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And her challenging gaze met George's. "Oh!" George could not suppress his pained inquietude at this decision having been made without his knowledge. Both girls misapprehended his feeling. "That's it, is it?" "Well," said Agg, "what can Mr. Haim expect? Here Marguerite's been paying this woman two shillings a day and her food, and letting her take a parcel home at nights.
Then they went upstairs to the first floor, and saw two more bedrooms, each with two windows. One of them was Miss Haim's; there was a hat hung on the looking-glass, and a table with a few books on it. They did not go to the second floor. The staircase to the second floor was boarded up at the point where it turned. "That's all there is," said Mr. Haim on the landing.
Haim unmistakably came down the basement stairs, and George thanked God that he had not allowed his impulse to wash-up run away with his discretion, to the ruin of his dignity. Mr. Haim, hesitating in the kitchen doorway, peered in front of him as if at a loss. George had shifted the kitchen lamp from its accustomed place. "I'm here," said George, moving slightly in the dim light.
As soon as Haim had gone George had begun to look up Chelsea in the office library, and as Mr. Enwright happened to be an active member of the Society for the Survey of the Memorials of Greater London, the library served him well. In an hour and a half he had absorbed something of the historical topography of Chelsea.
Prince saying calmly and easily to Miss Haim the little old man could not in fact be so nervous as he seemed: "I suppose you wouldn't come with me to the Prom?" George was staggered and indignant. It was inconceivable, monstrous, that those two should be on such terms as would warrant Mr. Prince's astounding proposal.
But precautions had been arranged for the occasions when she had need to write, and she possessed a small stock of envelopes addressed by himself, so that Mr. Haim might never by chance, picking up an envelope from the hall floor, see George's name in his daughter's hand. And now Mr. Haim had picked up an actual letter from the hall floor. And the fault for the disaster was George's own.
Haim, charwoman, was just as mysterious as any other woman. As for George, despite the exhilaration which he could feel rising in him effortless and unsought, he was preoccupied by more than women's mysteriousness; the conception of destiny lingered and faintly troubled him.
Haim presented his well-known worn cigarette-case, and then with precise and calm gestures carefully shut the door. "The fact is," said he, "I wanted to tell you something. I told Mr. Enwright this afternoon, as I thought was proper, and it seems to me that you are the next person who ought to be informed." "Oh yes?" "I am going to be married." "The deuce you are!"
The place was perfect, and he was determined to establish himself in it. Nothing could baulk him. A hitch would have desolated him completely. "I may as well show you the basement while I'm about it," said Mr. Haim. "Do!" said George ardently. They descended. The host was very dignified, as invariably at the office, and his accent never lapsed from the absolute correctness of an educated Londoner.
Haim's face with some disagreeable premature and dramatic explosion of the secret mighty affair. His thoughts, though absurd, ran thus because they could not run in any other way. "Ah, Mr. Cannon!" said Mr. Haim queerly. "You're in early to-night." "A bit earlier," George admitted, with caution. "Have to read, you know." He was using the word 'read' in the examination sense.
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