“I feel better,” said Yvonne, breathing in the summer air. “Don’t you?”
“It is nice,” answered Joyce. “I shall be better pleased when we are out of these joyless streets. The Pentonville Road on a Sunday is depressing. I haven’t seen a smile on a human face since we have been out. What grey lives people lead.”
“But they can’t all be unhappy,” she said.
The ’bus stopped for a moment. Three or four young roughs, in Sunday clothes, with coarse, animal faces and discordant speech passed by below on the pavement, and noisily greeted a couple of quiet-looking girls, evidently acquaintances.
“These seem cheerful enough,” said Yvonne.
“Did it ever occur to you what misery men of that type work in the world? By the laws of their class they will all marry--and marry young. Fancy a woman’s life in the hands of any of those fellows.”
His tone was that of the book she had just been reading. She stole a side glance at him. His face in repose was always sad and brooding. To-day she seemed to read more clearly in it the lines that the breaking of the spirit had caused. She identified him with the characters in the sordid scenes he had described. Presently she laid her hand lightly on his arm.
“Do you think we live a very grey life--now?”
“You have a very hard, dull, monotonous life,” he replied.
“I don’t,” said Yvonne stoutly. “I am very pleased and contented. I only want one thing to make me perfectly happy.”
“So does every one. The one thing just makes the difference. It’s the one thing we can’t possibly get.”
“It is n’t what you imagine,” said Yvonne. “You are thinking of money and all that.”
“It is n’t!” cried Yvonne, with a touch of petulant earnestness. “It is to see you bright and happy--as you used to be long, long ago. You might have known.”
“It is very dear of you,” he answered, after a pause. “I am selfish--and can’t understand your sweet spirit. Sometimes I seem to have a stone heart, like the man in the German story.”
“You have a warm, generous heart, Stephen. What other man would have done what you have for me?”
“It was pure selfishness on my part,” he replied. “The loneliness was too appalling. And then, further, I am never quite sure I have acted rightly by you.”
“I am,” she said. “And I’m the best judge, I think.”