第56章

The lunch hour in the office was only partly spent by Denham in the consumption of food. Whether fine or wet, he passed most of it pacing the gravel paths in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The children got to know his figure, and the sparrows expected their daily scattering of bread-crumbs. No doubt, since he often gave a copper and almost always a handful of bread, he was not as blind to his surroundings as he thought himself.

He thought that these winter days were spent in long hours before white papers radiant in electric light; and in short passages through fog-dimmed streets. When he came back to his work after lunch he carried in his head a picture of the Strand, scattered with omnibuses, and of the purple shapes of leaves pressed flat upon the gravel, as if his eyes had always been bent upon the ground. His brain worked incessantly, but his thought was attended with so little joy that he did not willingly recall it; but drove ahead, now in this direction, now in that; and came home laden with dark books borrowed from a library.

Mary Datchet, coming from the Strand at lunch-time, saw him one day taking his turn, closely buttoned in an overcoat, and so lost in thought that he might have been sitting in his own room.

She was overcome by something very like awe by the sight of him; then she felt much inclined to laugh, although her pulse beat faster. She passed him, and he never saw her. She came back and touched him on the shoulder.

"Gracious, Mary!" he exclaimed. "How you startled me!""Yes. You looked as if you were walking in your sleep," she said. "Are you arranging some terrible love affair? Have you got to reconcile a desperate couple?""I wasn't thinking about my work," Ralph replied, rather hastily.

"And, besides, that sort of thing's not in my line," he added, rather grimly.

The morning was fine, and they had still some minutes of leisure to spend. They had not met for two or three weeks, and Mary had much to say to Ralph; but she was not certain how far he wished for her company. However, after a turn or two, in which a few facts were communicated, he suggested sitting down, and she took the seat beside him. The sparrows came fluttering about them, and Ralph produced from his pocket the half of a roll saved from his luncheon. He threw a few crumbs among them.

"I've never seen sparrows so tame," Mary observed, by way of saying something.

"No," said Ralph. "The sparrows in Hyde Park aren't as tame as this.

If we keep perfectly still, I'll get one to settle on my arm."Mary felt that she could have forgone this display of animal good temper, but seeing that Ralph, for some curious reason, took a pride in the sparrows, she bet him sixpence that he would not succeed.

"Done!" he said; and his eye, which had been gloomy, showed a spark of light. His conversation was now addressed entirely to a bald cock-sparrow, who seemed bolder than the rest; and Mary took the opportunity of looking at him. She was not satisfied; his face was worn, and his expression stern. A child came bowling its hoop through the concourse of birds, and Ralph threw his last crumbs of bread into the bushes with a snort of impatience.

"That's what always happens--just as I've almost got him," he said.

"Here's your sixpence, Mary. But you've only got it thanks to that brute of a boy. They oughtn't to be allowed to bowl hoops here--""Oughtn't to be allowed to bowl hoops! My dear Ralph, what nonsense!""You always say that," he complained; "and it isn't nonsense. What's the point of having a garden if one can't watch birds in it? The street does all right for hoops. And if children can't be trusted in the streets, their mothers should keep them at home."Mary made no answer to this remark, but frowned.

She leant back on the seat and looked about her at the great houses breaking the soft gray-blue sky with their chimneys.

"Ah, well," she said, "London's a fine place to live in. I believe Icould sit and watch people all day long. I like my fellow-creatures. . . ."

Ralph sighed impatiently.

"Yes, I think so, when you come to know them," she added, as if his disagreement had been spoken.

"That's just when I don't like them," he replied. "Still, I don't see why you shouldn't cherish that illusion, if it pleases you." He spoke without much vehemence of agreement or disagreement. He seemed chilled.