"Oh," said Rose, and her cry had a thick, sobbing vibration in it.
He put his arm on her shoulder and drew her out of sight and kissed her,
and she was not afraid of him any more.
"Rose," he said, "have you thought it over?"
"Yes, I have. Have you?"
"I've thought of nothing else."
"Sensible?"
"Oh, Lord, yes."
"You've thought of how I haven't a penny and never shall have?"
"Yes."
"And how I'm not clever, and how it isn't a bit as if I'd any head for
studyin' and that?"
"Yes, Rose."
"Have you thought of how I'm not a lady? Not what you'd call a lady?"
There was no answer to that, and so he kissed her.
"And how you'd be if you was to marry some one who was a lady? Have you
thought of that?"
"I have."
"Well then, it's this way. If you was a rich man I wouldn't marry you."
She paused.
"But you will, because I'm a poor one?"
"Yes."
"Thank God I'm poor."
He drew her to him and she yielded, not wholly, but with a shrinking of
her small body, and a soft, shy surrender of her lips.
She was thinking, "If he married a lady he'd have to spend ten times on
her what he need on me."
All she said was, "There are things I can do for you that a lady
couldn't."
"Oh--don't--don't!" he cried. That was the one way she hurt him.
"What are you going to do with me now?" said she.
"I'm going to take you for a walk. We can't stay here."
"Can you wait?"
"I have waited."
She ran away and stayed away for what seemed an interminable time. Then
somebody opened the door and handed Rose in. Somebody kissed her where
she stood in the doorway, and laughed softly, and shut the door upon
Rose and Tanqueray.
Rose stood there still. "Do you know me?" said she, and laughed.
Somebody had transformed her, had made her slip her stiff white gown and
dressed her in a muslin one with a belt that clipped her, showing her
pretty waist. Somebody had taught her how to wear a scarf about her
shoulders; and somebody had taken off that odious linen collar and bared
the white column of her neck.
"_She_ made me put it on," said Rose. "She said if I didn't, I couldn't
wear the hat."
Somebody, Rose's mistress, had been in Rose's secret. She knew and
understood his great poem of the Hat.
Rose took it out of the band-box and put it on. Impossible to say
whether he liked her better with it or without it. He thought without;
for she had parted her hair in the middle and braided it at the back.
"Do you like my hair?" said she.
"Why didn't you do it like that before?"
"I don't know. I wanted to. But I didn't."
"Why not?"
Rose hid her face. "I thought," said she, "you'd notice, and think--and
think I was after you."
No. He could never say that she had been after him, that she had laid a
lure. No huntress she. But she had found him, the hunted, run down and
sick in his dark den. And she had stooped there in the darkness, and
tended and comforted him.
They set out.
"_She_ said I was to tell you," said Rose, "to be sure and take me
through the pine-woods to the pond."
How well that lady knew the setting that would adorn his Rose; sunlight
and shadow that made her glide fawn-like among the tall stems of the
trees. Through the pine-woods he took her, his white wood-nymph, and
through the low lands covered with bog myrtle, fragrant under her feet.
Beyond the marsh they found a sunny hollow in the sand where the heath
touched the pond. The brushwood sheltered them.
Side by side they sat and took their fill of joy in gazing at each
other, absolutely dumb.
It was Tanqueray who broke that beautiful silence. He had obtained her.
He had had his way and must have it to the end. He loved her; and the
thing beyond all things that pleased him was to tease and torment the
creatures that he loved.
"Rose," he said, "do you think I'm good-looking?"
"No. Not what you call good-looking."
"How do you know what I call good-looking?"
"Well--_me_. Don't you?"
"You're a woman. Give me your idea of a really handsome man."
"Well--do you know Mr. Robinson?"
"No. I do not know Mr. Robinson."
"Yes, you do. He keeps the shop in the High Street where you get your
'ankychiefs and collars. You bought a collar off of him the other day.
He told me."
"By Jove, so I did. Of course I know Mr. Robinson. What about him?"
"Well--_he's_ what I call a _handsome_ man."
"Oh." He paused. "Would you love me more if I were as handsome as Mr.
Robinson?"
"No. Not a bit more. I couldn't. I'd love you just the same if you were
as ugly as poor Uncle. There, what more do you want?"
"What, indeed? Rose, how much have you seen of Mr. Robinson?"
"How much? Well--I see him every time I go into his shop. And every
Sunday evening when I go to church. And sometimes he comes and has
supper with us. 'E plays and 'e sings beautiful."
"The devil he does! Well, did he ever take you anywhere?"
"Once--he took me to Madame Tussaws; and once to the Colonial
Exhibition; and once----"
"You minx. That'll do. Has he ever given you anything?"
"He gave me Joey."
"I always knew there was something wrong about that dog."
"And last Christmas he gave me a scented sashy from the shop."
"Never--anything else?"
"Never anything else." She smiled subtly. "I wouldn't let 'im."
"Well, well. And I suppose you consider Mr. Robinson a better dressed
man than I am?"
"Yes, he was always a beautiful dresser. He makes it what you might call
'is hobby."
"Of course Mr. Robinson wants you to marry him?"
"Yes. Leastways he says so."
"And I suppose your uncle and aunt want you to marry him?"
"They were more for it than I was."
"Rose--he's got a bigger income than I have."
"He never told me what his income is."
"But you know?"
"I dare say Uncle does."
"Better dressed--decidedly more handsome----"
"Well--he _is_ that."
"A bigger income. Rose, do you want Mr. Robinson to be found dead in his
shop--horribly dead--among the collars and the handkerchiefs--spoiling
them, and--not--looking--handsome--any more?"
"Oh, Mr. Tanqueray!"
"Then don't talk about him."
He turned his face to hers. She put up her hands and drew his head down
into the hollow of her breasts that were warm with the sun on them.
"Rose," he said, "if you stroke my hair too much it'll come off, like
Joey's. Would you love me if my hair came off?"
She kissed his hair.
"When did you begin to love me, Rose?"
"I don't know. I think it must have been when you were ill."
"I see. When I was bowled over on my back and couldn't struggle. What
_made_ you love me?"
She was silent a long time, smiling softly to herself.
"I think it was because--because--because you were so kind to Joey."
"So you thought I would be kind to you?"
"I didn't--I didn't think at all. I just----"
"So did I," said Tanqueray.