Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/30

 thinking that his necessity was no concern of hers, but she paused by a revolving stand of picture postcards, and taking one at random, gave Sorrell the full stare of her blue eyes.

"Serious?" she asked.

He looked at her rather blankly.

"I beg your pardon"

Her smile puzzled him.

"Well,—if you are—come across to the 'Angel' in a quarter of an hour. There's a job—vacant."

She passed out, almost brushing against him, and he watched her cross the road and enter the arched gateway of the Angel Inn. She turned to the left towards a doorway, but she did not look back, and he wondered why she had left him with a feeling of having been crushed against a wall. She had suggested immense strength, a brutal and laughing vitality.

Sorrell went back suddenly into the shop, and along its dark length to the woman in the cage.

"Excuse me—would you mind telling me?"

She caught his meaning.

"That's Mrs. Palfrey; she runs the 'Angel.

"Oh. Have you any idea?"

Miss Hargreaves looked at him queerly.

"They want an odd man—for the luggage and the boots and things"

He stared at her thin face.

"Well,—why didn't you?"

"Because I didn't know," she said tartly. "If it is any use to you—well—there it is."

Sorrell stood on the footway and looked across at the Angel Inn.

The exterior of the building pleased him. It had the creamy whiteness of last year's paint, and a well proportioned cornice that threw a definite shadow. The window sashes were painted maroon, and from the centre of the façade an old iron balcony projected like the poop of a ship. The gilded angel appeared to have floated from off this balcony, and there could be not doubt as to the rightness