Chapter XII: Part 12

He sat down on the edge of his bed, the trousers over his arm, staring at the large hole in the old rug. But he was not looking at the hole, but through it, into Angel Pavement, into the office. Mr. Golspie had just gone away, and now Turgis suddenly realised that that fact was tremendously important. It might mean that there was no chance whatever of Lena coming near the office, now that her father was not there. On the other hand, it might mean just the opposite, that there was a very good chance of her visiting the office, just because her father _was_ away. She might want something; she might be in trouble; and Mr. Golspie might easily have told her to come to the office. And now he remembered hearing _something_, something that Mr. Golspie, at the outer door, had shouted to Mr. Dersingham sitting in the private office, a something that had to do with Lena and “you people here,” as Mr. Golspie had called them. Turgis knew definitely that Lena was being left behind. Well then, she might call at the office any day. There was quite a chance, anyhow. So there and then, he decided that for the next twelve days or so, while Mr. Golspie was away, he would shave carefully every morning, put on his better suit and wear a clean collar, and have his hair cut at lunch time on the following day. Having thus made up his mind, he felt quite excited, and, as people do, if they have drifted for a long time and then suddenly come to a decision and adopted a programme, he found himself visited obscurely by a conviction that something was bound to happen, just as if by drawing a firm straight line he could compel circumstance to come and toe it.

The gas-fire retired from service with a very sad little pop. He moved and the bed immediately gave a groan. (Everything in the room creaked and groaned and constantly complained. It was tired of people, that little room.) Very carefully he raised the mattress and replaced the trousers underneath. Then, with something like an air of sheer dandyism, he put out an absolutely clean collar for the morning. He went to the little dormer window and stared through the few inches of open space at the dark and the faint glimmer of the town. Here he was, high up above Camden Town, in his own little room. There she was, Lena Golspie, perhaps in _her_ little room in Maida Vale, perhaps just above those two pillars he had seen, peering through the open gate, perhaps looking down on that broken statue in the front garden. It made his eyes water, staring there like that, but still he remained. His lips moved. “Listen, Lena,” he began; but then stopped. “Listen, Miss Golspie, Miss Lena Golspie. Listen. Do come to the office, do come to the office. And make it something I can do. Turgis, you know, the one you saw that day. Do come to the office.”

As soon as he stepped back into the little room, it told him, in its various creaky voices, not to be a damned fool.

“Oh!--you!” he said to it, aloud, and then made haste to undress and get the light out.

II

Turgis kept his word to himself. Every day he appeared at the office all shaved and brushed and as spruce as it was possible for him to be. The others congratulated him and chaffed him and invented the most elaborate reasons for the change. Sandycroft, the tall traveller with the small head, the inquisitive nose, and the extraordinary number of teeth, paid one of his flying visits to headquarters and pretended, possibly at the instigation of Mr. Smeeth, not to know Turgis.

“I say, Smeeth,” Sandycroft barked--and he really did bark; it was like having an enormous terrier about the place when Sandycroft arrived--“what’s become of that other chap--you know, what’s his name--that chap who used to wear the dark brown collars----?”

“Now who was that, Sandycroft?” said Smeeth, frowning and putting his head on one side. Smeeth was as conscientious and painstaking a wag as he was a cashier. It was not often that he joined in a joke, but when he did he was almost alarmingly thorough.

“You _know_ the chap I mean, Smeeth,” replied Sandycroft, sniffing with that queer little nose of his. “Never had his hair cut--wore a beard--looked like a Spring Poet in the autumn. Sat at the desk over there,” he continued, lowering his voice, “where that smart young feller is. Oh, what _was_ his name?”

Here Stanley gurgled and spluttered, not perhaps because he thought this was very brilliant humour, but because he thought comic relief in any form should be encouraged. Miss Poppy Sellers was giggling a little, too, and Miss Matfield smiled at them, not without condescension.

“Oh, don’t be so funny,” Turgis mumbled, giving Stanley a ferocious scowl.

“That’s queer, Smeeth. The same voice--the very same voice.”

“I believe you’re right, Sandycroft. I believe you’re right,” said Mr. Smeeth, with the air of a dutiful cross-talk comedian.

“Sure I am,” the other barked. Then he stepped forward, with a large polite smile on his face, displaying at least a hundred teeth. “Not Mr. Turgis? Surely it can’t be Mr. Turgis?”

“No,” said Turgis, who was not very good at this sort of thing, “it’s Charlie Chaplin.”

“Well, Mr. Charlie Chaplin Turgis,” said Sandycroft, “I must congratulate you, I really must. All in favour, show in the usual way. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.” And he turned away, grinning.

“Ah, well,” said Mr. Smeeth, settling down to his books again, rather as if he had just come to the end of some great gusty epic of humour, “a bit of fun won’t do any of us any harm now and again. Here, Stanley, slip round to Nickman and Sons with this and say it’s for Mr. Broadhurst--for Mr. Broadhurst, mind. And hurry up, don’t take all morning about it. Don’t go shadowing somebody all round London.”

A week had passed, and though news of Mr. Golspie himself had trickled through into the general office, Turgis had heard nothing about Lena. It seemed as if he was making a fool of himself--and being laughed at by the others for his pains--and he was beginning to feel very disheartened. On two evenings, he had returned to Maida Vale and had hung about the neighbourhood of 4a, Carrington Villas, but had been rewarded by nothing more than a glimpse of a shadow on a curtain. He had been tempted then to walk boldly up to 4a and offer some wild excuse for trying to see Miss Golspie. But he could think of nothing that did not sound insane, and, realising that this crazy step might spoil everything and get him into trouble at the office, he dismissed the notion. The other evenings went very heavily. He had begun to tell himself that he was silly to bother his head about the girl at all, but it was one thing to tell himself that and quite another thing to stop bothering.

Stanley returned, and was sent out again. Mr. Smeeth departed for the bank. Turgis and the two girls worked away quietly; there was not a lot to do that morning. Then Poppy Sellers came over to Turgis with some advice notes she had just typed.

“Are these all right?” she asked.

He looked them over. “Yes, they’re all right. You’ve got into it now, haven’t you?” he added, deciding to give her a good word for once. She wasn’t a bad kid, really. “Wish I could type as neat as that. I used to have to do it sometimes, before you came, but I used to make a nasty mess of it, I did.”

Her sallow little face brightened at once at such praise. But her manner was as perky as ever. “My word! we are coming on, aren’t we! What have I done to deserve this? But I say,” and here she became more confidential in tone, “you didn’t mind what they said--y’know when they were trying to pull your leg. I had to laugh, and I thought you looked a bit mad.”

“If it amuses ’em, I don’t care,” replied Turgis loftily. “Bit silly, I call it, all the same. I don’t go round making personal remarks about other people. Matter of fact, I don’t mind what old Smeethy says, ’cos he’s a decent sort and anyhow it isn’t often _he_ breaks loose. But I don’t like that chap Sandycroft. He’s a cocky devil, he is. And, anyhow, he’s only just come here--what does he want to be trying to be funny for?”

“That’s right,” said Poppy, nodding her head. “I don’t think much of him, either. Not my style at all, he isn’t. Too many teeth, if you ask me. And I don’t like them noses that turn up the way his does. If he worked here all the time, he’d have that nose and teeth into everything. I know that sort.”

“So do I. We’d a school teacher the very image of him when I was a kid, and he used to try it on with us--oh, what a hope!”

“Mind you,” Poppy continued, looking at him a little uncertainly, “you do look diff’rent--smarter, y’know.”

“Well, that’s nobody else’s business but mine,” Turgis declared. “What’s it got to do with anybody else?”

“Oo, all right, don’t jump at me. I only meant--well, you look a lot nicer now. In fact, I think you look very nice.”

Turgis did not know what reply to make to this, so he merely grunted.

“You don’t mind me saying so, I hope?”

“No, ’s’all right,” he replied awkwardly.

“I say, listen. Are you going anywhere to-night?” She stopped for a moment, but then, before he had time to answer, went on with a rush. “’Cos if you aren’t--well, it’s like this, my friend--her father’s a policeman--and she got two tickets given for the Police Minstrels to-night and now she can’t go ’cos she’s in bed with the flu and I’ve got the tickets and I wondered if you’d like to come with me.” And she drew a deep breath.

“Well, thanks very much,” he stammered, “but--I don’t know--you see----”

“Have you fixed up already to go somewhere?”

“Well, I have--_really_----”

“Oh, sorry.” Her face fell. She was silent for a moment, then looked up--rather cheekily, he thought--and said, “Going out with your girl, p’raps?”

This annoyed him, just as if she had jabbed at some sore place. “Well, that’s my business, isn’t it?”

“Oo, sorry, sorry, sorry! Squashed again. I’d better shut up.” And she marched away, a compact little figure, and began typing with great vigour and noise. Miss Matfield threw a curious glance at her.

Turgis wondered if he had been foolish to pretend that he wasn’t free to go to that entertainment. It would be a lot better than doing nothing. He supposed it was too late to change his mind, particularly now that she had walked off in a huff. He would wish, when the evening did come and he had nothing to do but mope about, that he had accepted her offer. She really hadn’t a bad face when you took a good look at it. Yes, perhaps he’d been silly not to accept.

But when the evening did come and he suddenly remembered how he had refused this other engagement, how glad he was! It seemed like fate. And afterwards, when he suddenly remembered yet again how he had refused this other engagement, how sorry he was! And still it seemed like fate.

He and Miss Matfield came back from lunch at the same time that afternoon (Miss Matfield had gone out first, but then she always took quarter of an hour longer than anybody else), running into one another in Angel Pavement, near T. Benenden’s. “You know, Turgis,” she announced, in that clear hard voice of hers which always rather frightened him, “I do think you’re beastly rude to little Miss Sellers.”

“Why, what have I done to her?” he demanded.

“I saw this morning you’d hurt her feelings again,” Miss Matfield continued. “And why you should, I can’t imagine. She’s quite a nice child, really, underneath that silly perky manner of hers, and I think she’s rather lonely, and you could be quite good friends. You see, she happens to think you’re rather marvellous.”

“And you don’t, Miss Matfield,” said Turgis, bold for once with her. “Go on, you might as well put that in properly. I could hear it in your tone of voice.”

“I certainly don’t think you’re at all marvellous,” she said coolly. “Why should I? What I do think is that you’re being very rude to somebody who is prepared to like you a good deal. And when people really like you,” she added severely, “you ought to be specially nice to them and not rude. Now don’t say anything to her about what I’ve just said or I shall be really annoyed.”

“All right,” said Turgis sulkily, wondering why he couldn’t say something sharp to her, for her cool cheek. “But I don’t see what I’ve done to her. She takes offence too quickly, that’s it. And whose fault’s that? And for that matter, who’s ever considered _my_ feelings in the office?”

“You’re different,” she said airily, “or if you’re not, you ought to be. You’re a man.”

Turgis, pleased by this statement that he was a man, but still labouring under a grievance, could do nothing but mumble and mutter, and Miss Matfield, taking no further notice of him, led the way upstairs. The next time he saw Miss Sellers, Turgis looked curiously at her. So she thought he was “rather marvellous,” did she? He found himself returning to this, and to her, several times during the afternoon.

But then something happened, something so important that it promptly blew away all thought of Miss Sellers or anybody or anything in that office. Mr. Dersingham, who had only been there long enough in the morning to go through the first post, returned about four to examine the later posts, and he had not been in ten minutes before he sent for Mr. Smeeth. After a short interval, during which one of them telephoned to somebody from the private office, Mr. Smeeth came out, looking fussy, as he always did when he had something special to do.

“Let’s see,” he said, looking round the office, “does anybody here live Maida Vale way?”

What was this? Turgis’s heart jumped and knocked.

“Well, I live in Hampstead and that’s roughly the same way,” Miss Matfield began, dubiously.

“What is it, Mr. Smeeth?” cried Turgis eagerly. “I know Maida Vale very well.”

“Thought you lived Camden Town way?” said Mr. Smeeth.

“Yes, I do, but--er--I know somebody in Maida Vale, often go there. Is it anything I can do, Mr. Smeeth?”

“Yes, I think you’d better have the job, Turgis,” said the unconscious Mr. Smeeth, little knowing what effect his words were having. “You see, Mr. Golspie’s got a daughter living with him--well, you know that, because she came here one day, didn’t she?”

Oh, my gosh!--didn’t she!

“She hasn’t got a bank account,” Mr. Smeeth continued, “and apparently the girl’s got through all the money her father left her--these girls, my word, they think we’re made of money!--wait till you’re a father, Turgis, and then you’ll know--and he’s arranged with us to let her have some from his account here. She wants it at once, to-day, and we’ve just telephoned to see if she’ll be in, and she will--trust her!--they’ll always be in if they get something for it--so somebody had better take it up to her, Mr. Dersingham says. I’d make the young madam wait if I’d anything to do with it,” he went on, maddeningly, “because this is only encouraging extravagance, upon my word it is--but Mr. Dersingham says she’d better have it now.”

“Well, I’ll take it, Mr. Smeeth.” Oh, wouldn’t he just!

“All right, then. You’d better clear off that work you’ve got on hand, Turgis, and then when you go, you needn’t come back. If you leave here about five, you’ll get there about half-past five, and that’ll leave her ample time to put in a full evening spending it. I’ve got the address here all ready.”

Got the address! If old Smeethy only knew! Turgis could have banged his desk and sent all his advice notes and bills of lading and railway and shipping accounts flying about the office. He did contrive to clear up a few odd jobs, but he did not do as much work as he pretended to do, for it was impossible to keep his mind crawling there, among the papers, and to prevent it from taking a wild leap now and then. At a few minutes to five, he cleared his desk ruthlessly, so that it looked as if the last crumb of work had been gobbled up. “I’m ready now, Mr. Smeeth,” he announced.

“Right you are,” said Mr. Smeeth. “I’m putting twelve pounds, twelve pound notes, into this envelope, and it has the name and address on, you see--Miss Golspie, 4a Carrington Villas, Maida Vale. I’ll seal that. Now here’s a form of receipt I’ve made out, and you must get her to sign that, so that there’s no possible mistake. You understand that?”

Turgis assured him fervently that he did. He was delighted at the receipt idea. Once or twice he had thought what a dismal ending it would be if he merely handed over the money at the door--“Is that the money? Thank you. Good afternoon.” But signing a receipt was a different matter; it could not be done properly at the door; you should read a receipt carefully before you sign it; you might want to have it explained; you must ask the messenger in, and then of course he might have a chance to talk. The receipt made it a piece of real business. Good old Smeethy! It was just like him to insist on a proper receipt.

“And you needn’t come back, of course,” said Mr. Smeeth. “Just pop off home. I’ll just tell Mr. Dersingham I’ve fixed it all up.”

“What’s all this about?” Miss Matfield asked, as he was taking his overcoat from its peg.

He explained shortly.

“Where do they live?”

“In Maida Vale. 4a, Carrington Villas,” he told her.

“I say, listen,” cried Miss Sellers, sweeping away her grievance. “If you get a chance of going in, go in, and then tell us what it’s like to-morrow. I’d like to know what sort of place Mr. Golspie lives in. Wouldn’t you, Miss Matfield?”

Miss Matfield, to Turgis’s surprise, for he expected her to be disdainful of such idle curiosity, admitted at once that she would. “I’m rather sorry I didn’t ask for the job,” she added. “It would be amusing to see what the daughter’s like. I have just seen her, but that’s all. And I can’t imagine what sort of place Mr. Golspie lives in, though it’s probably some furnished maisonette they’re camping in. Maida Vale’s stiff with them.”

“Well, I can’t fancy that Mr. Golspie having a ’ome at all,” Miss Sellers put in. “Seems a ’omeless sort of man to me.”

“I’ll say ‘Good afternoon,’” cried Turgis loudly and cheerfully, and off he went, the money and the receipt form snugly tucked away in the inside pocket of his coat, the best coat he had and all brushed and as natty as you like. Now for Maida Vale, and no hanging about this time, but straight as a shot from a gun through the front gate of 4, Carrington Villas. He hurried out, running down the stairs, in fear of Mr. Dersingham or Mr. Smeeth or Miss Golspie or the gods suffering a change of mind at the last minute and dragging him back to his desk.

III

There was just light enough, and time enough, for him to notice that the broken statue, really a plaster thing, was that of a little boy playing with two large fishes, and that the two pillars were peeling badly. There were two bells, one for 4, the other for 4a. He was careful to press the 4a one. He pressed it several times and altogether waited nearly five minutes, but nobody came. It looked as if she was out, after all. In despair, he tried the bell for 4. Instantly a light was switched on in the hall, and the door--there was only one door for both flats--flung open.

“Is it you here again, young man,” cried an enormous woman in an apron, standing there. “Because if it is, I’ve to give you the mistress’s word that she’s paying out no more money for the machine because the girl that could work it has left and it’s no use to us at all the way we are now, and not another penny will she pay out for it, so take it itself and leave us in peace.”

“I don’t know anything about your machine,” Turgis told her.

“Aren’t you the same young man? Well, you’re the very image of him.”

“I want to see Miss Golspie.”

“The young lady above, isn’t it? Then ring the other bell, with the _a_ on it, and she’ll hear it soon enough.”

“But I’ve been ringing it,” he explained. “I’ve rung it about six times.”

“For the love of God!” cried the enormous woman, coming out and looking at the bell-push, as if that might explain something. “Haven’t they got that bell of theirs ringing yet? Every time it’s us, it’s really them. Come inside, young man, come inside, or if we stand here talking another minute the mistress’ll be raising Cain the way she’ll say she’s destroyed with the draught. Does she know you’re coming at all?”

“Yes, she does,” replied Turgis, following her into the hall. “I’ve been sent to see her on business. It’s very important. I hope she’s in.”

“Ah, she’s in, too, because I heard the mistress say she was going to see her. At the top of the stairs you’ll see a bit of a door--it may be open and it may be shut--and if you knock on it, you’ll make her hear. The servant they have is out to-day because I met her here myself this afternoon, all dressed up and telling me she’s to meet her young man, a sailor in the Royal Navy. Up the stairs then, it is, and a hard knock on the door.”

Just beyond the head of the stairs, there _was_ a door, and it was open a little, so that he could plainly hear the sound of a gramophone playing jazz. He knocked hard. The gramophone stopped abruptly.

It was Miss Lena herself who came to the door. She was dressed in a shimmering greenish-blue, and she was prettier than ever. At the sight of her standing there, solid and real again at last, his heart bumped and his mouth went suddenly dry.

“I’ve come from Twigg and Dersingham’s, Miss Golspie,” he announced, stammering a little.

Her face lit up at once. “Oh, have you brought that money?” she cried, in that same queer fascinating voice he remembered so well. “How much is it? Come in, though. This way.”

The room was very exciting. It was a big room, but in spite of its size it was full of things. Turgis had never seen, except on the pictures, so many cushions; there seemed to be dozens of them, huge bright cushions, piled up on a big deep sofa sort of thing, stuffed into armchairs, and even scattered about the floor. And then there were gramophone records and books and magazines all over the place, and bottles and tins of biscuits and fancy boxes heaped together on little tables, and then enough glasses and fruit and cigarettes and ash-trays for a whist drive or a social; and all in this one rich bewildering room. It was lit with two big, crimson and yellow, shaded lamps, and it was very cosy and warm; almost too warm, even though it was a cold afternoon, for an excited young man who had hurried there from the bus.

“It’s twelve pounds,” he explained, “and I have a receipt here that you have to sign.”

“Good! I could do with it, I don’t mind telling you. I adore having money. Don’t you? It’s beastly when you suddenly find you haven’t got any, and can’t go anywhere or buy anything. Oh, I remember you. You’re the one I spoke to that day when I called at the office, aren’t you? Do you remember me?”

Turgis assured her fervently that he did. He was still standing, awkwardly, with his hat in his hand and his overcoat hanging loose from his shoulders, and he felt rather hot and uncomfortable.

“You seem jolly sure about it,” she said lightly. “How did you remember so well?”

“You won’t be annoyed with me if I tell you, will you, Miss Golspie?” he said humbly.

She stared at him. “Why, what is it?”

“Well, I remembered you,” he replied, gasping a little, “because I thought you were the prettiest girl I’d ever spoken to in all my life.”

“You didn’t, did you? Are you serious?” She shrieked with laughter. “What a marvellous thing to say! Is that why _you_ brought the money?”

“Yes, it is,” he said earnestly.

“It isn’t. You were just sent here. I believe you’re pulling my leg.”

“No, I’m not, Miss Golspie. The minute I knew some one had to come here,” he continued with sudden recklessness, “I specially asked to be sent--just to see you again.” The hand that was still in his overcoat pocket tried to make a sweeping gesture, with the result that his overcoat brushed the top of one of the little tables and emptied a box of cigarettes on to the floor.

“Look what you’ve done now,” cried Miss Golspie, greatly entertained.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” muttered Turgis, confused and sweating now with sheer awkwardness and shyness. “I’ll pick them up.”

“Wait a minute. Take your overcoat off and put your hat down, and then you’ll feel much better. That’s right. Dump them down there--anywhere. Now you can pick the cigarettes up and you can also give me one of them. Take one yourself.” Unsteadily he lit her cigarette, picked up the others, and then lit his own. “Now what about the money?” she continued. “What do I have to do to get it?”

“Only sign this receipt,” he explained. “You ought to count it first to see if it’s all right.”

When they had concluded this little transaction, she said suddenly, “Have you had any tea?”

“No, I haven’t,” said Turgis promptly.

“Well, I haven’t, either. I was too lazy to make it. The maid’s out to-day. Let’s have some. Shall we? Most of it’s ready on a tray, but I just couldn’t bother boiling some water and making the tea. You come and help and then you shall have some.” He followed her into the little kitchen, where he filled a kettle and watched it come to the boil while she chattered in a drifting haze of cigarette smoke and languidly produced another cup and saucer and some things to eat. Then, when everything was ready, he carried the tray into the other room and set it down on a low table in front of the fire. Lena reclined, like a lovely lazy animal, on a pile of cushions, while Turgis, at the other side of the low table, sat in a low, fat armchair. It was a wonderful tea. The tea itself was good, for there were little sandwiches and all kinds of rich creamy chocolate cakes and biscuits, all piled up anyhow, like everything in this careless and sumptuous place. And then, far more important than sandwiches and cake, there was Lena herself, so real, so close, so magically illuminated there in the firelight and shaded lamplight. She asked him all manner of questions, beginning with “What’s your name?”

“Turgis,” he told her shyly.

“What’s your first name?”

“Harold,” he mumbled. It was years since anybody (anybody, that is, who didn’t merely want him to fill up a form) had asked him what his Christian name was. He brought it out with desperate embarrassment, but when it came out, he felt better.

“I don’t like Harold much. Do you? Mine’s Lena.”

“Yes, I know it is.”

“It seems to me you know everything about me,” she cried, laughing. “You’ll be telling me next how old I am and where I was born and all the rest of it. Who do you think you are--a detective?”

This was a good opportunity to be bright and entertaining, so he told her all about Stanley at the office and how Stanley wanted to be a detective and went about “shaddering” people. After which, Lena, who seemed to enjoy Stanley, asked him about the other people at the office.

“You don’t like it there, do you?” she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “I’d die if I had to work every day in a place like that. So dark and dismal, isn’t it? And they call that street Angel Pavement! What a name for it! I nearly passed straight out when my father told me. If ever I have to work for my living, I’d rather work in a shop than in an office like that. I wouldn’t mind being a mannequin. Or go on the stage. That would be best of all. I want to go on the stage. I nearly went on when I was in Paris. And a man wanted me to go in for film work--he said he’d get me a part right away. Do you think I’d be any good for the films?”

“Yes, I’m sure you would,” said Turgis earnestly, all solemn adoration. “You’d be wonderful on the pictures--like Lulu Castellar or one of those stars--only better. I’d go anywhere to see you.”

If he had thought about it for days, he could not have produced a speech more calculated to please her than this, because it chimed with her own innermost aspirations and beliefs. And his solemn adoration, a change from the usual obvious gallantry, was very pleasant. She smiled at him, slowly, with a kind of sweet deliberation, and he sat looking at her, silent, intoxicated.

The silence was broken by a sharp _rat-tat-tat_. “Oh, damn!” cried Lena. “Who’s that?” and went out to see. She returned, raising her eyebrows comically at Turgis, followed by a very strange figure. It was an old woman who looked like a dressed up and painted witch. She had an enormous nose, hollow cheeks, deeply sunken eyes, but, nevertheless, her face had the pink and white colouring of youth. This was because it was thickly painted, and when it caught the light, it shone, just as if it was enamelled and varnished. She was wearing, above a purple dress, a gigantic yellow shawl with a pattern of scarlet flowers on it, and she glittered with brooches, necklaces and rings. Never in his life before had Turgis been in the same room with anybody as fantastic as this old woman, and suddenly he felt frightened. For a second or so, he even forgot about Lena, and simply wished he was not there, wished he was somewhere familiar, sensible and safe. It was a queer moment, and he remembered it long afterwards.

Lena introduced him, in an off-hand, slap-dash fashion, so that he never caught the name of this extraordinary visitor. All he knew was that it was something foreign; and he guessed that she was the woman who lived downstairs, the mistress mentioned by the fat Irish cook, or whatever she was who had admitted him into the house.

“No, no, no, my dee-air,” cried the old woman in a cracked foreign voice, “I’ll not stay at oll, onlee one seengle minute. I haf asked my nephew and hees vife and hees friend from de Legation to com’ to me to-night because I am again in vairy great troble. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes--in vairy, vairy great troble again. Dere ees no end of eet.” At this point she sat down, shot out a claw-like hand and took a cake, and promptly gobbled it up. Turgis stared at her, fascinated.

“What’s the matter?” asked Lena, trying to sound concerned, but obviously ready to giggle at any moment.

“Aw!” cried the old woman, repeating this “Aw” a great many times and wagging her head as she did so. “My daughtair again, _of_ course--need you ask? Always de same--onlee a deef’rent troble.” She swooped down upon a cigarette, and popped it in her mouth and lit it with uncommon dexterity. After blowing a cloud of smoke in Lena’s direction, she resumed: “I haf com’, my dee-air, for two t’ings. First, here are de plomss I said to you I would geef you. No, no, no, no. Dey are noding, noding, noding at oll. Steel, dey are vairy, vairy nice plomss.” Apparently these plums were in the little box she now handed to Lena. “Next, I ask your fadair, Meestair Colspie--does he say ven he com’ back ’ere?”

“He didn’t say exactly,” said Lena. “I don’t think he quite knows yet. But it ought to be some time next week. Perhaps you know, do you?” And she looked at Turgis.

“That’s all I’ve heard, Miss Golspie,” replied Turgis, very conscious of the fact that the old woman was staring at him. “We expect him back some time next week.”

“No, no, no, no. I should like to ask your fadair about dees troble for my daughtair--dat ees oll--and eenoff! Aw yes!--eenoff. My nephew’s friend from de Legation, he may do somet’ing. Eef not, I ask your fadair next veek.” She threw her cigarette into the fireplace, and got up from her chair surprisingly quickly. “Aw, my dee-air, dat ees a nice, a vairy nice dress you ’ave on now. Aw yes, eet ees.” She ran a be-ringed claw over some of it. Then she looked at Turgis, who immediately wished she wouldn’t. “Eesn’t eet a nice dress, eh? You t’eenk so?”

The embarrassed Turgis said it was.

“She ees vairy preety, Mees Colspie? Aw, yes--loffly, you t’eenk, eh?”

“Yes, I think she is,” replied Turgis, after clearing his throat.

“You are in loff wit’ her, eh?”

These foreigners! What a question to put to a chap? What had it got to do with her, the nosy old hag? He made some sort of noise in his throat, and it was enough to stop her staring at him and to set her moving towards the door, chuckling just as if she was a witch. “The young man ees afraid of me. He ees in loff. Geef ’im a plom, dee-air.”

When Lena came back, after closing the outer door behind the old woman, a new feeling, of friendly ease and lightness, immediately descended upon them both. They were young together. They laughed at the old woman, whom Lena imitated with some skill.

“She’s our landlady,” she explained. “Not a bad old thing, really--she’s always giving me things--but quite cracked, of course. And the daughter she talks about, the one who’s in ‘troble’--she’s some sort of a countess--seems to be completely dippy. Everybody who ever comes downstairs is a bit mad, and they’re the only people I’ve spoken to these last few days, so you can tell the sort of time I’ve had. It’s just my damnable luck!--when my father’s away and I could do what I liked--three friends, all three, take it into _their_ heads to go away, too, this week. I could have screamed, I’ve been so bored.” She lounged over to the window and looked out. “Looks very thick now. Another fog coming, I suppose. That’s the worst of London, all these foul fogs. What shall we do now? You haven’t to go home or anything, have you?”

Turgis, looking his devotion, said at once that he hadn’t to go home or anywhere.

“Let’s go to the movies. We can go to the place near here. It’s not bad. Just wait; I shan’t be long. Or, look here, you could take these tea things back into the kitchen.”

He had taken them all in and had seriously begun to think of washing them long before Miss Golspie appeared again. What he did, when she did appear, was to wash himself in a bathroom that had more towels and bottles and jars and tins in it than all the other half-dozen bathrooms he had ever seen put together. And now they were ready for the pictures.

It was not far, but they had to grope their way through a mist that was rapidly turning into a thick fog, and once or twice Lena put her hand on his arm, and they were cosy together in the blank woolly night, and it was all rather wonderful. It was better still when they were sitting, close, cosier than ever, in the scented and deep rose-shaded dimness of the balcony in the picture theatre. (Turgis had paid for these best seats, and was left with exactly three-and-threepence to take him through the rest of the week.) They were both enthusiastic and knowing patrons of the films, so that they had a good deal to talk about, and frequently as they whispered, her head came close to his and her hair even brushed his cheek. It was tremendously exciting. The chief picture, a talkie--it was _Her Dearest Enemy_, with Mary Meriden and Hunter York--was good stuff, but it was nothing compared to merely sitting in that balcony with Lena Golspie, who, incidentally, was much prettier than Mary Meriden. She herself thought she was just as pretty, but Turgis was sure that she was much prettier, and told her so several times. On this occasion he abandoned his usual tactics. He did not even try to hold her hand. He was content to sit there, to whisper, to be so near to this fragrant dim loveliness, with his hunger, which he had taken into so many picture theatres, momentarily appeased. A dream had come true. He reminded himself of this, time after time, if only because the dream, which had been haunting him so long, was still more real than this sudden actuality. He longed to make everything stand still, knowing only too well that it was all flowing away from him. Every photograph that leaped on to the screen and then leaped away again was nibbling at the evening. Very soon the programme would be completing its circle, and she would be wanting to go, and it would be all over. Turgis felt all this, even if he did not find phrases to express it, so that he was not completely and perfectly happy. He was, as we have seen, a born lover, and a romantic, and what he wanted at heart was not ordinary human happiness, but a golden immortality, a balcony seat high above Time and Change.

“You can come back and have some supper, if you like,” said Miss Golspie casually, when they descended into the gloom of Maida Vale again. “You can help me to make it. I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”

He _was_ hungry, and if she didn’t mind, he would like to help her with supper. He could have shouted for joy at the thought that he had not to leave her yet, that the evening was being thus magically extended. All the way back, they talked about pictures and film actors and actresses they liked and disliked, and as there was not really much difference in their points of view, for they both went to the films in search of an amorous dream life and the mere difference of sex only added spice to the discussion, they got on very well indeed. After the fog, the room at 4a seemed richer and cosier than ever, and as Turgis helped to put odds and ends of food, mostly out of tins, on the little table in front of the fire, he felt as if he had wandered into a glorious film.

“Can you mix a cocktail?” asked Lena.

“No,” he replied. Cocktails were not a part of real life at all to him, and in a sudden burst of candour he added: “Matter of fact, I’ve never tasted one in my life.”

“Don’t be silly,” she screamed at him. “You’re trying to be funny. You _must_ have had.”

“I haven’t really,” he assured her. “I’ve had beer and whisky and port wine and sherry and all that, but I’ve never had a cocktail.”

“All right, my good little boy,” said Lena gaily, “you’re going to have one now--one of the special Golspie Smashers.”

He watched her take bottle after bottle from the sideboard and then shake a tall silver flask, just as he had seen people do on the stage and in films. “Now just you taste that, Mr. Angel Pavement,” she commanded, giving him a little glass. It had a queer flavour, rather sweet at first, then slightly bitter, and ending with a sort of golden glow, which seemed to travel all over him.

“Like it?” and she put her own glass down.

“It’s fine.”

“Have another then. We’ll just have one more and then we’ll eat.” After the second one, he felt larger and more important and even happier than he had done before. He insisted upon showing her a trick with three pennies. He knew three tricks, one with the pennies and the other two with cards. The other two could wait; it would not do to show her everything at once. She thought the trick with pennies very smart, and they postponed eating until he had shown her how to do it and she had practised it several times. They were better friends than ever when they sat down to eat the sardines and the two salads in the cardboard jars and the sliced veal loaf and the fruit salad and chocolate cake. Lena ate very quickly and left things and started again on them and pushed them aside and altogether dined in a delightfully fussy extravagant fashion that was quite new to Turgis, who was used to seeing people walk through a meal at a good round pace.

When she had finished eating, Lena lit a cigarette and then darted to the large gramophone in the corner. Having wound it up, she could not find the record she wanted (there seemed to be records all up and down the room), and he had to help her, when she had told him half the name and tried to whistle a bit of it at him. At last they found it, and the gramophone came gloriously to life, filling the room with the lilt and throb of this fashionable tune.

“Can you dance?” she asked him, gliding and twirling to the music.

“Not much,” he mumbled, ashamed of himself.

“Well, let’s see. Shove that rug back, there. That’s enough. Now then.” And she came up to him. “Not that way. Like this. That’s it. Go on, you can hold me tighter than that.”

He could, and he did. If they had been standing still, it would have been a rapturous moment, but though he was delightedly conscious of the body against one arm and of the hand that gripped his, he had to try and dance, and he was very awkward.

“You’re ghastly,” she told him, with lips that were not four inches from his, “but you’ll improve. I’ve known worse. You’ve got some idea of the rhythm, and some men never even get that. Now--left--right--left--that’s better. Only you’re so stiff--put some pep into it. Oh, hell!--the gramophone’s stopped. Shove another dance record on and we’ll try again.”

They tried several times, with an interval during which they had another cocktail each, and Turgis improved considerably, and towards the end was holding her as she wanted to be held, close to him, and had time to enjoy the situation. When they stopped, his arm left her waist reluctantly and she did not seem to resent it. She told him all about the dances she had been to in Paris, and then, having come to the end of them, suddenly yawned. He glanced at the clock.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose I’d better be going now.”

“All right,” she replied, yawning again. “I suppose you had. I’m tired all at once--must be this rotten heavy weather.”

“What about all this stuff?” He pointed to the little table.

“Oh, they don’t matter. The maid will clear them in the morning. She’ll be in soon--unless her sailor boy’s persuaded her to stay out all night. And that would be nice for _me_, wouldn’t it?--here all night by myself. No, she’ll be in soon. I thought I heard her then.”

Very slowly, reluctantly, Turgis put on his coat, carefully buttoning it and lingering over every button. While he did this, he stared at her, wondering how he could possibly say what was in his mind.

She, too, had been thoughtful. “Look here,” she cried at last. “Have you been to the Colladium this week? Well, I haven’t either, and I want to go, and I hate going by myself. If I can get two seats for the first house to-morrow night, will you come with me? I might go down and get them to-morrow afternoon if I feel like it. I want to spend some of that twelve pounds, anyhow.”

Would he go? Oh, my gosh!

“All right then,” she continued, walking towards the door with him. “Listen. I’ll telephone to you at the office some time in the afternoon if it’s all right. I’ll tell you where to meet me and all that then.”

They were standing at the door now, and he was still holding her hand, as if he were about to shake it, but was at the moment too busy trying to stammer out a few adequate phrases. Nor was he merely holding the hand, for, involuntarily, he was pulling it too, so that there was less and less space between them as his little speech floundered on. This made Lena impatient.

“I don’t know what on earth you’re trying to say,” she told him, “so don’t bother. And you might as well go now before the girl does get back. And I’ll telephone to-morrow. Oh, don’t dither so much, silly. There!” And with that she leaned against him, putting a hand on each shoulder, kissed him swiftly on the mouth, drew back, laughed, and then shut the door on him.

Turgis stared at the door, drew a long breath, and then wandered down the stairs and through the hall below like a man drifting drunkenly out of some Arabian Night. He walked up to Kilburn, where he caught a 31 bus that took him most of the way home. The fog was not very thick, but it was wretchedly cold damp stuff that made people shiver and cough and wipe their eyes and blow their noses and look miserable. But Turgis did not care. As he sat gazing at nothing in the bus or marched along the blackened pavements, he was warmed by the fire inside him and cheered by a host of coloured fancies that were rocketing in his mind.

IV

When he awoke next morning, he knew at once that he was in possession of an exquisite secret and was quite different from the Turgis who had rubbed his eyes so often in that little room. He was the chap who had been kissed by Miss Lena Golspie the night before. He was also the chap she was going to telephone to this very day and take to the Colladium this very night. He jumped out of bed and then jumped into the part of this new and splendid chap. The fact that he still looked like the old Turgis, to whom nothing wonderful had ever happened, only made it all the more amusing.

“Another raw morning, my word,” said Mrs. Pelumpton, as she handed him his breakfast. “Them’s best off this morning who has to stay in. Edgar’s been gone these two hours, and a nasty cold job it must be in that station this morning.”

“Yes, it must, Mrs. Pelumpton,” said Turgis heartily. “I’m sorry for Edgar.” And so he was. Edgar would never be kissed by a girl like Lena Golspie, not if he lived to be a thousand. Poor dreary devil!

Old Pelumpton shuffled in, unwashed, blue about the nose, and wearing a greasy muffler. Turgis had seen him like that many times before, but this morning he resented the appearance of this dirty apparition. If Lena Golspie knew that he had to eat his breakfast looking at that nasty old mess, who might have just crawled out of the dustbin, she would probably never speak to him again.

“No letter, I shee,” said Mr. Pelumpton, going to the fire and warming his hands. “That meansh he doeshn’t want me to go and shee the shtuff thish morning. I’ll go round jusht before dinner and catch ’im in then. That’sh the idear.”

“Yes, that is the idea,” said his wife sharply, as she bustled about. “Wait till the pubs is open and then catch him in. I know that idea. It’s a good idea, that is. If it wasn’t for that idea, I don’t know why the pubs ’ud ever open at dinner time, ’cos they wouldn’t have any custom.”

“You hear that,” Mr. Pelumpton said to Turgis, who was putting away his breakfast as fast as he could. “Deary me, they’ve got pubsh on the brain, the women ’ave. If a man shtops in a bit, they want to know when he’sh going to do a bit o’ work, an’ if he goesh out, then it’sh the pubsh.”

“And you don’t go in the pubs, do you, Mr. Pelumpton?” said Turgis, with a very marked ironical inflection.

“Oh no! He ’ates them, he does,” cried Mrs. Pelumpton. “You couldn’t get him to go near one.”

“What shome o’ you people don’t realishe,” retorted Mr. Pelumpton with dignity, “ish that the pub may be nesheshary in bishnish. And until you’ve been in bishnish--a bishnish like mine, I mean--it’sh shomething you don’t undershtand. The amount of bishnish transhacted in pubsh, my wordsh----”

“’Morning, Mrs. Pelumpton,” cried Turgis, wiping his mouth and dashing out. What a life the Pelumptons had! It seemed incredible that anybody could find so dingy an existence worth living. Hurrying down to the Camden Town Tube Station, cramming himself into the lift, waiting for a City train, swaying near the doors among a mass of elbows, newspapers and parcels all the way to Moorgate, he hugged his grand secret. When he arrived at the office, he swelled exultantly, for this was where Mr. Golspie gave his orders, and they all knew Mr. Golspie and they had heard about his daughter, but they did not know what Turgis knew. It was a delightful feeling. He wanted to laugh out loud every time one of the others spoke to him or even looked at him. Ah, little did they know!

“You got that receipt all right, did you, Turgis?” said Mr. Smeeth.

It was extraordinary. He had forgotten all about the money and the receipt. But he had the receipt in his pocket, nevertheless, and when he handed it over he found himself swelling again inside, nearly bursting with secret knowledge and happiness.

“Did you go inside?” said Mr. Smeeth casually.

“Yes,” replied Turgis. Did he go inside!

“Oo, did you?” cried Poppy Sellers, who missed nothing. “Tell us what it was like? What did you say to his daughter? Is she nice? Tell us all about it--go on.”

Not a bad kid, really, though that fringe effect was a distinct mess. And she thought him--what was it?--rather marvellous. (And so _she_ ought. Why, if Lena Golspie--oh, well, I-mean-to-say!) Poor kid--a bit pathetic, when you came to consider it. And she had wanted him to go with her to the Police Minstrels last night! And he had half thought of going! Dear, dear, dear!

“Well, Miss Sellers, if you really want to know,” he said, “I’ll tell you.”

“My words, aren’t we getting grand!” cried Poppy. “Go on. Very good of your lordship, I’m sure.”

“They live in the top half of a detached house,” said Turgis, “and the room I went into was a large room, bigger than this office here, and it had all sorts of things in it, and shaded lights and a big gramophone and dozens of cushions all over the room----”

“Did it look like a furnished flat?” asked Miss Matfield.

“I suppose so. I don’t know. I don’t know anything about furnished flats.”

“Well, what about his daughter?” Miss Sellers enquired. “What’s she like?”

“I’ve seen her--for a minute,” said Miss Matfield. “She’s rather pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is,” replied Turgis, keeping a hold on himself. He was bubbling inside.

“Yes, but what’s she _like_?” Miss Sellers persisted, staring at him. And when he made no reply, but turned away and pretended to be suddenly busy with some work, she gave him a curious look before she herself turned away too. He never saw it, and if he had seen it, he would not have been interested.