"Tuts, ye wad think ye had given me a fortune to hear ye," she cried airily. "As if I wasna worth it, either! I'm not askin' ye to sell ony more tie-pins or chains or pictures. I'm only wantin' a few shillings for my purse to go out and see my Aunt Annie in Overtoun tomorrow. Give us five shillin's and I'll give ye a kiss."
His lower lip hung out sulkily.
"Are ye goin' out again to-morrow ? Ye're aye goin' out and learin' me. When will ye be back ?"
"Man! I believe ye would like to tie me to the leg o' this table. I'm not your slave; I'm only your housekeeper." That was one for him, she thought, as she delivered the pert allusion to the fact that he had never offered to marry her. "I'll not be away all night. I'll be back about ten o'clock or so. Give us the two half-crowns and if ye behave I'll maybe be kinder to ye than ye deserve."
Under her compelling eyes he plunged his hand into his pocket, feeling, not the handful of sovereigns that had once reposed there, but some scanty coins, amongst which he searched for the sum she asked.
"Here ye are then," he said eventually, handing her the money. "I can ill afford it but ye well know I can deny ye nothing."
She jumped up, holding the money triumphantly, and was about to slip away with it when he too got up and catching her by the arm, cried:
"What about your bargain! You're not forgettin' about that! Do ye not care for me at all?"
Immediately she composed her features, lifted up her face, opened her eyes wide at him with an ingenuous simplicity and murmured:
"I should think I do care for ye. Do ye think I would be here if I didna? Ye shouldna get such strange ideas in your head. That's the way mad folk talk. You'll be sayin' I'm goin' away to leave ye next."
"No, I wouldna let ye do that," he replied, crushing her fiercely against him. As he strained her small unresisting form against his own bulk, he felt that here was the anodyne to his wounded pride, forgetfulness of his humiliation, while she, turning her face sideways against his chest, looked away, thinking how ridiculous to her now was his infatuated credulity, how she wanted some one younger, less uncouth, less insatiable, some one who would marry her.
"Woman! What is it about ye that makes my heart like to burst when I have ye like this?" he said thickly, as he held her. "I seem to lose count of everything but you. I would wish this to go on for ever."
A faint smile creased her hidden features as she replied:
"And why should it not? Are ye beginnin' to get tired of me?”
"By God! You're fresher to me than ever ye were." Then after a pause he suddenly exclaimed, "It wasna just the money ye wanted, Nancy?"
She turned an indignant face to him, taking the opportunity to release herself.
"How can ye say such a thing? The very idea! Ill fling it back at ye in a minute if ye don't be quiet."
"No! No!" he interposed hurriedly. "I didna mean anything. You're welcome to it, and I'll bring ye something nice on Saturday." This was the day upon which he drew his weekly wage and with the sudden realisation of his subordinate position, of the change in his life, his face darkened again, became older, and looking down, he said, "Well, I better go then. Nessie's waitin' for me." Suddenly a thought struck him. "Where's that Matt to-day?" he demanded.
"I couldn't say." She stifled a yawn, as though her lack of interest made her positively languid. "He went out straight away after breakfast. He'll not be back now till supper, I expect."
He gazed at her for a moment then said slowly:
"Well, I'll away myself, then. I'm off!"
"That's right," she cried gaily. "Off with ye and mind ye come straight back from the office. If ye have a single drink in ye when ye come in, I'll let ye have the teapot at your head."
From under his heavy eyebrows he looked at her with an upward, shamefaced glance that sat ill upon his lined and sombre countenance; nodding his head to reassure her, he gave her arm a final squeeze and went out.
In the front courtyard, now thickly covered by sprouting weeds and denuded of the ridiculous ornament of the brass cannon which three months ago had been sold for its value as old metal - he found Nessie patiently awaiting him, supporting her unformed, drooping figure against the iron post of the front gate. At the sight of him she raised herself and, without a word, they set out together upon their walk to the point where their paths diverged at the end of Railway Road, where he would proceed to his work in the shipyard and she to hers at school. This daily pilgrimage had now become an established custom between Brodie and his daughter and during its course he had the practice of encouraging and admonishing her, of spurring her onward to achieve the brilliant success he desired; but to-day he did not speak, tapping along with his thick ash stick, his coat sagging upon him, his square hat, faded and unbrushed, thrust back in a painful caricature of his old-time arrogance, marching silently and apart, with an air of inward absorption which made it impossible for her to speak to him. Always, now, in the public gaze, he retired into himself, holding his head erect, looking directly in front of him and seeing no one, creating thus, for himself, wide depopulated streets filled, not with curious, staring, sneering faces, but by the solitude of his single presence.
When they reached their place of separation, he stopped an odd arresting figure and said to her:
"Away and work hard now, Nessie. Stick into it. Remember what I'm always tellin' you 'what's worth doin' is worth doin' well.' Ye've got to win that Latta that's a' there is about it. Here!" he put his hand in his pocket "Here's a penny for chocolate." He almost smiled. "Ye can pay me back when you've won the Bursary."
She took the coin from him timidly yet gratefully, and went on her way to face her three hours of work in a stuffy classroom. If she had taken no breakfast and little lunch, she would at least be sustained and fortified against her study by the ample nourishment of a sticky bar of raspberry cream chocolate!
When she had gone the faint show of animation in his face died out completely and, bracing himself up, he turned and continued his progress to the office which he hated. As he drew near to the shipyard he hesitated slightly in his course, wavered, then faded into the doorway of the "Fitter's Bar" where, in the public bar. filled bv workmen in moleskins and dungaiees. Yet to him tenanted by no one but himself, he swallowed a neat whisky, then quickly emerged and,retaining the fumes of the spirit by a compression of his lips, morosely entered the portals of Latta and Company.
II
ON THE evening of the following day, when Nancy had departed to visit her aunt at Overton, and with Matt, as he always was at this hour, out of the house, a sublime and tranquil domesticity lay upon the kitchen of the Brodie home. So, at least, it seemed to the master of the house as, reclining back in his own chair, head tilted, legs crossed, pipe in mouth, and in his hand a full glass of his favourite beverage, hot whisky toddy, he contemplated Nessie, seated at the table, bent over her lessons, her pale brows knitted in concentration, then surveyed his mother who, in the temporary absence of the hated intruder, had not retired to her room but sat crouched in her old corner beside the blazing fire. A faint flush marked Brodie's cheeks; his lips, as he sucked at his pipe, were wet and full; the eye, now turned meditatively upon the contents of the steaming tumbler, humid, eloquent; by some strange transformation his troubles were forgotten, his mind filled contentedly by the thought that it was a delightful experience for a man to spend an evening happily in his own home. True, he did not now go out in the evenings, or indeed, at any hours but those of his work, shunning the streets and the club; banned, too, from the small back parlour of the virtuous Phemie, and it should logically have been an event of less moment for him to hug the fire and one less productive of such unusual gratification. But to-night, recognising that he would not be called upon to account to his housekeeper for his lateness at the tea table, he had dallied by the wayside on his return from work and now, mellowed further by a few additional drinks and the thought of more to come, the sadness of his separation from Nancy tempered by the exhilaration of his unwonted liberty and by the consideration of their reunion later in the evening, his induced felicity had enveloped him earlier and more powerfully than on most nights. Viewed from his armchair, through the clear amber of the toddy, his position in the office became a sinecure, his subordinate routine merely an amusing recreation; it was his whim to work like that and he might terminate it at his will; he was glad to be finished with his business, an ignoble trade which had clearly never suited his temper or his breeding; he would, however, shortly abandon the hobby of his present post for a more prominent, more lucrative occupation, startling the town, satisfying himself and delighting Nancy. His Nancy ah! That was a woman for a man! As her image rose before him he toasted her, hoping enthusiastically that she might now be having a pleasant time with her aunt at Overton. Rosy mists floated through the dirty ill-kept room, tinting the soiled curtains, veiling the darker coloured square which marked the disappearance from the wall of Bell's engraving, sending a glow into Nessie's pale cheeks and softening even the withered, envious face of his mother. He watched the old woman's starting eyes over the edge of his glass as he took a long satisfying drink and, when he had