But it was not the cleverness that Anthony envied. That would have been fatal to their friendship. He never could answer satisfactorily when Anthony would question him as to what he was going to be—what he was going to do with all his cleverness. He hadn’t made up his mind, he wasn’t quite sure. Sometimes he thought he would be a poet, at other times a musician or an artist, or go in for politics and be a statesman.
“Which are you going to begin with when you leave school?” demanded Anthony. They had been studying in young Tetteridge’sbed-sitting-room and the lesson was over. Anthony’s eyes were fixed upon a motto over the washstand:
“One thing at a time, and that done well,Is a very good rule, as many can tell.”
“One thing at a time, and that done well,Is a very good rule, as many can tell.”
“One thing at a time, and that done well,Is a very good rule, as many can tell.”
“One thing at a time, and that done well,
Is a very good rule, as many can tell.”
Young Tetteridge admitted that the time was approaching when the point would have to be considered.
Anthony was sitting on his hands, swinging his legs. Young Tetteridge was walking up and down; owing to the size of the room being ten by twelve it was a walk with many turns.
“You see,” explained Anthony, “you’re not a gentlefolk.”
Mr. Tetteridge claimed that he was, though personally attaching no importance to the fact. His father had been an Indian official. His mother, had she wished, could have claimed descent from one of the most renowned of Irish kings.
“What I mean,” explained Anthony, “is that you’ve got to work for your living.”
Mr. Tetteridge argued that he could live on very little. He was living just then on twelve shillings a week, picked up one way and another.
“But when you’re married and have children?” suggested Anthony.
Mr. Tetteridge flushed, and his eyes instinctivelyturned to a small photograph on the mantelpiece. It featured a pretty dolly-faced girl, the daughter of one of the masters at the grammar school.
“You haven’t got any friends, have you?” asked Anthony.
Mr. Tetteridge shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he answered.
“Couldn’t you keep a school?” suggested Anthony, “for little boys and girls whose mothers don’t like them going to the parish school and who ain’t good enough for the Miss Warmingtons? There’s heaps of new people always coming here. And you’re so clever at teaching.”
Mr. Tetteridge, halting suddenly, stretched out his hand; and Anthony, taking his from underneath him, they shook.
“Thanks awfully,” said Mr. Tetteridge. “Do you know I’d never thought of that.”
“I shouldn’t say anything about it if I was you,” counselled Anthony, “or somebody else might slip in and do it before you were ready.”
“We say, ‘if I were you’; not ‘if I was you,’” Mr. Tetteridge corrected him. “We’ll take the subjunctive mood tomorrow. It’s quite easy to remember.”
Again he stretched out his hand. “It’s awfully good of you,” he said.
“I’d like you not to go away from Millsborough,” answered Anthony.
The period of prosperity following the visit of Wandering Peter had lasted all but two years. It came to an end with the death of his father. It was while working on his new invention that the accident had happened.
He was alone in the workshop one evening after supper; and while hoisting a heavy iron bar the rope had broken and the bar had fallen upon him and crushed his skull. He lingered for a day or two, mostly unconscious. It was a few hours before the end that Anthony, who had been sent upstairs by his mother to see if anything had happened, found his father with his eyes wide open. The man made a sign to him to close the door. The boy did so and then came and stood beside the bed.
“There won’t be anything left, sonny,” his father whispered. “I’ve been a fool. Everything I could get or borrow I put into it. It would have been all right, of course, if I had lived and could have finished it. Your mother doesn’t know, as yet. Break it to her after I’m gone, d’you mind. I haven’t the pluck.”
Anthony promised. There seemed to be more that his father wanted to say. He lay staring atthe child with a foolish smile about his loose, weak mouth. Anthony sat on the edge of the bed and waited. He put his hand on the boy’s thigh.
“I wish I could say something to you,” he whispered. “You know what I mean: something that you could treasure up and that would be of help to you. I’ve always wanted to. When you used to ask questions and I was short with you, it was because I couldn’t answer them. I used to lie awake at night and try to think them out. And then I thought that when I came to die something might happen, that perhaps I’d have a vision or something of that sort—they say that people do, you know—that would make it all plain to me and that I’d be able to tell you. But it hasn’t come. I suppose I ain’t the right sort. It all seems dark to me.”
His mind wandered, and after a few incoherent words he closed his eyes again. He did not regain consciousness.
Anthony broke it to his mother—about everything having been sacrificed to the latest new invention.
“Lord love the man!” she answered. “Did he think I didn’t know? We were just a pair of us. I persuaded myself it was going to pan out all right this time.”
They were standing by the bedside. His mother had been up to the great house and had brought back with her a fine wreath of white flowers. They lay upon the sheet just over his breast. Anthony hardly knew his father; the weak, twitching lips were closed and formed a firm, strong line. Apart from the mouth his face had always been beautiful; though, lined with fret and worry and the fair hair grimy and uncombed, few had ever noticed it. His mother stooped and kissed the high pale brow.
“He is like what I remember him at the beginning,” she said. “You can see that he was a gentleman, every inch of him.”
His mother looked younger standing there beside her dead man. A softness had come into her face.
“You did your best, my dear,” she said, “and I guess I wasn’t much help to you.”
Everybody spoke well of the white, handsome man who lay with closed eyes and folded hands as if saying his prayers. Anthony had no idea that his father had been so universally liked and respected.
“Was father any relation to Mr. Selwyn?” he asked his mother the evening of the funeral.
“Relation!” answered his mother. “Not that I ever heard of. Why, what makes you ask?”
“He called him ‘brother,’” explained Anthony.
“Oh, that,” answered his mother. “Oh, that doesn’t mean that he really was his brother. It’s just a way of speaking of the dead.”
They moved into a yet smaller house in a yet meaner street. His mother had always been clever with her needle. A card in the front window gave notice that Mrs. Strong’nth’arm, dressmaker and milliner, was willing to make up ladies’ own materials and guaranteed both style and fit. Mill hands and miners’ wives and daughters supplied her clientêle. When things were going well orders were sufficient to keep Mrs. Strong’nth’arm’s sewing machine buzzing and clacking from morn till night.
There were periods, of course, when work was slack and bills remained unpaid. But on the whole there was enough to just keep and clothe them. It was the problem of Anthony’s education that troubled them both.
And here again it was the Church that came to their rescue. The pious founder of St. Aldys’ Grammar School had decreed “Foundation Scholarships” enabling twelve poor boys belonging to the faith to be educated free, selection being in the hands of the governors. Sir William Coomber happened to be one, the Vicar another. YoungTetteridge, overcoming his shyness, canvassed the remainder, taking Anthony with him. There was anxiety, alternation of hope and fear. In the end victory. Anthony, subjected to preliminary examination, was deemed sufficiently advanced for the third form. Sir William Coomber wrote him a note, the handwriting somewhat shaky, telling him to serve God and honour the Queen and be a blessing to his mother. And if ever there was anything that Sir William could do for him to help him he was to let Sir William know. The Vicar shook hands with him and wished him godspeed, adding incidentally that heaven helps those that help themselves. The headmaster received him in his study and was sure they were going to be friends. Young Tetteridge gave a cold collation in his honour, to which the head of the third form, the captain of the second division of the football team and three gentlemen of the upper sixth were invited. The captain of the second division of the football team examined his legs and tested his wind and expressed satisfaction. Jarvis, of the upper sixth, made a speech in his honour, quite a kindly speech, though it did rather suggest God Almighty to a promising black beetle; and Anthony was called upon to reply.
Excess of diffidence had never been his failing.It never was to be. He said he was glad he was going to be in the third form, because he did like Billy Saunders very much indeed. And he was glad that Mr. Williamson thought he’d be all right in time for football, because he thought it a jolly game and wanted to play it awfully, if Mr. Williamson would help him and tell him what to do. And, he thought it awfully kind of Mr. Jarvis and Mr. Harrocks and Mr. Andrews to take notice of a little boy like he was; and he hoped that when he got into the upper sixth he’d be like them. And he was awfully bucked up at being one of the St. Aldys boys, because he thought it must be the finest school in all the world, and it was awfully ripping of Mr. Tetteridge to have got him into it. And then he sat down and everybody said “Bravo!” and banged the table, and Mr. Jarvis said it wasn’t half bad for a young ’un.
“Did I do all right?” he asked young Tetteridge after the others had gone.
“Splendiferous,” answered young Tetteridge, putting an affectionate arm around him. “You said something about all of them.”
“Yes; I thought they’d like that,” said Anthony.
He discovered that other sentiments than kindliness go to the making of a school. It leaked out that he was a “cropped head.” The founder—maybefor hygienic reasons—had stipulated that his twelve free scholars should wear their hair cut close. The custom had fallen into disuetude, but the name still clung to them. By the time they had reached the upper division they had come to be tolerated. But the early stages were made hard for them. Anthony was dubbed “Pauper,” “Charity boy.” On the bench the boys right and left of him would draw away so that they might not touch him. In the playground he was left severely to himself. That he was quick and clever at his lessons and that the masters liked him worked still further to his disadvantage. At first young Saunders stuck up for him, but finding this made him a sharer of Anthony’s unpopularity soon dropped him, throwing the blame upon Anthony.
“You see it isn’t only your having come in on the ‘Foundation,’” he explained one day to Anthony, having beckoned him aside to a quiet corner behind a water-butt. “You ought to have told me your mother was a dressmaker.”
“So is young Harringay’s mother,” argued Anthony.
“Yes; but she keeps a big shop and employs girls to do the sewing,” explained Saunders. “Your mother lives in Snelling’s Row and works with herown hands. You ought to have told me. It wasn’t fair.”
Ever since he could remember there had been cropping up things that Anthony could not understand. In his earlier days he had worried about these matters and had asked questions concerning them. But never had he succeeded in getting a helpful answer. As a consequence he had unconsciously become a philosopher. The wise traveller coming to an unknown country accepts what he finds there and makes the best of it.
“Sorry,” replied Anthony, and left it at that.
One day in the playground a boy pointed at him. He was standing with a little group watching the cricket.
“His mother goes out charing,” the boy shouted.
Anthony stole a glance at the boy without making any sign of resentment. As a matter of fact his mother did occasionally go out charing on days when there was no demand for her needle. He was a lithe, muscular-looking lad some three inches taller than Anthony.
“Ain’t you going to fight him?” suggested a small boy near by with a hopeful grin upon his face.
“Not yet,” answered Anthony, and resumed his interest in the game.
There was an old crony of his uncle’s, an ex-prize fighter. To this man Anthony made appeal. Mr. Dobb was in a quandary. Moved by Mrs. Newt’s warnings and exhortations, he had lately taken up religion and was now running a small public-house in one of the many mining villages adjoining Millsborough.
“It’s agin ‘the Book,’” he answered. “Fighting’s wrong. ‘Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek turn to him the other also.’ Haven’t tried that, have you?”
“He hasn’t done it,” explained Anthony. “He called my mother a charwoman. They’re always on to me, shouting after me ‘pauper’ and ‘charity boy.’”
“Damn shame,” murmured Mr. Dobb forgetfully.
“There’s something inside me,” explained Anthony, “that makes me want to kill them and never mind what happens to me afterwards. It’s that that I’m afraid of. If I could just give one or two of them a good licking it would stop it.”
Mr. Dobb scratched his head. “Wish you’d come to me a year ago, my lad,” he said, “before your aunt got me to promise to read a chapter of the Bible every night before I went to sleep.” He looked down at Anthony with an approvingprofessional eye. “You’ve got the shoulders, and your neck might have been made for it. Your reach couldn’t be better for your height. And all you need is another inch round your wind. In a couple of months I could have turned you out equal to anything up to six stun seven.”
“But the Bible tells us to fight,” argued Anthony. “Yes, it does,” he persisted in reply to Mr. Dobb’s stare of incredulity. “It was God who told Saul to slay all the Amalekites. It was God who taught David to fight, David says so himself. He helped him to fight Goliath.”
Mrs. Newt, having regard to Mr. Dobb’s age, had advised him to read the New Testament first. He had just completed the Acts.
“Are you quite sure?” demanded Mr. Dobb.
Anthony found chapter and verse and read them to him.
“Well, this beats me into a cocked hat,” was Mr. Dobb’s comment. “Seems to me to be a case of paying your money and taking your choice.”
Mr. Dobb’s scruples being thus laid at rest, he threw himself into the training of Anthony with the enthusiasm of an artist. Anthony promised not to fight till Mr. Dobb gave his consent, and for the rest of the term bore his purgatory in silence. On the last day of the vacation Mr. Dobb pronounced himfit; and on the next morning Anthony set off hopeful of an early opportunity to teach his persecutors forbearance. They were interfering with his work. He wanted to be done with them. To his disappointment no chance occurred that day. A few of the customary jibes were hurled at him; they came, unfortunately, from boys too small to be of any use as an example.
But on his way home the next afternoon he saw, to his delight, young Penlove and Mowbray, of the lower fourth, turn up a quiet road that led through a little copse to the bathing place. Penlove was the boy who had called his mother a charwoman. Young Mowbray belonged to the swells; his father was the leading solicitor of Millsborough. He was a quiet, amiable youth with soft eyes and a pink and white complexion.
Anthony followed them, and when they reached the edge of the copse he ran and overtook them. It was not a good day for bathing, there being a chill east wind, and nobody else was in sight.
They heard Anthony behind them and turned.
“Coming for a swim?” asked young Mowbray pleasantly.
“Not today, thank you,” answered Anthony. “It’s Penlove I wanted to speak to. It won’t take very long.”
Penlove was looking at him with a puzzled expression. Anthony was an inch taller than when Penlove had noticed him last.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“You called my mother a charwoman last term,” answered Anthony. “She does go out cleaning when she can’t get anything else to do. I think it fine of her. She wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t for me. But you meant it as an insult, didn’t you?”
“Well,” answered young Penlove, “what if I did?” He guessed what was coming, and somehow felt doubtful of the result notwithstanding the two years difference between them.
“I want you to say that you’re sorry and promise never to do it again,” answered Anthony.
It had to be gone through. Young Penlove girded his loins—to be exact, shortened his belt by a couple of holes and determined to acquit himself like an English schoolboy. Young Mowbray stepped to the end of the copse for the purpose of keeping cave.
It was a short fight, for which young Mowbray, who always felt a little sick on these occasions, was glad. Penlove was outclassed from the beginning. After the third round he held up his hand and gave Anthony best. Anthony helped him to rise, andseeing he was still groggy, propped him up against a tree.
“Never mind saying you’re sorry,” he suggested. “Leave me and my mother alone for the future, that’s all I want.” He held out his hand.
Young Mowbray had returned.
“Shake hands with him,” he advised Penlove. “You were in the wrong. Show your pluck by acknowledging it.”
Penlove shook hands. “Sorry,” he said. “We have been beastly to you. Take my tip and don’t stand any more of it.”
The story of the fight got about. Penlove had to account for his changed appearance, and did so frankly. Genuine respect was the leading sentiment he now entertained towards Anthony.
It was shared by almost the entire third class, the only criticism directed against Anthony being for his selection of time and place. The fight ought to have been arranged for a Friday afternoon behind the pavilion, when all things might have been ordered according to ancient custom. That error could and must be rectified. Penlove’s account of Anthony’s prowess might have been exaggerated to excuse his own defeat. Norcop, a hefty youngster and the pride of the lower fourth, might have given a different account. Anthony, on his way hometwo days later, was overtaken in a quiet street by young Mowbray.
“You’ll have to fight Norcop next Friday week,” he told Anthony. “If you lick him there’s to be an end of it, and you’re to be left alone. I thought I’d let you know in time.”
Mowbray lived at the Priory, an old Georgian house with a big garden the other end of the town. He had come far out of his way.
“It’s awfully kind of you,” said Anthony.
“I hope you’ll win,” said Mowbray. “I’m a Socialist. I think it rubbish all this difference between the classes. I think we’re all equal, and so does my sister. She’s awfully well read.”
Anthony was not paying much attention. His mind was occupied with the ordeal before him.
“He’s rather good, isn’t he, Harry Norcop?” he asked.
“That’s why they’re putting him up,” answered Mowbray. “It’s a rotten silly idea. It’s the way that pack of wolves settle their differences. And the wolf that goes down all the others turn away from and try to make it worse for the poor begger. We’re just the same. If you get licked on Friday you’ll be persecuted worse than ever. There’s no sense in it.”
Anthony looked round at him. It was new sort of talk, this. Young Mowbray flushed.
“I wonder if you could get to like me,” he said. “I liked you so for what you said to Penlove about your thinking it fine of your mother to go out cleaning. I haven’t got any friends among the boys; not real ones. They think me a muff.”
“I don’t,” answered Anthony. “I think you talk awfully interestingly. I’d like tremendously to be friends.”
Mowbray flushed again, with pleasure this time. “Won’t keep you now,” he said. “I do hope you’ll win.”
Anthony never left more than he could help to chance. For the next week all his spare time was passed in the company of Mr. Dobb, who took upon himself the duties not only of instructor but of trainer.
On the following Friday afternoon Anthony stepped into the ring with feelings of pleasurable anticipation.
“Don’t you go in feeling angry or savage,” had been Mr. Dobb’s parting instruction. “Nothing interferes with a man’s wind more than getting mad. Just walk into him as if you loved him and were doing it for the glory of God.”
The chorus of opinion afterwards was that it hadbeen a pretty fight. That Norcop had done his best and that no disgrace attached to him. And that Strong’nth’arm was quite the best man for his years and weight that St. Aldys had produced so far back as the oldest boy could remember. The monitors shook hands with him, and the smaller fry crowded round him and contended for his notice. From ostracism he passed in half an hour to the leadership of the third class. It seemed a curious way of gaining honour and affection. Anthony made a note of it.
This principle that if a thing had to be done no pains should be spared towards the doing of it well he applied with equal thoroughness to the playing of his games. For lessons in football and cricket he exchanged lessons in boxing. Cricket he did not care for. With practice at the nets it was easy enough to become a good batsman; but fielding was tiresome. There was too much hanging about, too much depending upon other people. Football appealed to him. It was swift and ceaseless. He loved the manœuvring, the subterfuge, the seeming yielding, till the moment came for the sudden rush. He loved the fierce scrimmage, when he could let himself go, putting out all his strength.
But it was not for the sake of the game that heplayed. Through sport lay the quickest road to popularity. Class distinctions did not count. You made friends that might be useful. One never knew.
His mother found it more and more difficult to make both ends meet. If she should fail before he was ready! Year by year Millsborough increased in numbers and in wealth. On the slopes above the town new, fine houses were being built. Her mill owners and her manufacturers, her coal-masters and her traders, with all their followers and their retainers, waxed richer and more prosperous. And along the low-lying land, beside the foul, black Wyndbeck, spread year by year new miles of mean, drab streets; and the life of her poor grew viler and more cursed.
St. Aldys’ Grammar School stood on the northern edge of the old town. Anthony’s way home led him through Hill Terrace. From the highest point one looks down on two worlds: old Millsborough, small and picturesque, with its pleasant ways and its green spaces, and beyond its fine new houses with their gardens and its tree-lined roads winding upward to the moor; on the other hand, new Millsborough, vast, hideous, deathlike in its awful monotony.
The boy would stop sometimes, and a wild terrorwould seize him lest all his efforts should prove futile and in that living grave he should be compelled to rot and die.
To escape from it, to “get on,” at any cost! Nothing else mattered.
An idea occurred to Anthony. The more he turned it over in his mind the more it promised. Young Tetteridge had entered upon his last term. The time would soon come for the carrying out of Anthony’s suggestion that in some mean street of Millsborough he should set up a school for the sons of the ambitious poor.
Why should not one house do for them both? To Mr. Tetteridge for his classroom and study the ground floor; to his mother for her dressmaking and millinery the floor above; the three attics for bedrooms; in the basement the common dining-room and kitchen. There were whole streets of such houses, with steps up to the front door and a bow window. Mr. Tetteridge would want someone to look after him, to “do for” him. Whom more capable, more conscientious than Mrs. Strong’nth’arm? The gain would be mutual. His mother would be working for better-off customers. She could put up her prices. Mr. Tetteridge would save in rent and board.
Mr. Tetteridge was quite carried away by the brilliance and simplicity of the proposal.
“And there will be you and your dear mother always there,” he concluded. “It is so long since I had a home.”
To his mother the rise from Snelling’s Row to Bridlington Street was a great event. It brought tears of happiness to her eyes. Also she approved of Mr. Tetteridge.
“It will be so good for you,” she said to Anthony, “living with a gentleman.”
There was the furnishing. Mr. Tetteridge’s study, into which parents would have to be shown, must breathe culture, dignified scholasticism. Mr. Tetteridge’s account at Her Majesty’s savings bank was a little over twenty pounds. That must not be touched. Sickness, the unexpected, must be guarded against. Anthony went to see his aunt. That with the Lord’s help she had laid by a fair-sized nest-egg she had in a rash moment of spiritual exaltation confided to him. Loans of half a sovereign, and even of a five-pound note, amply secured and bearing interest at the rate of a shilling in the pound per week, she was always prepared to entertain. Anthony wanted a hundred pounds at ten per cent. per annum, to be repaid on the honour of a gentleman.
The principal required frightened her almost into a fit. Besides she hadn’t got it. The rate ofinterest, which according to complicated calculations of her own worked out at considerably less than halfpenny a pound per week, did not tempt her. About the proposed security there seemed to her a weakness.
In years to come the things without a chance that Anthony Strong’nth’arm pulled off, the impracticable schemes that with a wave of his hand became sound business propositions, the hopeless enterprises into which he threw himself and carried through to victory, grew to be the wonder and bewilderment of Millsborough. But never in all his career was he called upon again to face such an absolutely impossible stone waller as his aunt’s determination on that Friday afternoon not to be bamboozled out of hard-won savings by any imp of Satan, even if for her sins he happened to be her own nephew.
How he did it Mrs. Newt was never able to explain. It was not what he said, though heaven knows there was no lack of that. Mrs. Newt’s opinion was that by words alone he could have got it out of a stone. It was some strange magic he seemed to possess that made her—to use her own simile—as clay in the hands of the potter.
She gave him that one hundred pounds in twenty five-pound notes, thanking God from the bottom ofher heart that he hadn’t asked for two. In exchange he drew from his pocket, and pressed into her hand a piece of paper. What it was about and what she had done with it she never knew. She remembered there was a stamp on it.
She also remembered, when she came to her senses, that he had put his arms about her and had hugged her, and that she had kissed him good-bye and had given him a message to his mother. At the end of the first twelve months he brought her thirty pounds, explaining to her that that left eighty still owing. And what astonished her most was that she wasn’t surprised. It was just as if she had expected it.
The pupils came in. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm, knowing many folk, was of much help.
Mrs. Strong’nth’arm’s idea had been to call upon some half a dozen likely parents, to appeal to them for their support of a most deserving case: a young would-be schoolmaster of whose character and ability she could not speak too highly.
“And they’ll tell you it’s very kind of you to try and assist the poor young gentleman, but that as regards their own particular progeny they’ve decided to send him somewhere else,” explained Anthony.
“How do you know?” argued his mother.“Why, Mrs. Glenny, the china shop woman, was telling me only a month ago how worried she was about her boy, not knowing where to send him.”
“You drop in on Mrs. Glenny,” counselled Anthony, “and talk about the weather and how the price of everything is going up. And as you’re coming away just mention casually how everybody is talking about this new school that Mr. Tetteridge has just started; and how everybody is trying to get their boys into it; and how they won’t be able to, seeing that young Tetteridge has told you that he can only receive a limited number; and how you’ve promised Mrs. Herring to use your influence with Tetteridge in favour of her boy Tom. Leave Mrs. Glenny to do the rest.”
People had a habit of asking Anthony his age; and when he told them they would look at him very hard and say: “Are you quite sure?”
His uncle was taken ill late in the year. He had caught rheumatic fever getting himself wet through on the moors. He made a boast of never wearing an overcoat. Anthony found him sitting up in bed. A carpenter friend had fixed him up a pulley from the ceiling by which he could raise himself with his hands. Old Simon was sitting watching him, his chin upon the bed. Simon had been sufferinghimself from rheumatism during the last two winters and seemed to understand.
“Don’t tell your aunt,” he said. “She’ll have them all praying round me and I’ll get no peace. But I’ve got a feeling it’s the end. I’m hoping to slip off on the quiet, like.”
Anthony asked if he could do anything. He had always liked his uncle; they felt there was a secret bond between them.
“Look after the old chap,” his uncle answered; “that is if I go first.”
He stretched out a stiff arm and laid it on old Simon’s head. “Ninety years old he’ll be on the fourteenth,” he said, “reckoning six years of a dog’s life as equal to one of a man’s. And I’m sixty-five. We haven’t done so badly, either of us.”
Anthony drew up a chair and sat down between the two.
“Nothing you want to talk about, is there?” he asked. The old man knew what he meant. He shook his head.
“Been talking about it or listening to it, on and off, pretty well all my life,” he answered. “Never got any further.”
He was silent a while, wrestling with his pain.
“Of course, I believe in a God,” he said. “There must be Somebody bossing it all. It’s the things they tell you about Him that I’ve never been able to swallow. Don’t fit in with common sense to my thinking.”
“You’re not afraid?” Anthony asked him after a silence.
“Why should I be?” answered the old man. “He knows me. He ain’t expecting anything wonderful. If I’m any good maybe He’ll find me a job. If not——”
Old Simon had crept closer. They were looking into each other’s eyes.
“Wonder if there’ll be any dogs?” he said. “Don’t see why there shouldn’t. If love and faithfulness and self-forgetfulness are going to be of any use to Him, what’s wrong with you, old chap?”
He laughed. “Don’t tell your aunt I said that,” he cautioned Anthony. “She’s worried enough about me, poor old girl, as it is.”
His aunt had looked for a death-bed repentance, but the end came before she expected it, in the night.
“He wasn’t really a bad man,” she said, crying. “That’s what made me hope, right to the end, that the Truth would be revealed to him.”
Anthony sought to comfort her. “Perhaps it came to him when he was alone,” he said.
She clung to that.
The burying of him was another trouble. She had secured the site she had always wished for herself beneath the willow. She would have liked him to be laid there beside her, but his views and opinions had been too well known to her people. They did not want him among them. There was a neglected corner of the big cemetery set apart for such as he; but to lay him there would be to abandon hope. The Lord would never venture there. Anthony suggested the Church. He undertook to interview the vicar, a kindly old gentleman, who possibly would ask no questions.
He found the vicar in the vestry. There had been a meeting of the churchwardens. The Reverend Mr. Sheepskin was a chubby, blue-eyed gentleman. He had heard of Anthony’s uncle. “A very hard nut to crack,” so the vicar had been given to understand.
“But was always willing to listen, I gathered,” added the vicar. “So perhaps the fault was ours. We didn’t go about it the right way.”
Something moved Anthony to tell the vicar what his uncle had once said to him when he was a child about the world being a very different place ifpeople really did believe all that they say they believe.
He wished he hadn’t said it, for the old gentleman sat silent for what seemed quite a long time.
“What did they answer him?” he asked at length. “Did he tell you?”
“He said they never did answer him that,” replied Anthony.
The vicar looked at him across the green baize.
“There isn’t any answer,” he said. “Your uncle had us there.”
“I dreamed of it once.” The light was fading; maybe he forgot that young Anthony was sitting there over against him in the shadows. “Living for Christ, taking no thought of aught else. What ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink or wherewithal ye shall be clothed. It’s a big thing—Believing.”
He seemed to have become aware again of the boy sitting there half hidden by the shadows.
“Most of us, Strong’nth’arm,” he said, “think that all we’ve got to do is to sing about it, to repeat it in the proper places. It isn’t enough. Take up thy cross and follow me. That’s where the trouble begins. Easy enough to worship it with folded hands. It is taking it up, carrying it with bowed head and aching shoulders, that’s the bother of it.”
He rose, pushing back his chair with a grating sound upon the uncarpeted floor.
“You see,” he said, “it isn’t only oneself. One might do it if one were alone. The Roman Church is right on that point. And yet it doesn’t work, even with them. The world gets hold of them. What’s the date?” he said suddenly.
“December the fifth,” Anthony told him.
“Just three weeks to Christmas.” He was walking up and down the bare cold room. He halted a few steps in front of the lad. “Do you know what Christmas means to me? You will later on. Bills. Butcher’s bills, baker’s bills, bootmaker’s bills—there’s something uncanny about the number of boots that children seem to want. And then there’s their school bills and their doctor’s bills and the Christmas boxes and the presents. It’s funny when you come to think of it. Christ’s birthday. And I’ve come to dread it. What were we all talking about this afternoon here in the vestry? How to help Christ? How to spread His gospel? No, pew rates, tithes, clergy relief funds, curates’ salaries, gas bills, fund for central heating and general repairs!
“How can I preach Christ, the Outcast, the Beggar, the Wanderer in the Wilderness, the Servant of the poor, the Carrier of the Cross? That’swhat I started out to preach. They’d only laugh at me. ‘He lives in a big house,’ they would say; ‘keeps four servants’—when one can get them—‘and his sons go to college.’ God knows it’s struggle enough to do it. But I oughtn’t to be struggling to do it. I ought to be down among the people, teaching Christ not only by my words but my life.”
It had grown dark. The vicar, stumbling against a small side table, brought it down with a clatter. Anthony found the matches and lit the gas. The vicar held out a plump hand.
“It’ll be all right about your uncle,” he said. “See Mr. Grant and arrange things with him.”
Anthony thanked him and was leaving. The Reverend Mr. Sheepskin drew him back. “Don’t judge me too hardly,” he said with a smile. “Leastways, not till you’ve lived a bit longer. Something made me talk without thinking. If anything I’ve said comes back to you at any time, listen to it. It may have been a better sermon than I usually preach.”
His aunt was much comforted when he told her.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” she said, “if he got through after all. Anyhow, we’ve done our best for him.”
Old Simon had returned to the railway carriage.He seemed to know that all was over. He lingered for a little while, but there was no heart in him. And one morning they found him dead.
A friendship had grown up between Anthony and young Mowbray. It had been chiefly of Edward Mowbray’s seeking, but Anthony had been attracted by Edward’s gentleness and kindness. Mowbray’s father had also taken a liking to him and he came to be a frequent visitor at The Priory.
Mr. Mowbray was a fine, handsome gentleman of about fifty, fonder of pleasure than of business it was said. He rode to hounds and prided himself on being one of the best shots in the county. He was a widower. Gossip whispered of an unhappy marriage, for the lady—of neglect and infidelities. But this may not have been true, for Mr. Mowbray always spoke of his wife with enthusiasm, and often tears would come into his eyes. Her portrait by Orchardson hung in the dining-room facing Mr. Mowbray’s chair: an arresting face, though hardly beautiful, the forehead being too high and narrow. It was in the eyes that the attraction lay. They seemed almost to speak. Mr. Mowbray, during a lull in the conversation, would sometimes raise his glass and drink to her in silence. He was fond of his fine old port, and so were most of his many friends. There were only two children, Edwardand his sister Elizabeth. She was the elder by a couple of years. She had her mother’s haunting eyes, but the face as a whole was less striking. Anthony had been rather afraid of her at first, and she had not taken much notice of him. She was considered eccentric by reason of her not taking any interest in games and amusements. In this both children were a strange contrast to their father. She would have been dubbed a “high brow” in later years; “blue stocking” was the name then.
It was by Edward and his sister that Anthony was introduced to politics. They were ardent reformers. They dreamed of a world in which there would be no more poor. They thought it might be brought about in their time, at least so far as England was concerned. Edward was the more impatient of the two. He thought it would have to come by revolution. Elizabeth (or Betty as she was generally called for short) had once been of the same opinion. But she was changing. She pointed out the futility of the French Revolution. And even had there been excuse for it the need no longer existed. All could be done now through the ballot box. Leaders must arise, men wise and noble. The people would vote for them. Laws must be passed. The evil and the selfishcompelled to amend their ways. The rotten houses must be pulled down; pleasant, well-planned habitations take their place, so that the poor might live decently and learn the meaning of “home.” Work must be found for all; the haunting terror of unemployment be lifted from their lives. It easily could be done. There was work waiting, more than enough, if only the world were properly ordered. Fair wages must be paid, carrying with them a margin for small comforts, recreation. The children must be educated so that in time the poor would be lifted up and the wall between the classes levelled down. Leaders were the one thing needful: if rich and powerful so much the better: men who would fight for the right and never sheathe the sword till they had won justice for the people.
They were tramping the moors. The wind had compelled her to take off her hat and carry it and had put colour into her cheeks. Anthony thought she looked very handsome with her fine eyes flashing beneath their level brows.
In their talk they had lost their tracks and were making a bee line for the descent. A stream barred their way. It babbled over stones and round the roots of trees. Edward picked her up to carry her across, but at the margin hesitated, doubting his muscles.
“You’ll be safer with Anthony,” he said, putting her down.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t mind getting my feet wet.” But Anthony had already lifted her in his arms.
“You’re sure I’m not too heavy?” she asked.
He laughed and stepped down with her into the stream.
He carried her some distance beyond the bank, explaining that the ground was still marshy. He liked the pressure of her weight upon his breast.
It was the evening previous to young Mowbray’s departure for Oxford. Betty was going with him to help him furnish his rooms. They would have a few days together before term began, and she wanted to see Oxford. Anthony had come to say good-bye. Mr. Mowbray was at a dinner given by the mayor, and the three young people had been left to themselves. Betty had gone into the servants’ quarters to give some orders. The old housekeeper had died the year before and Betty had taken over the entire charge. They were sitting in the library. The great drawing-room was used only when there was company.
“Look in now and again when I am away,” said Edward. “Betty hasn’t many friends and she likes talking to you.”
“And I like talking to her tremendously,” answered Anthony. “But, I say, will it be proper?”
“Oh, what rot,” answered Edward. “You’re not that sort, either of you. Besides, things are different to what they used to be. Why shouldn’t there be just friendship between men and women?”
Betty entered as he finished speaking, and the case was put to her.
“Yes, I shall be sorry to miss our talks,” she said. She turned to Anthony with a smile. “How old are you?” she asked.
“Sixteen,” he answered.
She was surprised. “I thought you were older,” she said.
“Sixteen last birthday,” he persisted. “People have always taken me for older than I am. Mother used to have terrible fights with the tram conductors; they would have I was nearer five than three. She thought quite seriously of sewing a copy of my birth certificate inside my cap.” He laughed.
“You’re only a boy,” said Betty. “I’m nearly nineteen. Yes, come and see me sometimes.”
Edward expected to be at Oxford three years. After that he would return to Millsborough and enter his father’s office. Mowbray and Cousins was the name of the firm, but Cousins had long passed out of it, and eventually the whole business would belong to Edward.
“Why don’t you go in for the Remingham Scholarship?” he said suddenly, turning to Anthony, “and join me next year at Oxford. You could win it hands down; and as for funds to helpyou out, my father would see to that, I know, if I asked him. He thinks tremendously well of you. Do, for my sake.”
Anthony shook his head. “I have thought about it,” he said. “I’m afraid.”
Edward stared at him. “What on earth is there to be afraid of?” he demanded.
“I’m afraid of myself,” answered Anthony. “Nobody thinks it of me, I know; but I’d end by being a dreamer if I let myself go. My father had it in him. That’s why he never got on. If I went to Oxford and got wandering about all those old colleges and gardens I wouldn’t be able to help myself. I’d end by being a mere student. I’ve had to fight against it even here, as it is.”
Edward and Betty were both listening to him, suddenly interested. The girl was leaning forward with her chin upon her hand. Anthony rose and walked to the window. The curtains had not been drawn. He looked down upon the glare of Millsborough fading into darkness where the mean streets mingled with the sodden fields.
“You don’t understand what it means,” he said. “Poverty, fear—all your life one long struggle for bare existence.”
He turned and faced the softly-lighted room with its carved ceiling and fine Adamsmantelpiece, its Chippendale furniture, its choice pictures and old Persian rugs.
“Everything about you mean and ugly,” he continued. “Everybody looking down upon you, patronizing you. I want to get out of it. Learning isn’t going to help me. At best, what would I be without money or influence to start me? A schoolmaster—a curate, perhaps, on eighty pounds a year. Business is my only chance. I’m good at that. I feel I could be. Planning, organizing, getting people to see things your way, making them do things. It’s just like fighting, only you use your brains instead of your hands. I’m always thinking about things that could be done that would be good for every one. I mean to do them one day. My father used to invent machines and other people stole them from him, and kept all the profit for themselves. They’re not going to do that with me. They shall have their share, but I——” He stopped and flushed scarlet.
“I’m awfully sorry,” he said. “I’ve got into a way of talking to myself. I forgot I was here.”
Betty had risen. “I think you are quite right,” she said. “And when you’ve got on you’ll think of those who live always in poverty and fear. You’ll know all about them and the way to help them. You will help them, won’t you?”
She spoke gravely. She might have been presenting a petition to the Prime Minister.
“Of course I will,” he said. “I mean to.”
She rang the bell and ordered coffee and cakes.
While they were munching she sprung it upon them that she was going to buy a bicycle. A new design had just been invented with two low wheels of equal size. It could be made so that a lady could ride it.
Edward was just a little shocked. Betty had the reputation as it was of being a bit eccentric. She went long walks by herself in thick boots and rarely wore gloves. This would make her still more talked about. Betty thought she would be doing good. As the daughter of one of the leading men in Millsborough she could afford to defy the conventions and open the way for others. Girls employed in the mills, who now only saw their people twice a year, would be able to run home for weekends, would be able to enjoy rides into the country on half-holidays. Revolutions always came from the top. The girls would call after her at first, she fully expected. Later they would be heartened to follow her example.
Her difficulty was learning. She proposed to go up to the moors early in the morning where she could struggle with the thing unseen. But at firstone wanted assistance and support. There was the gardener’s boy. But she feared he was weak about the knees.
“I wish you’d let me come,” said Anthony. “I like a walk in the early morning. It freshens my brain for the day.”
“Thank you,” she answered. “I was really thinking of you, but I didn’t like to ask in case it might interfere with your work.”
She promised to let him know when the bicycle arrived. He might like to come round and have a look at it.
It was with something of a pang that he said good-bye to Edward, though it would be less than three months before they would meet again. He had not made many friends at the school; he was too self-centered. Young Mowbray was the only boy for whom he felt any real affection.
Tetteridge’s “Preparatory and Commercial School” had prospered beyond expectation. In the language of the advertisement it supplied a long-felt want. “The gentry” of Millsborough—to be exact, its better-off shopkeepers, its higher-salaried clerks and minor professionals—were catered for to excess. But among its skilled workmen and mechanics, earning good wages, were many ambitious for their children. Education wasin the air; feared by most of the upper classes as likely to be the beginning of red ruin and the breaking up of laws; regarded by the more thoughtful of the workers, with extravagant hopes, as being the sure road to the Promised Land. Tetteridge had a natural genius for teaching; he had a way of making the work interesting. The boys liked him and talked about him and the things he told them. It became clear that the house in Bridlington Street would soon be too small for his needs.
“It sounds nonsensical, I know,” said Mr. Tetteridge; “but there are times when I wish that I hadn’t been so sensible.”
“What have you been doing sensible?” laughed Anthony.
“When I followed your most excellent and youthful advice, Tony, and started this confounded school,” explained Mr. Tetteridge.
“What’s wrong with it?” asked Anthony.
“Success,” replied Mr. Tetteridge. “It’s going to grow. I shall end in a big square house with boarders and assistant masters and prayers at eight o’clock. I shall dress in a black frock-coat and wear a chimney-pot hat. I shall have to. The parents will expect it.”
“There’ll be holidays,” suggested Anthony,“when you’ll be able to go walking tours in knickerbockers and a tweed cap.”
“No, I sha’n’t,” said Mr. Tetteridge. “I shall be a married man. There’ll be children, most likely. We shall go for a month to the seaside and listen to niggers. The children will clamour for it. I shall never escape from children all my life, and I’ll never get away from Millsborough. I shall die here, an honoured and respected citizen of Millsborough. Do you know what my plan was? I’d worked it all out? Wandering about the world like Oliver Goldsmith, with my fiddle. Earning my living while I tramped, sleeping under the stars or in some village inn, listening to the talk and stories; making sketches of odd characters, quaint scenes and places; sitting by the wayside making poetry. Do you know, Tony, I believe I could have been a poet—could have left a name behind me.”
“You’ll have your evenings,” argued Anthony. “They’ll all go at four o’clock. You can write your poetry between tea and supper.”
“‘To Irene of the Ringlets,’” suggested Tetteridge. “‘God and the Grasshopper,’ ‘Ode to Idleness.’ What do you think the parents would say? Besides, they don’t come between tea andsupper. They come in the mental arithmetic hour. I kick ’em out and slam the door. They never come again.”
Anthony’s face expressed trouble. Something within him enabled him to understand. Tetteridge laughed.
“It’s all right,” he said. He took the photograph of the science master’s daughter from the mantelpiece and kissed it. “I’m going to marry the dearest little girl in all the world, and we’re going to get on and be very happy. Who knows? Perhaps we may keep our carriage.”
He replaced the latest photograph of Miss Seaton on the mantelpiece. She wasn’t as dolly-faced as she had been. The mouth had grown firmer, and the look of wonder in the eyes had gone. She suggested rather a capable young woman.
He had left to Anthony the search for new premises. Anthony was still undecided when something unexpected happened. The younger Miss Warmington, after a brief illness, died. Mrs. Plumberry had nursed her, and at Anthony’s request consented to call at 15 Bruton Square and find out how the land lay. It would be the very thing. It had two large class-rooms built out into the garden. Mrs. Plumberry was a borndiplomatist. She reported that Miss Warmington, now absolutely alone in the world, had cried a little on Mrs. Plumberry’s motherly shoulder; had confided to Mrs. Plumberry that the school had been going down for some time past; that she had neither the heart nor the means to continue it. Mrs. Plumberry’s advice to her had been that she should get rid of the remainder of her lease, if possible, and thus avoid liability regarding covenants for reparation. Miss Warmington had expressed the thankfulness with which she would do this, that is if a purchaser could be found; and Mrs. Plumberry, though not holding out much hope, had promised to look about her.
Thus it came to pass that once again Mrs. Strong’nth’arm and Anthony were ushered into the drawing-room of 15 Bruton Square and rested on its horse-hair-covered chairs. But this time Mrs. Strong’nth’arm sat well back; and it was Miss Warmington who, on entering, held out her hand. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm, imagining beforehand, had intended not to see, but second nature again was too strong. Miss Warmington, though old and feeble, was still impressive, and Mrs. Strong’nth’arm curtsied and apologized for intrusion.
Miss Warmington smiled as she shook hands with Anthony.
“You were a little boy when I saw you last,” she said, “and you sat with your leg tucked under you.”
“And he wouldn’t come to your school when you asked him to,” interposed Mrs. Strong’nth’arm. She had made up her mind to get that out.
Miss Warmington flushed. “I think he was very wise,” she said. “I hear quite wonderful accounts of him.” Anthony had closed the door and placed a chair for her. “And I see he has learned manners,” she added with another smile.
Anthony laughed. “I was very rude,” he admitted, “and you are a very kind lady to forgive me.”
The business, so far as Miss Warmington was concerned, was soon finished. She wondered afterwards why she had accepted Anthony’s offer without even putting up a fight. It was considerably less than the sum she had determined to stand out for. But on all points, save the main issue, he had yielded to her; and it had seemed to her at the time that she was getting her own way. They had kept up the fiction of the business being between Mrs. Strong’nth’arm and Miss Warmington, Anthony explaining always that it was his mother who was prepared to do so and so—his mother, alas! who was unable to do the other, Mrs.Strong’nth’arm confirming with a nod or a murmur.
Over a friendly cup of tea letters were exchanged then and there, thus enabling Mrs. Strong’nth’arm to dismiss all thought of other houses that had been offered her. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm undertook to pay Miss Warmington three hundred pounds and to take over Miss Warmington’s lease with all its covenants, together with all fixtures and such furniture as Miss Warmington would not require for her own small needs.
“And where the money’s to come from I suppose you know,” commented Mrs. Strong’nth’arm, as the door of 15 Bruton Square closed behind them. “Blessed if I do!”
Anthony laughed. “That’ll be all right, mother,” he said. “Don’t you worry.”
“To hear him!” murmured his mother, addressing the darkening sky above her. “Talking about three hundred pounds to be paid next Tuesday week and laughing about it! Ah! if your poor father had only had your head.”
He explained to his aunt that this time there would be good security and that in consequence she was going to get only five per cent. She tried to make him say seven, more from general principle than with any hope of success. But he only laughed. By degrees he had constituted himselfher man of business; and under his guidance her savings had rapidly increased. To Mrs. Newt a successful speculation proved that God was behind you. She had come to regard her nephew with reverence, as being evidently in the Lord’s counsels.
He had a further proposition to put before her. The dogs had long ago been sold, and the old railway carriage had fallen into ruin. The tumble-down cottage, in which his aunt now lived alone, was threatening to follow its example; but the land on which it stood had grown in value. The price he felt sure he could get for it made her open her eyes. The cottage disposed of, she could come and live with them at Bruton Square, paying, of course, for her board and lodging. The sum he suggested per week made her open her eyes still wider. But he promised she should be comfortable and well looked after. Again she made a feeble effort to touch his heart, but he only kissed her and told her that he would see to everything and that she wasn’t to worry. Forty years—all but—she had dwelt in Prospect Cottage, Moor End Lane. She had been married from the Jolly Cricketers, and after a day’s honeymoon by the sea Joe had brought her there and never a night since then had she slept away from it. There had been fields about it inthose days. She dratted the boy more than once or twice as she poked about the tiny rooms, selecting the few articles she intended to keep. But she was ready on the appointed day. She had purchased gloves and a new bonnet. One must needs be dressy for Bruton Square.
Anthony had two rooms at the top of the house, one for his bedroom and the other for his study. He had always been fond of reading. His favourite books were histories and memoirs. Emerson and Montaigne he had chosen for himself as prizes. His fiction was confined to “Gulliver’s Travels.” There were also Smiles’ “Self-Help,” “From Log-Cabin to White House,” Franklin’s “Autobiography,” and the “Life of Abraham Lincoln.”
His mother had given up the dressmaking business. Young Tetteridge had brought home his bride, and keeping house for five people, even with help, took up all her time. Often of an evening she would bring her sewing and sit with Anthony while he worked.
It was towards the end of the Michaelmas term; Anthony was in the lower sixth. He had determined to leave at Christmas. The upper sixth spent all its time on the classics which would be useless to him.
“What do you think of doing when you do leave?” asked his mother. “Have you made up your mind?”
“Go into old Mowbray’s office if he’ll have me,” answered Anthony.
“Edward will put in a word for you there, won’t he?” suggested his mother.
“Yes. I’m reckoning on that,” he answered.
Anthony turned again to his book, but his mother’s needle lay idle.
“The girl’s friendly too, isn’t she?” she asked. “They say she can’t express a wish that he doesn’t grant her.”
Anthony did not answer. He seemed not to have heard. His mother’s thimble rolled to the floor. Anthony recovered it and gave it to her.
“What’s she like?” his mother asked him.
“Oh, all right,” he answered, “a nice enough girl.”
“She’s older than you, isn’t she?” said his mother.
“Yes; I think she is,” said Anthony. “Not much.”
“Tom Cripps was up on the moor the other morning.” His mother had resumed her sewing. “Poaching, I expect. He saw you both there. He’s a rare one to gossip. Will it matter?”
Anthony laid down his book. “Was father in love with you when he married you?” he asked.
His mother looked up astonished. “What an odd question to ask,” she said. “Of course he was. Madly in love. Some said I was the prettiest girl in Millsborough—not counting, of course, the gentry. What makes you ask?”
Instead of answering he asked her another.
“What do you mean by madly in love?”
His mother was smiling to herself. The little grey head was at a higher angle than usual.
“Oh, you know,” she said. “Walked six miles there and back every evening just to get five minutes’ talk with me. Said he’d drown himself if I didn’t marry him. And was that jealous—why, I daren’t so much as speak to anything else in trousers. Wrote poetry to me. Only silly like, one day when I was mad with him, I burnt it.”
He did not answer. She stole a glance at him. And suddenly it came to her what was in his mind.
“It never lasts,” she said. “I’ve often thought as folks would be better without it.” She chatted on, keeping a corner of her eye upon him. “Young Tetteridge was in love up to his ears when he first came to us. That marriage isn’t going to turn out trumps. So was Ted Mowbray—the old man, Imean—— Worshipped the very ground she trod on. Everybody talked about it. Didn’t prevent his gallivanting off wherever his fancy took him before they’d been married three years. Guess she wished he’d been less hot at first. Might have kept warm a little longer.” She laughed. “Some one you like and feel you can get on with, and that you know is fond of you; that’s the thing that wears and makes for the most happiness. And if she’s got a bit of money or can help you in other ways—well, there ain’t no harm in that.” She stopped to thread a needle. “Ain’t ever had a fancy, have you?” she asked.
“No,” he answered. “That’s what’s troubling me. I suppose I’m too young.”
His mother shook her head. “You’re too level-headed, lad,” she said. “You’ll never make a fool of yourself; for that’s what it means, generally speaking. You’ll marry with your eyes open; and she’ll be a lucky woman, because you ain’t the sort to blow hot and cold and repent of a thing after you’ve done it. That’s what breaks a woman’s heart.”
She gathered together her work and rose.
“Don’t get sitting up too late,” she said. “Don’t do to burn the candle at both ends.”
She was bending down over him. She paused a moment with his head between her hands.
“I suppose you know how handsome you are,” she said.
She kissed him and went out.