A Child of the Age (Adams)/Chapter 8

by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

iv

I awoke in the dusk.

Up leaped a core of light at the far end of the room; then grew steady and lived. Some one had lit the gas-lamp at the street-corner below. I turned over in my bed. I thought that it was lazy of me to be lying warm here: to-day, when I had, I remembered, intended seeking work. Work! Work for what? Well, it was lazy of me to be lying warm here. Where had I been?. . .

Some one came in softly (the door had opened). And why didn't they knock?

Turning round I saw a girl on her way to the table with a paper-bag in her hand.

'Hullo!' I said.

She dropped the bag on to the floor with a start: sharply picked it up, and, looking with round shadowed eyes at me:

'Good gracious, how you did frighten me!—Why, he's better!' she said.

'Certainly, he is,' I answered, turning aside my eyes. 'There was never anything the matter with him that he is aware of.'

She stood, with her hands joined in front of her, holding the bag, and looked down at me.

'You've been very ill, sir,' she said, and gave her head a shake.

'I assure you, madam, that you are mistaken. I have just woken up.—"Abou ben Adhem, may his tribe increase," and so on.'

'You have been insensible for on two days,' she said.

I stared at her round shadowed eyes. She nodded her head, and, I saw, smiled at me.

'—Insensible?… Why I have never fainted in my life.' I saw an open letter on the table-cloth in that dusky light.

I let my head sink on to the pillow with a sigh and shut my eyes. Memory had flowed back on to me.

'I have brought you some grapes,' she said, 'I thought you might like them.'

I raised my head again, and opened my eyes in the room, now full of light. I had not noticed that she had lit the gas.

'You are kind; but——'

'You will not take them?'

'No, thank you.'

'Oh very well! I shall throw them out of the window then!—Why shouldn't you take a present from me?…. I haven't paid you back the four shillings I owed you yet: but I can—now.'

She took out a purse: unhasped it: opened the leaves: put in two of her fingers, and then, with a quick lift-up of her head and a bright smile came towards me, holding two florins in her extended palm.

'I only lent you three,' I said.

'And I have got no change! Think of that! Only gold and silver. Isn't it ridiculous? Will you eat some of the grapes?… Please!'

A pause.

'It was kind of you to bring me them,' I said, 'and I am—afraid I must have been giving you a great deal of trouble … Miss——'

Oh no! none! You will eat them then?'

I was silent.

'Oh, Miss——'

'Do you want to know my name?' she asked with a drop in her voice. 'Only if you care to tell me,' I answered, a little sorry for my first attempt at some sort of formality or other.

'’Owlet is my name: I'm from Rutland. Rosy's my Christian name.—But I hope you won't call me Miss 'Owlet.'

'Why do you hope not?'

'Oh, Howlet is such a horrid name!'

I could not help laughing. Then she laughed.

'But what shall I call you?' I asked.

'You called me "child" once. I'm not a child. I'm seventeen.'

I smiled at her. She at once caught up the bag of grapes, undid the mouth, and offered it to me.

'Then I beg your pardon,' I said.

She pouted:

'—But you have not taken any!' And our eyes met, and the bag was once more offered, and I dipped two fingers into it and lifted a big bunch half out (she looking at me all the time, and I at the bag-mouth), and stretched out my other hand to break off a portion of the bunch, and had broken off a portion, and was about to drop the remains of the original bunch into the bag again, when she drew back her arm quickly and said:

'That's not fair!'

Then she took out another bunch: squashed up the bag in her hands: threw it on to the floor, and came to me holding it up with two fingers in the air. Our eyes met again, and I stretched up my hand and took it. She smiled at me. A small thin black kitten ran out and began chasing the paper-bag.

She turned, saw it, and cried out:

'Minnie, Minnie!—Oh, you silly thing! Let it alone, can't you?'

She turned to me again:

'That 's my cat Minnie. Isn't she a beauty?'

'Well … yes,' I said.

'Why, I should think so!—Now I must go. I oughtn't to have let you talk so much: it's not good for you. I hope you're feeling better?—Here, Minnie, Minnie, Minnie, Min, Min! Oh, she's after that piece of paper. Silly thing!…' (Turning to me again.) 'I'll let her stop with you … if you like.'

'Thank you,' I said, 'that's kind of you. I should like.'

'Good-bye,' she said.

'Good-bye,' I answered to her slowly going, 'and thank you for all your goodness to me. Miss' (she stopped)—'Rosebud.'

'I shall see you soon again,' she said; and, at the door, 'If you wouldn't mind going into my room in a little—that's this one here,' (opening the door and pointing to the right), 'we'd get your bed done very quickly, and you could come back again. I don't think you ought to dress and go out yet.'

'Very well,' I said, 'thank you. I will.'

She went out; but looking in again.

'Put on your coat or something,' she said, 'for fear you catch cold.' And withdrew her head, and the door closed, and she was gone.

I sat up in bed, and threw out my arms.

'Oh you Rosebud!' I said, laughing, 'you Rosebud!'

 

We had a short conversation together that evening as I ate my tea in bed, and then we said good-night, and she left me. And I set about thinking what I had best do now. The failure of my attempt to earn my livelihood by my pen was a heavy blow to me, and the heavier that it was unexpected.—But I gave up further consideration of the matter for the present: I must have some means of support, and immediately. And what was the good of thinking of poetry, after what Parker, Innes & Co. had said about it?

All at once the idea of becoming a schoolmaster flashed upon me. Why not? I was sure I was quite as capable of teaching as poor Currie, the undermaster at Whittaker's.—Or a private secretaryship?—I let my thoughts go, and had planned out my life as under-master, or private secretary, or tutor, before I fell into a sweet dreamless sleep.

The next day, in the morning, although I was, I found, uncommonly weak, I managed to get into the Edgware Road as far as a stationer's, where I inquired in a general sort of a way about such things as under-masterships and tutorships, of the genteel middle-aged party who was in the shop. She took a great interest in me, I considered, for a complete stranger; but could not help me in the least.

In the afternoon I made three more attempts at stationers', and at the last one was so far successful that I learnt the name and address of the people whom, it seemed, I wanted.

I set off for Grenvil Street at once (a weary walk of toil to weak me), and interviewed a respectful clerk a good deal better dressed and, doubtless, fed than myself. He thought he might possibly get me an ushership in some small school pretty soon; but I must observe that it was not the time for such (that is to say, instant) engagements now, half way through the term. I told him the sooner the better, for I was in straits. He had an equally discouraging account to give of tutorships and secretaryships. All these things required time. I said that speed was the one necessity. And on this understanding we parted: I, I cannot say how forlorn,—nay, once or twice on my walk home, even wearier and more toilsome, near to tears. Indeed I felt more like drowning myself than making any further fight for existence.

When I reached Maitland Street, I scarcely knew what I had said or done down at the agent's. Everything was a muddle, and a jumble, from beginning to end. I cast myself down on my bed, and the long-suppressed tears came. O why had I not died in that strange, sweet, terrible dream after the reading of the letter? I lay sighing to myself till I dozed.

From this half-sleep of despondency the Rosebud roused me in the early evening, and took me out for a short walk. I don't know what we talked about. Everything was still a muddle and a jumble, from beginning to end. I was glad to get back, and creep into bed, and sleep.

I was better in the morning: inclined, it seemed, to feel cheerful, and began, as I lay with closed eyes thinking, to put the events of yesterday into something like connection and tout ensemble; but with no great success. The one comforting thought seemed to be, that the clerk had said he would send me up anything that came. Surely something must come! I could not believe I was destined to die here like a rat in a hole.—I played upon my inclination to be cheerful, till it had brought me to cheerfulness: and, getting up briskly, perceived a letter on the chair by ray bedside. The agent, of course!

'Ha,' I said, 'the tide's on the turn! . . . What's in here?' I hesitated. The sun was shining in through the window upon the envelope. I ripped it open; took out the letter, and scanned it.

'Dear Sir,—Please call early to-morrow on Alexander Brooke, Esq., 5 Dunraven Place, Piccadilly, W., who wishes to engage at once a secretary to go abroad with him. The engagement would be at least for a year, if not more.

'Terms between;£100 and £150 per annum.

'Please inform us of the result of your interview.—And oblige. Yours faithfully,

Linklater, Pembrridge and Blenkinsop.'

I threw the letter on to the table with new life in me, and began to wash, whistling to myself. As I was folding on my necktie I noticed how dirty my collar was, and then my shirt, and more particularly the cuffs. I put on a clean,—the last,—collar in the bag. And that set me off thinking for a moment about my clothes. 'Well, well!' I said, 'I shall have to tell the man the truth I suppose: and why not?' For I did not doubt but that he would have me.

Rosy was of course off to her work these three hours. This, and what she would think about the secretaryship, came to me as I passed her door and went down the dark stuffy old wooden staircase. What would the Rosebud think? 'Well, well!' I said as before, 'it'll be time enough to think about what she thinks when I've got it.' And yet did not doubt for one moment but that I should get it.

I knew my way to Piccadilly. It was a crisp clear morning: the stir of the breezy air and of the life brighter than usual elated me a little. I went along down the Edgware Road, eating my brown bread and dates with some cheerfulness. Then I had a refreshing glass of milk. And, by the time I was half way across the Park by the path that leads from the Marble Arch up to the Gates at Hyde Park Corner, I seemed to have regained something of my former self: something of my Glastonbury character of will and self-reliance. The last three weeks seemed a dream; almost a bad dream, a nightmare, for a little: then only a dream, save for something of the Rosebud that seemed to reach out half-weakly into the present light. I asked the policeman at the Gates where Dunraven Place was, and he directed me. Then I arrived at No. 5, and was shown into a beautifully furnished room. Waiting, I began to examine a book-shelf that was full of beautifully bound books that harmonised with the room. They made me think how I should like to be rich and have all the books I wanted. I had my eye particularly on a large Gervinus's Shakespeare in half-calf, and my fingers began to feel as if they ought to take it down, and run away with it to a convenient arm-chair, and begin upon it at once. As I stood so, I heard a step behind me and turned.

'You are looking at my books, I see,' he said.

'Yes, sir,' I answered, 'it was a Gervinus's Shakespeare. I hope——'

'Oh, not in the least! Please sit down.'

He motioned me into a large red leather chair on one side of the fire-place.

'You come from Messrs. … The name is rather confusing,' he said. '… I want a secretary to help me with to make himself generally useful as I may direct. Another young gentleman has been here this morning already: I mean from Messrs. …' He smiled.—'He objected to going out to Africa. Do you?'

'No.'

'You see—shortly—I want some one to help me to get together my things, write letters, and so on.—You understand me?'

'I think so.'

'The young friend who was going with me has suddenly been taken ill, and, as it is important that I should be out of England in under a month—you follow me? '

'I think so.'

'Good. Now tell me. Can you shoot? No. Ride? No. Um! You are strongly made. Where were you at school?'

'At Glastonbury.'

'Ah, so was I! With Craven, I suppose?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Did you go in for sports—much?'

'I was in the first football fifteen, and rowed in my house-boat.'

'School House?'

'Yes.'

' So did I. It was head of the river in my year.'

'And in mine too.'

'—Tell me something about yourself.'

I paused for a moment. Then I said:

'I have been at Glastonbury five years. My father, who is dead, had placed all his fortune in the Southern Bank. My guardian called me up to London about three weeks ago, to inform me of this. I determined then to try to make my livelihood by my pen, and … failed. That is, shortly, why I am here.'

'Tried to make your livelihood by your pen, and failed? Did not your guardian help you } How did you——'

'I angered my guardian by refusing to try for a clerkship. I thought that I had something here——' (Lifting my finger.)

'"Quelque chose là"—Yes. Well.'

'I wrote two poems, which I sent to a publisher, hoping——'

'Why all, or nearly all, poetry has to be paid for now-a-days, my poor boy.—Of course they sent it back again?'

'They did.'

'Well? And may I ask how you lived in the interim? You had funds?'

'I sold my greatcoat.'

'Excuse me. I am not asking from mere curiosity. … Would you care to tell me more? I will' (looking for a moment in my eyes), 'if you will allow me, write to Dr. Craven about you.—Not that I doubt what you say; but you must see.… You understand? '

'Perfectly.—You have no guarantee that I am not a rogue.'

'Aha! I think you are wrong there! However,' (suddenly), 'how much did you get for your coat?'

'Fifteen shillings.'

'And you have lived on that for nearly three weeks?'

'Just three weeks.'

'Impossible! You are joking!'

'No, sir, since I did. My room only cost me four shillings a week, and I——'

'Then you must have lived on a shilling a week?'

'No. I have not paid my rent for this third week yet.'

'And how are you going to?'

'I cannot say. Perhaps, I may get an ushership in some school, within the next few days. I should anticipate my pay.'

He stood up; we looked for some little in one another's eyes. Then he stretched out his arm, and let his hand fall on my shoulder.

'You are a brave fellow,' he said, 'and I believe you are a true one. I believe what you have told me. There, there, now.' (For my eyes were suddenly full of tears)—'There, there, there, there, there! It's all right now.' And he turned away and let his arm drop. Then:

'Stop,' said he, 'did you know Blake at Glastonbury?'

'He left just before I came; but I met him once. He came to examine a school at Blackheath, where I was.'

'Ah, I am sorry! He was a dear, dear friend of mine—an old college chum; but I had known him before then. He was a Wykehamist.'

'Yes; so I remember.'

'It would have been enough to me that he had thought well of anyone. He would have liked you, I am sure.'

He smiled, and added:

'You see that I have let slip how well I think of you, and what you have said to me.'

'Thank you, sir. Some day, perhaps, I may be able to show you that I deserved your belief in me.—Mr. Blake was kind to me when he came to my old school. He was pleased, I think, with some verses I had to recite, and so …' He had snapped his fingers impatiently, and made a sharp noise with his lips. I stopped speaking. He cried out with a smiling mouth:

'You are not the boy who recited Longfellow's "Psalm of Life?"'

'I am,' I said.

'Immediately after that visit he came and stopped with me here in London for a few days.'

His face grew sadder. He went on slowly:

'It was the last time I saw him. You know of his terrible death, not so long after? All that he said in those few days has been treasured up by me, and lives for ever in my memory. The first night he came, after dinner, as we were sitting here by this very fire over our cigars and wine, he told me about the little boy he had seen that afternoon!'

He caught himself up:

'Well, and how old are you now?'

'Eighteen.'

'You strange boy! Eighteen.—Why, it is ridiculous! (I really must read some of those Rejected Addresses of yours some day.)—You are very tall for your age, and look very old for eighteen.'

I smiled:

'This fortnight has made me older by five years, I think. Years are no test of age, sir.'

We talked together for almost an hour—of many things. Then he looked at his watch and jumped up, saying:

'You have made me forget that I have a very great deal to do this morning, young man.'

'I am sorry, sir.'

'—But very pleasantly.'

'Then I am glad.'

I smiled, and so did he. He touched me on the shoulder.

As I was going, he spoke of Mr. Blake again—how that he was a truly great and good man, one who was without the cant of the two words, a Christian gentleman.

A pause.—Then I:

'I think I ought to tell you something, sir, that I have not told you yet.'

'Aha?' he said.

'I am not a Christian, and … I do not say that I do not believe in a God, but I do not think that I believe in one.'

He put his hand on my shoulder again, and smiled:

'It will pass, it will pass! We most of us go in a circle now-a-days: most of us, that is, who are worth anything. Christian, or perhaps nothing at all, till seventeen: Atheist till twenty: Materialist till twenty-one (we soon get tired of that!): Deist till thirty, (though some of the wilder sort go in for a course of that nonsense called Pantheism): and then, either the old original Christianity again on to the end, or some slight modification of it. Take my word for it, boy, there is no religion worth calling a religion that does not take Christ and Christ's teaching as its original. And how much better is it to lift up your eyes from considering the shadow on the ground, to consider the One that casts the shadow, even Christ Jesus, who is as the standing figure that watches this our on-rolling earth, yearning for it as a mother for her wandering child, waiting for the hour when He shall take it to His bosom and for ever?' He paused. I kept silence.

We shook hands. I turned to go.

He called to me: I turned again:

'I shall not write to Craven.'

'Thank you, sir.'

We again shook hands, and I had my hand on the door, when he said:

' Stay a moment. You are my secretary—for a year. It is so agreed?'

'Yes, sir: as far as I am concerned.'

'Then allow me to give you your first quarter in advance. It is always—I always manage it in that way. You may be in want of a little ready money. And … as regards Messrs.—Messrs. X. Y. and Z., you will of course allow me to settle that with them myself.'

I stood irresolute.

'Come, come!' he said.—'Now don't be foolish, Leicester. If you are going to …'

I stepped to him suddenly, saying:

'Sir, sir, you are very good to me!'

He took my hand in his and pressed it.

'Yes, yes, yes, yes! that's all right now!—Now you really must run away! You said that you would like to come to me to-morrow morning, didn't you?—Very well. I will tell you about what you will have to do, then. So good-bye, or rather au revoir, or rather (when I think of it) both.'

I was at the door, when he called:

'O you dreadful boy, you haven't taken all your belongings away with you! Here is your first quarter on the table yet. You are inclined to be careless, I see. Look to it. It is an evil, evil vice—carelessness!' I found that I could scarcely see the folded pieces of paper that he had put down on the edge of the table. When I had it safely in my hand, I gave one look at him and a bright smile, and went out as quickly as I could; for my eyes were full of tears, and I feared some might drop out.

Riding up on the outside of an omnibus to Praed Street, I felt as I had felt in some of the days at Glastonbury when I had longed to leap and give a shout and move onwards towards something. And then I grew a little sad, if it is possible to call joy sad, and began to say to myself:

'Well, well, pray that there is a God; for you long to thank Him for this! And see, it is very sweet to you to think, that perhaps, perhaps, He has but afflicted you and chastened you by this your suffering so that, in the end, He might lead you nearer and nearer to Himself.… It is a sweet thought!'

 

I spent that afternoon happily. First of all I had a good dinner at a restaurant in Oxford Street, and that gave me an insight into what a healthy pleasure in food meant: and then (the day continuing sunny and almost warm) I went for a long walk in Hyde Park, stopping to look at the men and women riding or driving by, and not one of whom I, in this bright day's dawn of a new life, could possibly envy. Their wealth might give me the chance of leading another life which would not be without its charm, nay, its delight; yet how much nobler this one that I was entering upon now, this one that had work to do, work for others, that is, which would require self-sacrifice—conquest of self!

And after that I came up home, buying on the way fruit and cakes and other things, for a tea I had in my mind with the Rosebud in my room. Then I set about making it all ready, so that, by the time she came in, half-past seven, the room, lit up with gas and fire and well-laid table, was most cheerful.

But the tea was not. For Rosy took my good news most gravely, and did not laugh once the whole time.

After tea we went out for a walk together, and, when we had gone a little way, I said, smiling, that I intended to get her a bonnet to wear as a memory of me. But she would not see anything to laugh at in that, and refused the bonnet with dignity. Then I tried a coat, but she suddenly exclaimed:

'And do you think I would keep it all rags and tatters?' Dismissing the idea.

I tried a locket as a last resource.

After some persuasion she at last agreed. We went into a jeweller's (the very jeweller's under whose window I had counted my money on the first night I was in London) in the Edgware Road together, and she chose a small round silver locket, and relented a little.

'No,' she said, as we were walking slowly away.

'For the bonnet and the jacket would wear out, and I couldn't very well keep them then—eh? And they wouldn't look nice, all in rags and tatters, would they? But I shall always be able to keep the locket, you know: and when I look at it I shall think of you and give a sigh; for you've been very nice to me.'

'Ah,' I said, 'who's talking nonsense now?' And proceeded to demonstrate that, if anybody had been 'nice' to anybody, it was she to me. To which she answered that she liked to hear me talk so,—and for a moment I felt rather foolish, and proposed that we should go up to the top of Primrose Hill, and she agreeing, we set off.

I began to question her a little about herself, and she answered readily, nay, entered upon a regular discourse, to which I played the accompaniment with some pleasure of amusement and otherwise, till we were half way up Primrose Hill: when I all at once remembered a certain bench not far from the top, by which I had on a certain night stood and looked out over the darkness from which came the cool breeze fanning my feverish cheek. Could it have indeed been me, this living, moving, thinking me here, who lived and moved and thought that certain night as memory silently told me that I had? Poor me!

I led her a little round and then up to it. And we sat down upon it together and talked softly.

What thousands and thousands of stars were in the sky! And what millions and millions of people had looked up at the thousands and thousands of stars, and yet would look up, and when would it all ever come to an end?

'Rosy,' I said again, 'does it never seem to you, as if you were here alone in the world, quite alone? I mean, as if nobody else belonged to you somehow; and they are all here, and they live and they die, and you can't tell where they go to: and you can't tell where you will go to, but you don't think you really ever will die, although you know you will; but when you do die, that you will go to somewhere else, where you will be quite alone again and nobody else will belong to you somehow, and they will be all there, and they will all live there, and then die, and you can't tell where they go to, and then you will die.… And it goes on like that for ever!—Did you never think of it in that way?'

'I never thought about it at all,' she said, 'but I like to hear you talk like that.… Go on.'

I started and laughed, and then said:

'Now I'll tell you a little piece of poetry, a merry little piece, and then we must be going home; for it's getting late.'

She composed herself to listen.

'It's in Greek,' I said, 'but, you'll be able to understand it. I'll tell you about it, first. It's called a Swallow Song. The little boys sang it in Greece when the swallows came back after the winter. They used to go round to all the houses and sing it, just like boys sing carols at Christmas. This is it:

"She comes, she comes, the swallow,
bringing beautiful hours,
beautiful seasons,
white on the belly,
black on the back.

Do thou roll forth a fruit-cake
out of the rich house,
and a beaker of wine
and a basket of cheeses;
and wheat-bread the swallow
and the pulse porridge
does not reject. Say, shall we go away, or something receive?
If thou givest—well! But if not, we won't let you off!
Shall we bear off the door, or else the lintel?
Or else the wife that is seated within?
She's a small body, easily shall we carry her off!—
But if you give us something,
something great may you get.
Open, open the door to the swallow,
we are not old men, but childerkins here."'

Then I went on to recite to her the Greek, and she swayed her body a little in sympathy with the rhythm of the words, so that I, who was pleased with it all, gradually grew into the humour in which I had been before when I exclaimed: 'Oh you Rosebud!' till, at the words ἠ τὰν γυναῖκα τὰν ἒσω καθημέναν, I gave one look at her, sitting there, childlike and fairy-like and dear, and could have caught her up in my arms, and then . . . I didn't know what I should have done then.

I sat still, looking out into the night.

After a little:

'I wonder,' said her quiet voice, 'I wonder if you would teach me that?" . . . I think I could soon learn it.'

'——You need not wonder any more,' I said slowly, still looking out into the night, 'I will teach it you.'

And so we began, I to repeat the translated words, she to say them after me, I still looking out into the night, she as I knew looking up at my face. She had an excellent memory. She had soon learnt the piece, and repeated it alone faultlessly.

'You have a good memory,' I said.

'Yes,' she said, 'I always was quick at learning things—when I liked them! I like that!'

A pause. Then:

'Now we must be going,' I said, rising, 'it is getting late.'

We went slowly down the dark hill-side together.

Then something seemed to grow with and about us, and I began to feel somehow as if I were leaving a thing that had closely to do with me in some low, dim, dull plain, whereas I was going away to mount up into a rich warm country of gentle sunshine. And then in half-forgetfulness of this, I would have taken her hand with mine, and we, two children, would have wandered on so over the dim fields together for ever and ever, till we softly faded away. And yet I felt that I was moving in a dim dreaminess, and she in one parallel to it and that she would not (perhaps could not) meet. Then we turned up one of the roads at the back of St. John's Wood in order to get to Maitland Street. I looked at her walking along beside me.

'You're very quiet. Rosy,' I said.

'So are you,' she said, looking in front of her. And then we went on together with the same quietness; for I had no care to say more, nor she either, it seemed.

As we stopped opposite No. 3, she heaved a sigh. I stretched out my hand and opened the door. She said: 'Thank you,' and went in, I following.

Up the dark stairs we went together till we reached her door, the handle of which she had in one hand as she half turned to me.

'Good-night,' she said.

'Good-night,' I said, finding her other out-held hand, and holding it half-loosely for a moment. I could not see her face in that intense blackness.

She opened her door inwards, and a little light came from the turned-down gas—opened it wider. She went in slowly, and closed it after her. I unlatched my own door, and went into the room. The gas there too was turned down. I went and turned it up.

'Heigh, ho!' I said, with suppressed weariness. I sat down in the chair: and stretched out my legs, and tilted the chair back, and lifted the hands of my stretched arms to my head, and thought. All at once I stopped with listening powers like a rock balanced on the edge, breathless, motionless.

A low knock came at the door.

'Come in,' I said, breathless, motionless.

The latch was lifted and the door opened a little.

'It's me,' said Rosy's low voice.

Then, the door opening a little, I saw her. 'Rosy,' she said, 'may I come in?'

I started and sat up straight.

'Yes,' I said.… 'Yes.'

She came in: her face flushed, her eyes bright, her hair loosed a little round her head in wavy brown threads. I seemed to inhale her fairness like a soft sweet air. She said:

'I thought—that as—as you were going away in the morning—before I come back you know—and as I get up early—at seven—so as to be down at my work by eight—I thought … —that—that perhaps I—that perhaps you … wouldn't mind if I was to—if I …' She paused with an indrawn breath. Then I was with her, and had taken her hands.

'… What is it, Rosebud?' I said, with a trembling in me.

All at once two large tears came out of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.

Then she looked at me steadfastly, trying to smile and not wink her eyelids, whose long lashes had crystal drops on them. The trembling passed out of me. I thought only of her distress. I put one arm round her, and so, holding her small body, stroked her soft brown hair back softly, saying:

'Why, Rosebud, you mustn't mind like that. I'll come back again some day!'

'Oh, you were so nice to me,' she said. 'But you will come back again to see me … some day—Eh?'

'Surely I will.—And bring you a bonnet with blue ribbons and a flower that … What is it?'

'… I don't want a bonnet!'

'—Not a bonnet?'

'… No' … (piteously). 'I want you!'

'Very well then: I'll bring you me,' I said, 'some day: and some grapes, and bon-bons to make me go down well.'

Her arms hung listlessly. She seemed very miserable about it.

I kissed her on the cheek, kissed a tear that was stealing down.—Then the next moment felt her breast heave and shake against mine, and she sobbed out:

'Oh I wish—you weren't going away: I wish you weren't going away!'

I kissed her again, and at last found voice to scold her gently: telling her that this would not do, and that she would be all right again soon. For we should see one another again soon, and have long walks in the evening again.

'—And learn more Swallow Songs?' asked she, looking up.

'Yes,' I said, 'and all sorts of other things as well.'

—That would be nice: wouldn't it?' she said.

'Yes.—And climb up to the top of Primrose Hill and look at the lights.'

'—Yes, and go up the River some day, as you said once. That would be nice too, wouldn't it?' She had stopped crying at last.

Then, holding her little upturned face in my hands, I kissed her again, first on one cheek and then on the other. And then we said good-night.

But at the door she suddenly turned back to me with her arms half-raised, and said piteously:

'Kiss me again,—do! … I do like you to kiss me so!'

I took her hands and, smiling a little, went and kissed her on the cheek.

'Kiss me on the lips,' she whispered, half giving herself to me.

I kissed her on the lips and drew back.

'… Good … night,' she said.

'Good-night, Rosy, good-night!'

She was gone.

Then trembling came into me again, and I stretched out my arms before me as round something in the air. And then threw them up with an unknown word, and turned away.

'Good-night, Rosebud, good-night.'

Layout 2