"No, it isn't, Mary Ann. When they've put you to school, and made you a ward in Chancery, or something, and taught you airs and graces, and dressed you up"-a pang traversed his heart, as the picture of her in the future flashed for a moment upon his inner eye-"why, by that time, you'll be a different Mary Ann, outside and inside. Don't shake your head; I know better than you. We grow and become different. Life is full of chances, and human beings are full of changes, and nothing remains fixed."
"Then, perhaps"-she flushed up, her eyes sparkled-"perhaps"-she grew dumb and sad again.
"Perhaps what?"
He waited for her thought. The rapturous trills of the canary alone possessed the silence.
"Perhaps you'll change, too." She flashed a quick deprecatory glance at him-her eyes were full of soft light.
This time he was dumb.
"Sw-eêt!" trilled the canary, "Sw-eêt!" though Lancelot felt the throbbings of his heart must be drowning its song.
"Acutely answered," he said at last. "You're not such a fool after all, Mary Ann. But I'm afraid it will never be, dear. Perhaps if I also made two million dollars, and if I felt I had grown worthy of you, I might come to you and say-two and two are four-let us go into partnership. But then, you see," he went on briskly, "the odds are I may never even have two thousand. Perhaps I'm as much a duffer in music as in other things. Perhaps you'll be the only person in the world who has ever heard my music, for no one will print it, Mary Ann. Perhaps I shall be that very common thing-a complete failure-and be worse off than even you ever were, Mary Ann."
"Oh, Mr. Lancelot, I'm so sorry." And her eyes filled again with tears.
"Oh, don't be sorry for me. I'm a man. I dare say I shall pull through. Just put me out of your mind, dear. Let all that happened at Baker's Terrace be only a bad dream-a very bad dream, I am afraid I must call it. Forget me, Mary Ann. Everything will help you to forget me, thank Heaven; it'll be the best thing for you. Promise me now."
"Yessir . . . if you will promise me."
"Promise you what?"
"To do me a favour."
"Certainly, dear, if I can."
"You have the money, Mr. Lancelot, instead of me-I don't want it, and then you could--"
"Now, now, Mary Ann," he interrupted, laughing nervously, "you're getting foolish again, after talking so sensibly."
"Oh, but why not?" she said plaintively.
"It is impossible," he said curtly.
"Why is it impossible?" she persisted.
"Because--" he began, and then he realised with a start that they had come back again to that same old mechanical series of questions-if only in form.
"Because there is only one thing I could ever bring myself to ask you for in this world," he said slowly.
"Yes; what is that?" she said flutteringly.
He laid his hand tenderly on her hair.
"Merely Mary Ann."
She leapt up: "Oh, Mr. Lancelot, take me, take me! You do love me! You do love me!"
He bit his lip. "I am a fool," he said roughly. "Forget me. I ought not to have said anything. I spoke only of what might be-in the dim future-if the-chances and changes of life bring us together again-as they never do. No! You were right, Mary Ann. It is best we should not meet again. Remember your resolution last night."
"Yessir." Her submissive formula had a smack of sullenness, but she regained her calm, swallowing the lump in her throat that made her breathing difficult.
"Good-bye, then, Mary Ann," he said, taking her hard red hands in his.
"Good-bye, Mr. Lancelot." The tears she would not shed were in her voice. "Please, sir-could you-couldn't you do me a favour?-Nothing about money, sir."
"Well, if I can," he said kindly.
"Couldn't you just play Good-night and Good-bye, for the last time? You needn't sing it-only play it."
"Why, what an odd girl you are!" he said, with a strange, spasmodic laugh. "Why, certainly! I'll do both, if it will give you any pleasure."
And, releasing her hands, he sat down to the piano, and played the introduction softly. He felt a nervous thrill going down his spine as he plunged into the mawkish words. And when he came to the refrain, he had an uneasy sense that Mary Ann was crying-he dared not look at her. He sang on bravely:
"Kiss me, good-night, dear love,
Dream of the old delight;
My spirit is summoned above,
Kiss me, dear love, good-night."
He couldn't go through another verse-he felt himself all a-quiver, every nerve shattered. He jumped up. Yes, his conjecture had been right. Mary Ann was crying. He laughed spasmodically again. The thought had occurred to him how vain Peter would be if he could know the effect of his commonplace ballad.
"There, I'll kiss you too, dear!" he said huskily, still smiling. "That'll be for the last time."
Their lips met, and then Mary Ann seemed to fade out of the room in a blur of mist.
An instant after there was a knock at the door.
"Forgot her parcels after a last good-bye," thought Lancelot, and continued to smile at the comicality of the new episode.
He cleared his throat.
"Come in," he cried, and then he saw that the parcels were gone, too, and it must be Rosie.
But it was merely Mary Ann.
"I forgot to tell you, Mr. Lancelot," she said-her accents were almost cheerful-"that I'm going to church to-morrow morning."
"To church!" he echoed.
"Yes, I haven't been since I left the village, but missus says I ought to go in case the vicar asks me what church I've been going to."
"I see," he said, smiling on.
She was closing the door when it opened again, just revealing Mary Ann's face.
"Well?" he said, amused.
"But I'll do your boots all the same, Mr. Lancelot." And the door closed with a bang.
They did not meet again. On the Monday afternoon the vicar duly came and took Mary Ann away. All Baker's Terrace was on the watch, for her story had now had time to spread. The weather remained bright. It was cold, but the sky was blue. Mary Ann had borne up wonderfully, but she burst into tears as she got into the cab.
"Sweet, sensitive little thing!" said Baker's Terrace.
"What a good woman you must be, Mrs. Leadbatter," said the vicar, wiping his spectacles.
As part of Baker's Terrace, Lancelot witnessed the departure from his window, for he had not left after all.
Beethoven was barking his short, snappy bark the whole time at the unwonted noises and the unfamiliar footsteps; he almost extinguished the canary, though that was clamorous enough.
"Shut up, you noisy little devils!" growled Lancelot. And taking the comic opera he threw it on the dull fire. The thick sheets grew slowly blacker and blacker, as if with rage; while Lancelot thrust the five five-pound notes into an envelope addressed to the popular composer, and scribbled a tiny note:
"DEAR PETER,-If you have not torn up that cheque I shall be glad of it by return.
"Yours,
"LANCELOT.
"P.S.-I send by this post a Reverie, called 'Marianne,' which is the best thing I have done, and should be glad if you could induce Brahmson to look at it."
A big, sudden blaze, like a jubilant bonfire, shot up in the grate and startled Beethoven into silence.
But the canary took it for an extra flood of sunshine, and trilled and demi-semi-quavered like mad.
"Sw-eêt! Sweêt!"
"By Jove!" said Lancelot, starting up, "Mary Ann's left her canary behind!"
Then the old whimsical look came over his face.
"I must keep it for her," he murmured. "What a responsibility! I suppose I oughtn't to let Rosie look after it any more. Let me see, what did Peter say? Canary seed biscuits . . . yes, I must be careful not to give it butter. . . . Curious I didn't think of her canary when I sent back all those gloves . . . but I doubt if I could have squeezed it in-my boots are only sevens after all-to say nothing of the cage."