Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/29

 "Morning,—Flo—dear. How are you?"

"Do I look ill?"

There was some element of sympathy between these two women, contrasts though they were, but the lady of the tawny head was studying Sorrell. She stood aside, leaning easily against the wainscoting, her blue knitted coat vivid against the old brown wood.

"This gentleman—first. Mine's not business."

Sorrell wished her with the devil. He felt her eyes upon him, and had he followed the line of least resistance he would have bolted from the shop. To stand there and blurt out his shabby business while she embarrassed him and made him acutely self-conscious!

"Damn!" he thought, "haven't I decided to plunge?"

Miss Hargreaves was fingering the leaves of a ledger, and waiting upon his silence.

"You said you wished to engage"

"I want a situation."

"Oh? For yourself? I'm sorry,—but,—only domestic service—you know."

"Of course," said Sorrell, stiff as a frightened cat, "that's what I mean; a place as valet, or footman or something of that sort."

He felt that the two women despised him, especially that big, blonde creature with her blueness and her hard world-wise eyes. Why couldn't she clear out and leave him to the thin woman in the cage?

Miss Hargreaves pretended to glance through the entries in her ledger.

"I'm afraid I have nothing of that sort,—nothing at all."

"I see."

"Why not try the Labour Exchange?"

"I might. Thank you. Sorry to have troubled you. Good morning."

He turned abruptly, his back to the blonde—woman and made for the doorway. He noticed how the worn boards of the floor squeaked under his feet, an uncomfortable sound caused by a discomfited man. He arrived at the doorway. A voice reached after him like a restraining hand.

"Hallo—one moment"

Sorrell turned in the doorway, and saw the blonde woman sailing down the shop, and he stood aside to let her pass,