Sally Bishop Part 17

He stood by to let her pa.s.s him into the hall.

"You're really quite wrong," she began, then she saw that he was not following her. "I thought you were coming in," she said.

"No; I'm not coming in yet. Good night."

He closed the door behind him, and left her abruptly in the darkness of the hall.

She stood there for a moment, listening to the departure of his footsteps as he slouched aimlessly away. He was n.o.body--n.o.body in her life--but she felt sorry for him. On the verge of love--in love itself--is a boundless capacity for sympathy. She turned to go upstairs, still feeling pity for him in the pain she had unavoidably caused him. She did not realize that this was simply a reflection, the first shadowing of her love for Traill, that sought any outlet in which to find expression.

In the bedroom, Janet was making a strange costume for a student's fancy dress ball. She did not look up when Sally entered. With her inexperienced needle, the work occupied her whole attention. Sally stood and watched her laborious efforts with a smile of gentle amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Let me do it for you," she said at last--"those st.i.tches 'll never hold."

In her mood she was willing--anxious to do anything for any one. She felt no fatigue from her day's work. In the everlasting routine, it is the mind that makes the body tired. Her mind was lifted above the ordinary susceptibility to exhaustion.

Janet stuck her needle into the material on her knee, and looked up searchingly.

"What's the matter with you to-night?" she asked.

"Nothing's the matter. Why?"

"You're so officiously agreeable."

Sally laughed.

"You wanted to help Mrs. Hewson to make that mincemeat," Janet continued; "now you want to help me; and you were the soul of good-nature to Mr. Arthur. I'm sure he thinks you're going to accept him."

"No, he doesn't."

"How do you know?"

"I told him after supper. He asked me to come out with him. I told him I couldn't marry him."

Janet looked at her with curiosity, her eyes narrowed, judging the tone of the words rather than the words themselves, as if they were subject for her brush.

"How did he take it?" she asked, gaining time for the maturity of her judgment.

"I feel awfully sorry for him. He went out again when I came in."

"Takes it badly, then?"

"I'm afraid so."

"You're sorry for him?"

"Yes."

"Why? You haven't thrown him over. He's taken his chance--he'll get over it. You're very soft-hearted. It's all in the game. You'll have to take your chance as well, and no one'll be sorry for you if you come worst out of it."

Sally looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't believe you've got a heart, Janet," she said.

"Don't you?"

"Well, have you?"

"It's not a weakness I care to confess to."

"That's as good as admitting it."

Janet was slowly driving to the point. In another moment, she knew that she would have the truth.

"If having a heart means wasting one's sorrows on men like Mr. Arthur, I'm glad I haven't." Janet threw her work over the end of her bed, and looked up at Sally.

"Who is he, Sally?" she asked abruptly. "What's his name? Where does he live?"

"Who?" She tried to lift her eyebrows in surprise, but the blood rushed to her cheeks and burnt them red. "Who?" she repeated.

"The man you're in love with. I asked you before if there was some one in the office; it's silly going on denying it. You'd never have told Mr. Arthur so soon. You'd have hung it on and hung it on for heaven knows how long. No, something's happened, happened to-day.

Do you think I can't see? You're bubbling over with it, longing to tell me, and afraid I'll laugh at you." She rose to her feet and stuck her needle into the pincus.h.i.+on, then she put her arm round Sally's waist, and hugged her gently. "Poor, ridiculous, little Sally," she said, the first soft note that had entered her voice. "I wouldn't laugh at you. Don't you know you're made to be loved--not like me.

Men hate thin, bony faces and scraggy hair; they want something they can pinch and pet. Lord! Imagine a man pinching my cheeks--it 'ud be like picking up a threepenny bit off a gla.s.s counter. Who is he, Sally?"

Sally lifted up her face and kissed the thin cheek.

"Let's get into bed," she whispered.

They undressed in silence. Once, when Sally was not looking, Janet stole a glance at her soft round arms; then gazed contemplatively at her own. They were thin, like the rest of her body--the elbows thick, out of proportion to the arm itself. She bent it, and felt the sharp bone tentatively with her hand. Sally looked up, and she converted the motion of feeling into that of scratching, as though the place had irritated. Then she continued with her undressing.

When once they were in bed and the light was out, Sally told her everything. Janet made no comments. She listened with her eyes glaring out into the darkness, sometimes moistening her lips as they became dry. The unconscious note in Sally's voice thrilled her; it was like that of a lark thanking G.o.d for the morning. She felt in it the pulse of the great force of s.e.x--nature rising like a trembling G.o.d of power out of the drab realities of everyday existence.

It wakened a sleeping animal in her. She felt as though its stertorous breaths were fanning across her cheeks and she lay there parched under them.

"What's that?" exclaimed Sally under her breath when she had finished her relation.

"What's what?"

"That noise."

They both listened, breaths held waiting between their lips, their heads raised strainingly from their pillows.

On the other side of the wall was Mr. Arthur's room, and from their beds they heard m.u.f.fled sounds as of a person speaking. They waited to hear the other voice in reply. There was none. He must be speaking to himself. Sometimes the voice would stop. Then came one single sound like a groan, only that it was more exclamatory. For a few moments there was silence; then again a clattering noise. That was recognizable--a boot being thrown on to the floor. It came again--the second boot. Then another single sound of the voice, a sudden violent creaking of springs as a heavy body was thrown on to the bed; then silence.

"That's Mr. Arthur," said Janet. "He's drunk."

And whereas Janet found sympathy for him, Sally lost that which she had.