Man and Maid Part 9

No answer.

"Is he nice?"

Silence.

"Is he clever?"

"I want to work."

"Well, what I want to know is, and then I'll let you alone--what did you talk about? Tell me that, and I won't ask another question."

"We talked," said Nina deliberately, taking a clean brush, "we talked about your brother Cecil. No, I shan't tell you what we said, or why we talked about him, or anything. You've had your one question, now shut up."

"Nina," said Molly calmly, "if I didn't like you so much I should hate you."

"That certainty about the other has always been the foundation of our mutual regard," said Nina calmly.

Then they laughed, and began to work in earnest.

The next time Molly mentioned the "stranger who might have been observed" Nina laughed, and said: "The subject is forbidden; it makes you vulgar."

"And you disagreeable."

"Then it's best to avoid it. Best for you and best for me."

"But do you ever see him now?"

"On occasion. He still travels by the 9.1, and I still have the use of my eyes."

"Does he ever talk to you like he did that Thursday?"

"No--never. And I'm not going to talk about him to you, so it's no good.

Your turn to choose a subject. You won't? Then it becomes my turn. What a long winter this is! We seem to have taken years to get from November to February!"

The time went more quickly between February and May. It was when the country was wearing its full dress of green and the hawthorn pearls were opening into baby-roses in the hedgerows that it was Nina's fortune to be put, by the zealous indiscretion of a mistaken porter, into an express train for Beechwood--the wrong station--the wrong line.

The "stranger who might have been observed," on this occasion was not observed, but observer. He saw and recognised the porter's error, hesitated a moment, and then leaped into a carriage just behind hers. So that when, after a swift journey made eventful by agonised recognition of the fleeting faces of various stations where she might have changed and caught her own train, Nina reached Beechwood, the stranger's hand was ready to open the door for her.

"There's no train for ages," he said in tones deliberate, almost hesitating. "Shall we walk home? It's only six miles."

"But you--aren't you going somewhere here?"

"No--I--I--I saw the porter put you in--and I thought--at least--anyway you will walk, won't you?"

They walked. When they reached Beechwood Common, he said: "Won't you take my arm?" And she took it. Her hands were ungloved; the other hand was full of silver may and bluebells. The sun shot level shafts of gold between the birch trees across the furze and heather.

"How beautiful it is!" she said.

"We've known each other three months," said he.

"But I've seen you every day, and we've talked for hours and hours in those everlasting trains," she said, as if in excuse.

"I've seen you every day for longer than that; the first time was on the 3rd of October."

"Fancy remembering that!"

"I have a good memory."

A silence.

Nina broke it, to say again: "How pretty!" She knew she had said it before, or something like it, but she could think of nothing else--and she wanted to say something.

He put his hand over hers as it lay on his arm. She looked up at him quickly.

"Well?" he said, stopping to look down into her eyes and tightening his clasp on her hand. "Are you sorry you came to Beechwood?"

"No----"

"Then be glad. My dear, I wish you could ever be as glad as I am."

Then they walked on, still with his hand on hers.

Nina and Molly sat on a locker swinging their feet and eating their lunch in the Slade corridor next day. Nina was humming softly under her breath.

"What are you so happy for all of a sudden?" Molly asked. "Your sketch-club things are the worst I've ever seen, and the Professor was down on you like a hundred of bricks this morning."

"I'm not happy," said Nina, turning away what seemed to Molly a new face.

"What is it, then?"

"Nothing. Oh yes--by the way, I'm going to be married."

"Not _really_?"

"Check this unflattering display of incredulity--I am."

"Really and truly? And you never told me a thing. I hate slyness and secretiveness. Nina, who is it? Do I know him?"

Nina named a name.

"Never even heard of him. But where did you meet him? It really is rather deceitful of you."

"I always meant to tell you, only there was nothing to tell till yesterday except----"

"Except everything," said Molly. "Well, tell me now."