The Creators Part 53

"Let her go and find it."

"I would in a minute--only I'm so hard up."

"Of course you'll be hard up if you go on living in rooms like this."

"That's what she says. But when she talks about a house she means that she'll do all the work in it."

"Why not?" said Jane.

"Why not? I married her because I wasn't going to have her worked to death in that d.a.m.ned lodging-house of her uncle's."

"You married her because you loved her," said Jane quietly.

"Well--of course. And I'm not going to let my wife cook my dinner and make my bed and empty my slops. How can I?"

"She'll die if you don't, George."

"Die?"

"She'll get horribly ill. She's ill now because she can't run about and sweep and dust and cook dinners. She's dying for love of all the beautiful things you won't let her have--pots and pans and carpet-sweepers and besoms. You don't want her to die of an unhappy pa.s.sion for a besom?"

"I don't want to see her with a besom."

Jane pleaded. "She'd look so pretty with it, George. Just think how pretty she'd look in a little house, playing with a carpet-sweeper."

"On her knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor----"

"You'd have a woman in to scrub."

"Carrying the coals?"

"_You'd_ carry the coals, George."

"By Jove, I never thought of that. I suppose I could." He pondered.

"You see," he said, "she wants to live at Hampstead."

"You can't cut her off from her own people."

"I'm not cutting her off. She goes to see them."

"She'll go to see them if you live at Hampstead. If you live here they'll come and see you. For she'll be ill and they'll have to."

Tanqueray looked at her, not without admiration.

"Jinny, you're ten times cleverer than I."

"In some things, Tanks, I am. And so is that wife of yours."

"She's--very sensible. I suppose it's sensible to be in love with a carpet-sweeper."

She shook her head at him.

"Much more sensible than being in love with _you_."

His eyes evaded her. She rose.

"Oh, Tanks, you goose. Can't you see that it's you she's in love with--and that's why she _must_ have a carpet-sweeper?"

With that she left him.

He followed her to the doorstep where he turned abruptly from her departure.

Rose in the sitting-room was kneeling by the hearth where she had just set a saucer of milk. With one hand she was loosening very gently from her shoulder the claws of Minny, the cat, who clung to her breast, scrambling, with the pa.s.sion and desperation of his kind. Her other hand restrained with a soft caressing movement Joey's approaches to the saucer. Joey, though trembling with excitement, sat fascinated, obedient to her gesture. Joey was puny and hairless as ever, but in Rose's face as she looked at him there was a flush of maternal tenderness and gravity. A slightly sallow tinge under its sudden bloom told how Rose had suffered from the sedentary life.

All this Tanqueray saw as he entered. It held him on the threshold, unmoved by the rus.h.i.+ng a.s.sault and lacerating bark of the little dog, who resented his intrusion.

Rose got up and came to him, lifting a frightened, pleading face.

"Oh, George," she said, "don't make me send them away. Let me keep them."

"I suppose you must keep them if you want them."

"I never said I wanted them. Aunt _would_ bring them. She thought they'd be something to occupy my mind, like."

Tanqueray smiled, in spite of his gentleness, at the absurd idea of Rose having a mind.

Rose made a little sound in her throat like a laugh. She had not laughed, she had hardly smiled, for many months now.

"The doctor--'e's fair pleased. 'E says I'll 'ave to go out walkin' now, for Joey's sake."

"Poor Joey."

He stooped and stroked the little animal, who stood on ridiculous hind-legs, straining to lick his hand.

"His hair doesn't come on, Rose----"

"It hasn't been brushed proper. You should brush a Pom's 'air backwards----"

"Of course, and it hasn't been brushed backwards. He can bark all right, anyhow. There's nothing wrong with his lungs."

"He won't bark at you no more, now he knows you."

She leaned her face to the furry head on her shoulder, and he recognized Minny by the strange pattern of his back and tail. Minny was not beautiful.

"It's Minny," she said. "You used to like Minny."

It struck him with something like a pang that she held him like a child at her breast. She saw his look and smiled up at him.