الفصل الفصل 4 · RAISED EYEBROWS.

. RAISED EYEBROWS.

"Work must be done anyhow," said Mr. Lewisham.

But never had the extraordinary advantages of open-air study presented

themselves so vividly. Before breakfast he took half an hour of

open-air reading along the allotments lane near the Frobishers' house,

after breakfast and before school he went through the avenue with a

book, and returned from school to his lodgings circuitously through

the avenue, and so back to the avenue for thirty minutes or so before

afternoon school. When Mr. Lewisham was not looking over the top of

his book during these periods of open-air study, then commonly he was

glancing over his shoulder. And at last who should he see but--!

He saw her out of the corner of his eye, and he turned away at once,

pretending not to have seen her. His whole being was suddenly

irradiated with emotion. The hands holding his book gripped it very

tightly. He did not glance back again, but walked slowly and

steadfastly, reading an ode that he could not have translated to save

his life, and listening acutely for her approach. And after an

interminable time, as it seemed, came a faint footfall and the swish

of skirts behind him.

He felt as though his head was directed forward by a clutch of iron.

"Mr. Lewisham," she said close to him, and he turned with a quality of

movement that was almost convulsive. He raised his cap clumsily.

He took her extended hand by an afterthought, and held it until she

withdrew it. "I am so glad to have met you," she said.

"So am I," said Lewisham simply.

They stood facing one another for an expressive moment, and then by a

movement she indicated her intention to walk along the avenue with

him. "I wanted so much," she said, looking down at her feet, "to thank

you for letting Teddy off, you know. That is why I wanted to see you."

Lewisham took his first step beside her. "And it's odd, isn't it," she

said, looking up into his face, "that I should meet you here in just

the same place. I believe ... Yes. The very same place we met before."

Mr. Lewisham was tongue-tied.

"Do you often come here?" she said.

"Well," he considered--and his voice was most unreasonably hoarse when

he spoke--"no. No.... That is--At least not often. Now and then. In

fact, I like it rather for reading and that sort of thing. It's so

quiet."

"I suppose you read a great deal?"

"When one teaches one has to."

"But you ..."

"I'm rather fond of reading, certainly. Are you?"

"I _love_ it."

Mr. Lewisham was glad she loved reading. He would have been

disappointed had she answered differently. But she spoke with real

fervour. She _loved_ reading! It was pleasant. She would understand

him a little perhaps. "Of course," she went on, "I'm not clever like

some people are. And I have to read books as I get hold of them."

"So do I," said Mr. Lewisham, "for the matter of that.... Have you

read ... Carlyle?"

The conversation was now fairly under way. They were walking side by

side beneath the swaying boughs. Mr. Lewisham's sensations were

ecstatic, marred only by a dread of some casual boy coming upon

them. She had not read _much_ Carlyle. She had always wanted to, even

from quite a little girl--she had heard so much about him. She knew he

was a Really Great Writer, a _very_ Great Writer indeed. All she _had_

read of him she liked. She could say that. As much as she liked

anything. And she had seen his house in Chelsea.

Lewisham, whose knowledge of London had been obtained by excursion

trips on six or seven isolated days, was much impressed by this. It

seemed to put her at once on a footing of intimacy with this imposing

Personality. It had never occurred to him at all vividly that these

Great Writers had real abiding places. She gave him a few descriptive

touches that made the house suddenly real and distinctive to him. She

lived quite near, she said, at least within walking distance, in

Clapham. He instantly forgot the vague design of lending her his

"_Sartor Resartus_" in his curiosity to learn more about her

home. "Clapham--that's almost in London, isn't it?" he said.

"Quite," she said, but she volunteered no further information about

her domestic circumstances, "I like London," she generalised, "and

especially in winter." And she proceeded to praise London, its public

libraries, its shops, the multitudes of people, the facilities for

"doing what you like," the concerts one could go to, the theatres. (It

seemed she moved in fairly good society.) "There's always something to

see even if you only go out for a walk," she said, "and down here

there's nothing to read but idle novels. And those not new."

Mr. Lewisham had regretfully to admit the lack of such culture and

mental activity in Whortley. It made him feel terribly her

inferior. He had only his bookishness and his certificates to set

against it all--and she had seen Carlyle's house! "Down here," she

said, "there's nothing to talk about but scandal." It was too true.

At the corner by the stile, beyond which the willows were splendid

against the blue with silvery aments and golden pollen, they turned by

mutual impulse and retraced their steps. "I've simply had no one to

talk to down here," she said. "Not what _I_ call talking."

"I hope," said Lewisham, making a resolute plunge, "perhaps while you

are staying at Whortley ..."

He paused perceptibly, and she, following his eyes, saw a voluminous

black figure approaching. "We may," said Mr. Lewisham, resuming his

remark, "chance to meet again, perhaps."

He had been about to challenge her to a deliberate meeting. A certain

delightful tangle of paths that followed the bank of the river had

been in his mind. But the apparition of Mr. George Bonover, headmaster

of the Whortley Proprietary School, chilled him amazingly. Dame

Nature no doubt had arranged the meeting of our young couple, but

about Bonover she seems to have been culpably careless. She now

receded inimitably, and Mr. Lewisham, with the most unpleasant

feelings, found himself face to face with a typical representative of

a social organisation which objects very strongly _inter alia_ to

promiscuous conversation on the part of the young unmarried junior

master.

"--chance to meet again, perhaps," said Mr. Lewisham, with a sudden

lack of spirit.

"I hope so too," she said.

Pause. Mr. Bonover's features, and particularly a bushy pair of black

eyebrows, were now very near, those eyebrows already raised,

apparently to express a refined astonishment.

"Is this Mr. Bonover approaching?" she asked.

"Yes."

Prolonged pause.

Would he stop and accost them? At any rate this frightful silence must

end. Mr. Lewisham sought in his mind for some remark wherewith to

cover his employer's approach. He was surprised to find his mind a

desert. He made a colossal effort. If they could only talk, if they

could only seem at their ease! But this blank incapacity was eloquent

of guilt. Ah!

"It's a lovely day, though," said Mr. Lewisham. "Isn't it?"

She agreed with him. "Isn't it?" she said.

And then Mr. Bonover passed, forehead tight reefed so to speak, and

lips impressively compressed. Mr. Lewisham raised his mortar-board,

and to his astonishment Mr. Bonover responded with a markedly formal

salute--mock clerical hat sweeping circuitously--and the regard of a

searching, disapproving eye, and so passed. Lewisham was overcome with

astonishment at this improvement on the nod of their ordinary

commerce. And so this terrible incident terminated for the time.

He felt a momentary gust of indignation. After all, why should Bonover

or anyone interfere with his talking to a girl if he chose? And for

all he knew they might have been properly introduced. By young

Frobisher, say. Nevertheless, Lewisham's spring-tide mood relapsed

into winter. He was, he felt, singularly stupid for the rest of their

conversation, and the delightful feeling of enterprise that had

hitherto inspired and astonished him when talking to her had

shrivelled beyond contempt. He was glad--positively glad--when things

came to an end.

At the park gates she held out her hand. "I'm afraid I have

interrupted your reading," she said.

"Not a bit," said Mr. Lewisham, warming slightly. "I don't know when

I've enjoyed a conversation...."

"It was--a breach of etiquette, I am afraid, my speaking to you, but I

did so want to thank you...."

"Don't mention it," said Mr. Lewisham, secretly impressed by the

etiquette.

"Good-bye." He stood hesitating by the lodge, and then turned back up

the avenue in order not to be seen to follow her too closely up the

West Street.

And then, still walking away from her, he remembered that he had not

lent her a book as he had planned, nor made any arrangement ever to

meet her again. She might leave Whortley anywhen for the amenities of

Clapham. He stopped and stood irresolute. Should he run after her?

Then he recalled Bonover's enigmatical expression of face. He decided

that to pursue her would be altogether too conspicuous. Yet ... So he

stood in inglorious hesitation, while the seconds passed.

He reached his lodging at last to find Mrs. Munday halfway through

dinner.

"You get them books of yours," said Mrs. Munday, who took a motherly

interest in him, "and you read and you read, and you take no account

of time. And now you'll have to eat your dinner half cold, and no time

for it to settle proper before you goes off to school. It's ruination

to a stummik--such ways."

"Oh, never mind my stomach, Mrs. Munday," said Lewisham, roused from a

tangled and apparently gloomy meditation; "that's _my_ affair." Quite

crossly he spoke for him.

"I'd rather have a good sensible actin' stummik than a full head,"

said Mrs. Monday, "any day."

"I'm different, you see," snapped Mr. Lewisham, and relapsed into

silence and gloom.

("Hoity toity!" said Mrs. Monday under her breath.)