VI

On the Sunday afternoon, feeling much better for the Saturday rest,

and scrupulously gloved, shod, and robed in deference to the grandeur

of her destination, Salvina boarded an omnibus, and after a tedious

journey, involving a walk at the end, she arrived at the West End

square in which her sister bloomed as governess and companion in a

newly enriched Jewish family. She stood an instant in the porch to

compose herself for the tragic task before her and felt in her pocket

to be sure she had not lost the little bottle of smelling-salts with

which she had considerately armed herself, in anticipation of a

failure of Kitty's nerves. Then she knocked timidly at the door, which

was opened by a speckless boy in buttons, who also opened up to her

imagination endless vistas of aristocratic association. His impressive

formality, as of the priest of a shrine, seemed untinged by any

remembrance that on her one previous visit she had been made free of

the holy of holies. But perhaps it was not the same boy. He was indeed

less a boy to her than a row of buttons, and less a row of buttons

than a symbol of all the elegances and opulences in which Kitty moved

as to the manner born; the elaborate ritual of the toilette, the

sacramental shaving of poodles, the mysterious panoramic dinners in

which one had to be constantly aware of the appropriate fork.

Salvina had not waited a minute in the imposing hall, ere a radiant

belle flew down the stairs--with a vivacity that troubled the

sacro-sanct atmosphere--and caught Salvina in her arms.

"Oh, you dear Sally! I am _so_ glad to see you," and a fusillade of

kisses accompanied the hug. "Whatever brings you here? Oh, and such a

dowdy frock! You needn't flush up so, silly little child; nobody

expects you to know how to dress like us ignoramuses, and it doesn't

matter to-day, there's no one to see you, for they're all out driving,

and I'm lying down with a headache."

"Poor Kitty. But then you ought to be out driving." She was divided

between sympathy for the sufferer, and admiration of the finished,

fine ladyhood implied in indifference to the chance of a

carriage-drive.

"Yes, but I've so many letters to write, and they don't really drive

on Sundays, just stop at house after house, and not good houses

either. It is such a bore. They've never shaken off the society they

had before they made their money."

"Well, but that's rather nice of them."

"Perhaps, but not nice for me. But come upstairs and you shall have

some tea."

Salvina mounted the broad staircase with a reverence attuned to her

own hushed footfalls, but her task of breaking the news to her sister

weighed the heavier upon her for all this subdued magnificence. It

seemed almost profane to bring the squalid episodes of Hackney into

this atmosphere, appropriate indeed to the sinful romances of

marquises and epauletted officers, but wholly out of accord with

surreptitious furniture vans. What a blow to poor Kitty the news would

be! She dallied weakly, till the tea was brought by a powdered

footman. Then she had an ingenious idea for a little shock to lead up

to a greater. She would say they were going to move. But as she took

off her white glove not to sully it with the tea and cake, Kitty

cried: "Why what have you done with my ring?"

Here was an excellent natural opening, but Salvina was taken too much

aback to avail herself of it, especially as the artificial opening

preoccupied her mind. "Oh, your ring's all right," she said hastily;

"I came to tell you we are going to move."

Kitty clapped her hands. "Ah! so you've taken my advice at last! I'm

so glad. It wasn't nice for me to stay with you at that dingy hole,

even for a day or two a year. Mustn't mother be pleased!"

Salvina bit her lip. Her task was now heavier than ever.

"No, mother isn't pleased. She is crying about it."

"Crying? Disgusting. How she still hankers after Spitalfields and the

Lane!"

"She isn't crying for that, but because father won't go with us."

"Oh, I have no patience with father. He hasn't a soul above red

herrings and potatoes."

"Oh, yes he has. He has left us."

"What! Left you?" Kitty's pretty eyes opened wide. "Because he won't

move to a better house!"

"No, we are moving to a worse house because he has moved to a better."

"What _are_ you talking about? Is it a joke? A riddle? I give it up."

"Father--can't you guess, Kitty?--father has gone away. There is some

other woman."

"No?" gasped Kitty. "Ha! ha! ha! ha!" and she shook with long peals

of silvery laughter. "Well, of all the funny things! Ha! ha! ha!"

"Funny!" and Salvina looked at her sternly.

"What, don't you see the humour of it? Father turning into the hero of

a novelette. Romance and red herrings! Passion and potatoes! Ha! ha!

ha!"

"If you had seen the havoc it wrought, you wouldn't have had the heart

to laugh."

"Oh well, mother was crying. That I understand. But that's nothing new

for her. She'd cry just as much if he were there. The average rainfall

is--how many inches?"

Salvina's face was stern and white. "A mother's tears are sacred," she

said in low but firm protest.

"Oh, dear me, Sally, I always forget you have no sense of humour.

Well, what are you going to do about it?" and her own sense of humour

continued to twitch and dimple the corners of her pretty mouth.

"I told you. We cannot afford to keep up the house--we must go back to

apartments in Spitalfields."

Instantly Kitty's face grew as serious as Salvina's. "Oh, nonsense!"

she said instinctively. The thought of her family returning to the

discarded shell of apartments was humiliating; her own personality

seemed being dragged back.

"We can't pay the rent. We must give a quarter's notice at once."

"Absurd! You'll only save a few shillings a week. Why can't you let

apartments yourselves? At least you would preserve a decent

appearance."

"Is it worth while having the responsibility of the rent? There's only

mother and I--we shan't need a house."

"But there's Lazarus!"

"He'll have a place of his own. He'll marry before our notice

expires."

"That same Jonas girl?"

"Yes."

"Ridiculous. Small tradespeople, and dreadfully common, all the lot. I

thought he'd got over his passion for that bold black creature who's

been seen licking ice-cream out of a street-glass. To connect us with

that family! Men are so selfish. But I still don't see why you can't

remain as you are--let your drawing-room, say, furnished."

"But it isn't furnished."

"Not furnished. Why, I've sat on the couch myself."

"Yes," said Salvina, a faint smile tempering her deadly gravity. "You

are the only person who has ever done that. But there's no couch now.

Father smuggled all the furniture away in a van."

Again Kitty's silver laughter rang out unquenchably.

"And you don't call that funny! Eloped with the chairs! I call it

killing."

"Yes, for mother," said Salvina.

"Pooh! She'll outlive all of us. I wish you were as sure of getting

the furniture back. She's not a bad mother, as mothers go, but you

take her too seriously."

"But, Kitty, consider the disgrace!"

"The disgrace of having a wicked parent! I've endured for years the

disgrace of having a poor one--and that's worse. My people--the

Samuelsons, I mean--will never even hear of the pater's

escapade--gossip keeps strictly to its station. And even if they do,

they know already my family's under a cloud, and they have learned to

accept me for myself."

"Well, I am glad you don't mind," said Salvina, half-relieved,

half-shocked.

"I mind, if it makes you uncomfortable, you dear, silly Sally."

"Oh, don't worry about me. I think I'll go back to mother, now."

"Nonsense, why, we haven't begun to talk yet. Have another cup of tea.

No? How's old Miss What's-a-name, your head-mistress? Any more frozen

little kittens?"

"She's very kind, really. I'm sorry I told you about the kitten. She

let me go home early on Friday."

"Why? To track the van?"

"No; I wasn't very well."

"Poor Sally!" and Kitty hugged her again. "I daresay you were more

upset than mother."

Tears came into Salvina's eyes at her sister's affectionateness. "Oh,

no; but please don't talk about it any more. Father is dead to us

now."

"Then we must speak well of him."

Salvina shuddered. "He is a wicked, heartless man, and mother and I

never wish to see his face again."

A cloud darkened Kitty's blonde brow.

"Yes, but she isn't going to marry another man, I hope."

"How can she?" said Salvina. "I wouldn't let her make any public

scandal."

"But aren't there funny laws in our religion--_Get_ and things like

that--which dispense with the English courts."

"I believe there are--I read about something of the kind in a

novel--oh, yes! and father did offer mother _Get_ before he went off,

so I suppose he considers his conscience clear."

"Well, I rely upon you, Sally, to see that she doesn't marry or

complicate things more. We don't want two wicked parents."

"Of course not. But I am sure she doesn't dream of any new

complications. You don't do her justice, Kitty. She's just

broken-hearted; a perpetual widow, with worse than her husband's death

to lament."

"Yes--her lost furniture."

"Oh, Kitty, do realize what it means."

"I do, my dear. I do realize it--it's too killing. Passion in a

Pantechnicon or Elopements economically conducted. By the day or hour.

Oh, dear, oh, dear! But do promise me, Salvina, that you won't go back

to Spitalfields."

"I must be somewhere near the school, dearest. It will save

train-fares."

Kitty pouted. "Well, you know I couldn't drive up to see you any more;

Hackney was all but outside the radius--the radius of respectability.

I couldn't ask coachman to go to Spitalfields--unless I pretended to

be slumming."

"Well, pretend."

"Oh, Salvina! I thought you were so conscientious. No, I'll have to

come in a cab. You're quite sure you won't have some more tea? Oh, do,

I insist. One piece of sugar?"

"Yes, thank you, dear. By the way, has Sugarman the Shadchan been

here?"

"You mean--has he gone?"

"Oh, poor Kitty! It was my fault. I let him know your address. I do

hope the horrid man hasn't worried you."

"Sugarman?"

"No--Moss M. Rosenstein."

"How pat you have his name! But why do you call him horrid?"