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Updated: June 10, 2025
For this moment she could not contemplate the possibility that all would not go well. She was intoxicated. Her heart was swelling. Thoughts galloped away, like steam from a boiling kettle. She kept no memory of them. It was enough for her that she was thrilled with her own prospects. Of course Mrs. Perce's friend would take her on. Of course Toby would fall in love with her. She could make him.
Sally quickly compared Mrs. Perce's plump hands with her own lean ones. At the scrutiny, she put her hands below the table, for they were not clean. But if they had been clean she would have taken pride in them; for where the fingers of Mrs. Perce were stubby her own were slim and pretty.
Perce's almost equally florid cheeks, her eyes travelling like dragon-flies, as bright and eager as possible. And all the time she was taking in Mrs. Perce's appearance. Mrs. Perce wore a black silk dress, very plain, but well-cut. She had a gold brooch at her throat, and a thin gold chain round her neck. Her hair was abundant, and was dressed in a great blob upon the top of her head.
For a girl not yet seventeen, Sally had a strangely abundant sense of possible utilities. All old Perce's relatives were licensed victuallers, she had learned; and one day he too would take a "little 'ouse" and stand behind his own bar, instead of behind the counter of a city restaurant. Those would be days! "'Ave a trap and go outa Sunday afternoons," Mrs. Perce said. "Oo, I wish you'd take me!"
Perce's reply did not reach Sally, but there was an exchanged kiss with Mrs. Perce, and then her coat and hat were off and she was conscious of overpowering warmth and kippers and a general sizzle of comfort and plenty. "Had your tea?" demanded Mrs. Perce. "Have another. Come on. Plenty of kippers. Perce! Sally's eating your kippers!"
Perce, "how me and Perce's dressed up to-day?" Sally was staggered. She looked quickly at old Perce and saw that he was in his best clothes, with a lovely new spotted blue and white tie, and a dahlia in his buttonhole. "Of course," she said. "I noticed everything. Didn't like to ask. What is it? Is it your birthday? Wish I'd known," she added, half-truthfully. "I'd a brought you a present."
She was not in the least flurried, but was pleased at being considered an adept in the ways of marriage. At heart she was despising herself for not having been more truly observant of their clothes, because in reality she had been so concentrated upon Mrs. Perce that she had never thought to spare an eye for Mrs. Perce's husband. She was thankful to have ridden off so easily upon her naïveté.
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