It was a lamentable day. There was a smoky fog outside, which was, for
some reason, twice as bad inside the house. When Miss Torrance let
herself in, the ill lit hall was thick with it, and the puny gas jet
spurted as if panting for breath.
As usual, she stopped at the hall table to look at the letters there.
She picked one up hastily, and put it into her hand bag. Then, as she
was about to ascend the stairs, she caught sight of Mr. Robertson
standing in the doorway of the sitting room.
“Good evening!” said he.
Even in the dusk, she could see the gleam of his white teeth as he
smiled. She knew how he looked when he smiled, anyhow, for hadn’t she
been seeing him twice a day for at least six months? Olive had remarked
that he “looked like a darling.” Though Miss Torrance didn’t agree with
any such extravagant statement, she had secretly thought him a rather
distinguished man--until she had learned that he was a friend of Mr.
Martin’s.
He was tall, very slender, very dark, with keen, thin features and an
odd smile that lifted his neat black mustache up to his narrow nostrils,
giving him an expression a little fierce, but altogether agreeable. Of
course, she didn’t know him, and wouldn’t know him. Let him smile! He
was a friend of that Mr. Martin’s, and he and Mr. Martin were both in a
conspiracy to rob her of Olive.
Still, she couldn’t very well refuse to answer, and so she did, after a
fashion. Mr. Robertson did not seem to be discouraged. He made another
remark, which she also felt obliged to answer. Indeed, he began to talk,
and so artful was he that before she realized what she was doing, Miss
Torrance was engaged in conversation with him.
She was thus engaged when Olive came, but that brought her to herself.
With the coldest little nod for Mr. Robertson, she went upstairs.
“I see you were talking to Mr. Robertson,” Olive observed.
“I couldn’t help it,” said Miss Torrance, with a frown. “He’s--well, I
don’t like the man.”
Strange, then, that as she lay awake that night Miss Torrance should
constantly see before her the image of Mr. Robertson--a tall, dark form
in the dark hall, lounging against the hat stand in one of his
characteristically easy and nonchalant attitudes! Strange that she
should keep seeing his gleaming smile, and hearing in her ears his
quiet, courteous voice!
All this caused her a curious uneasiness. For some reason it seemed to
her a great misfortune, almost a disaster, that he had spoken to her. A
very great misfortune! There he was, however, whether she liked him or
not.
Being in all things so much quicker and brisker than Olive, she got
downstairs first in the morning. When she entered the dining room,
Robertson spoke again, and smiled. He pulled out her chair for her, and
paid her various polite little attentions not at all remarkable in
themselves, but new to Miss Torrance. She couldn’t actually be rude to
the man, for he hadn’t offended in any way, and he wasn’t really
obtrusive; but--
Morning and evening, for an endless week, she was obliged to see him,
and to make civil responses to his civil greetings. By the end of the
week she knew why she didn’t like Mr. Robertson. She didn’t like him
because she couldn’t manage him. She couldn’t overawe him. She couldn’t
impress him. When she was with him, she couldn’t really be Miss Torrance
at all.
This, of course, she couldn’t endure. She wasn’t much used to talking to
men, and she had a pretty poor opinion of them in general. She thought
they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and Mr. Robertson evidently was
not at all ashamed of himself. He was a surveyor of hulls, and she
couldn’t help admitting that he had advanced further in business
knowledge than herself. He had lived in all sorts of outlandish
places--in Surabaya, in Hongkong, in Cape Town. He knew the world, and
seemed to take it for granted that she didn’t. Apparently he regarded
her as a dear, helpless little creature, and the incredible thing was
that, while with him, Miss Torrance couldn’t help feeling like that.
One morning, when they were alone in the dining room, talking together
in what certainly looked like a friendly manner, she looked up at him
and asked him a question, with exactly the look and the voice of a dear,
helpless little creature. Mr. Robertson looked back at her. Their eyes
met. This made Miss Torrance very angry.
“I’m down town almost every day,” said Mr. Robertson. “Can’t we arrange
to have lunch together some day?”
“Thank you,” said Miss Torrance, “but I have no time.”
She said it in a way that Mr. Robertson could not very well help
understanding. And the whole morning long she remembered
this--remembered how the smile had vanished from his face, how stiffly
he had bowed.
“I hope I did discourage him!” she told herself vehemently. “He’s the
friend of that troublesome Mr. Martin, and he’s trying to scrape up an
acquaintance with me, so that he can give messages and so on to Olive.
Well, he shan’t!”