She said: “Oh, my dear, you’re not
right. Georgie, I can’t go—if
Mrs. Chater will let me stay I must stay.”
He tried to be calm, to understand these women, to
understand his Mary. “But why?” he
asked. “Why?”
“Dearest, because I must bridge over the time
until you are ready to take me. You see that?”
“Of course. But why there? You can
easily get another place.”
“Oh, easily! If you had been through it
as I have been! The first thing they ask you
for is a reference from your former situation.
Think what a reference Mrs. Chater would give me!”
He would not agree. He plunged along in his blundering,
man fashion: “In time you could get a place
where they would not ask questions—or rather—yes,
of course this is it. Tell them frankly all that
happened. Who could see you and not believe you?
Tell them everything. There must be some nice
people in the world.”
“There may be. But they don’t want
helps or governesses—in my experience.”
The little laugh she gave was sadly doleful.
He was still angry. “You can’t generalise
like that. There are thousands who would believe
you and be glad to take you. Suppose you have
to wait a bit—well, you have a little money
that she must give you; and I—oh, curse
my poverty!—I can borrow, and I can sell
things.”
The help that a man would give a woman so often has
lack of sympathy; he is unkind while meaning to be
kind. George’s obdurateness, coming when
she was most in need of kisses, hurt her. Trouble
welled in her eyes.
“I wouldn’t do that,” she said.
“For one thing, we want all our money.
Why throw it away to get me out of a place in which
I shall only be for a few weeks longer? Another
thing—another thing—” She
dragged a ridiculous handkerchief from her sleeve;
dabbed her brimming eyes. “Another thing—I’m
afraid to risk it. I’m afraid to be alone
and looking for a place again. There—now
you know. I’m a coward.”
She fell to sniffing and sobbing; and her wretched
George, cursing himself for the grief he had evoked,
cursing Bob Chater, cursing Mrs. Chater, cursing his
uncle Marrapit, put his arms about her and drew her
to him. She quivered hysterically, and he frantically
moaned that he was a beast, a brute, unworthy; implored
forgiveness; entreated calm; by squeezing her with
his left arm and with his right hand dabbing her eyes
with her handkerchief, screwed to a pathetic little
damp ball, strove to stem the flood that alarmingly
welled from them.
It was an awful position for any young man; and just
as my poor George, distinguished in nothing, inept,
bewildered, was in a mood murderous to the whole world
save this anguished fairy, a wretched old gentleman
must needs come sunning himself down the path, making
for this seat with hobbling limbs.
He collapsed upon it, and then, glancing to his right,
was struck with palpitations by sight of the heaving
back of a young woman over whose shoulder glared at
him with hideous ferocity the face of a young man.
