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The news of monsieur's serious illness had now filtered through the parish, and Poussette's was full of men discussing the affair, as Pauline, looking like an outraged and defeated savage queen, passed into the hall, trailing her cheap red silken draperies up to Ringfield's room.
What are you talking of? What trap? I know nothing of any trap." "Do you know nothing of a man caught there in the middle of the bridge where the footway has fallen out do you know nothing of that man struggling to lift himself up from that cursed hole and crying for help? You know nothing, do you?" Ringfield's surprise was genuine, as Crabbe was beginning to see.
And to her, the knowledge that she was already and swiftly, passionately, purely dear to a being of Ringfield's earnest mould and serious mien, so different to the other man who had come into her life, gave a sense of delicious triumph and joy.
He had always been a fiery conservative and a staunch member of the Church of England; and two or three months before Ringfield's arrival he had organized what was known to all beholders passing his shop by a japanned sign hanging outside as the "Public Library," a collection of forty-seven volumes of mixed fiction in which the charming and highly illuminative works of E. P. Roe were chiefly conspicuous, reposing in a select corner of the establishment, somewhat towards the centre, and equidistant from the dry goods, rubbers, hardware and hammocks, and from the candies, groceries, fancy jewellery and sheet music.
You knew him when he called himself by another name?" "Yes, Mr. Edmund Hawtree. We, we I suppose you would call it a flirtation. He was very different then, as you may believe." Jealousy leapt into Ringfield's breast, the first he had ever known, and a common retort sprang to his lips. "I should hope so! I cannot bear to think of your having known him well under any circumstances. The man is low!
Later they were sitting, towards evening, sewing at some item of the impalpable trousseau, Pauline alternating her spasmodic needle with reading over Mme. Prefontaine's letter and jumping up to listen down the stair. "What do you expect's happened, anyhow?" cried Miss Cordova at last, in exasperation. "Mr. Ringfield's a clergyman! he's a perfectly moral man, and I guess that means something.
The step seemed familiar, yet incongruous and uncongenial; it was followed by a knock, and, going forward, Crabbe opened the door to Ringfield. Astonishment showed in the Englishman's face, but he spoke amiably enough and invited the young man inside. Ringfield's countenance wore its perennial grave aspect, but it could also be seen that at that moment he was suffering from the cold.
More than simple religious feeling entered at this moment Ringfield's young and untried heart, his vanity was deeply wounded, and the thought that Miss Clairville could allow Edmund Crabbe to caress her was like irritating poison in his veins.
On the conclusion of this address, which was Ringfield's idea of a "grace" and which was modelled on the Methodist formula customary on such occasions, the people, whose appetites had been held over-long in check, took their seats with expressions of relief and in some cases with audible grunts and whispers of annoyance.
He wore a checked tweed suit of light brown, a straw hat, and an enormous chef's apron tied round his waist under his coat. Visions of fried bass or lunge, of potatoes sauté, and even of hot pancakes, danced before Ringfield's weary eyes, for he was both tired and cold, and accordingly he gaily pushed his way through the loiterers and fresh arrivals until he reached his host.
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