Russell
Square an hour or so after his usual time. He had been to South
Kensington Museum to look up, for professional purposes, some scale
drawings of architectural detail which were required for a restaurant
then rising in Piccadilly under the direction of Lucas & Enwright. In
his room Mr. Everard Lucas was already seated. Mr. Lucas was another
articled pupil of the firm; being a remote cousin of the late senior
partner, he had entered on special terms. Although a year older than
George he was less advanced, for whereas George
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