He reddened, but held his head up.
"I'm not going to ask her grandmother a thing she doesn't want me to be told.But I've been up against it pretty hard lately.I read some things in the New York papers about her father and his invention, and about her traveling round with him and helping him with his business.""In Germany they wur," she put in, forgetting herself."They're havin'
big doin's over th' invention.What Joe 'u'd do wi'out th' lass Icanna tell.She's doin' every bit o' th' managin' an' contrivin' wi'
them furriners--but he'll never know it.She's got a chap to travel wi' him as can talk aw th' languages under th' sun."Her face flushed and she stopped herself sharply.
"I'm talkin' about her to thee!" she said."I would na ha' believed o'
mysen'."
He got up from his chair.
"I guess I oughtn't to have come," he said, restlessly."But you haven't told me more than I got here and there in the papers.That was what started me.It was like watching her.I could hear her talking and see the way she was doing things till it drove me half crazy.All of a sudden, I just got wild and made up my mind I'd come here.I've wanted to do it many a time, but I've kept away.""Tha showed sense i' doin' that," remarked Mrs.Hutchinson."She'd not ha' thowt well o' thee if tha'd coom runnin' to her grandmother every day or so.What she likes about thee is as she thinks tha's got a strong backbone o' thy own."She looked up at him over her knitting, looked straight into his eyes, and there was that in her own which made him redden and feel his pulse quicken.It was actually something which even remotely suggested that she was not--in the deeps of her strong old mind--as wholly unswerving as her words might imply.It was something more subtle than words.She was not keeping him wholly in the dark when she said "What she likes about thee." If Ann said things like that to her, he was pretty well off.
"Happen a look at a lass's grandmother--when tha conna get at th' lass hersen--is a bit o' comfort," she added."But don't tha go walkin' by here to look in at th' window too often.She would na think well o'
that either."
"Say! There's one thing I'm going to get off my chest before I go," he announced, "just one thing.She can go where she likes and do what she likes, but I'm going to marry her when she's done it--unless something knocks me on the head and finishes me.I'm going to marry her.""Tha art, art tha?" laconically; but her eyes were still on his, and the something in their depths by no means diminished.
"I'm keeping up my end here, and it's no slouch of a job, but I'm not forgetting what she promised for one minute! And I'm not forgetting what her promise means," he said obstinately.
"Tha'd like me to tell her that?" she said.
"If she doesn't know it, you telling her wouldn't cut any ice," was his reply."I'm saying it because I want you to know it, and because it does me good to say it out loud.I'm going to marry her.""That's for her and thee to settle," she commented, impersonally.
"It is settled," he answered."There 's no way out of it.Will you shake hands with me again before I go?""Aye," she consented, "I will."
When she took his hand she held it a minute.Her own was warm, and there was no limpness about it.The secret which had seemed to conceal itself behind her eyes had some difficulty in keeping itself wholly in the background.
"She knows aw tha' does," she said coolly, as if she were not suddenly revealing immensities."She knows who cooms an' who goes, an' what they think o' thee, an' how tha gets on wi' 'em.Now get thee gone, lad, an' dunnot tha coom back till her or me sends for thee."Within an hour of this time the afternoon post brought to Lady Mallowe a letter which she read with an expression in which her daughter recognized relief.It was in fact a letter for which she had waited with anxiety, and the invitation it contained was a tribute to her social skill at its highest watermark.In her less heroic moments, she had felt doubts of receiving it, which had caused shudders to run the entire length of her spine.
"I'm going to Broome Haughton," she announced to Joan.
"When?" Joan inquired.
"At the end of the week.I am invited for a fortnight.""Am I going?" Joan asked.
"No.You will go to London to meet some friends who are coming over from Paris."Joan knew that comment was unnecessary.Both she and her mother were on intimate terms with these hypothetical friends who so frequently turned up from Paris or elsewhere when it was necessary that she should suddenly go back to London and live in squalid seclusion in the unopened house, with a charwoman to provide her with underdone or burnt chops, and eggs at eighteen a shilling, while the shutters of the front rooms were closed, and dusty desolation reigned.She knew every detail of the melancholy squalor of it, the dragging hours, the nights of lying awake listening to the occasional passing of belated cabs, or the squeaks and nibbling of mice in the old walls.
"If you had conducted yourself sensibly you need not have gone,"continued her mother."I could have made an excuse and left you here.
You would at least have been sure of good food and decent comforts.""After your visit, are we to return here?" was Lady Joan's sole reply.
"Don't look at me like that," said Lady Mallowe."I thought the country would freshen your color at least; but you are going off more every day.You look like the Witch of Endor sometimes."Joan smiled faintly.This was the brandishing of an old weapon, and she understood all its significance.It meant that the time for opportunities was slipping past her like the waters of a rapid river.
"I do not know what will happen when I leave Broome Haughton," her mother added, a note of rasped uncertainty in her voice."We may be obliged to come here for a short time, or we may go abroad.""If I refuse to come, would you let me starve to death in Piers Street?" Joan inquired.