The Literary Sense. Nesbit Edith

with a pocket-handkerchief that seemed strangely small and cold when the door opened suddenly, and there, close by him, was she, silhouetted against the warm glow of fire and candles.

      "Come in," she said; "you can't possibly see to wash out there."

      Before he knew it her hand was on his arm, and she had drawn him to the warmth and light.

      He looked at her – but her eyes were on the fire.

      "I'll give you some warm water, and you can wash at the sink," she said, closing the door and taking the kettle from the fire.

      He caught sight of his face in the square of looking-glass over the sink tap.

      Was it worth while to go on pretending? Yet his face was still very black. And she evidently had not recognised him. Perhaps – surely she would have the good taste to retire while the tramp washed, so that he could take his coat off? Then he could take flight, and the situation would be saved from absolute farce.

      But when she had poured the hot water into a bowl she sat down in the Windsor chair by the fire and gazed into the hot coals.

      He washed.

      He washed till he was quite clean.

      He dried face and hands on the rough towel.

      He dried them till they were scarlet and shone. But he dared not turn around.

      There seemed no way out of this save by the valley of humiliation. Still she sat looking into the fire.

      As he washed he saw with half a retroverted eye the round table spread with china and glass and silver.

      "As I live – it's set for two!" he told himself. And, in an instant, jealousy answered, once and for all, the questions he had been asking himself since August.

      "Aren't you clean yet?" she said at last.

      How could he speak?

      "Aren't you clean yet?" she repeated, and called him by his name. He turned then quickly enough. She was leaning back in the chair laughing at him.

      "How did you know me?" he asked angrily.

      "Your tramp-voice might have deceived me," she said, "you did do it most awfully well! But, you see, I'd been looking at you for ages before you woke."

      "Then good night," said he.

      "Good night!" said she; "but it's not seven yet!"

      "You're expecting someone," he said, pointing dramatically to the table.

      "Oh, that!" she said; "yes – that was for – for the poor man as had seen better days! There's nothing but eggs – but I couldn't turn a dog from my door on such a night – till I'd fed it!"

      "Do you really mean – ?"

      "Why not?"

      "It's glorious!"

      "It's a picnic."

      "But?" said he.

      "Oh – well! Go if you like!" said she.

      It was not only eggs: it was all sorts of things from that stores box. They ate, and they talked. He told her that he had been bored in town and had sought relief in solitude. That, she told him, was her case also. He told her how he had heard her come in, and how he had hated to take either the obvious course of following her to the kitchen, saying "How do you do?" and retiring to New Romney; or the still more obvious course of sneaking away without asking her how she did. And he told her how he had decided to keep watch over her from the bicycle shed. And how the coal-black inspiration had come to him. And she laughed.

      "That was much more literary than anything else you could have thought of," said she; "it was exactly like a book. And oh – you've no idea how funny you looked."

      They both laughed, and there was a silence.

      "Do you know," he said, "I can hardly believe that this is the first meal we've ever had alone together? It seems as though – "

      "It is funny," she said, smiling hurriedly at him.

      He did not smile. He said: "I want you to tell me why you were so angel-good – why did you let me stay? Why did you lay the pretty table for two?"

      "Because we've never been in the same mood at the same time," she said desperately; "and somehow I thought we should be this evening."

      "What mood?" he asked inexorably.

      "Why – jolly – cheerful," she said, with the slightest possible hesitation.

      "I see."

      There was another silence. Then she said in a voice that fluttered a little —

      "My old governess, Miss Pettingill – you remember old Pet? Well, she's coming by the train that gets in at three. I wired to her from town. She ought to be here by now – "

      "Ought she?" he cried, pushing back his chair and coming towards her – "ought she? Then, by heaven! before she comes I'm going to tell you something – "

      "No, don't!" she cried. "You'll spoil everything. Go and sit down again. You shall! I insist! Let me tell you! I always swore I would some day!"

      "Why?" said he, and sat down.

      "Because I knew you'd never make up your mind to tell me– "

      "To tell you what?"

      "Anything– for fear you should have to say it in the same way someone else had said it before!"

      "Said what?"

      "Anything! Sit still! Now I'm going to tell you."

      She came slowly round the table and knelt on one knee beside him, her elbows on the arm of his chair.

      "You've never had the courage to make up your mind to anything," she began.

      "Is that what you were going to tell me?" he asked, and looked in her eyes till she dropped their lids.

      "No – yes – no! I haven't anything to tell you really. Good night."

      "Aren't you going to tell me?"

      "There isn't anything to tell," she said.

      "Then I'll tell you," said he.

      She started up, and the little brass knocker's urgent summons resounded through the bungalow.

      "Here she is!" she cried.

      He also sprang to his feet.

      "And we haven't told each other anything!" he said.

      "Haven't we? Ah, no – don't! Let me go! There – she's knocking again. You must let me go!"

      He let her slip through his arms.

      At the door she paused to flash a soft, queer smile at him.

      "It was I who told you, after all!" she said. "Aren't you glad? Because that wasn't a bit literary."

      "You didn't. I told you," he retorted.

      "Not you!" she said scornfully. "That would have been too obvious."

      THE LIE ABSOLUTE

      THE tradesmen's books, orderly spread, lay on the rose-wood writing-table, each adorned by its own just pile of gold and silver coin. The books at the White House were paid weekly, and paid in cash. It had always been so. The brown holland blinds were lowered half-way. The lace curtains almost met across the windows. Thus, while, without, July blazed on lawns and paths and borders, in this room a cool twilight reigned. A leisured quiet, an ordered ease, reigned there too, as they had done for every day of Dorothea's thirty-five years. The White House was one of those to which no change comes. None but Death, and Death, however he may have wrung the heart or stunted the soul of the living, had been powerless to change outward seemings. Dorothea had worn a black dress for a while, and she best knew what tears she had wept and for what long months the light of life had gone out of all things. But the tears had not blinded her eyes to the need of a mirror-polish on the old mahogany furniture, and all through those months there had been, at least, the light of duty. The house must be kept as her dead mother had kept it.