"Even now, I don't know how long I may be able to stop here; I may go away again at a moment's notice – and never come back at all. Don't look so grave about it; you can go on making-believe, you know, just as well as ever."
"It won't be quite the same," she said. "You see, in that you've helped me – because, as I told you, you understood."
"And how have you been getting on?" he asked. "I mean, of course – the house?"
She stood against the wall over which he leaned; she did not look up at him when she replied. "Oh, pretty well, thank you," she said in a low voice. "Nothing ever happens, you know, in Arcadia Street – except the thing you don't want to happen."
"Your father?"
"Father is quite established again at his club; they think a lot of him at his club," she said. "And Aubrey is positive he will hear of something to do very shortly."
"That's good news," said Gilbert. "By the way – that Mr. Quarle I met when I was here last – the night I came over into your garden – do you know him very well?"
"Oh, yes; he's been a great friend of mine for nearly two years. But for him I think we couldn't keep the house going; he is the only lodger I have ever had who pays money without being asked for it. He's simply wonderful. Not that he's well off; he's only retired from something, and I don't think the something was very much before he retired from it. But his payments – oh – they're beautifully regular!"
"He's a valuable man," said Gilbert, not without a curious little feeling of jealousy that anyone else should be good to the girl except himself. Then the thought of what he had meant to do – the remembrance of the girl, shabby and forlorn, who had walked past the theatre that night, and had been something like Bessie Meggison – urged him to say something else.
"Bessie – (you don't mind my calling you Bessie – do you?) – have you ever had a holiday? I mean, have you ever got away from this dull house for one long evening – and seen bright lights, and happy faces – and heard music? Have you ever done that?"
Still leaning against the wall, she shook her head slowly, without looking up. "There hasn't been time – or money," she said simply.
"If you found the time – and I found the money?" he suggested. "What then?"
She looked up at him wonderingly; did not seem for a moment to understand what he meant. At last she said slowly – "I'm afraid it wouldn't do, you know; it really wouldn't do at all. Someone would be wanting me – someone would be calling for me."
"I should let them call for once," said Gilbert. "Just suppose for once, little Make-Believe, that we went out of Arcadia Street – and far beyond Islington – just our two selves. There are certain places called theatres, you know."
She nodded, with a sigh. "I know," she said. "That is, of course, I don't know much about what they're like inside; the outsides are wonderful. But I expect they're very expensive."
"We might manage it – just for once," he urged. "I could save up, you know – go without something."
It needed a lot of persuasion before she would consent at all; but at last she named a night when it was probable that father would be more in requisition at his club even than usual, and when Aubrey would be engrossed in the mysteries of a billiard handicap. She would go then; and, the better to preserve the proprieties (for Arcadia Street was given to gossip), would meet him at a certain spot not a hundred yards from the Arcadia Arms.
He began to understand, almost at the last moment, that the expedition must be conducted in her own fashion; he had the delicacy to understand that he must be shabby to match her poor shabbiness. So that it is probable very few of his friends would have recognized Mr. Gilbert Byfield, had they seen him waiting about at the corner of a certain street in Islington, in a well-worn tweed suit and a billycock hat. At that time he did not like the idea at all; he would have liked to whirl her away in a hansom, and do the thing properly at a first-class restaurant, with stalls at a theatre to follow. He wondered a little how the evening was going to pass.
And yet, after all, it proved to be rather pleasant – viewed as a new experience. Pleasant, to begin with, to see that little thin figure coming towards him; to hold for a moment the little hand in the worn glove, and to notice with satisfaction how neat she was, and how tastefully dressed, despite the poor things she had on. He had the grace to forget that a swift hansom might be hailed with the raising of a hand; found an omnibus almost comfortable – quite delightful, in fact, with the girl seated beside him, wearing upon her face that extraordinary look of complete happiness. He forgot even to think what his friends would have said had they seen him riding in such a vehicle, dressed in such fashion, and with such a companion.
The choosing of a restaurant was a difficulty, because he scarcely knew the cheaper or more dingy ones. She drew back in alarm at the prospect of entering a place gay with electric light; became reconciled at last to a little place of few tables and fewer waiters; sat open-eyed and breathless at the glory of a fifth-rate place, with a decided smell of the kitchen about it every time a creaking door was opened near her. She did not talk much; only occasionally she glanced at him, and when she did she smiled that slow grave smile of gratitude and friendliness.
Afterwards he found himself, for the first time in his life, in the upper circle at a theatre; congratulated himself on the fact that a friend he saw in a box below would not be likely to raise his eyes to the third row of that particular part of the building. He contented himself, not with looking at a play he had already seen, but with watching the thin face of the girl beside him – the bright eyes and the half-parted lips. Once, at a moment that was thrilling, she gripped his arm; and for quite a long time kept her hand there, holding to him while she watched the stage.
Coming out of the theatre, in the whirl and rush of people homeward bound, he got her into the hansom almost before she knew what had happened; it was only after the horse had started for Arcadia Street that she looked up at him reproachfully – shocked and awed by this friend who could spend so much money in a single evening. She voiced that thought as they drove along.
"You'll have to go without quite a lot for this, Mr. Byfield – won't you?" she asked wistfully. "I mean – it has been a frightfully expensive evening."
"I don't mind – for once," said Gilbert. "The only question in my mind is – have you really had a good time?"
She heaved a big sigh. "I should like to do it all over again," she said softly – "but to do it much more slowly. It has been wonderful!"
This was the one man in all the world that had ever thought about her, or had ever done her a kindness. Small wonder then that her eyes spoke more than gratitude when she put that little hand into his again in Arcadia Street, before the shabby house swallowed her up, and the door closed upon her. No one saw her, because Arcadia Street, save on Saturday nights, goes early to bed.
CHAPTER V
THE GREAT GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE
IN the course of many scrambling, shambling years Mr. Daniel Meggison had learnt much, in the sordid sense, concerning the value of men. Had it been necessary for him, at any time in his later life, to pass a strict examination in the Gentle Art of Tapping People, he would in all probability have come out of the ordeal with flying colours, as one having vast experience.
For he could have told you to a nicety how, in the case of this man, you must not try for more than half a crown, and must be jocular with him; how, in another case, you might fly higher, and whine for a sovereign, with a pitiful tale pitched to charm the coin out of his pockets; and how, in other cases, you would have to drop your demands so low as a shilling or even possibly a sixpence. It is not too much to say that every man, in a very special sense, had for Mr. Daniel Meggison his price; and that on all and sundry occasions he was only too ready to exact that price from his fellows.
Exactly how far back in the years he had really made any attempt to earn an honest living it is impossible to say, and he had probably long since forgotten. It had at the beginning been a mere accidental business; a temporary loss of work had thrown him into the willing arms, as it were, of a wife who had always done something to help him. It merely became necessary for her to increase her