"Give me a kiss, Elsie," he blurted out audaciously. He was frightened by his own cheek.
"Jerry Perkins!" Elsie admonished him. "Aren't ye ashamed of yerself? Mrs. Earlforward dead! And them two so ill upstairs!"
"What two?" Jerry asked, rather to cover his confusion than from curiosity.
"I mean Mr. Earlforward," said Elsie. She was not abashed at her slip. With Jerry she had a grandiose rôle to play, and no contretemps could spoil her performance.
Jerry guessed instantly that she had got Joe hidden in the house, but he never breathed a word of it. He even tried to look stupid and uncomprehending, which was difficult for him.
"Aren't ye ashamed of yerself?" she solemnly repeated.
He moved towards the door. Elsie's glance followed him. She was sorry for him. She wanted to be good to somebody. She could not help Mr. Earlforward. She could do very little for Joe. Mrs. Earlforward was dead, and she could so easily give Jerry delight.
He turned. She kissed him quietly but fully. There were no reservations in her kiss. Jerry, being too startled by unexpected joy, could not give the kiss back. He lost his nerve and went off so absorbed in his sensations that he forgot even to thank the sweet benefactress. In the Square his behaviour to the attendant Nell was witheringly curt. Nell did not know that she now had to cope with a genuine adult.
Not a sound in the house; nor outside the house. Not a clock nor a watch going in the house. Mr. Earlforward had listened interminably to get the time from the church, but without success. He knew only from the prolonged silence of the street that the hour must be very late. "Work!" he murmured to himself in the vast airless desert and void created by the death of Violet. "That's the one thing--the one thing." His faculty for compromising with destiny aroused itself for a supreme achievement. It was invincible. He would not think himself into hell or madness or inanition by yielding feebly to the frightful grief caused by the snatching away of that unique woman so solicitous about him, so sensible, so vivacious, so agreeable, so energetic, so enterprising, so ready to adopt his ideas--and yet so independent. Her little tantrums--how exquisite, girlish! There had always been a girl in her. The memory of her girlishness desolated him more than anything.