Sally Bishop. E. Temple Thurston
talk about it. After all, art is only some one person's idea about something they generally don't understand."
There is no wonder that the man hated her. But for Sally, he formed a deep attachment that was only kept in check and controlled by the remembrance of the superiority of his position. Class bias is universal, and is based almost entirely upon possession. The school-boy who has more pocket-money, the lodger who has the only bed-sitting-room in the house, and the man who has the largest rent-roll, are always socially above those in their immediate surroundings. Possession being nine points of the law is also nine points of class superiority. That Mr. Arthur should have stepped down from his high estate and condescended to have his meals with them, was proof enough that the man was in earnest. But his interest in her was not reciprocated.
"I couldn't marry Mr. Arthur," she said; "not even if he was the manager of his old bank."
"But why not?"
"Because I could never love him; not even respect him."
"That's what fetters women."
"What?"
"That idea that they've got to marry the man they love. They've grown to think—unconsciously almost—that to give him love, blinded, is a fair exchange for his provision of a home. They'll never win their independence that way."
"I don't want my independence," said Sally.
"Then why do you work for it?" asked Janet.
"Because I didn't want to be a clog on my own people—because I wanted to be free to answer to myself."
"Then why don't you carry that idea further? Why make yourself free, simply to tie yourself up again at the first chance you get?"
"I don't call it tying myself up to marry a man I'm in love with and who loves me. That's happiness. I know I shall be perfectly happy."
Janet lifted her head and in a thoroughly professional manner blew a long, thin stream of smoke from between her lips.
"How long do you think that happiness is going to last?" she asked.
"I don't know."
"You chance it?"
"Yes."
"And then when the end comes you have not even got yourself to fall back upon. You're done for—sucked dry. You fall to pieces because you've sold your independence."
Sally left the dressing-table and crossed to Janet's bed. Sitting there, she put her bare arms on Janet's shoulders.
"It's no good your talking like that," she said gently. "You think that way, and right or wrong I think the other. If I loved a man and he loved me, I'd willingly sell my independence, willingly do anything for him."
"Supposing he wasn't going to marry you?" said Janet, imperturbably.
"Then he wouldn't love me."
"Oh yes; he might."
"Then I don't know what you mean."
Janet stood up from the bed. "I can smell bloaters for supper," she said; "if you don't hurry up, Mr. Hewson 'll get the best one. I can see Mrs. Hewson picking it out for him. Come on. Put a blouse on. There's a woman who's sold her independence. She doesn't get much for it, as far as I can see. Come on. I'm going to talk to Mr. Arthur about art to-night."
CHAPTER VII
It is one thing to say you could never marry a man, and it is another thing to refuse him when he asks you.
That very afternoon Mr. Arthur had received the intimation at his bank that he was shortly to be made a cashier. He glowed with the prospect. His conversation that evening was of the brightest. The poisoned shafts of Miss Hallard's satire met the armoured resistance of his high spirits. They fell—pointless and unavailing—from his unbounded faith in himself. A man who, after a comparatively few years' service in a bank, is deemed fitted for the responsible duties of a cashier, is qualified to express an opinion, even on art. Mr. Arthur expressed many.
"Don't see how you can say a thing's artistic if you don't like it," he declared.
"I think you're quite right, Mr. Arthur," said Mrs. Hewson. "If I like a thing—like that picture in one of the Christmas Annuals—I always say, 'Now I call that artistic,' don't I, Ern?"
Her husband nodded with his mouth full of the best bloater.
"Well, you couldn't call that thing artistic, Mrs. Hewson, if you mean the thing that's over the piano in the sitting-room?"
"Why not?" asked Janet; "don't you like it?"
"No," said Mr. Arthur emphatically, "nor any one else either, I should think. I bet you a shilling they wouldn't."
"But Mrs. Hewson does," Janet replied quietly. "Doesn't that satisfy you that it must be artistic, since some one likes it?"
Mrs. Hewson, finding herself suddenly the object of the conversation, picked her teeth in hurried confusion. Her husband surveyed the company over the rim of his cup and then returned to his reading of the evening paper.
During the weighted silence that followed Janet's last remark, he laid down his paper.
"I see," he said, "as 'ow there are some people up in the north of England 'aving what they call Pentecostal visitations."
Mrs. Hewson laughed tentatively, the uncertain giggle that scarcely dares to come between the teeth. She knew her husband's leaning towards the arid humour of an obscure joke.
"What's that, Ern?"
"Well, 'cording to the paper, they get taken with it sudden. They can't stand up. They fall down in the middle of the service and roll about, just as if they'd 'ad too much to drink."
Mrs. Hewson's laugh became genuine and unafraid, a hysterical clattering of sounds that tumbled from her mouth.
"Silly fools," she said; "the way people go on. Read it—what is it? Read it."
Mr. Hewson picked some bones out of the bloater with a dirty hand, placed the filleted morsel in his mouth, washed it down with a mouthful of tea, and then cleared his throat and began to read.
Mr. Arthur seized this opportunity. "It's quite fine again now," he said in an undertone to Sally.
She expressed mild surprise—the lifting of her eyebrows, the casual "Really." Then it seemed to her that he did not exactly deserve to be treated like that and she told him how she had got wet through, coming home.
"Changed your clothes, I hope," he whispered.
"Oh yes."
"You might get pneumonia, you know," he said.
She smiled at that. "And of such are the Kingdom of Heaven."
He gazed at her in surprise. "Why should you say that?" he asked.
"Don't know—why shouldn't I?"
He looked down at his empty plate. There was something he wanted to say to her. He kept looking round the table for inspiration. At last, with Mrs. Hewson's burst of laughter at the paper's description of the Pentecostal visitations, he took the plunge—head down—the words spluttering in whispers out of his lips.
"Would you care to come for a little walk down the Strand-on-Green?" he asked. "It's a lovely night now."
In the half breath of a second, Sally's eyes sought Janet's face across the table. Janet had heard and, with her eyes, she urged Sally to accept. This all passed unknown to Mr. Arthur. He thought Sally was hesitating—the moments thumped in his heart.
"I don't mind for a little while," she said.
He rose from the table, conscious of victory. "I'll just go and get on my boots," he said, and he slipped away.
Sally