They got to the quarter of the great churches.
“Would you care to go in?” he asked her in front of St. James’s. For he desired beyond almost anything to sit down.
“I think it’s really too late now,” she replied. “It wouldn’t be quite nice to go in just at the end of the sermon, would it? Too conspicuous.”
There were seats in the churchyard, but all were occupied, despite the chilliness of the morning, by persons who, for private reasons, had untimely left their beds. Moreover, he felt that Mrs. Arb, whose niceties he much admired, would not like to sit in a churchyard with service proceeding in the church. He had begun to understand her. There were no seats round about St. John’s. Mr. Earlforward stood on one leg while Mrs. Arb deciphered the tablet on the west front:
“ ‘The Priory Church of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, consecrated by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 10th March, 1185.’ Fancy that, now! It doesn’t look quite that old. Fancy them knowing the day of the month too!”
He was too preoccupied and tortured to instruct her. He would have led her home then; but she saw in the distance at the other side of St. John’s Square a view of St. John’s Gate, the majestic relic of the Priory. Quite properly she said that she must see it close. Quite properly she thanked him for a most interesting promenade, most interesting.
“And me living in London off and on all my life! They do say you can’t see the wood for the trees, don’t they?”
But the journey across the huge irregular Square cut in two by a great avenue was endless to Mr. Earlforward. Then she must needs go under the gateway into a street that seemed to fascinate her. For there was an enormous twilit shoeing-forge next door to the Chancery of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and though it was Sunday morning the air rang with the hammering of a blacksmith who held a horse’s hind leg between his knees. Then she caught the hum of unseen machinery and inquired about it. Then the signs over the places of business attracted her; she became charmingly girlish.
“ ‘Rouge. Wholesale only.’ ‘Glass matchers to the trade.’ ‘I want five million moleskins and ten million rabbitskins. Do not desert your old friend. Cash on the nail.’ And painted too, on a board! Not just written! ‘Gorgonzola cheese manufacturers.’ Oh! The mere thought of it! No, I shall never touch Gorgonzola again after this! I couldn’t! But, of course, I see there must be places like these in a place like London. Only it’s too funny seeing them all together. ‘Barclay’s Bank.’ Well, it would be! Those banks are everywhere in these days. I do believe there are more banks than A.B.C. shops and Lyonses. You look at any nice corner site, and before you can say knife there’s a bank on it. I mistrust those banks. They do what they like. When I go into my bank somehow they make me feel as if I’d done something wrong, or at least, I’d better mind what I was about; and they look at you superior as if you were asking a favour. Oh, very polite! But so condescending.”
A shrewd woman! A woman certainly not without ideas! And he perceived, dimly through the veil of his physical pain, that their intimacy was developing on the right lines. He would have been joyous but for the apprehension of her selling the business and vanishing from him, and but for the pain. The latter was now the worst affliction. Riceyman Steps seemed a thousand miles off, through a Sabbath-enchanted desert of stone and asphalt.
When they returned into St. John’s Square a taxicab with its flag up stood terribly inviting. Paradise, surcease from agony, for one shilling and perhaps a twopenny tip! But he would not look at it. He could not. He preferred the hell in which he was. The grand passion which had rendered all his career magnificent, and every hour of all his days interesting and beautiful, demanded and received an intense, devotional loyalty; it recompensed him for every ordeal, mortification, martyrdom. He proudly passed the taxicab with death in his very stomach. Nowhere was there a chance of rest! Not a seat! Not a rail! Mrs. Arb had inveighed against the lack of amenities in the parish and district. No cinemas, no theatre, no music-halls, no cafés! But Mr. Earlforward realized the ruthless, stony, total inhospitality of the district far more fully than Mrs. Arb could ever have done. He was like a weakening bird out of sight of land above the surface of the ocean.
He led Mrs. Arb down towards the nearest point of Farringdon Road, though this was not the shortest way home. The tramcars stopped at the corner. Every one of them would deposit him at his own door. Paradise for one penny! No, twopence; because he would have to pay for Mrs. Arb! He had thought to defeat his passion at this corner. He was mistaken. He could not. He had, after all his experience, misjudged the power of his passion. He was as helpless as the creatures who were beginning to gather at the iron-barred doors of the public-houses, soon to open for a couple of too short hours; and also he had the secret ecstasy which they had. He could scarcely talk now, and each tram that passed him in his slow and endless march gave him a spasm of mingled bitterness and triumph. His fear now was lest his grand passion should on this occasion be overcome by bodily weakness. He did not desire it to be overcome. He desired it to conquer even if it should kill him.
“I’m afraid I’ve walked you too far,” said Mrs. Arb.
“Why?”
“I thought you were limping a bit.”
“Oh no! I always limp a bit. Accident. Long time ago.” And he smartened his gait.
They reached Riceyman Steps in silence. He had done it! His passion had forced
