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Their walks together grew more and more frequent, and they became intimate, exchanging ideas and rejoicing openly at the similarity of those ideas. Although there was no concealment in these encounters, still, there was a circumspection which resembled the clandestine. By a silent understanding Clive did not enter the house at Pireford; to have done so would have excited remark, for this house, unlike some, had never been the rendezvous of young men; much less, therefore, did he invade the shop. No! The chief part of their love-making (for such it was, though the term would have roused Eva’s contemptuous anger) occurred in the streets; in this they did but follow the traditions of their class. Thus, the idyll, so matter-of-fact upon the surface, but within which glowed secret and adorable fires, progressed towards its culmination. Eva, the artless fool–oh, how simple are the wisest at times!–thought that the affair was hid from the shop. But was it possible? Was it possible that in those tiny bedrooms on the third floor, where the heavy evening hours were ever lightened with breathless interminable recitals of what some ‘he’ had said and some ‘she’ had replied, such an enthralling episode should escape discovery? The dormitories knew of Eva’s ‘attachment’ before Eva herself. Yet none knew how it was known. The whisper arose like Venus from a sea of trivial gossip, miraculously, exquisitely. On the night when the first rumour of it traversed the passages there was scarcely any sleep at Brunt’s, while Eva up at Pireford slumbered as a young girl.

On the Thursday afternoon with which we began, Brunt’s was deserted save for the housekeeper and Eva, who was writing letters in her room.

‘I saw you from my window, coming up the street,’ she said to Clive, ‘and so I ran down to open the door. Will you come into father’s room? He is in Manchester for the day, buying.

‘I knew that,’ said Timmis.

‘How did you know?’ She observed that his manner was somewhat nervous and constrained.

‘You yourself told me last night–don’t you remember?’

‘So I did.’

‘That’s why I sent the note round this morning to say I’d call this afternoon. You got it, I suppose?’

She nodded thoughtfully.

‘Well, what is this business you want to talk about?’

It was spoken with a brave carelessness, but he caught the tremor in her voice, and saw her little hand shake as it lay on the table amid her father’s papers. Without knowing why he should do so, he stepped hastily forward and seized that hand. Her emotion unmanned him. He thought he was going to cry; he could not account for himself.

‘Eva,’ he said thickly, ‘you know what the business is; you know, don’t you?’

She smiled. That smile, the softness of her hand, the sparkle in her eye, the heave of her small bosom … it was the divinest miracle! Clive, manufacturer of majolica, went hot and then cold, and then his wits were suddenly his own again.

‘That’s all right,’ he murmured, and sighed, and placed on Eva’s lips the first kiss that had ever lain there.

‘Dear boy,’ she said later, ‘you should have come up to Pireford, not here, and when father was there.’

‘Should I?’ he answered happily. ‘It just occurred to me all of a sudden this morning that you would be here, and that I couldn’t wait.’

‘You will come up to-night and see father?’

‘I had meant to.’

‘You had better go home now.’

‘Had I?’

She nodded, putting her lips tightly together–a trick of hers.

‘Come up about half-past eight.’

‘Good! I will let myself out.’

He left her, and she gazed dreamily at the window, which looked on to a whitewashed yard. The next moment someone else entered the room with heavy footsteps. She turned round a little startled.

It was her father.

‘Why! You are back early, father! How—-‘ She stopped. Something in the old man’s glance gave her a premonition of disaster. To this day she does not know what accident brought him from Manchester two hours sooner than usual, and to Machin Street instead of Pireford.