they went in, that Mrs. Melville understood
what was going on, for she threw him a glance which was not quite a wink
but which clearly suggested that had she been just a common body it was
conceivable that she might have winked. As soon as they were alone he
told her that he loved Ellen, that he wanted to marry her, that he had
plenty of money, that he was all right, that they must marry at once.
She did not seem to regard him as asking her permission, though he had
tried to give his demand that flavour, but rather as acquainting her
with an established fact at which she blinked in a curious confusion of
moods. The demoniac music in the dancing-hall had begun to bludgeon the
walls, and in the whirlpool of the physical vibrations of the noise and
the spiritual vibrations of his passion the little woman seemed to bob
like a cork. She was resigned and pleased, and plainly trusted him, but
at the same time she was pitifully alarmed. "Mercy me! you've not been
long.... Well, you've caught a Tartar and no mistake. Never say I didn't
warn you.... But you'll let the bairn bide for a wee bit longer! She's
but a bairn!"

It was as if she quite saw that a husband was necessary for Ellen, and
wanted her to have one, and at the same time believed that any husband
would inevitably bring her pain. He set it down as one of the despondent
misinterpretations of life that the old invent in the depression of
their physical malaise, and answered, reassuringly, insincerely, "Yes,
yes, I'll wait...." But why should they wait? They were going to be
radiantly and eternally happy. It might as well begin at once.

III

"Is it not beautiful? Is it not just beautiful?" cried Ellen. And indeed
at last it was beautiful, and warranted that excited gait, that hopping
from leg to leg and puppyish kicking up of dead leaves with which she
had come along the road from Balerno station. It had seemed to Yaverland
an undistinguished pocket of the country, and there had been nothing
that caught his attention save the wreck of a ropeworks close by the
village, which had been gutted by fire two or three nights before and
now stood with that Jane Cakebread look that burned buildings have by
daylight, its white walls blotched like a drunkard's skin with the smoke
and water, and its charred timbers sticking out under the ruins of the
upper storey like unkempt hair under a bonnet worn awry. There were men
working among the wreckage, directing each other with gut