IN THE MEANTIME
It was one Wednesday evening in early April, that
Waymark found a letter awaiting him, addressed in
a hand he at once recognised.
“Will you come and see me? I am at home
after eight o’clock till the end of the week,
and all day on Sunday.
I. S.”
No distinct pleasure was aroused in Waymark as he
read this. As was always the case for hours after
he had left Maud’s presence, her face and voice
lived with him to the exclusion of every other thought.
There was even something of repulsion in the feeling
excited by his thus having the memory of Ida brought
suddenly before him; her face came as an unwelcome
intruder upon the calm, grave mood which always possessed
him on these evenings. In returning home each
Wednesday night, Waymark always sought the speediest
and quietest route, unwilling to be brought in contact
with that life of the streets which at other times
delighted him. Ida’s note seemed a summons
from that world which, for the moment, he held at
a distance. But the call was not to be silenced
at his will. He began to wonder about her life
during the past half-year. Why had she written
just now, after so long a silence? Where, and
under what circumstances, should he meet her?
Did she think to find him the same as when they last
talked together?
Through the night he woke constantly, and always with
thoughts busy about Ida. In the morning his first
impulse was to re-read her message; received so carelessly,
it had in the meantime become of more account, and
Waymark laughed in his wonted way as he saw himself
thus swayed between forces he could not control.
The ordinary day’s task was neglected, and he
impatiently waited for the hour when he could be sure
of finding Ida at home. The address was at Fulham,
and, on reaching it, he found a large new block of
the kind known as model lodging-houses. Ida’s
number was up at the very top. When he knocked,
the door opened immediately, and she stood there,
holding out her hand to him.
She wore the same dress that she had worn at Hastings,
but the gold brooch and watch-chain were missing,
and her hair was arranged in a simpler way. She
was a trifle pale, perhaps, but that might be due
to the excitement of the moment; her voice shook a
little as she spoke.
Waymark looked about him as he went in. There
appeared to be two rooms, one of them a very small
bedroom, the other fitted with a cooking-grate and
oven; the kind of tenement suitable to very poor working-people.
The floors were bare, and there was nothing in the
way of furniture beyond the most indispensable articles:
a table, two chairs, and a few cups, saucers, and
plates on a shelf; through the half-open door, he
saw that the bed-room was equally plain. A fire
was burning, and a kettle on it; and in front, on a
little square piece of carpet, lay Ida’s inseparable
friend, Grim. Grim had lifted his head at Waymark’s
entrance, and, with gathering curiosity in his eyes,
slowly stood up; then stretched himself, and, looking
first at one, then at the other, waited in doubt.
