The Complete Five Towns Collections. Bennett Arnold

at Adeline and now at the landscape, a perfect content stole over him. He wished that the distance to London could have been multiplied tenfold, and rejoiced in every delay. Then he began to miss the purport of her questions, and she had to repeat them. He was examining his heart. "Is this love?" his thoughts ran. "Do I actually love her now,—now?"

      When the train stopped at New Cross, and Richard said that they would be at London Bridge in a few minutes, she asked when he would go down to Carteret Street.

      "Any time," he said.

      "To-morrow night?"

      He had hoped she would fix the same evening. "When is the theatre-going to commence?" he queried.

      She laughed vaguely: "Soon."

      "Suppose I book seats for the Comedy?"

      "We will talk about it to-morrow night."

      It appeared that her desire for the relaxations of town life had suddenly lost its instancy.

      Immediately he reached the office he wrote a note to Mr. Clayton Vernon. Some three hundred pounds was coming to him under the will of William Vernon, and he had purposed to let Mr. Clayton Vernon invest this sum for him; but the letter asked that a cheque for £25 should be sent by return of post. Later in the afternoon he went to a tailor in Holborn, and ordered two suits of clothes.

      He grew restless and introspective, vainly endeavouring to analyse his feeling towards Adeline. He wished that he had himself suggested that he should call on her that night, instead of allowing her to name Tuesday. When he got home, he looked at the letter which he had received from her a fortnight before, and then, enclosing it in a clean envelope, put it away carefully in his writing-case. He felt that he must preserve all her letters. The evening dragged itself out with desolating tedium. Once he went downstairs intending to go to the theatre, but returned before he had unlatched the front door.

      Mrs. Rowbotham laid his supper that evening, and he began to tell her about his holiday, mentioning, with fictitious naïveté, that he had spent it in the company of a young lady. Soon he gave the whole history of his acquaintance with the Akeds. She warmly praised his kindness towards Adeline.

      "My Lily is keeping company with a young man," she said, after a pause; "a respectable young chap he is, a bus-conductor. This is his night off, and they're gone to the Promenade Concert. I didn't like her going at first, but, bless you, you have to give in. Young folk are young folk, all the world over.... But I must be getting downstairs again. I have to do everything myself to-night. Ah! when a girl falls in love, she forgets her mother. It's natural, I suppose. Well, Mr. Larch, it will be your turn soon, I hope." With that she left the room quickly, missing Richard's hurried disclaimer.

      "So you're engaged, Lily," he said to the girl next morning.

      Lily blushed and nodded; and as he looked at her eyes, he poignantly longed for the evening.

      Chapter XXI

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      They sat by the window and talked till the day began to fade and the lamplighter had passed up the street. Several matters of business needed discussion,—the proving of Mr. Aked's will, the tenancy of the house and the opening of a new banking-account. Richard, who was acting informally as legal adviser, after the manner of solicitors' clerks towards their friends, brought from his pocket some papers for Adeline's signature. She took a pen immediately.

      "Where do I put my name?"

      "But you must read them first."

      "I shouldn't understand them a bit," she said; "and what is the use of employing a lawyer, if one is put to the trouble of reading everything one signs?"

      "Well—please yourself. To-morrow you will have to go before a commissioner for oaths and swear that certain things are true; you'll be compelled to read the affidavits."

      "That I won't! I shall just swear."

      "But you simply must."

      "Sha'n't. If I swear to fibs, it will be your fault."

      "Suppose I read them out to you?"

      "Yes, that would be nicer; but not now, after supper."

      For a few moments there was silence. She stood up and drew her finger in fanciful curves across the window-pane. Richard watched her, with a smile of luxurious content. It appeared to him that all her movements, every inflection of her voice, her least word, had the authenticity and the intrinsic grace of natural phenomena. If she turned her head or tapped her foot, the gesture was right,—having the propriety which springs from absolute self-unconsciousness. Her mere existence from one moment to the next seemed in some mysterious way to suggest a possible solution of the riddle of life. She illustrated nature. She was for him intimately a part of nature, the great Nature which hides itself from cities. To look at her afforded him a delight curiously similar to that which the townsman derives from a rural landscape. Her face had little conventional beauty; her conversation contained no hint either of intellectual powers or of a capacity for deep feeling. But in her case, according to his view, these things were unnecessary, would in fact have been superfluous. She was and that sufficed.

      Mingled with the pleasure which her nearness gave him, there were subordinate but distinct sensations. Except his sister Mary, he had never before been upon terms of close familiarity with any woman, and he realised with elation that now for the first time the latencies of manhood were aroused. His friendship—if indeed it were nothing else—with this gracious, inscrutable creature seemed a thing to be very proud of, to gloat upon in secret, to contemplate with a dark smile as one walked along the street or sat in a bus.... And then, with a shock of joyful, half-incredulous surprise, he made the discovery that she—she—had found some attractiveness in himself.

      Their loneliness gave zest and piquancy to the situation. On neither side were there relatives or friends who might obtrude, or whom it would be proper to consult. They had only themselves to consider. Not a soul in London, with the exception of Lottie, knew of their intimacy,—the visit to Littlehampton, their plans for visiting the theatres, her touching reliance upon him. Ah, that confiding feminine trust! He read it frequently in her glance, and it gave him a sense of protective possession. He had approached no closer than to shake her hand, and yet, as he looked at the slight frame, the fragile fingers, the tufts of hair which escaped over her ears,—these things seemed to be his. Surely she had donned that beautiful dress for him; surely she moved gracefully for him, talked softly for him!

      He left his chair, quietly lighted the candles at the piano, and began to turn over some songs.

      "What are you doing?" she asked, from the window.

      "I want you to sing."

      "Must I?"

      "Certainly. Let me find something with an easy accompaniment."

      She came towards him, took up a song, opened it, and bade him look at it.

      "Too difficult," he said abruptly. "Those arpeggios in the bass,—I couldn't possibly play them."

      She laid it aside obediently.

      "Well, this?"

      "Yes. Let us try that."

      She moved nearer to him, to miss the reflection of the candles on the paper, and put her hands behind her back. She cleared her throat. He knew she was nervous, but he had no such feeling himself.

      "Ready?" he asked, glancing round and up into her face. She smiled timidly, flushing, and then nodded.

      "No," she exclaimed the next second, as he boldly struck the first chord. "I don't think I'll sing. I can't."

      "Oh, yes, you will—yes, you will."

      "Very well." She resigned herself.

      The first few notes were tremulous, but quickly she gained courage. The song was a mediocre drawing-room ballad, and