Chapter 19 - Page 2

hand on the back of
your neck and asking questions. I won't have it! I would rather kill
you than that."

"They don't do that!"

"I don't care! that is what it will come to. The bandage is the
beginning. People must not get their living in that way anyhow. I've
thought it out. Let them thought-read their daughters and hypnotise
their aunts, and leave their typewriters alone."

"But what am I to do?"

"That's not it. There are things one must not suffer anyhow, whatever
happens! Or else--one might be made to do anything. Honour! Just
because we are poor--Let him dismiss you! _Let_ him dismiss you. You
can get another place--"

"Not at a guinea a week."

"Then take less."

"But I have to pay sixteen shillings every week."

"That doesn't matter."

She caught at a sob, "But to leave London--I can't do it, I can't."

"But how?--Leave London?" Lewisham's face changed.

"Oh! life is _hard_," she said. "I can't. They--they wouldn't let me
stop in London."

"What do you mean?"

She explained if Lagune dismissed her she was to go into the country
to an aunt, a sister of Chaffery's who needed a companion. Chaffery
insisted upon that. "Companion they call it. I shall be just a
servant--she has no servant. My mother cries when I talk to her. She
tells me she doesn't want me to go away from her. But she's afraid of
him. 'Why don't you do what he wants?' she says."

She sat staring in front of her at the gathering night. She spoke
again in an even tone.

"I hate telling you these things. It is you ... If you didn't mind
... But you make it all different. I could do it--if it wasn't for
you. I was ... I _was_ helping ... I had gone meaning to help if
anything went wrong at Mr. Lagune's. Yes--that night. No ... don't! It
was too hard before to tell you. But I really did not feel it
... until I saw you there. Then all at once I felt shabby and mean."

"Well?" said Lewisham.

"That's all. I may have done thought-reading, but I have never really
cheated since--_never_.... If you knew how hard it is ..."

"I wish you had told me that before."

"I couldn't. Before you came it was different. He used to make fun of
the people--used to imitate Lagune and make me laugh. It seemed a sort
of joke." She stopped abruptly. "Why did you ever come on with me? I
told you not to--you _know_ I did."

She was near wailing. For a minute she was silent.

"I can't go to his sister's," she cried. "I may be a coward--but I