Now there was living in this lodging-house a young man scarcely older than Bella and Eva, who was studying to become an architect; and who had never known love, nor been put off for long by any imitation. His name was Harry Pettigrew, and his hair was a very medium colour, neither too dark nor too fair.
His means were limited, and his room was on the topmost floor, but not so far above that inhabited by the two girls but he could hear their delicious giggling at that still hour when he should have been at his latest studies. He longed to go down and tap at their door and ask them what the joke was, but he was too shy.
However, when three such young people are in the same house, it is not long before they become acquainted. On one occasion Bella forgot to lock the bathroom door, and the reason for this must have been that in Hell there are no baths, and hence no bathrooms, and consequently no bathroom doors.
It was a Sunday; the young man himself was descending in a dressing-gown to take his morning dip. There was a delicious little contretemps, in which, fortunately, he saw no more than any decent young man would wish to see. All the same, he retreated in great confusion, for he had no notion of the wishes of decent young women. His confusion was so extreme, that he counted neither stairs nor landings in ascending, and, flinging open a door which he took to be his own, he discovered Eva in the third position of Midler's exercise for the abdominal muscles, and in nothing else at all.
Now angels, as every man knows, are, by virtue of their very innocence, or the simplicity of the celestial costume, sometimes far less conventionally modest than the squeakers of the darker sisterhood. Eva hastily but without panic threw a wrap about her shoulders: «You look quite upset,» she said. «There is no reason to be upset. Did you want anything?»
«No …» he said, «… I did not. In fact I came in by mistake. It is nice of you not to scream or be angry with me.»
They exchanged one or two more little civilities. In the end, Harry was emboldened to suggest a walk on the Heath. Before Eva could reply, Bella entered, and, not seeing him there, she burst out, with a giggle, «Whatever do you think happened to me?» Then, catching sight of him, she subsided into a confusion doubly arch.
This took off a little from the exquisite naturalness of the other encounter, a service for which Harry was not as grateful as he might have been, had he known to what a quarter, and from what a quarter, his fancy was being inclined. The truth is, that where a fiend and an angel, both in female form, are seen by the same young man, in precisely the same illuminating circumstances, he will, fifty or fifty-five times out of a hundred, choose the angel, if he is a nice young man, and if he has time enough.
Therefore, when they were all three on Hampstead Heath that afternoon, Harry addressed Bella with very pleasant words, but with words only, while to Eva he accorded certain looks as well. Bella was not very slow at putting two and two together. She bad been looking forward to a long period of mortal sin with this attractive young man, and to flying off with his soul afterwards. The soul of an architect, especially if he is of strong Palladian tendencies, is well worth a handsome villa, standing in two or three acres of well-laid-out grounds, in the most desirable residential quarter of Hell. You imagine this homeless fiend's mortification, against which could have been measured the fury of the woman scorned, since they were here resident in the same anatomy.
She saw every day that Harry was growing fonder of her blonde companion, and conceived the idea of adding a fourth to their party, in the shape of a young man nearly as swarthy as herself, whom she had met at the dancing-hall, and with whom she was already quite sufficiently familiar.
She represented to him that Eva was likely to inherit a large sum of money. This, and her blonde locks and guileless air, was quite enough for the dance-hall Valentino, and all he asked was opportunity to come at her.
«It's no good just trying to do the sheik,» said Bella, «for she's already crazy about Harry Pettigrew, who should be my boy friend by rights. What you want, is to give him the idea you and she are like that. That'll make him sheer off quick enough, if I know his lordship.» It will be observed that Bella's speech was vulgar in the extreme: this is a very usual deficiency of fiends.
Her dancing-partner, whom she had made well acquainted with the stings of jealousy, soon found means to introduce them to Harry. For example, on one Sunday when they were all walking in the sylvan shades of Ken Wood, he had Bella fall behind with Harry on some pretext or other, and when he and Eva had gone ahead a turn or two of the winding pathway, he put his arm behind her, without touching her in the least (or he would have had a severe rebuke), but so that it should appear to Harry, when he rounded the bend, that his hastily withdrawn arm had been about her consenting waist.
Not only this, but he once or twice made a sudden movement, and appeared flustered, when Harry entered a room in which he and Eva had been left alone by his accomplice. He was not above making, when he heard his rival's step outside the door, a little kissing sound with his perjured lips. On one occasion, when Bella was away for the week end, he went so far as to throw a sock in at Eva's window.
Here he overreached himself. Harry, returning with Eva from a walk, was so overcome by the sight of this sock that he could no longer suffer in silence, but, first of all asking (as it were carelessly) whose sock that could be, he soon burst out with all the accumulated suspicions of the past few weeks, and had the infinite pleasure of hearing them denied frankly, emphatically, unmistakably and, above all, angelically.
A pretty little scene ensued, in which they discovered that their love partook of the nature of perfection. In fact, the only attribute that was wanting was completeness, which is recognized as being as essential to perfection by many of the ancient philosophers, several of the fathers of the Church, and by all young lovers. It is the nature of men to strive after perfection, and of angels to attain it. Our young pair were true to type, and, after a little amicable discussion, it was agreed that they should endeavour to realize perfection in Eva's room that very night, when all the house was asleep. If perfection itself is insufficient for the censorious, such are reminded that in Heaven there is no marrying or giving in marriage, and among architectural students very little.
Now it so happened that Bella had returned that very afternoon, and had gone into conference with her accomplice to devise some bold stroke by which they might each achieve their impatient ends. At last they agreed on the boldest of all. Bella that very night was to visit Harry in his bedroom, and the swarthy dancing-man was to play the Tarquin in Eva's.
That night, at about the middle hour, they repaired at Hampstead. It was as black as pitch, no moon, a mist over the stars; no lights in the other lodgers' rooms, for they were all asleep; no light in Harry's, because he was not there; no light in Eva's, because he was.
Bella, not knowing this, goes up to the top, finds him absent, and gets into his bed by way of a little surprise for him when he returns.
The dancing-man, making his entry a little later, gropes his way up the stairs, and, stopping at Eva's door, hears a murmuring within, which is in fact our young pair expressing to one another their great admiration of the perfection of perfection. He concludes he is a flight too low, goes higher, opens the door of Harry's room, and, all in the dark, seizes upon the waiting Bella, who, in high delight at his enthusiasm, lets down a losing battle in a very convincing way.