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nodded sympathetically to Miriam, and became gently sarcastic to Beatrice.
“No,” said Beatrice, “he's gone off with number nine.”
“I just met number five inquiring for him,” said Leonard.
“Yes—we're going to share him up like Solomon's baby,” said Beatrice.
Annie laughed.
“Oh, ay,” said Leonard. “And which bit should you have?”
“I don't know,” said Beatrice. “I'll let all the others pick first.”
“An' you'd have the leavings, like?” said Leonard, twisting up a comic face.
Annie was looking in the oven. Miriam sat ignored. Paul entered.
“This bread's a fine sight, our Paul,” said Annie.
“Then you should stop an' look after it,” said Paul.
“You mean YOU should do what you're reckoning to do,” replied Annie.
“He should, shouldn't he!” cried Beatrice.
“I s'd think he'd got plenty on hand,” said Leonard.
“You had a nasty walk, didn't you, Miriam?” said Annie.
“Yes—but I'd been in all week—”
“And you wanted a bit of a change, like,” insinuated Leonard kindly.
“Well, you can't be stuck in the house for ever,” Annie agreed. She was quite amiable. Beatrice pulled on her coat, and went out with Leonard and Annie. She would meet her own boy.
“Don't forget that bread, our Paul,” cried Annie. “Good-night, Miriam. I don't think it will rain.”
When they had all gone, Paul fetched the swathed loaf, unwrapped it, and surveyed it sadly.
“It's a mess!” he said.
“But,” answered Miriam impatiently, “what is it, after all—twopence, ha'penny.”
“Yes, but—it's the mater's precious baking, and she'll take it to heart. However, it's no good bothering.”
He took the loaf back into the scullery. There was a little distance between him and Miriam. He stood balanced opposite her for some moments considering, thinking of his behaviour with Beatrice. He felt guilty inside himself, and yet glad. For some inscrutable reason it served Miriam right. He was not going to repent. She wondered what he was thinking of as he stood suspended. His thick hair was tumbled over his forehead. Why might she not push it back for him, and remove the marks of Beatrice's comb? Why might she not press his body with her two hands. It looked so firm, and every whit living. And he would let other girls, why not her?
Suddenly he started into life. It made her quiver almost with terror as he quickly pushed the hair off his forehead and came towards her.
“Half-past eight!” he said. “We'd better buck up. Where's your French?”
Miriam shyly and rather bitterly produced her exercise-book. Every week she wrote for him a sort of diary of her inner life, in her own French. He had found this was the only way to get her to do compositions. And her diary was mostly a love-letter. He would read it now; she felt as if her soul's history were going to be desecrated by him in his present mood. He sat beside her. She watched his hand, firm and warm, rigorously scoring her work. He was reading only the French, ignoring her soul that was there. But gradually his hand forgot its work. He read in silence, motionless. She quivered.
“'Ce matin les oiseaux m'ont eveille,'” he read. “'Il faisait encore un crepuscule. Mais la petite fenetre de ma chambre etait bleme, et puis, jaune, et tous les oiseaux du bois eclaterent dans un chanson vif et resonnant. Toute l'aube tressaillit. J'avais reve de vous. Est-ce que vous voyez aussi l'aube? Les oiseaux m'eveillent presque tous les matins, et toujours il y a quelque chose de terreur dans le cri des grives. Il est si clair—'”
Miriam sat tremulous, half ashamed. He remained quite still, trying to understand. He only knew she loved him. He was afraid of her love for him. It was too good for him, and he was inadequate. His own love was at fault, not hers. Ashamed, he corrected her work, humbly writing above her words.
“Look,” he said quietly, “the past participle conjugated with avoir agrees with the direct object when it precedes.”
She bent forward, trying to see and to understand. Her free, fine curls tickled his face. He started as if they had been red hot, shuddering. He saw her peering forward at the page, her red lips parted piteously, the black hair springing in fine strands across her tawny, ruddy cheek. She was coloured like a pomegranate for richness. His breath came short as he watched her. Suddenly she looked up at him. Her dark eyes were naked with their love, afraid, and yearning. His eyes, too, were dark, and they hurt her. They seemed to master her. She lost all her self-control, was exposed in fear. And he knew, before he could kiss her, he must drive something out of himself. And a touch of hate for her crept back again into his heart. He returned to her exercise.
Suddenly he flung down the pencil, and was at the oven in a leap, turning the bread. For Miriam he was too quick. She started violently, and it hurt her with real pain. Even the way he crouched before the oven hurt her. There seemed to be something cruel in it, something cruel in the swift way he pitched the bread out of the tins, caught it up again. If only he had been gentle in his movements she would have felt so rich and warm. As it was, she was hurt.
He returned and finished the exercise.
“You've done well this week,” he said.
She saw he was flattered by her diary. It did not repay her entirely.
“You really do blossom out sometimes,” he said. “You ought to write poetry.”
She lifted her head with joy, then she shook it mistrustfully.
“I don't trust myself,” she said.
“You should try!”
Again she shook her head.
“Shall we read, or is it too late?” he asked.
“It is late—but we can read just a little,” she pleaded.
She was really getting now the food for her life during the next week. He made her copy Baudelaire's “Le Balcon”. Then he read it for her. His voice was soft and caressing, but growing almost brutal. He had a way of lifting his lips and showing his teeth, passionately and bitterly, when he was much moved. This he did now. It made Miriam feel as if he were trampling on her. She dared not look at him, but sat with her head bowed. She could not understand why he got into such a tumult and fury. It made her wretched. She did not like Baudelaire, on the whole—nor Verlaine.
“Behold her singing in the field
Yon solitary highland lass.”
That nourished her heart. So did “Fair Ines”. And—
“It was a beauteous evening, calm and pure,
And breathing holy quiet like a nun.”
These were like herself. And there was he, saying in his throat bitterly:
“Tu te rappelleras la beaute des caresses.”
The poem was finished; he took the bread out of the oven, arranging the burnt loaves at the bottom of the panchion, the good ones at the top. The desiccated loaf remained swathed up in the scullery.
“Mater needn't know till morning,” he said. “It won't upset her so much then as at night.”
Miriam looked in the bookcase, saw what postcards and letters he had received, saw what books were there. She took one that had interested him. Then he turned down the gas and they set off. He did not trouble to lock the door.
He was not home again until a quarter to eleven. His mother was seated in the rocking-chair. Annie, with a rope of hair hanging down her back, remained