The shop was closed. As with his latchkey he opened the private door
and then stood on one side for her to precede him into the corridor that
led to the back of the shop, he watched the stream of operatives
scattering across Duck Bank and descending towards the Square. It was
as if he and Hilda, being pursued, were escaping. And as Hilda,
stopping an instant on the step, saw what he saw, her face took a
troubled expression. They both went in and he shut the door.
"Turn to the left," he said, wondering whether the big Columbia machine
would be running, for her to see if she chose.
"Oh! This takes you to the shop, does it? How funny to be behind the
counter!"
He thought she spoke self-consciously, in the way of small talk: which
was contrary to her habit.
"Here's my handkerchief!" she cried, with pleasure. It was on the
counter, a little white wisp in the grey-sheeted gloom. Stifford must
have found it on the floor and picked it up.
The idea flashed through Edwin's head: "Did she leave her handkerchief
on purpose, so that we should have to come back here?"
The only illumination of the shop was from three or four diamond-shaped
holes in the upper part of as many shutters. No object was at first
quite distinct. The corners were very dark. All merchandise not in
drawers or on shelves was hidden in pale dust cloths. A chair wrong
side up was on the fancy-counter, its back hanging over the front of the
counter. Hilda had wandered behind the other counter, and Edwin was in
the middle of the shop. Her face in the twilight had become more
mysterious than ever. He was in a state of emotion, but he did not know
to what category the emotion belonged. They were alone. Stifford had
gone for the half-holiday. Darius, sickly, would certainly not come
near. The printers were working as usual in their place, and the
clanking whirr of a treadle-machine overhead agitated the ceiling. But
nobody would enter the shop. His excitement increased, but did not
define itself. There was a sudden roar in Duck Square, and then cries.
"What can that be?" Hilda asked, low.
"Some of the strikers," he answered, and went through the doors to the
letter-hole in the central shutter, lifted the flap, and looked through.
A struggle was in progress at the entrance to the Duck Inn. One man was
apparently drunk; others were jeering on the skirts of the lean crowd.
"It's some sort of a fight among them," said Edwin loudly, so that she
could hear in the shop. But at the same instant he felt the wind of the
door swinging behind him, and Hilda was silently at his elbow.
"Let me look," she said.
Assuredly her voice was trembling. He moved, as little as possible, and
held the flap up for her. She bent and gazed. He could hear various
noises in the Square, but she described nothing to him. After a long
while she withdrew from the hole.
"A lot of them have gone into the public-house," she said. "The others
seem to be moving away. There's a policeman. What a shame," she burst
out passionately, "that they have to drink to forget their trouble!"
She made no remark upon the strangeness of starving workmen being able
to pay for beer sufficient to intoxicate themselves. Nor did she
comment, as a woman, on the misery of the wives and children at home in
the slums and the cheap cottage-rows. She merely compassionated the men
in that they were driven to brutishness. Her features showed painful
pity masking disgust.
She stepped back into the shop.
"Do you know," she began, in a new tone, "you've quite altered my notion
of poetry--what you said as we were going up to the station."
"Really!" He smiled nervously. He was very pleased. He would have
been astounded by this speech from her, a professed devotee of poetry,
if in those instants the capacity for astonishment had remained to him.
"Yes," she said, and continued, frowning and picking at her muff: "But
you _do_ alter my notions, I don't know how it is... So this is your
little office!"
The door of the cubicle was open.
"Yes, go in and have a look at it."
"Shall I?" She went in.
He followed her.
And no sooner was she in than she muttered, "I must hurry off now." Yet
a moment before she seemed to have infinite leisure.
"Shall you be at Brighton long?" he demanded, and scarcely recognised
his own accents.
"Oh! I can't tell! I've no idea. It depends."
"How soon shall you be down our way again?"
She only shook her head.
"I say--you know--" he protested.
"Good-bye," she said, quavering. "Thanks very much." She held out her
hand.
"But--" He took her hand.
His suffering was intolerable. It was torture of the most exquisite
kind. Her hand pressed his. Something snapped in him. His left hand
hovered shaking over her shoulder, and then touched her shoulder, and he
could feel her left hand on his arm. The embrace was clumsy in its
instinctive and unskilled violence, but its clumsiness was redeemed by
all his sincerity and all hers. His eyes were within six inches of her
eyes, full of delicious shame, anxiety, and surrender. They kissed...
He had amorously kissed a woman. All his past life sank away, and he
began a new life on the impetus of that supreme and final emotion. It
was an emotion that in its freshness, agitating and divine, could never
be renewed. He had felt the virgin answer of her lips on his. She had
told him everything, she had yielded up her mystery, in a second of
time. Her courage in responding to his caress ravished and amazed him.
She was so unaffected, so simple, so heroic. And the cool, delicate
purity of those lips! And the faint feminine odour of her flesh and
even of her stuffs! Dreams and visions were surpassed. He said to
himself, in the flood-tide of masculinity--
"My God! She's mine."
And it seemed incredible.
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