pg5247 [61]
"I didn't know you were in Paris," she evaded him.
"I went to start a sort of agency for Birkinshaws," he said.
"I suppose you talk French like anything."
"Of course one has to talk French," said he. "I learnt French when I was a child from a governess—my uncle made me—but I forgot most of it at school, and at the Varsity you never learn anything—precious little, anyhow! Certainly not French!"
She was deeply impressed. He was a much greater personage than she had guessed. It had never occurred to her that commercial travellers had to go to a university to finish their complex education. And then, Paris! Paris meant absolutely nothing to her but pure, impossible, unattainable romance. And he had been there! The clouds of glory were around him. He was a hero, dazzling. He had come to her out of another world. He was her miracle. He was almost too miraculous to be true.
She, living her humdrum life at the shop! And he, elegant, brilliant, coming from far cities! They together, side by side, strolling up the road towards the Moorthorne ridge! There was nothing quite like this in the stories of Miss Sewell.
"Your uncle…?" she questioned vaguely.
"Yes, Mr. Boldero. He's a partner in Birkinshaws."
"Oh!"
"You've heard of him? He's a great Wesleyan."
"Oh yes," she said. "When we had the Wesleyan Conference here, he—"
"He's always very great at Conferences," said Gerald Scales.
"I didn't know he had anything to do with Birkinshaws."
"He isn't a working partner of course," Mr. Scales explained. "But he means me to be one. I have to learn the business from the bottom. So now you understand why I'm a traveller."
"I see," she said, still more deeply impressed.
"I'm an orphan," said Gerald. "And Uncle Boldero took me in hand when I was three."
"I SEE!" she repeated.
It seemed strange to her that Mr. Scales should be a Wesleyan—just like herself. She would have been sure that he was 'Church.' Her notions of Wesleyanism, with her notions of various other things, were sharply modified.
"Now tell me about you," Mr. Scales suggested.
"Oh! I'm nothing!" she burst out.
The exclamation was perfectly sincere. Mr. Scales's disclosures concerning himself, while they excited her, discouraged her.
"You're the finest girl I've ever met, anyhow," said Mr. Scales with gallant emphasis, and he dug his stick into the soft ground.
She blushed and made no answer.
They walked on in silence, each wondering apprehensively what might happen next.
Suddenly Mr. Scales stopped at a dilapidated low brick wall, built in a circle, close to the side of the road.
"I expect that's an old pit-shaft," said he.
"Yes, I expect it is."
He picked up a rather large stone and approached the wall.
"Be careful!" she enjoined him.
"Oh! It's all right," he said lightly. "Let's listen. Come near and listen."
She reluctantly obeyed, and he threw the stone over the dirty ruined wall, the top of which was about level with his hat. For two or three seconds there was no sound. Then a faint reverberation echoed from the depths of the shaft. And on Sophia's brain arose dreadful images of the ghosts of miners wandering for ever in subterranean passages, far, far beneath. The noise of the falling stone had awakened for her the secret terrors of the earth. She could scarcely even look at the wall without a spasm of fear.
"How strange," said Mr. Scales, a little awe in his voice, too, "that that should be left there like that! I suppose it's very deep."
"Some of them are," she trembled.
"I must just have a look," he said, and put his hands on the top of the wall.
"Come away!" she cried.
"Oh! It's all right!" he said again, soothingly. "The wall's as firm as a rock." And he took a slight spring and looked over.
She shrieked loudly. She saw him at the distant bottom of the shaft, mangled, drowning. The ground seemed to quake under her feet. A horrible sickness seized her. And she shrieked again. Never had she guessed that existence could be such pain.
He slid down from the wall, and turned to her. "No bottom to be