"I'll be in time," said Albert to Eva, speaking across the desolate glory of the new day's sunlight, the sunlight, that is, of the day on which he was definitely crazy, and anything was possible; the sunlight in which he and she were utterly and terribly alone. "I wouldn't let you down."
Unfortunately, Albert now abandoned himself to a dream, the dream of his every morning rush toward Rudd & Agnew's. This was of entering first upon the empty salon, lifting the dust-sheet. "Wake up," he would say. "Is it all right? Put your arms round my neck. Helpless, aren't you? Here's your brassiere. Here's your things." (The models at Rudd & Agnew's were life-like to a degree, perfect in almost every particular.) "Come on," Albert would say. "Nobody can see you. Hurry up, and we'll have a minute before they come in. What did you dream about? Did you dream about the house?"
In abandoning himself to this rehearsal, Albert unconsciously fell into his normal pace. Awakening, he found himself in the glazed brick employee's entrance, devoured by the dry smell of big shops, facing a time clock that stood at three minutes past eight. "They'll be here," he said.
He fled through the catacombs below, into the main shop, downstairs, upstairs, over an interior bridge. From the gallery on the other side he could look down into the long aisles behind the principal windows. Like laden ants in a disturbed ant-hill, the shop-men ran to and fro with their still, pale burdens. Albert could see the daily joke pass, from the lips of one to the eyes of another, wherever their paths crossed, as they carried their waxen Circassians, these proud, long-suffering, far-eyed, enchanted princesses, out of their mad mysterious night to their odious toilettes, to make them ready for the long slave-market of the day. There was a slap, and a guffaw.
"Here, none of that," said the shopwalker, himself unable to restrain a scurvy grin at what Clarkie was doing.
But, rounding the gallery, Albert could see three or four gathered in the corner where Eva lay, where he put her to sleep properly, after they had all gone at night. They were out of sight of the shopwalker. They were bending over. Miller's hateful voice sounded out of the middle of the group. "Oh, my God!" cried Albert. "They've got her."
He went down the stairs as one flies downstairs in a nightmare, heedless of the steps, round the satins, into the French models. "Living statue, number three," he heard Miller say. "Albert's 'oneymoon, or " His hands dived out before him, without waiting to be told; his fingers were on the back of Miller's neck. They slipped on the brilliantine. He drove his nails in.
Next moment, Miller was up, facing him. "You think you can do that to me?" said Miller. "You poor loony!" There was a crack, shatteringly loud; Miller had struck him open-handed on the cheek.
"You leave her alone," said Albert, "or by heaven I'll be the death of you."
"What in the world is this?" cried the shopwalker, hurrying up.
"Stuck his nails in the back of my neck, that's what," said Miller, truculent, standing up for his rights, justified. "I reckon I'm bleeding."
Albert's lower lip was jerking, as if something quite independent of himself had got inside it. "He had hold of her," he said at last.
They all looked down at Eva, naked, her eyes staring out far beyond her shame, like a lion's eyes staring past the bars and the crowd. Albert bent down, and pressed her into a more seemly position. She ignored him. Properly let down, angry, she ignored him.
"What if he had got hold of her?" said the shopwalker. "You think Rudd & Agnew's waits for you to come in any time and fix the windows?"
"I'm sorry sir," said Albert.
"I shall have to make a report on you," said the shopwalker. "Get on with your work."
Albert was left alone with Eva. "If they give me the sack," he murmured, "who'll look after you? Don't be hard, Eva. I couldn't help it. And I had something to tell you. Don't you want to know what it is? You do? Really? Well, listen "
Eva had given him an unmistakable look of understanding and forgiveness. It raised Albert to a precarious exaltation. Twice he actually risked slipping out into the entrance, where he could catch the side-long glance from her eyes. It seemed to him impossible he could get the sack.
After the midday break, however, things took a different turn. Albert spent his lunchtime walking up and down in front of the shop, an exercise which was not forbidden because no one had ever thought it possible. Soon after he got in, Miller entered, full-blown, triumphant, carrying a copy of Tails Up Weekly. As he passed Albert he showed it to him, and grinned.
"What a fool!" said Albert. "What a fool I've been!"
"Look here, boys," cried Miller as loudly as he dared. "Come in behind here. Clarkie! Sid! Gome on. Just half a tick. It's worth it."
"Get back to your counters," said the shopwalker, perceiving the excitement. "What is it now, Miller, for heaven's sake?"
"Only something that proves something," said Miller with an air of righteousness, handing the shopwalker the fatal page.
"This is serious!" cried the shopwalker, staring at Albert. "This is a matter for the Secretary. I'm taking this paper, Miller. I'm taking it to Mr. Schilberg himself."
He went, and Albert was left alone; standing, stared at, like a man brought out to be hanged. "It's the sack all right," he said to himself. "Who knows? They might have me shut up."
The thought set his legs in motion. "Here, you'd better stand by," cried a good-natured man. "They'll be sending for you in a minute."
"Let 'em," said Albert. "I'm off."
"Well, I ain't seen you go," said the other defensively.
"I'm off!" cried Albert aloud, as he passed others^of the department. They all stared at him, then pretended not to notice. He went up the stairs and round the gallery, through the corridors, out past the time-keeper. "I'm off," said he, punching the clock for the last time.
"You look it," said the time-keeper indifferently.
He went into the street, and round into Oxford Street, crossing to the other side in the hope of making some undetected signal to Eva. As soon as he saw her, he knew what his real purpose was. He walked on without a change of pace, and entered the farther doorway, into the hardware department, where as yet the news could hardly be known, and where he himself would be unrecognized.
He went through a staff door, into a maze of corridors, and found his way to a nook in a store-room, where he could lie hidden till closing time. There he lay, with his eyes closed and his hands folded, like a dead man, but there was a clock ticking in his brain.
At exactly seven o'clock he got up and stepped out quietly. He was cool, collected, utterly different. The whole place was different. A little daylight leaked in through the blinds at the back of the windows; the high glass dome was blueing, the galleries were drowned in darkness; flying staircases leapt out where the light struck them, and stopped short in mid-air where darkness bit them off. Vast stacks of shadow, the leaning faades of towering dreams, mounted like the skyscrapers of a new-risen city from floor to unsubstantial floor, up to the dome itself. The watchman, a being of the shadows, drifted unhurriedly across the diminishing territories of the light. Albert, a deeper shade, followed him, blacker and quieter than the watchman, more utterly of the dark.
The watchman entered the main hall, crossed the region of the French models, and disappeared into a deep vista of darkness on the farther side. Albert, absolutely master of the situation, knowing exactly how many minutes were his before the watchman could stumble round again, ran noiselessly forward.
He pulled aside the dust-sheets. The models were huddled there, grouped like victims in the sack of some forgotten city. Some stood upright, unable to relax, tense to meet new outrage; some, on hands and knees, bowed their faces to the floor, straining for the relief of tears. Others, their wits wiped out by horror, sat with their legs straight out, their hands flat and dead beside them, staring idiotically into a darkness deeper than that of the night.