"I expect she is," George agreed feebly. He could not think of anything to say.
"And I'm thankful I _can_ offer her a better home. I don't mind telling you now that at one time I began to fear I shouldn't have a home. I've had my ambitions, Mr. Cannon. I was meant for a quantity surveyor. I was one--you may say. But it was not to be. I came down in the world, but I kept my head above water. And then in the end, with a little money I had I bought this house. 575. It needed some negotiation. Ground-rent 10 per annum, and seventy years to run. You see, all along I had had the idea of building a studio in the garden. I was one of the first to see the commercial possibilities of studios in Chelsea. But of course I know Chelsea. I made the drawings for the studio myself. Mr. Enwright kindly suggested a few improvements. With all my experience I was in a position to get it put up as cheaply as possible. You'd be surprised at the number of people in the building line anxious to oblige me. It cost under 300. I had to borrow most of it. But I've paid it off. What's the consequence? The consequence is that the rent of the studio and the top rooms brings me in over eight per cent on all I spent on the house and the studio together. And I'm living rent free myself."
"Jolly good!"
"Yes.... If I'd had capital, Mr. Cannon, I could have made thousands out of studios. Thousands. I fancy I've the gift. But I've never had the capital. And that's all there is to it." He smacked his lips, and leaned back against the mantelpiece. "You may tell me I've realized my ambitions. Not all of them, Mr. Cannon. Not all of them. If I'd had money I should have had leisure, and I should have improved myself.
Reading, I mean. Study. Literature. Music. Painting. History of architecture. All that sort of thing. I've got the taste for it. I know I've got the taste for it. But what could I do? I gave it up. You'll never know how lucky you are, Mr. Cannon. I gave it up. However, I've nothing to be ashamed of. At any rate I hope not."
George nodded appreciatively. He was touched. He was even impressed. He admitted the _naivete_ of the ageing man, his vanity, his sentimentality. But he saw himself to be in the presence of an achievement. And though the crown of Mr. Haim's achievement was to marry a charwoman, still the achievement impressed. And the shabby man with the lined, common face was looking back at the whole of his life--there was something positively formidable in that alone. He was at the end; George was at the beginning, and George felt callow and deferential. The sensation of callowness at once heightened his resolve to succeed. All George's sensations seemed mysteriously to transform themselves into food for this great resolve.
"And what does Miss Haim say to all this?" he asked, rather timidly and wildly. It was a venturesome remark; it might well have been called an impertinence; but the mage of Marguerite was involved in all the workings of his mind, and it would not be denied expression.
Mr. Haim lifted his back from the mantelpiece sharply. Then he hesitated, moving forward a little.
"Mr. Cannon," he said, "it's curious you should ask that." His voice trembled, and at the vibration George was suddenly apprehensive. Mr.
Haim had soon recovered from his original emotion, but now he seemed to be in danger of losing control of himself.
George nervously cleared his throat and apologized.
"I didn't mean----"
"I'd better tell you," Mr. Haim interrupted him, rather loudly. "We've just had a terrible scene with my daughter, a terrible scene!" He seldom referred to Marguerite by her Christian name, "Mr. Cannon, I had hoped to get through my life without a scandal, and especially an open scandal. But it seems as if I shouldn't--if I know my daughter! It was not my intention to say anything. Far from it. Outsiders ought not to be troubled.... I--I like you, Mr. Cannon. She left us a few minutes ago And as she didn't put her hat on she must be either at the studio or at Agg's...."
"She went out of the house?" George questioned awkwardly.
Mr. Haim nodded, and then without warning he dropped like an inert lump on to a chair and let his head fall on to his hand.
George was frightened as well as mystified. The spectacle of the old man--at one moment boasting ingenuously of his career, and at the next almost hysterical with woe--roused his pity in a very disconcerting manner, and from his sight the Lucas & Enwright factotum vanished utterly, and was supplanted by a tragic human being. But he had no idea how to handle the unexampled situation with dignity; he realized painfully his own lack of experience, and his over-mastering impulse was to get away while it was still possible to get away. Moreover, he desired intensely to see and hear Marguerite.
"Perhaps I had better find out where she is," he absurdly suggested, and departed from the room feeling like a criminal reprieved.
The old man did not stir.
II
"Can I come in?" said George, hatless, pushing open the door of the studio, which was ajar.
There were people in the bright and rather chilly studio, and none of them moved until the figure arriving out of the darkness was identified.
Mr. Prince, who in the far corner was apparently cleaning or adjusting his press, then came forward with a quiet, shy, urbane welcome.
Marguerite herself stood nearly under the central lamp, talking to Agg, who was seated. The somewhat celebrated Agg immediately rose and said in her somewhat deep voice to Marguerite:
"I must go."
Agg was the eldest daughter of the Agg family, a broad-minded and turbulent tribe who acknowledged the nominal headship of a hard-working and successful barrister. She was a painter, and lived and slept in semi-independence in a studio of her own in Manresa Road, but maintained close and constant relations with the rest of the tribe. In shape and proportions fairly tall and fairly thin, she counted in shops among the stock-sizes; but otherwise she was entitled to call herself unusual. She kept her hair about as short as the hair of a boy who has postponed going to the barber's for a month after the proper time, and she incompletely covered the hair with the smallest possible hat. Her coat was long and straight and her skirt short. Her boots were high, reaching well up the calf, but they had high heels and were laced in some hundreds of holes. She carried a cane in a neatly gloved hand. She was twenty-seven. In style Marguerite and Agg made a great contrast with one another. Each was fully aware of the contrast, and liked it.
"Good evening, Mr. Cannon," said Agg firmly, not shaking hands.
George had met her once in the way of small-talk at her father's house.
Having yet to learn the important truth that it takes all sorts to make a world, he did not like her and wondered why she existed. He could understand Agg being fond of Marguerite, but he could not understand Marguerite being fond of Agg; and the friendship between these two, now that he actually for the first time saw it in being, irked him.
"Is anything the matter?... Have you seen father?" asked Marguerite in a serious, calm tone, turning to him. Like George, she had run into the studio without putting on any street attire.
George perceived that there was no secret in the studio as to the crisis in the Haim family. Clearly the topic had been under discussion. Prince as well as Agg was privy to it. He did not quite like that. He was vaguely jealous of both Prince and Agg. Indeed he was startled to find that Marguerite could confide such a matter to Prince--at any rate without consulting himself. While not definitely formulating the claim in his own mind, he had somehow expected of Marguerite that until she met him she would have existed absolutely sole, without any sentimental connexions of any sort, in abeyance, waiting for his miraculous advent.
He was glad that Mr. Buckingham Smith was not of the conclave; he felt that he could not have tolerated Mr. Buckingham Smith.
"Yes, I've seen him," George answered.
"Did he tell you?"
"Yes."
Mr. Prince, after a little hovering, retired to his press, and a wheel could be heard creaking.
"What did he tell you?"
"He told me about--the marriage.... And I gathered there'd been a bit of a scene."
"Nothing else?"
"No."
Agg then interjected, fixing her blue eyes on George:
"Marguerite is coming to live with me in my studio."
And her challenging gaze met George's.
"Oh!" George could not suppress his pained inquietude at this decision having been made without his knowledge. Both girls misapprehended his feeling. "That's it, is it?"
"Well," said Agg, "what can Mr. Haim expect? Here Marguerite's been paying this woman two shillings a day and her food, and letting her take a parcel home at nights. And then all of a sudden she comes dressed up for tea, and sits down, and Mr. Haim says she's his future wife. What _does_ he expect? Does he expect Marguerite to kiss her and call her mamma? The situation's impossible."
"But you can't stop people from falling in love, Agg, you know. It's not a crime," said Mr. Prince in his weak voice surprisingly from the press.
"I know it's not a crime," said Agg sharply. "And nobody wants to stop people from falling in love. If Mr. Haim chooses to go mad about a charwoman, when his wife, and such a wife, 's been dead barely three years, that's his concern. It's true the lady isn't much more than half his age, and that the whole business would be screamingly funny if it wasn't disgusting; but still he's a free agent. And Marguerite's a free agent too, I hope. Of course he's thunder-struck to discover that Marguerite _is_ a free agent. He would be!"
"He certainly is in a state," said George, with an uneasy short laugh.
Agg continued:
"And why is he in a state? Because Marguerite says she shall leave the house? Not a bit. Only because of what he thinks is the scandal of her leaving. Mr. Haim is a respectable man. He's simply all respectability.
Respectability's his god--Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Always has been.
He'd sacrifice everything to respectability--except the lovely Lobley.
It's not respectable in a respectable family for a girl to leave home on account of her stepmother. And so he's in a state, if you please!... If he wanted to carry on with Mrs. Lobley, let him carry on with her. But no! That's not respectable. He's just got to marry her!" Agg sneered.
George was startled, perhaps excusably, at the monstrous doctrine implied in Agg's remarks. He had thought himself a man of the world, experienced, unshockable. But he blenched, and all his presence of mind was needed to preserve a casual, cool demeanour. The worst of the trial was Marguerite's tranquil acceptance of the attitude of her friend. She glanced at Agg in silent, admiring approval. He surmised that until that moment he had been perfectly ignorant of what girls really were.
"I see," said George courageously. And then, strangely, he began to admire too. And he pulled himself together.