LITMIR.BIZ

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sorry she left you alone in the street. She ought not to have done so, and I've told her. … The King's Road, with all kinds of people about!"

      Mimi said nothing. The new Madame Vaillac moved a little towards the fire.

      "Of course," the latter went on, "I know you're a regular little woman, and perhaps I needn't tell you but you must never speak to anyone in the street."

      "No, mamma."

      "Particularly in Brighton. … You never do, do you?"

      "No, mamma."

      "Good-night."

      The stepmother left the room. Mimi could feel her heart beating. Then Jean called out:

      "Mimi."

      She made no reply. The fact was she was too disturbed to be able to reply.

      Jean called again and then got out of bed and thudded across the room to her bedside.

      "I say, Mimi," he screeched in his insistent treble, "who was it you were talking to?"

      Mimi's heart did not beat, it jumped.

      "When? Where?"

      "This afternoon, when I was having my hair cut."

      "How do you know I was talking to anybody?"

      "Ada saw you through the window of the barber's."

      "When did she tell you?"

      "She didn't. I heard her telling mamma."

      There was a silence. Then Mimi hid her face, and Jean could hear sobbing.

      "You might tell me!" Jean insisted. He was too absorbed by his own curiosity, and too upset by the full realization of the fact that she had kept something from him, to be touched by her tears.

      "It's a secret," she muttered into the pillow.

      "You might tell me!"

      "Go away, Jeannot!" she burst out hysterically.

      He gave an angry lunge against the bed.

      "I tell you everything; and it's not fair. C'est pas juste!" he said savagely, but there were tears in his voice too. He was a creature at once sensitive and violent, passionately attached to Mimi.

      He thudded back to his bed. But even before he had reached his bed Mimi could hear him weeping.

      She gradually stilled her own sobs, and after a time Jean's ceased. And then she guessed that Jean had gone to sleep. But Mimi did not go to sleep. She knew that chance, and Mr. Coe, and that odious new servant, Ada, had combined to ruin her life. She saw the whole affair clearly. Ada was officious and fussy, also secretive and given to plotting. Ada's leading idea was that children had to be circumvented. Imagine the detestable woman spying on her from the window, and then saying nothing to her, but sneaking off to tell tales to her mamma! Imagine it! Mimi's strict sense of justice could not blame her mamma. She was sure that the new stepmother meant well by her. Her mamma had given her every opportunity to confess, to admit of her own accord that she had been talking to somebody in the street, and she had not confessed. On the contrary, she had lied. Her mamma would probably say nothing more on the matter, for she had a considerable sense of honour with children, and would not take an unfair advantage. Having tried to obtain a confession from Mimi by pretending that she knew nothing, and having failed, she was not the woman to turn round and say, "Now I know all about it. So just confess at once!" Her mamma would accept the situation, would try to behave as if nothing had happened, and would probably even say nothing to her father.

      But Mimi knew that she was ruined for ever in her stepmother's esteem.

      And she had quarrelled with Jean, which was exceedingly hateful and exceedingly rare. And there was also the private worry of her mysterious back. And there was another thing. The mere fact that her friend, Mr. Coe, had gone and married somebody. For long she had had a weakness for Mr. Coe. They had been intimate at times. Once, last year, in the stern of a large sailing-boat at Morecambe, while her friends were laughing and shouting at the prow, she and Mr. Coe had had a most beautiful quiet conversation about her thoughts on the world in general; she had stroked his hand. … No! She had no dream whatever of growing up into a woman and then marrying Mr. Coe! Certainly not. But still, that he should have gone and married, like that … it was. …

      The fire died out into blackness, thus ceasing to be a friend. Still she did not sleep. Was it likely that she should sleep, with the tragedy and woe of the entire universe crushing her?

VI

       Table of Contents

      Mr. Edward Coe and Olive Two arose from their bed the next morning in great spirits. Mr. Coe had told both his wife and Mimi that the hour of departure from Rottingdean would be six o'clock. But this was an exaggeration. So far as his wife was concerned he had already found it well to exaggerate on such matters. A little judicious exaggeration lessened the risk of missing trains and other phenomena which cannot be missed without confusion and disappointment.

      As a fact it was already six o'clock when Edward Coe looked forth from the bedroom window. He was completely dressed. His wife also was completely dressed. He therefore felt quite safe about the train. The window, which was fairly high up in the world, gave on the south-east, so that he had a view, not only of the vast naked downs billowing away towards Newhaven, but also of the Channel, which was calm, and upon which little parcels of fog rested. The sky was clear overhead, of a greenish sapphire colour, and the autumnal air bit and gnawed on the skin like some friendly domestic animal, and invigorated like an expensive tonic. On the dying foliage of a tree near the window millions of precious stones hung. Cocks were boasting. Cows were expressing a justifiable anxiety. And in the distance a small steamer was making a great deal of smoke about nothing, as it puffed out of Newhaven harbour.

      "Olive," he said.

      "What is it?"

      She was putting hats into the top of her trunk. She had a special hat-box, but the hats were too large for it, and she packed minor trifles in the hat-box, such as skirts. This was one of the details which first indicated to an astounded Edward Coe that a woman is never less like a man than when travelling.

      "Come here," he commanded her.

      She obeyed.

      "Look at that," he commanded her, pointing to the scene of which the window was the frame.

      She obeyed. She also looked at him with her dark, passionate, and yet half-mocking eyes.

      "Yes," she said, "and who's going to make that trunk lock?"

      She snapped her fingers at the sweet morning influences of Nature, to which he was peculiarly sensitive. And yet he was delighted. He found it entirely delicious that she should say, when called upon to admire Nature: "Who's going to make that trunk lock?"

      He stroked her hair.

      "It's no use trying to keep your hair decent at the seaside," she remarked, pouting exquisitely.

      He explained that his hand was offering no criticism of her hair. And then there was a knock at the bedroom door, and Olive Two jumped a little away from her husband.

      "Come in," he cried, pretending to be as bold as a lion.

      However, he had forgotten that the door was locked, and he had to go and open it.

      A tray with coffee and milk and sugar and slices of bread-and-butter was in the doorway, and behind the tray the little parlour-maid of the little hotel. He greeted the girl and instructed her to carry the tray to the table by the window.

      "You are prompt," said Olive Two, kindly. She had got up so miraculously early herself that she was startled to see any other woman up quite as early. And also she was a little surprised that the parlour-maid showed no surprise at these

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