Sally Bishop. E. Temple Thurston
"He's going to propose," said Miss Hallard.
"He's not," retorted Sally.
"I'm perfectly certain he is. He's been excited about something all the evening. He's come into some money or something. He talked to-night as if he could buy up all the art treasures in the kingdom."
"You think he's going to buy me up?"
"He's going to make his offer. What'll you do?"
"Well—what can I do? Would you marry him?"
"That's not the question. There's no chance of him asking me. You can't speculate on whether you'll marry a man until he asks you—your mind is biassed before then."
"I don't believe you'd marry any one," said Sally.
"It's quite probable," she replied laconically.
Sally began to take off her hat again. "I'm not going out with him," she said. "I shall hate it."
"Don't be foolish—put on that hat, and see what it's like to be proposed to by an earnest young gentleman on the banks of a river, at nine o'clock in the evening. Go on—don't be foolish, Sally. It does a woman good to be proposed to—teaches her manners—go on. You may like him—you don't know."
Sally obeyed reluctantly. In the heart of her was a dread of it; in her mind, the tardy admission that she was doing her duty, sacrificing at the altar upon which every woman at some time or other is compelled to make her offering.
In the little linoleum'd passage, known as the hall, Mr. Arthur was waiting for her. He had exchanged his felt slippers for a pair of boots; round his neck he had wrapped an ugly muffler and a cap was perched jauntily on his head. The impression that he gave Sally, of being confident of his success, stung her for a moment to resentment. She determined to refuse him. But that mood was only momentary. When the door had closed behind them and they had begun to walk along the paved river path, the impression and its accompanying decision vanished.
Sally was a romantic—that cannot be denied. She could talk reverently about love in the abstract. In her mind, it was not a condition into which one fell, as the unwary traveller falls into the ditch by the roadside, picking himself out as quickly as may be, or, in his weariness, choosing at least to sleep the night there and go on with his journey next morning. In the heart of Sally, whether it were a pitfall or not, love was an end in itself. She directed all her steps towards that destination, and any light of romance allured her.
That evening, walking up towards Kew Bridge, the lights of the barges lying in the stream, looking themselves like huddled reptiles seeking the warmth of each other's bodies, the lights of the little buildings on the eyot, and the lamps of the bridge itself, all dancing quaint measures in the black water, brought to the susceptibility of Sally's mind a sense of romance. For the moment, until he spoke, she forgot the actual presence of Mr. Arthur. The vague knowledge that some one was with her, stood for the indefinite, the unknown quantity whose existence was essential to the completion of the whole.
As they passed by the City Barge—that little old-fashioned inn which faces the water on the river path—she looked in through the windows. There were bargemen, working men who lived near by, and others whose faces she had often seen as she had walked to her tram in the morning, all talking, laughing good-naturedly, some with the pewter pots pressed to their lips, head throwing slightly back, others enforcing a point with an empty mug on the bar counter. And outside, ahead of them, the lean, gaunt willows, around whose very trunks the hard paving had been laid, shot up into the black sky like witches' brooms that the wind was combing out.
Bright, cheerful lights glowed in every cottage window. In some it was only the light of a fire that leaped a ruddy dance on the whitewashed walls, and caught reflections in the lintels of the windows. In others it was a candle, in others a small oil lamp; but in all, looking through the windows as she passed, Sally saw some old man or woman seated over a fire. There is romance, even in content. Sally was half conscious of it, until Mr. Arthur spoke; then it whipped out, vanished—a wisp of smoke that the air scatters.
"Let's lean over that railing and watch the boats," he suggested.
There were scarcely any boats moving, to be seen. He spoke at random, as if the river swarmed with them; but only a little tug now and then scurried like a water-rat out of the shadows of the bridge, and sped down along towards Chiswick. In its wake, spreading out in ever-broadening lines, it left a row of curling waves that came lapping to the steps below them. These sounds and the occasional noise of voices across on the Kew side, were the only interruptions to the silence. For some moments they stood there, leaning on the railing, saying nothing, watching some dull, dark figures of men who were moving about on the little island that belongs to the Thames Conservancy.
"I—I've got something I want to tell you, Miss Bishop," Mr. Arthur said at length with sudden resolve.
Sally caught her breath. If it were only somebody she could love! What a moment it would be then—what a moment! Her lips felt suddenly dry. She sucked them into her mouth and moistened them.
"What is it?" she asked.
Mr. Arthur coughed, pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. The sound, intensified there in that still place, jarred through Sally's senses. She roughly told herself that she was a fool.
"You know I'm in a bank?" he began.
"Yes; of course."
"It's a private bank."
"Really?"
"Yes; what I mean is, they pay better than most banks usually do."
"Really?"
"And they're going to make me a cashier."
"Oh, is that good?"
"Well, there's hardly a fellow of my age in any bank that's got to a responsible position like that, in the time I have. I bet you a shilling there isn't."
"Well, I can't afford to bet a shilling on it."
"No, of course not; I didn't mean that. What I mean—"
"I understand what you mean," said Sally. A sense of humour might have gone far to save him at that moment. She accredited it against him that he had none. "You might just as well have bet ten pounds," she added with a smile, "and I should have known what you meant. Ten pounds always sounds better than a shilling—even in that sort of—of—transaction."
"Ah, you're only joking," said he.
"No, I'm not," she replied. "I'm quite serious. I like the sound of ten pounds better. There's a nice ring of bravado about it. A shilling seems so mean."
For a few moments he was silenced by the weight of her incomprehensibleness. Such a moment comes at all times to every man, whatever his dealings with a woman may be. Mr. Arthur stood leaning on the railing, looking out at the black water and thinking how little she understood of the seriousness of his position, or the meaning that such an uplifting of his financial status conveyed to a man. She did not even know what he was about to propose. It would steady her considerably when she heard that; she would be less flippant then. Out of the corners of his eyes, he watched her face—the little, round, childish face almost perfect in outline—the gentle force, petulance almost, in the shapely chin, and the lips—tantalizing—they looked so innocent. In another few moments he would be kissing those lips; in another few moments he would be feeling the warmth of that hand that lay idly over the railing. He wondered if he were really wise. Was he being carried away by the first flush of triumph which his success had brought him? There was time to draw back yet.
"Well," she said, "was that what you were going to tell me?"
He turned round and met her look; his eyes wandered over her face. Those lips—they were indescribably alluring. It seemed impossible to give up the delight of kissing them; yet, of course, that was foolish, that was weak. He was not going to let the whole of his life hang upon a momentary desire like that. If she did not appeal to him in other ways, if he did not find admiration