Nevertheless she wondered why when she felt, in herself, no shame al
all at the things that she was doing, she should have to lie to cover
those things up. But everything in connection with the Chapel seemed to
lie.--The place was wrapped in intrigue and double-dealing. How long
would it be before she and Martin were out of it all?
She was to meet him by one of the lions in Trafalgar Square. She bought
a golden chrysanthemum which she stuck into the belt of her black dress
and she wore her coral necklace. She was tired of black. She sometimes
thought she would spend all her Three Hundred Pounds on clothes ...
To-day, as soon as she was out of the house and had turned the corner
into King William Street, she slipped on her ring. She kissed it before
she put her glove on. He was waiting there looking like a happy
schoolboy, that way that she loved him to look. That slow crooked smile
of his, something that broke up his whole face into geniality and
friendliness, how she adored him when he looked like that! He was
wearing clothes of some rough red-brown stuff and a black knitted tie--
She was carrying something, a little parcel in tissue paper. She
pressed it into his hand when they met. He opened it, just like a boy,
chuckling, his eyes shining, his fingers tearing the paper in his
eagerness. Her present was a round locket of thin plain gold and inside
was the funniest little black faded photograph of Maggie, her head
only, a wild untidy head of hair, a fat round schoolgirl face--a
village snapshot of Maggie taken in St. Dreot's when she was about
fifteen.
"It's all I had," she said. "I remembered it the other day and I found
it. A travelling photographer took it one day. He came to the village
and every one was taken, father and all. It's very bad but it was the
only one."
"It's wonderful," said Martin, and truly it was wonderful. It had
caught by a marvellous chance, in spite of its shabby faded darkness,
the very soul of Maggie. Was it her hair, her untidy hair, or the
honesty of her eyes, or the strength and trustiness of her mouth? But
then it was to any one who did not know her the bad dim photograph of
an untidy child, to any one who did know her the very stamp and witness
of Maggie and all that she was. Maggie had spent twenty-five shillings
on the locket (she had had three pounds put away from her allowance in
her drawer).
It was a very simple locket, thin plain gold round and smooth, but
good, and it would last.
"You darling," whispered Martin. "There couldn't have been anything
more like you if you'd been taken by the grandest photographer in
London."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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