XIX

THE HIGH-WATER MARK

Netty did not smoke.  She confessed to being rather an old-fashioned person.  Which is usually accounted to her for righteousness by men, who, so far as women are concerned, are intensely conservative—­such men, at all events, whose opinion it is worth a woman’s while to value.

Miss Mangles, on the other hand, made a point of smoking a cigarette from time to time in public.  There were two reasons.  The ostensible reason, which she gave freely when asked for it, and even without the asking—­namely, that she was not going to allow men to claim the monopoly of tobacco.  There was the other reason, which prompts so many actions in these blatant times—­the unconscious reason that, in going counter to ancient prejudices respecting her sex, she showed contempt for men, and meted out a bitter punishment to the entire race for having consistently and steadily displayed a complete indifference to herself.

Miss Mangles announced her intention of smoking a cigarette this evening, upon which Netty rose and said that if they were not long over their tobacco they would find her in the drawing-room.

The Mangles’ salon was separated from the dining-room by Joseph’s apartment—­a simple apartment in no way made beautiful by his Spartan articles of dress and toilet.  The drawing-room was at the end of the passage, and there was a gas-jet at each corner of the corridor.  Netty went to the drawing-room, but stopped short on the threshold.  Contrary to custom, the room was dark.  The old-fashioned chandelier in the centre of the large, bare apartment glittered in the light of the gas-jet in the passage.  Netty knew that there were matches on the square china stove opposite to the door, which stood open.  She crossed the room, and as she did so the door behind her, which was on graduated hinges, swung to.  She was in the dark, but she knew where the stove was.

Suddenly her heart leaped to her throat.  There was some one in the room.  The soft and surreptitious footstep of a person making his way cautiously to the door was unmistakable.  Netty tried to speak—­to ask who was there.  But her voice failed.  She had read of such a failure in books, but it had never been her lot to try to speak and to find herself dumb until now.

Instinctively she turned and faced the mysterious and terrifying sound.  Then her courage came quite suddenly to her again.  Like many diminutive persons, she was naturally brave.  She moved towards the door, her small slippers and soft dress making no sound.  As the fugitive touched the door-handle she stretched out her hand and grasped a rough sleeve.  Instantly there was a struggle, and Netty fought in the dark with some one infinitely stronger and heavier than herself.  That it was a man she knew by the scent of tobacco and of rough working-clothes.  She had one hand on the handle, and in a moment turned it and threw open the door.  The light from without flooded the room, and the man leaped back.