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Miss Pillenger's view was that he was smiling like an abandoned old rip who ought to have been ashamed of himself. 'No, Miss Pillenger, said Mr Meggs, 'I shall not work this morning. I shall want you, if you will be so good, to post these six letters for me. Miss Pillenger took the letters. Mr Meggs surveyed her tenderly. 'Miss Pillenger, you have been with me a long time now.
Gradually, therefore, as the chase warmed up, citizens of all shapes and sizes began to assemble. Miss Pillenger's screams and the general appearance of Mr Meggs gave food for thought. Having brooded over the situation, they decided at length to take a hand, with the result that as Mr Meggs's grasp fell upon Miss Pillenger the grasp of several of his fellow-townsmen fell upon him.
'Miss Pillenger, I implore you 'Silence! I am only a working-girl A wave of mad fury swept over Mr Meggs. The shock of the blow and still more of the frightful ingratitude of this horrible woman nearly made him foam at the mouth. 'Don't keep on saying you're only a working-girl, he bellowed. 'You'll drive me mad. Go. Go away from me. Get out. Go anywhere, but leave me alone!
Miss Pillenger walked down the sleepy street in the June sunshine, boiling, as Mr Meggs had done, with indignation. She, too, had been shaken to the core. It was her intention to fulfil her duty by posting the letters which had been entrusted to her, and then to quit for ever the service of one who, for six years a model employer, had at last forgotten himself and showed his true nature.
She had read of scores of similar cases in the newspapers. How little she had ever imagined that she would be the heroine of one of these dramas of passion. She looked for one brief instant up and down the street. Nobody was in sight. With a loud cry she began to run. 'Stop! It was the fierce voice of her pursuer. Miss Pillenger increased to third speed.
Miss Pillenger was a wary spinster of austere views, uncertain age, and a deep-rooted suspicion of men a suspicion which, to do an abused sex justice, they had done nothing to foster. Men had always been almost coldly correct in their dealings with Miss Pillenger.
He had certainly not forgotten Miss Pillenger. On his desk beside the letters lay a little pile of notes, amounting in all to five hundred pounds her legacy. Miss Pillenger was always business-like. She sat down in her chair, opened her notebook, moistened her pencil, and waited expectantly for Mr Meggs to clear his throat and begin work on the butterflies.
She was surprised when, instead of frowning, as was his invariable practice when bracing himself for composition, he bestowed upon her a sweet, slow smile. All that was maidenly and defensive in Miss Pillenger leaped to arms under that smile. It ran in and out among her nerve-centres. It had been long in arriving, this moment of crisis, but here it undoubtedly was at last.
What it was they did not know, but, it was apparently not a murder, and they began to drift off. 'Why don't you give Mr Meggs his letters when he asks you, ma'am? said the constable. Miss Pillenger drew herself up haughtily. 'Here are your letters, Mr Meggs, I hope we shall never meet again. Mr Meggs nodded. That was his view, too. All things work together for good.
He bent over Miss Pillenger, and kissed her on the forehead. Smiles excepted, there is nothing so hard to classify as a kiss. Mr Meggs's notion was that he kissed Miss Pillenger much as some great general, wounded unto death, might have kissed his mother, his sister, or some particularly sympathetic aunt; Miss Pillenger's view, differing substantially from this, may be outlined in her own words.
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