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Just as she reached the spot, Waymark's arm dropped in weariness; he flung the howling young monkey into one corner, the stick into another, and deliberately pulled his coat-sleeves into position once more. He felt vastly better for the exercise, and there was even a smile on his heated face. "You brutal ruffian!" shrieked Mrs. Tootle. "How dare you touch my child?
Waymark's self-consciousness often weighed upon his tongue, and made his conversation but a string of commonplaces; Maud was often silent for long intervals. Their eyes never met in a steady gaze. Waymark often asked himself whether Maud's was a passionless nature, or whether it was possible that her reserve had the same origin as his own.
"I have left word at Waymark's lodgings that he is to come straight here whenever he returns. If he's not here by midnight, should I find you up if I called say at half-past twelve or so?" "I would in any case wait up for you, with pleasure?" "Really," said Mr. Woodstock, who could behave with much courtesy when he chose, "I must apologise for taking such liberties. Our acquaintance is so slight.
"Quite able," she answered, leaning back again, and speaking with strange calmness. "What on earth is the meaning of this?" was Waymark's next inquiry. "How came you here at this time?" "Curiosity brought me," Maud answered, with the same unnatural composure. "Had you been there long?" "No; I had asked my way to Litany Lane, and all at once found myself in the crowd."
Their home was of course broken up, and they had no income of their own to depend upon. Maud herself, though of course aware of Waymark's prospects, seemed to shrink from speaking of the future. She grew more and more uncertain as to her real thoughts and desires. And what of Ida? It was hard for her to realise her position; for a time she was conscious only of an overwhelming sense of loneliness.
Do not bring it yourself, and do not speak a word of this when you see me, I beg you earnestly. If I shall fail to get work, I will speak to you of my own accord. She went out and posted this, though she had no stamp to put on the envelope; then, returning, she threw herself as she was on to the bed, and before long passed into unconsciousness. Waymark's absence that evening had been voluntary.
The misery of cold and starvation was growing familiar to Waymark's eyes, and scarcely excited the same feelings as formerly; yet there were some cases in which he had not the heart to press for the payment of rent, and his representations to Mr. Woodstock on behalf of the poor creatures were more frequently successful than in former times.
During the three months that followed, Waymark's intercourse with the Enderbys was pretty frequent. Mrs. Enderby asked few questions about him, and Maud was silent after she had explained Waymark's position, so far as she was acquainted with it, and how she had come to know him.
It had been her turn to write, but she had not felt able to do so; it had seemed to her, indeed, that, with her return home, the correspondence would naturally come to an end; with a strange ignorance of herself, such as now and then darkens us, she had suddenly come to attach little value to the connection. Not improbably, Waymark's last two letters had been forced and lacking in interest.
For he was then only just recovering from a period of something like despair. His pursuit of Ida Starr to London had been fruitless. It was true that she had left her former abode, and the landlady professed to be ignorant of her new one, though she admitted that she had seen Ida scarcely two hours before Waymark's arrival. He wrote, but had no reply. Confidence in her he had not.
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