o sign two papers. He explained exactly what
these papers were, but she did not understand, nor did she desire to
understand. One was an informal sale-note and the other was an
authority; but which was which, and to what each had reference, she
superbly and wilfully ignored. She could, by a religious effort of
volition, make of herself an excellent clerk, eagerly imitative and
mechanical, but she had an instinctive antipathy to the higher forms of
business. Moreover, she wanted to trust herself to him, if only as a
mystic reparation of her odious rudeness at the beginning of the
interview. And she thought also: "These transactions will result in
profit to him. It is by such transactions that he lives. I am helping
him in his adversity."

When he gave her the Eagle pencil, and pointed to the places where she
was to sign, she took the pencil with fervour, more and more anxious to
atone to him. For a moment she stood bewildered, in a dream, staring at
the scratched mahogany top of the bookcase. And the bookcase seemed to
her to be something sentient, patient, and helpful, that had always been
waiting there in the corner to aid George Cannon in this
crisis--something human like herself. She loved the bookcase, and the
Eagle pencil, and the papers, and the pattern on the wall. George Cannon
was standing behind her. She felt his presence like a delicious danger.
She signed the papers, in that large scrawling hand which for a few
brief weeks she had by force cramped down to the submissive caligraphy
of a clerk. As she signed, she saw the name "Karkeek" in the midst of
one of the documents, and remembered, with joyous nonchalance, that
George Cannon's own name never appeared in George Cannon's affairs.

He took her place in front of the little bookcase, and folded the
documents. There he was, beside her, in all his masculinity--his
moustache, his blue chin, his wide white hands, his broadcloth--there he
was planted on his massive feet as on a pedestal! She did not see him;
she was aware of him. And she was aware of the closed door behind them.
One of the basket-chairs, though empty, continued to creak, like a thing
alive. Faintly, very faintly, she could hear the piano--Mrs. Boutwood
playing! Overhead were the footsteps of Sarah Gailey and Hettie--they
were checking the linen from the laundry, as usual on Saturday
afternoon. And she was aware of herself, thin, throbbing, fragile,
mournful, somehow insignificant!

He looked r