Sir William Read Free Page B

this clearly—a real officer, a lieutenant in the Navy, who had sworn eternal devotion; but unfortunately he had had to sail away, as they so often do, so down she went with a bump again, and how was she to rise? What she had done immediately after that, except that there had been a great deal of it, she neither could nor would remember.
    “My child,” said an old crone, in cheap night lodgings, “why are you here? You are too young and pretty. You do not belong here for another fifteen years at least.” And she peered about the slumside dormitory, where ugly women crept drunkenly from cot to cot, the youngest of them thirty-five.
    Since no one had spoken kindly to her for several days, Emily tumbled her story out, among these dank and greasy shadows, and begged for sympathy.
    “I saw no harm in it,” she said (indeed she had enjoyed herself). “But then the Budds turned me out, so I want employment.”
    “The harm is in the getting caught,” said the old crone. “And as for employment, we women have but one, but in the future you must mind your wage.”
    Emily was indignant. “I could not go with any man I did not like,” she said.
    “No woman ever does, but grant, the rich are always likable,” said the old crone. “If nothing else, ’tis money makes them so. But never spend your earnings, for as you can see about you, that is a fair cruel thing for any woman to do. And if you are seriously minded to reform, perhaps I can assist you, for I have among my acquaintance a Dr. Graham, a most philanthropic man.” And shegave a lopsided, well-intended, but dissembling leer.
    *
    So Emily went to work for Dr. Graham’s Temple of Health, an establishment in Adelphi Terrace much patronized by the voyeur; and as for the old crone, she spoke privately with the learned proprietor, pocketed her 2/6, and was never seen again.
    Two gentlemen at the Temple of Health attracted Emily’s attention, the first because he stared at her so, the second because she could not help it; he reminded her of her naval gentleman. They came day after day, to watch her while she impersonated the Goddess of Health and gave old gentlemen their mud baths. She had several weeks to gather her impressions.
    Greville had the eyes of an affronted pig, though in actuality pigs have vivacious eyes; and though she liked him well enough, she did not like him very much. She thought him stuck up. “I am not,” he seemed to say, “as other men. Tinsel goods are all very well for your present situation, but when you wish quality, as no doubt in time you will, you may have me.” What girl of spirit would accept so grand a proposal made upon a scale so small?
    The other gentleman, Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh, had eyes of a warmer, softer quality, like soaked raisins. He was handsome, sleek, boisterous and seductive. He knew how to put you at your ease. He made jokes (Greville never made jokes); he never gave lectures (Greville had with him always an invisible podium); he asked her to go to the country with him. He did not seem disappointed when she said, “Not likely.” Instead he gave her things, sweetmeats, a shawl, a good dinner or something silly. Then, if she liked it, he asked her again. He was hearty and never vulgar, he knew how to treat you properly, and they became friends.
    So what was the harm in it?
    What fort would not capitulate upon such terms, in short, everything, and a truce with life. She had been besieged too often. In time one comes to dread manning the same defenses every day, just as many a wary bitchhas allowed herself to be taken during the season, merely to litter and have done with it.
    Besides, he took her to Up Park, and she had never seen a country house before, let alone driven sensuously between its gates, around the bend so accurately calculated by Capability Brown, and there was the house, an enlarged toybox upon an eminence, and all the retainers out to receive them, cap in hand, except for the housekeeper, who had