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“Always: everywhere . . . of that . . . and the children.”

“Grace looks after them.”

“I know. I get word. She is kind.”

“You think of them?”

“Don’t, Willy!”

He harked back. “Do you know, whenever I’ve thought of it . . . the chance of our meeting . . . I’ve wondered what I should say. Hundreds and hundreds of times I’ve made up my mind what to say. Why, only just now–I’ve come from the theatre: I still go to the theatre sometimes; it’s a splendid thing to distract your thoughts: takes you out of yourself–Frou–Frou, it was . . . the finest play in the world . . . next to East Lynne. It made me cry, to-night, and the people in the pit stared at me. But one mustn’t be ashamed of a little honest emotion, before strangers. And when a thing comes home to a man . . . So you’ve thought of it too–the chance of our running against one another?”

“Every day and all the day long I’ve gone fearing it: especially in March and September, when I knew you’d be up in town buying for the season. All the day long I’ve gone watching the street ahead of me . . . watching in fear of you. . . .”

“But I never guessed it would happen like this.” He stared up irritably, as though the lamp were to blame for upsetting his calculations. The woman followed his eyes.

“Yes . . . the lamp,” she assented. “Something held my face up to it, just now, when I wanted to hide. It’s like as if our souls were naked under it, and there is nothing to say.”

“Eh? but there is. I tell you I’ve thought it out so often! I’ve thought it all out, or almost all; and that can’t mean nothing.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve made allowances, too–” he began magnanimously.

But for the moment she was not listening. “Yes, yes . . .” She had turned her face aside and was gazing out into the darkness. “Look at the gas-jets, Willy–in the fog. What do they remind you of? That Christmas-tree . . . after Dick was born. . . . Don’t you remember how he mistook the oranges on it for lanterns and wanted to blow them out . . . how he kicked to get at them . . .”

“It’s odd: I was thinking of Dick, just now, when you–when you spoke to me. The lamp put me in mind of him. I was wondering what it cost. We have nothing like it at home. Of course, if I bought one for the shop, people would talk–‘drawing attention,’ they’d say, after what has happened. But I thought that Dick, perhaps . . . when he grows up and enters the business . . . perhaps he might propose such a thing, and then I shan’t say no. I should carry it off lightly . . . After all, it’s the shop it would call attention to . . . not the house. And one must advertise in these days.”

She was looking at him steadily now. “Yes,” she assented, “people would talk.”

“And they pity me. I do hate to be pitied, in that way. Even the people up here, at the old lodgings . . . I won’t come to them again. If I thought the children . . . One never can tell how much children know–“

“Don’t, Willy!”

He plunged a hand into his pocket. “I daresay, now, you’re starving?”

Her arms began to sway again, and she laughed quietly, hideously. “Don’t–don’t–don’t! I make money. That’s the worst. I make money. Oh, why don’t you hit me? Why was you always a soft man?”