xvi

Two days later he returned, and dully went on with his work as though it had no interest for him. Miss Summers had several times to suffer the ordeal of debilitating interviews; and towards the end of the afternoon was exasperated to tears. Sally could tell this from the sniffs and nose-rubbings that became more and more frequent. Miss Summers's eye-rims were quite pink, and her funny eyes were moist. She looked more than ever like a disconsolate tabby, and her hands were restless and clumsy. She had to ask Sally to thread her needle, and even to finish work that she was doing badly because of her agitation.

"Thank you, my dear," murmured Miss Summers. "So kind." Then, in a low tone, "Do for goodness' sake go in and see what Mr. Bertram's doing. He's quite absurd, like somebody mad. He's not in his senses, that's clear; and it's enough to drive anybody crazy."

Sally left the girls and slipped into Madam's tawny room. At her entrance Gaga gave a start, and his ruler fell clattering to the floor. But when he saw who was there his face brightened. A faint smile spread across the grey cheeks, making Gaga look so charming, in spite of his illness, that Sally was unexpectedly relieved. Her own smile was instantly responsive, and she stood almost roguishly before him in her short frock, and the demure pinafore which she was wearing over it.

"Miss Summers sent me," she explained. "Thought you might want some help."

Gaga shook his head, the smile still apparent. He shook his head again, trying to find words to express himself, and failing.

"No, Sally," he at last ventured. "No help. I'm better ... almost better, to-day. I can understand ... understand what I'm doing. I'm afraid ... er ... afraid I was very stupid the other day. I've thought of that since. Er.... I say.... I wish you'd ... come out to dinner to-night."

"Really?" Sally beamed upon him. She gave her little grin, and nodded. "If you'd like me to, of course I will. I'll be ready. Thank you very much."

Gaga made a heroic effort. He began to stammer, checked himself, and at last succeeded in imposing coherence upon his wandering words.

"It's you who ... ought to be thanked," he answered. "You cheer me up."

"Do I?" Sally's tone was eager, her reply instant. "I'm so glad. I like to feel I ... you know, cheer you. Does me good."

They exchanged shy smiles, and parted; Gaga to resume his labours, Sally to report his increasing sanity to Miss Summers. And then there followed the unwanted hours that always lie between the making of a desired appointment and the enjoyment of its arrival. Sally stitched with a will, for her anticipations for this evening were not of an ambitious kind. She knew all the time she was working that she looked forward to the outing, and she was not at all puzzled at her own expectancy, because in any case a dinner with Gaga would always make a break in her often monotonous days and evenings. But she could never altogether fail to make impulsive plans and it was as the result of unconscious reflection that she checked Gaga in the course of their walk together.

"Don't let's go to the Rezzonico," she said, quickly. "Let's go somewhere quiet."

As a result, they turned eastward, into the region of the smaller restaurants, and looked at several before Sally picked one called "Le Chat Blanc." It seemed to her to be the quietest and cleanest they had seen, and at any rate it would be a new experience to dine there. The doorway was modest, and the windows curtained low enough (in a red and white check) to permit a glimpse of the small but shining interior. Within, all was grey and white. Sally led the way into the place, and to a remote table, and seated herself with an air of confidence remarkable in one who dined, as it were, for the third time only. She glanced at the two waitresses—both very dark girls with earrings, who wore their black hair coiffed high upon their heads. They were Italians, agreeable and inquisitive; and the food-smells also were Italian and full flavoured. As soon as the two were seated they became the property of one of the two waitresses, who stood over them so maternally that she seemed to have no desire but for their good-fortune in choosing the meal aright. She plunged both Sally and Gaga into a muddle by her persuasive translations of the menu, but she made up for her linguistic deficiencies by this anxious interest and by a capricious smile. Scared and curious, they looked round the plain grey walls of the clean little room, and at the four or five other people who sat near them, and at the ceiling, and at each other.

"It's funny!" whispered Sally, exultingly. "Never seen anything like it."

"I.... I've never seen one ... so ... so clean," stammered Gaga.

Near them a conceited young man with a hard voice and small eyes was talking impressively to an untidy-looking girl in green with a mauve chiffon scarf. While he talked, the girl smoked his cigarettes, and interjected remarks of superior quality. Sally heard her say "Ah," in sign of agreement, and once "Oh, yes, of course Flaubert...."

"What's Flaubert?" she asked Gaga. He appeared startled.

"Er ... I don't know," he answered. "What put it into your head?"

"That girl said it. Listen." They listened. The young man was arguing about something. He was arguing about something of which neither Sally nor Gaga could discover the purport. Sally said: "They're both woolly. Woolly-wits, they are. Both got maggots. What's 'art,' anyway? Pitchers? And all that about values?"

Gaga was buried. He had a sudden inspiration.

"Don't listen to them," he said. "It's something they ... they understand."

"I bet they don't," remarked Sally. "You don't talk about things you understand."

"Well, let's talk about what we don't understand...." He was beseeching in his tone, and his soft eyes glowed. The waitress approached, bearing two large plates piled high with spaghetti.

"Golly!" ejaculated Sally. "Howjer eat it? Fingers?"

They had little time to talk while they were engaged with the capers of this surprising food; but when both were tired of playing with the spaghetti they turned their attention to the straw-covered bottle of Chianti which had been brought. Sally made a wry mouth at her first venture. She had yet to learn that the wine was heavier than any she had yet drunk. She strained her ears to catch more of what the fascinatingly conceited young man was saying about his inexhaustible topic. Good-looking boy, if he cut his hair and shaved his moustache off. She saw Gaga look anxiously and wonderingly across at her, with a kind of hunger; and she was shaken by a mischievous notion. She had never done such a thing before, but she put her foot forward so that it touched one of his, and smiled right into Gaga's chocolate eyes. The slow red crept up under his skin, and they had no need to talk. Sally was laughing to herself, and eating some beautifully cooked veal, and she knew that Gaga was glowing with contentment. She at last observed the two talkers slouch out of the restaurant, the man in very baggy-kneed trousers and a loose coat, and the girl in a dress of home make. A quick wrinkle showed in Sally's grimacing nose as she brought her professional eye to bear; and then the two talkers were gone and were forgotten. Sally and Gaga were quite alone at their end of the room, in a corner, favorably remote for intimate conversation from the remaining diners.

"Funny us not knowing what they were talking about," mused Sally. "You don't, you know. It's very hard to know what anybody talks about. To understand it, I mean. Hard to know anybody, too."

"I shouldn't have thought I was hard to know," ventured Gaga.

"I wasn't thinking about you," said Sally, with unconscious cruelty. "I was thinking.... I've forgotten. Isn't this wine sour! No, I'm getting used to it—getting to like it. Hasn't half— I mean, it's got a nice smooth way of going down." As Sally checked herself she realised that she was now so much at ease with Gaga that she no longer worried about her pronunciation or her words when she was with him. Worry? Sally's conceitedness soared into the air and frowned down upon the faltering Gaga with something like scorn. Poor Gaga! thought Sally. Instantly her hardness returned, and she looked at his lined face and the pale lips that hung a little away from his teeth in sign of ill-health. She saw his dark grey morning coat, and the slip inside the waistcoat, and his sober tie. And it seemed to Sally that she saw right into the simple mind of Gaga. He was so simple, like the hire purchase system. He was about the simplest man she had ever seen, for his tongue could hardly utter more than the tamest of words and phrases, and he never seemed to Sally to keep anything back.

"And yet, you know," she went on, following Gaga's remark and this train of thought, "there's lots more to know about people than just what you see—and what they do and say. If you know them ever so well, you only know a bit of them. You don't know me. You think I'm a little girl in the workroom, and a worker, and all that."

"I think you're a marvel!" ejaculated Gaga.

"Yes, well, when you've got to the end of thinking I'm a marvel, what happens? You don't know me any better. I might be a poisoner, or a ... or a...." Sally's invention failed her. "I might keep a shop, or serve a bar, or be an actress," she went on, recovering fertility. "I mean, in the evenings."

"Yes," said Gaga, dubiously. "I suppose you might." He was struck with a rather superfine notion. "But you're not," he concluded. He enjoyed a manifest triumph.

"No." Sally raised a declamatory finger. "But if I was, you wouldn't know it."

They had reached an impassable spot in their talk. Sally had confounded Gaga. Neither he nor she was quite as mentally alert as they had both been when hungry; and the Chianti was beginning to make them drowsy and rather slow-witted. But having embarked upon the question of possible knowledge of character they could not, in consideration of their slight heaviness, be expected to relinquish a topic so circular and so suggestive of personal intimacy. As the wine acted more powerfully upon them it was more and more to themselves that their thoughts and speeches turned.

"I feel sometimes that I'm a great fool," confessed Gaga. "But I'm not really a fool. I see a lot, and ... I don't seem able to act on it. D'you understand what I mean?"

"Weak," Sally vouchsafed, wine-candid. Gaga glanced quickly at her.

"I don't think I'm weak. I...." His thoughts strayed. "See, I've never had much of a chance to show what I can do. My mother's such a much stronger character than I am."

Sally nodded, and sipped again at the thick glass from which she was drinking.

"I'm strong," she said. "I'm hard ... tough. If I make up my mind...."

"Yes. I'm like that," insisted Gaga. It was so preposterous that Sally could only look measuringly at him with a puzzled contempt that might have been read.

"I'm stronger'n you are," she answered. "I'm small; but I don't mind what I do. You're a good boy. I'm not. I'm bad. I'm ... you don't know what goes on in my head." Suddenly exasperated, she went on: "That's what I meant. You think I'm just a quiet little thing. I'm not. You don't know what I think about. I want to do all sorts of things. I want to be rich, and have a good time, and have lots of ... lots of power. I want to get on. If anybody gets in my way I push 'em out of it. If anybody gets in your way you stand aside."

"I don't. I get my own way, but not by fighting," Gaga said.

"Oho! I don't fight," retorted Sally. "They're afraid to fight me."

Gaga smiled.

"They're afraid of hurting you," he suggested. "But I know just what you mean." His confidence was unshakable.

"I kick 'em in the stomach," Sally asserted. "Anywhere."

"Yes. They wouldn't take liberties with you."

"Not unless I wanted them to," said Sally, abruptly sober. "They wouldn't try it on. None of the girls ever worry me. When I first came they did. They were saucy. I soon stopped that. I got a tongue, and they found it out. Now Miss Summers——"

"Don't let's talk about the business," pleaded Gaga. Sally was arrested.

"Funny!" she exclaimed. "We haven't, have we!"

"It's so much nicer being ... friends."

One of Gaga's hands was stretched across the table. With a sense of mischief Sally allowed him to take her own hand. Then she moved it quickly.

"They're looking at us," she whispered to him. "Those waitress girls." Instantly she was free. She had the thought that a real man would have held her hand for a moment longer. All the same, she enjoyed her power over Gaga. The little unreadable smile that so excited him was upon her face, and the knowledge of power was in her heart.

They sat for a little while over coffee; and then Sally began to put on her gloves. A few minutes later they were out in the dark street, and pausing to discover the points of the compass. As they stood, a great gust of wind came sweeping along from the southeast, and at its onset the two became strangely embraced, Gaga's arm being round Sally, and the brim of her hat against his breast. They both laughed, and Sally stood upright; but she did not move so violently that Gaga must withdraw his arm. She was amused and elated at contact with him. Gaga, encouraged, drew her closer.

"Oo!" murmured Sally. She let him see her laughing face.

Gaga, very excited, lowered his head. Sally jerked her own head upon one side with lightning speed, and felt his lips clumsily upon her ear. Twice he kissed her convulsively hugging her to his side. Then Sally, rather breathless, but not at all discomposed, pulled herself away.

"Now, now; that's enough," she said. They were both grinning; but of the two only Sally was cool. She could tell that Gaga was trembling slightly, and when a little later they parted he held her hand for a long time, and sought timidly to draw her to him again for another kiss. Sally, however, ignored the pressure, and left him standing in the yellow shop and street lights, while she rode securely homeward in her omnibus. Her last glimpse was of newspaper bills lying upon the pavement, and of men and women in motion against the lights, and Gaga standing watching her out of sight. Then she looked round the omnibus, at some other girls, and an old man who wore two waistcoats, and the conductor; and her face again puckered into a smile.

"Doesn't half think he's a devil," she thought, demurely.

Then other thoughts of Gaga arose, and Sally frowned a little. She had a sudden feeling that she was on difficult ground. She was not afraid, not nervous; but her imaginings darted swiftly here and there at the bidding of a knowledge that she must not at this juncture make any false step.