Aubrey Meggison came in presently, and insisted on telling her of a few shots he had taken that night on the billiard-table – illustrating his words by means of a walking-stick on the shabby cover of the dining-room table – and how he had completely "wiped the floor" with his opponent, to the unbounded astonishment of a choice circle which seemed to consist of a billiard-marker, a bookmaker, and a long-dethroned music-hall star. The triumphs of the evening, however, had not smoothed his temper; he complained bitterly about the monotony of bread and cheese, and pushed his food from him with a few elegant expressions of disgust.
"Tact and forethought – that's what you're lackin', Bess," he suggested. "You don't think to yourself what's the best thing to suit your brother, and your brother's appetite. Not you; the first thing that comes along'll do for him."
She bore his reproaches meekly, until presently he restlessly wandered out of the house again. He encountered his father on the doorstep; and Bessie heard a little wordy warfare between the two – Daniel Meggison protesting virtuously that his son should be in bed at ten o'clock to the minute – and that son suggesting airily that he knew what was best for himself. Then Daniel came into the room, not too steadily, but perhaps with the greater dignity on that account.
"What I've done this night will not soon be forgotten," he said, with a roll of the head. "On their knees, they were, in a manner of speaking – on their knees, my child. Nothing good enough for me; apologies flying about everywhere. Haughty with them, mind you; no sudden giving way on my part. At the same time – condescending; that's the right word – condescending." He sat down, and waved his hand to show exactly what manner he had adopted for the subjugation of the Arcadia Arms, and fell asleep.
The shabby little room seemed intolerable, with the old man gurgling and choking, and muttering in his sleep in his chair; once again the girl slipped out into her garden. And now, as if to welcome her, the kindly moon had come over the housetops, and was shedding a radiance even there. She sat down at the table, and leant her elbows upon it; she did not understand what this new and desperate longing was that had come upon her. She had been content for so many years; had been glad to accept things as they were, and to make the best of them. But now to-night there was a new and passionate longing for a world and a life that could never be hers at all. As she sat there, staring at the shabby wall before her, the walls seemed to vanish; and there grew up in their place a dim vision of a wide countryside, lying silent and peaceful under the moon; of a life that was gentle and secure and easy. And beyond that wide countryside, with a path of light made across it by the moon, lay the shining sea. The vision was gone, just as rapidly as it had come; the grey wall was there; out in the street coarse hoarse voices sounded, and a shout of discordant laughter. She let her hands fall on the table, and bowed her head upon her arms. What had she to do with dreams?
It was at that precise moment that Mr. Gilbert Byfield determined to walk out of the house next door into that plot of ground attached to it which matched that in which Bessie Meggison was seated. That particular plot of ground did not boast any of the adornments of the Meggison garden; it was simply a stretch of bare earth, with scrubby grass growing here and there in patches. Gilbert thought nothing of that, because the place did not interest him, save for the fact that it adjoined the garden next door; and he had already learned that in that garden only was the Princess of Arcadia Street to be approached, if one did it delicately. Accordingly he stole up to the dividing wall now, and peered over it; and so, of course, saw that hopeless figure in the moonlight, leaning over the old table.
As he had never seen her save with that demure brightness upon her that seemed to belong to her, he was naturally shocked at this sudden abandonment; besides, she looked pathetic indeed in her utter loneliness in that place. He called softly to her over the wall.
"Hullo! I say – what's the matter?"
He called so softly that she did not hear him, nor did she change her position. After a moment of hesitation, he glanced first at the back of the house he had left, and then at the back of the other one; swung himself up to the top of the wall; and jumped over. He alighted, as luck would have it, on that defective board in the old box set under the wall; swore softly to himself, and stepped down to the ground. The noise he made had startled the girl; she got quickly to her feet, and moved away from him.
"I'm dreadfully sorry," he began, smiling at her.
But she waved him back hurriedly. "Mr. Byfield!" she said in a whisper, with a glance at the house. "Oh, please – you must go back! – you must really go back!"
"If anyone comes, I can jump over in a moment," he said. "There's nothing to be afraid of – and this is ever so much better than talking over the wall, you know. By the way," he added ruefully, "I'm afraid I've broken your – your ottoman."
"It doesn't matter," she said in a dull voice – "and it isn't an ottoman. It's an old box."
"I don't believe it," he exclaimed. "It's an ottoman – and a very nice one at that."
"You're laughing at me," she said, with the shyness of a child. "You know it's all only pretending; you know what a shabby place this is – really and truly. You've been good and kind about it; you've never laughed at me, like other people."
"God forbid, child!"
"That's it!" she exclaimed quickly. "Child! That's what you think me; that's what you believe me to be. If a child brought you a broken doll, you'd be sorry, and make much of it, although in your heart you'd laugh, because it was such a little thing to make a fuss about. And you've been sorry for me – and have pretended with me that this place was what it has never been. And in your heart you have never ceased to laugh at me."
"In my heart I have never laughed at you at all," he said solemnly.
They had unconsciously drawn nearer to each other in the solitude of the garden under the moon; their hands were touching. For now it seemed that she wanted desperately to touch hands with some friendly being – someone, for choice, who came out of the big world mysteriously, as this man had done. She was so much of a child that she needed comforting; so much of a woman that she needed loving.
"I was wrong to say that you had laughed at me," she said penitently – "you have been the only one that has understood. I wonder if you remember when you first looked over the wall?"
"Shall I ever forget it!" he exclaimed, in all honesty. "You see, I had never imagined any place like this" – he glanced round about him, and whimsically shook his head as he spoke – "and of course I was surprised. And then I saw you – and I understood at once that you were so different from anyone I had seen in Arcadia Street, or indeed anywhere. And so we – we talked."
"I shall never forget it," she said. "I had always tried to make-believe a little, because when one does that one gets away from all the tiresome things – all the things that must happen, and yet that ought not to happen at all. You see, so many people seem always to have held out hands to me for money; and I've had so little money to give them."
"And so – just to enable you to forget them a little – you started this great game of make-believe; this pretending that you were something better (although that could never be, you know) – something bigger and greater than you really were. The fine lady walked in her garden every night, and saw the flowers grow, and heard the summer wind rustling the trees and dreamed – what great dreams they were!"
She nodded, with shining eyes. "And then you one day looked over the wall – and you seemed to understand in a moment. Any one else but you, coming out of the big world, would simply have laughed, and would have seen that this was an old carpet, too shabby even for the house – and this a table we couldn't use for anything else – and that a box that no one wanted. And yet in a moment – do you remember? – you knew perfectly what each thing was. It was wonderful!"
"I remember." He nodded gravely. "I knew that was the ottoman – and behind it the tapestry; I understood also how nice it was to have coffee in the garden every evening. Arcadia Street doesn't run to coffee – except in the morning."
"I had read somewhere – it was in a paper that came to the house – that ladies and gentlemen take their coffee generally on the terrace. Well, of course, we couldn't manage a terrace, and I couldn't quite understand whether it was anything