In the hour that followed many were our mutual declarations, many were
the kisses I imprinted upon those lips, with their true Cupid's bow,
without which no woman's beauty is entirely perfect.
From her conversation I gathered that the assistants at the great shop
in the Holloway Road were treated, as they often are, as mere machines,
the employers having no more regard for their health or mental
recreation than for the cash balls which roll along the inclined planes
to the cash-desk. Life within that great series of shops was mere
drudgery and slavery, the galling bonds of which only those who have had
experience of it can fully appreciate.
"From the time we open till closing time we haven't a single moment's
rest," she said, in reply to my question, "and with nearly eighty fines
for breaking various rules, and a staff of tyrannical shop-walkers who
are always either fining us or abusing us before the customers, things
are utterly unbearable."
"Yes," I said, indignantly, "the tyrannies of shop life ought to be
exposed."
"Indeed they ought," she agreed. "One of our rules fines us a shilling
if after serving a customer we don't introduce at least two articles to
her."
"People don't like things they don't want pushed under their noses," I
said. "It always annoys me."
"Of course they don't," she agreed. "Again, if we're late, only five
minutes, in the morning when we go in to dust, we're fined sixpence; if
one of the shop-walkers owes any girl a grudge he will fine her a
shilling for talking during business, and if she allows a customer to go
out without buying anything and without calling his attention to it, she
has to pay half-a-crown. People don't think when they enter a shop and
are met by a suave man in frock-coat who hands them a chair and calls an
assistant, that this very man is watching whether the unfortunate
counter-slave will break any of the code of rules, so that the instant
the customer has gone she may be fined, with an added warning that if a
similar thing again occurs she will be dismissed."
"In no other trade would men and women conform to such rules," I
exclaimed, for she had often told me of these things before. "Who takes
the fines?"
"The firm, of course," she answered. "They're supposed to go towards
the library; but the latter consists of only about fifty worn-out,
tattered books which haven't been added to for the past three years."
"I don't wonder that such an existence should crush all life from you.
It's enough to render any one old before their time, slaving away in
that place from morning till night, without even sufficient time for
your meals. But why are you a favourite?" I asked.
She looked at me for an instant, then dropped her eyes and remained
silent.
"I scarcely know," she faltered at last, and I scented in her indecision
an element of mystery.
"But you must be aware of the reason that you are not treated quite as
harshly as the others."
"Well," she laughed, a slight flush mounting to her cheek, "it may be
because of my friendliness towards the shop-walker."
"The shop-walker!" I exclaimed in surprise, not without some jealous
resentment rising within me. "Why are you friendly towards him?"
"Because it is judicious not to offend him," she said. "One girl did,
and within a week she was discharged."
"But such truckling to a greasy, oily-mouthed tailor's dummy is simply
nauseating," I cried fiercely. "Do you mean to say that you actually
have to smile and be amiable to this man--perhaps even to flirt with
him--in order to save yourself from being driven to death?"
"Certainly!" she answered, quite frankly.
"And who is this man?" I inquired, perhaps a trifle harshly.
"The man with whom you saw me on that night when you followed me from
Aldersgate Street," she responded.
"That tall, thin man!" I cried, amazed. "The man who was your lover!"
She nodded, and her eyes were again downcast.