'During the night!'
'It would enable me to sleep more comfortably than on the stairs.'
'But we can't stop here all night,' said Mr Ferguson, feebly.
He had anticipated an unpleasant five minutes in Master Bean's company. Imagination boggled at the thought of an unpleasant thirteen hours.
He collapsed into a chair.
'I called,' said Master Bean, shelving the trivial subject of the prospective vigil, 'in the hope that I might persuade you, sir, to reconsider your decision in regard to my dismissal. I can assure you, sir, that I am extremely anxious to give satisfaction. If you would take me back and inform me how I have fallen short, I would endeavour to improve, I—'
'We can't stop here all night,' interrupted Mr Ferguson, bounding from his chair and beginning to pace the floor.
'Without presumption, sir, I feel that if you were to give me another chance I should work to your satisfaction. I should endeavour—'
Mr Ferguson stared at him in dumb horror. He had a momentary vision of a sleepless night spent in listening to a nicely-polished speech for the defence. He was seized with a mad desire for flight. He could not leave the building, but he must get away somewhere and think.
He dashed from the room and raced up the dark stairs. And as he arrived at the next floor his eye was caught by a thin pencil of light which proceeded from a door on the left.
No shipwrecked mariner on a desert island could have welcomed the appearance of a sail with greater enthusiasm. He bounded at the door. He knew to whom the room belonged. It was the office of one Blaythwayt; and Blaythwayt was not only an acquaintance, but a sportsman. Quite possibly there might be a pack of cards on Blaythwayt's person to help pass the long hours. And if not, at least he would be company and his office a refuge. He flung open the door without going through the formality of knocking. Etiquette is not for the marooned.
'I say, Blaythwayt—' he began, and stopped abruptly.
The only occupant of the room was a girl.
'I beg your pardon,' he said, 'I thought—'
He stopped again. His eyes, dazzled with the light, had not seen clearly. They did so now.
'You!' he cried.
The girl looked at him, first with surprise, then with a cool hostility. There was a long pause. Eighteen months had passed since they had parted, and conversation does not flow easily after eighteen months of silence, especially if the nature of the parting has been bitter and stormy.
He was the first to speak.
'What are you doing here?' he said.
'I thought my doings had ceased to interest you,' she said. 'I am Mr Blaythwayt's secretary, I have been here a fortnight. I have wondered if we should meet. I used to see you sometimes in the street.'
'I never saw you.'
'No?' she said indifferently.
He ran his hand through his hair in a dazed way.
'Do you know we are locked in?' he said.
He had expected wild surprise and dismay. She merely clicked her tongue in an annoyed manner.
'Again!' she said. 'What a nuisance! I was locked in only a week ago.'
He looked at her with unwilling respect, the respect of the novice for the veteran. She was nothing to him now, of course. She had passed out of his life. But he could not help remembering that long ago—eighteen months ago—what he had admired most in her had been this same spirit, this game refusal to be disturbed by Fate's blows. It braced him up.
He sat down and looked curiously at her.
'So you left the stage?' he said.
'I thought we agreed when we parted not to speak to one another,' said she, coldly.
'Did we? I thought it was only to meet as strangers.'
'It's the same thing.'
'Is it? I often talk to strangers.'
'What a bore they must think you!' she said, hiding one-eighth of a yawn with the tips of two fingers. 'I suppose,' she went on, with faint interest, 'you talk to them in trains when they are trying to read their paper?'
'I don't force my conversation on anyone.'
'Don't you?' she said, raising her eyebrows in sweet surprise. 'Only your company—is that it?'
'Are you alluding to the present occasion?'
'Well, you have an office of your own in this building, I believe.'
'I have.'
'Then why—'
'I am at perfect liberty,' he said, with dignity, 'to sit in my friend Blaythwayt's office if I choose. I wish to see Mr Blaythwayt.'
'On business?'
He proved that she had established no corner in raised eyebrows.
'I fear,' he said, 'that I cannot discuss my affairs with Mr Blaythwayt's employees. I must see him personally.'
'Mr Blaythwayt is not here.'
'I will wait.'
'He will not be here for thirteen hours.'
I'll wait.'
'Very well,' she burst out; 'you have brought it on yourself. You've only yourself to blame. If you had been good and had gone back to your office, I would have brought you down some cake and cocoa.'
'Cake and cocoa!' said he, superciliously.
'Yes, cake and cocoa,' she snapped. 'It's all very well for you to turn up your nose at them now, but wait. You've thirteen hours of this in front of you. I know what it is. Last time I had to spend the night here I couldn't get to sleep for hours, and when I did I dreamed that I was chasing chocolate eclairs round and round Trafalgar Square. And I never caught them either. Long before the night was finished I would have given anything for even a dry biscuit. I made up my mind I'd always keep something here in case I ever got locked in again—yes, smile. You'd better while you can.'
He was smiling, but wanly. Nobody but a professional fasting man could have looked unmoved into the Inferno she had pictured. Then he rallied.
'Cake!' he said, scornfully.
She nodded grimly.
'Cocoa!'
Again that nod, ineffably sinister.
'I'm afraid I don't care for either,' he said.
'If you will excuse me,' she said, indifferently, 'I have a little work that I must finish.'
She turned to her desk, leaving him to his thoughts. They were not exhilarating. He had maintained a brave front, but inwardly he quailed. Reared in the country, he had developed at an early age a fine, healthy appetite. Once, soon after his arrival in London, he had allowed a dangerous fanatic to persuade him that the secret of health was to go without breakfast.
His lunch that day had cost him eight shillings, and only decent shame had kept the figure as low as that. He knew perfectly well that long ere the dawn of day his whole soul would be crying out for cake, squealing frantically for cocoa. Would it not be better to—no, a thousand times no! Death, but not surrender. His self-respect was at stake. Looking back, he saw that his entire relations with this girl had been a series of battles of will. So far, though he had certainly not won, he had not been defeated. He must not be defeated now.
He crossed his legs and sang a gay air under his breath.
'If you wouldn't mind,' said the girl, looking up.
'I beg your pardon?'
'Your groaning interrupts my work.'
'I was not groaning. I was singing.'
'Oh, I'm sorry!'
'Not at all.'
Eight bars rest.
Mr Ferguson, deprived of the solace of song, filled in the time by gazing at the toiler's back-hair. It set in motion a train of thought—an express train bound for the Land of Yesterday. It recalled days in the woods, evenings on the lawn. It recalled sunshine—storm. Plenty of storm. Minor tempests that burst from a clear sky, apparently without cause, and the great final tornado. There had been cause enough for that. Why was it, mused Mr Ferguson, that every girl in every country town in every county of England who had ever recited 'Curfew shall not ring tonight' well enough to escape lynching at the hands of a rustic audience was seized with the desire to come to London and go on the stage?