الفصل الفصل 9 · ALICE HEYDINGER.

. ALICE HEYDINGER.

When he arrived at the top of the building he stood aside for the only

remaining passenger to step out before him. It was the Miss Heydinger

who had addressed him, the owner of that gilt-edged book in the cover

of brown paper. No one else had come all the way up from the ground

floor. The rest of the load in the lift had emerged at the

"astronomical" and "chemical" floors, but these two had both chosen

"zoology" for their third year of study, and zoology lived in the

attics. She stepped into the light, with a rare touch of colour

springing to her cheeks in spite of herself. Lewisham perceived an

alteration in her dress. Perhaps she was looking for and noticed the

transitory surprise in his face.

The previous session--their friendship was now nearly a year old--it

had never once dawned upon him that she could possibly be pretty. The

chief thing he had been able to recall with any definiteness during

the vacation was, that her hair was not always tidy, and that even

when it chanced to be so, she was nervous about it; she distrusted

it. He remembered her gesture while she talked, a patting exploration

that verged on the exasperating. From that he went on to remember

that its colour was, on the whole, fair, a light brown. But he had

forgotten her mouth, he had failed to name the colour of her eyes. She

wore glasses, it is true. And her dress was indefinite in his

memory--an amorphous dinginess.

And yet he had seen a good deal of her. They were not in the same

course, but he had made her acquaintance on the committee of the

school Debating Society. Lewisham was just then discovering

Socialism. That had afforded a basis of conversation--an incentive to

intercourse. She seemed to find something rarely interesting in his

peculiar view of things, and, as chance would have it, he met her

accidentally quite a number of times, in the corridors of the schools,

in the big Education Library, and in the Art Museum. After a time

those meetings appear to have been no longer accidental.

Lewisham for the first time in his life began to fancy he had

conversational powers. She resolved to stir up his ambitions--an easy

task. She thought he had exceptional gifts and that she might serve to

direct them; she certainly developed his vanity. She had matriculated

at the London University and they took the Intermediate Examination in

Science together in July--she a little unwisely--which served, as

almost anything will serve in such cases, as a further link between

them. She failed, which in no way diminished Lewisham's regard for

her. On the examination days they discoursed about Friendship in

general, and things like that, down the Burlington Arcade during the

lunch time--Burlington Arcade undisguisedly amused by her learned

dinginess and his red tie--and among other things that were said she

reproached him for not reading poetry. When they parted in Piccadilly,

after the examination, they agreed to write, about poetry and

themselves, during the holidays, and then she lent him, with a touch

of hesitation, Rossetti's poems. He began to forget what had at first

been very evident to him, that she was two or three years older than

he.

Lewisham spent the vacation with an unsympathetic but kindly uncle who

was a plumber and builder. His uncle had a family of six, the eldest

eleven, and Lewisham made himself agreeable and instructive. Moreover

he worked hard for the culminating third year of his studies (in which

he had decided to do great things), and he learnt to ride the Ordinary

Bicycle. He also thought about Miss Heydinger, and she, it would seem,

thought about him.

He argued on social questions with his uncle, who was a prominent

local Conservative. His uncle's controversial methods were coarse in

the extreme. Socialists, he said, were thieves. The object of

Socialism was to take away what a man earned and give it to "a lot of

lazy scoundrels." Also rich people were necessary. "If there weren't

well-off people, how d'ye think I'd get a livin'? Hey? And where'd

_you_ be then?" Socialism, his uncle assured him, was "got up" by

agitators. "They get money out of young Gabies like you, and they

spend it in champagne." And thereafter he met Mr. Lewisham's arguments

with the word "Champagne" uttered in an irritating voice, followed by

a luscious pantomime of drinking.

Naturally Lewisham felt a little lonely, and perhaps he laid stress

upon it in his letters to Miss Heydinger. It came to light that she

felt rather lonely too. They discussed the question of True as

distinguished from Ordinary Friendship, and from that they passed to

Goethe and Elective Affinities. He told her how he looked for her

letters, and they became more frequent. Her letters were indisputably

well written. Had he been a journalist with a knowledge of "_per

thou_." he would have known each for a day's work. After the practical

plumber had been asking what he expected to make by this here science

of his, re-reading her letters was balsamic. He liked Rossetti--the

exquisite sense of separation in "The Blessed Damozel" touched

him. But, on the whole, he was a little surprised at Miss Heydinger's

taste in poetry. Rossetti was so sensuous ... so florid. He had

scarcely expected that sort of thing.

Altogether he had returned to the schools decidedly more interested in

her than when they had parted. And the curious vague memories of her

appearance as something a little frayed and careless, vanished at

sight of her emerging from the darkness of the lift. Her hair was in

order, as the light glanced through it it looked even pretty, and she

wore a well-made, dark-green and black dress, loose-gathered as was

the fashion in those days, that somehow gave a needed touch of warmth

to her face. Her hat too was a change from the careless lumpishness of

last year, a hat that, to a feminine mind, would have indicated

design. It suited her--these things are past a male novelist's

explaining.

"I have this book of yours, Miss Heydinger," he said.

"I am glad you have written that paper on Socialism," she replied,

taking the brown-covered volume.

They walked along the little passage towards the biological laboratory

side by side, and she stopped at the hat pegs to remove her hat. For

that was the shameless way of the place, a girl student had to take

her hat off publicly, and publicly assume the holland apron that was

to protect her in the laboratory. Not even a looking-glass!

"I shall come and hear your paper," she said.

"I hope you will like it," said Lewisham at the door of the

laboratory.

"And in the vacation I have been collecting evidence about ghosts--you

remember our arguments. Though I did not tell you in my letters."

"I'm sorry you're still obdurate," said Lewisham. "I thought that was

over."

"And have you read 'Looking Backward'?"

"I want to."

"I have it here with my other books, if you'd care for me to lend it

to you. Wait till I reach my table. My hands are so full."

They entered the laboratory together, Lewisham holding the door open

courtly-wise, Miss Heydinger taking a reassuring pat at her hair. Near

the door was a group of four girls, which group Miss Heydinger joined,

holding the brown-covered book as inconspicuously as possible. Three

of them had been through the previous two years with her, and they

greeted her by her Christian name. They had previously exchanged

glances at her appearance in Lewisham's company.

A morose elderly young demonstrator brightened momentarily at the

sight of Lewisham. "Well, we've got one of the decent ones anyhow,"

said the morose elderly young demonstrator, who was apparently taking

an inventory, and then brightening at a fresh entry. "Ah! and here's

Smithers."