It was late in the afternoon. The old man had gone away to Exeter, to bury his sister, his only surviving relative. Joyce was alone in the shop busily sorting a job lot of books that had come in during the morning. They were stacked in great piles at the further end, forming a barrier between himself and the doorway, where the falling light was creeping in upon the neatly-arranged shelves. Above him flared a gas-jet. It was warm and dusty work, and Joyce had taken off his coat and collar and rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt. Some of the worthless books he threw on two piles on the floor, to be placed in the twopenny and fourpenny boxes outside. Others he priced and catalogued. Others, again, in good bindings, or otherwise obviously of value, he dusted with a feather brush and put aside for the old man’s inspection. Now and again space failed for the assorted lots, and he would carry great strings of volumes supported under his chin to convenient stacking-spaces on the shelves. Then he would proceed with his sorting, cataloguing, and cleansing.
Presently the back-parlour door opened and Yvonne appeared. Joyce paused, with a grimy volume in his hand, in the midst of a cloud of dust that rose like incense, and his heart gave a little throb of gladness. She looked so fresh and sweet as she stood there, daintily aproned, in the darkness of the doorway, with the light from the gas-jet falling upon her face.
“Let me finish this lot,” he said, pointing to a pile, “and then I ’ll come.”
She nodded, advanced a step and took up a great in-folio black-letter.
“What silly rubbish,” she said, with a superior little grimace, as she turned over the pages. “Fancy any one wanting to buy this.”
“You had better put it down, if you don’t want to cover yourself with dirt,” said Joyce.
She dropped the book, looked at her soiled hands with a comic air of disgust.
“Horrid things! Why did n’t you tell me?”
Joyce laughed for answer. It was so like Yvonne. After she had withdrawn, with a further reminder about the tea, he went on smiling to himself.
It was very sweet, this brother and sister life of theirs, in spite of its isolation. There seemed no reason why it should not continue for ever. Indeed, he scarcely thought of change. Now that his small earnings seemed practically assured and Yvonne could contribute from her singing lessons something to the household expenses, the wolf was kept pretty far from the door.