"I don"t find her strange," he said. "Strange! What a word! She"s a good girl, that"s what she is,-as open as a book, with nothing to hide. And she"s our girl, and she"s doing her job without grumbling, and she"s doubling the business. And what"s more, she"s cheerful and happy and loving. I"m d.a.m.ned if I can see anything strange about her. You certainly have a knack of saying queer things about Lola, one way "n"
another, you have!" And he marched out of the parlor in a kind of fat huff, only to march back again immediately to put his arm round the little woman"s neck and give her an apologetic kiss. He was one of these men who loved peace at any price and erected high barriers round himself in order that he shouldn"t see anything to disturb his ease of mind. It was the same form of brain anaemia, the same lack of moral courage from which the Liberal Government had suffered in the face of the warning of Lord Roberts. In other words, the policy of the ostrich. Knowing very well that his wife had all the brains of the partnership and never said anything for the mere sake of saying it, he was quite sure that she was right as to Lola, and he had himself almost swallowed one of the little screws that played so large a part in the interior of his watches on seeing the look that Mrs. Breezy had described on the face of his little girl as she sat perched up on a high stool waiting for the next customer, with her eyes on something very far away. And because this gave him a jar and frightened him a little, he persuaded himself that what he had seen he had not seen, because it was uncomfortable to see it. It is a form of mental dope and it suits all sorts of const.i.tutions,-like religion.
And so, blotting out of his mind the little conversation which had taken place over the teapot, Breezy returned to his job, his fat hands working on the intricate mechanisms of his Swiss and American invalids with astonishing delicacy of touch; and all the while he whistled softly through his teeth. He was never at a loss for a tune because the flotsam and jetsam that came in and went out of Queen"s Road, Bayswater, with their tired pianos, their squeaky fiddles, and their throaty baritones provided him with all the sentimental ballads of yesterday and to-day.
It was seven o"clock when he looked up and saw Lola enter with Ernest Treadwell,-the girl with a reflection of all the flowers of Hampton Court in her eyes and the boy with love and adoration in his. It was true that all about him there was a great improvement, a more healthy appearance, a look of honest sleep and clean thinking. But he was still the same ugly duckling with obstreperous hair and unfortunate teeth and a half-precocious, half-timid manner. All the same, the fairies had touched him at his birth and endowed him with that strange thing that is called genius. He had the soul of a poet.
"Come up," said Lola, "you"re not doing anything to-night, so you may as well stay to dinner. I"ve found something I want to read to you."
She waved her hand to her father, smiled at her mother who was selling note-paper to a housemaid from Inverness Terrace for love letters-and so the paper was pink-and led the way upstairs to the drawing-room which had been opened up and put in daily use. Its Sabbath look and Sabbath smell, its antimaca.s.sars had disappeared. There were books about, many books; sevenpenny editions of novels that hadn"t fallen quite stillborn from the press, and one or two by Wells and Lawrence and Somerset Maugham.
"Sit down for a moment, Ernie," she said, "and make yourself happy. I"ll be with you again in five minutes." And he looked after her with a dog"s eyes and sat down to watch the door with a dog"s patience.
In her own room she went to her desk, unlocked a drawer and took out a page cut from _The Tatler_ on which was reproduced a photograph of Fallaray. She had framed it and kept it hidden away under lock and key, and always when she came home from her walks, and several times a day when she could slip up and shut herself in for a moment or two, she took it out to gaze at it and press it to her breast. It was her last link, her last and everlasting link with the foolish dreams with which that room was so intimately a.s.sociated,-a room no longer made up to represent that of a courtesan; a normal room now, suitable to the daughter of a watchmaker in Queen"s Road, Bayswater.
The evening sun gilded the commonplace line of the roofs opposite as she stood in the window with Fallaray"s face against her heart.
"I love you," she said, "I love you. I shall always love you, and if I die first, I shall wait for you on the other side of the Bridge."
She returned it to its hiding place, took off her hat, tidied her hair, picked up a little book and went back to the drawing-room.
"Listen," she said, "this is for you.
""I shall see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive,-what time, what circuit first, I ask not; but unless G.o.d send His hail Or blinding fire-b.a.l.l.s, sleet or stifling snow, In some time, His good time, I shall arrive; He guides me and the bird. In His good time.""
And as the boy watched her and saw her light up as though there were something burning in her heart, he knew that those lines were as much for herself as for him.
THE END