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Kipps undoubtedly wore glasses; so did Bunker Bean; so did Mr. Polly, Clayhanger, Bibbs, Sheridan, and a score of others. Then why not say so? Novelists are moving with the times in every other direction. Why not in this? It is futile to advance the argument that glasses are unromantic. They are not.
"Right!" said Edwin; and to himself, superciliously: "It might be life and death." "We ought to be doing a lot o' business wi' Enoch Peake, later on," Mr Clayhanger finished, in a whisper. "I see," said Edwin, impressed, perceiving that he had perhaps been supercilious too soon.
She knew that they had been chatting a long time in the hall, after Clayhanger had bidden adieu to the rest of the family. She wondered what they had been talking about, and what young men did in general talk about when they were by themselves and confidential.
And she thought: "This is the second time she has sent me with a message to Edwin Clayhanger." Suddenly, she blushed in confusion before the mistress of the home. "Is it possible," she asked herself, "is it possible that Mrs. Orgreave doesn't guess what has happened to me? Is it possible she can't see that I'm different from what I used to be? If she knew... if they knew... here!"
The girl was thrillingly alive; she would have liked some friend or other of the house to be always seriously ill, so that Miss Clayhanger might often leave her to the voluptuous savouring of this responsibility whose formidableness surpassed words.
She was blinded as though by a mystic revelation. She wanted to exult, and to exult with all the ardour of her soul. This truth which Edwin Clayhanger had enunciated she had indeed always been vaguely aware of; but now in a flash she felt it, she faced it, she throbbed to its authenticity, and was free. It solved every difficulty, and loosed the load that for months past had wearied her back.
It seemed to Hilda that they had escaped from the shop like fox-terriers like two friendly dogs from the surveillance of an incalculable and dangerous old man. She felt a comfortable, friendly confidence in Edwin Clayhanger a tranquil sentiment such as she had never experienced for George Cannon. After more than a year and what a period of unforeseen happenings! she thought again: "I like him."
In the full beauty of the afternoon they stood together, only the scraggy hedge between them, he on grass-tufted clay, and she on orderly gravel. "Well," said Janet, earnestly looking at him, "how do you like the effect of that window, now it's done?" "Very nice!" he laughed nervously. "Very nice indeed!" "Father said it was," she remarked. "I do hope Mr Clayhanger will like it too!"
And then she feared lest this might be all there was to see.... Edwin Clayhanger was edging towards the door.... They were alone on the stairway again.... The foreman had bowed at the top like a chamberlain.... She gathered, with delicious anticipation, that other and still more recondite interiors awaited their visit.
And in this new story we see the life of the girl, the woman; she, too, groping among the commonplaces, with her heart set upon a wider experience, till a moment comes when her story coincides with and is complementary to that of Clayhanger.
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