and both mutually contemptuous. Sally kept to her stitching, and glowered. May thought to herself. Sally abruptly announced the soppiness of May's continued exploits. When asked by her mother if she were not going out with May, Sally returned the cold answer that May was soft, and continued to walk alone, much disturbed, and privately indignant that her mother should be so blind as to ignore the alteration that had come about. She was lonely and wretched, spoiling for any mischief that might offer.

[Pg 22]

Material for the use of such desperation never lacks. It arose naturally. Toby came into her life.

Toby was a young man of about twenty years of age, who lived in the house. She caught sight of him one night as she returned home, for he was running down the stairs as she went up them. He was of middle height, very dark and rather stoutly built; and he wore a cap. That was all she noticed at their first encounter, since the stairs were dark: that, and the fact that he did not draw to one side as they met. The contact filled her mind with sudden interest. She thought about him as she munched her supper, and wondered what he was really like. She[Pg 23] wreathed around Toby quite a host of guesses—not very deep or vivid, but sufficiently so to make her think of him still as she undressed and slipped into bed beside her mother. Her last thought before sleep came was a faint enjoyment of the knowledge that a young man lived in the same house. It was the faintest of thoughts, due solely to her restlessness; but in the gloom she was conscious of him and of the conviction that they would meet again upon the stairs. For that time this was as far as speculation could carry her. Sally did not think of herself at all—only that there was a young man, and that she should see him again. The rest of her attention was absorbed in the endeavour to remember all she had noticed of his appearance in that hasty meeting. She had seen enough to be sure of recognising him again with the house as associative background. That was all. Knowing it, she feel asleep, and dreamed of a sudden gift of beauty and attractiveness.

[Pg 23]

iv

For several days Sally did not see the young man, and so she half forgot him, lost him in the mixture of her more pressing preoccupations. Every morning she rose at eight o'clock, after her mother had left the house for her first situation, and then, breakfasting slowly, she had just time to reach Miss Jubb's by nine. She did not like Miss Jubb, who was a thin-faced 

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