Fraternity. John Galsworthy

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      It was his business to know all the passers-by, and his pleasure too; his mind was thus distracted from the condition of his feet. He knew this particular lady with the delicate face, and found her puzzling; she sometimes bought the paper which Fate condemned him, against his politics, to sell. The Tory journals were undoubtedly those which her class of person ought to purchase. He knew a lady when he saw one. In fact, before Life threw him into the streets, by giving him a disease in curing which his savings had disappeared, he had been a butler, and for the gentry had a respect as incurable as was his distrust of “all that class of people” who bought their things at “these 'ere large establishments,” and attended “these 'ere subscription dances at the Town 'All over there.” He watched her with special interest, not, indeed, attempting to attract attention, though conscious in every fibre that he had only sold five copies of his early issues. And he was sorry and surprised when she passed from his sight through one of the hundred doors.

      The thought which spurred her into Messrs. Rose and Thorn's was this: “I am thirty-eight; I have a daughter of seventeen. I cannot afford to lose my husband's admiration. The time is on me when I really must make myself look nice!”

      Before a long mirror, in whose bright pool there yearly bathed hundreds of women's bodies, divested of skirts and bodices, whose unruffled surface reflected daily a dozen women's souls divested of everything, her eyes became as bright as steel; but having ascertained the need of taking two inches off the chest of the gentian frock, one off its waist, three off its hips, and of adding one to its skirt, they clouded again with doubt, as though prepared to fly from the decision she had come to. Resuming her bodice, she asked:

      “When could you let me have it?”

      “At the end of the week, madam.”

      “Not till then?”

      “We are very pressed, madam.”

      “Oh, but you must let me have it by Thursday at the latest, please.”

      The fitter sighed: “I will do my best.”

      “I shall rely on you. Mrs. Stephen Dallison, 76, The Old Square.”

      Going downstairs she thought: “That poor girl looked very tired; it's a shame they give them such long hours!” and she passed into the street.

      A voice said timidly behind her: “Westminister, marm?”

      “That's the poor old creature,” thought Cecilia Dallison, “whose nose is so unpleasant. I don't really think I—” and she felt for a penny in her little bag. Standing beside the “poor old creature” was a woman clothed in worn but neat black clothes, and an ancient toque which had once known a better head. The wan remains of a little bit of fur lay round her throat. She had a thin face, not without refinement, mild, very clear brown eyes, and a twist of smooth black hair. Beside her was a skimpy little boy, and in her arms a baby. Mrs. Dallison held out two-pence for the paper, but it was at the woman that she looked.

      “Oh, Mrs. Hughs,” she said, “we've been expecting you to hem the curtains!”

      The woman slightly pressed the baby.

      “I am very sorry, ma'am. I knew I was expected, but I've had such trouble.”

      Cecilia winced. “Oh, really?”

      “Yes, m'm; it's my husband.”

      “Oh, dear!” Cecilia murmured. “But why didn't you come to us?”

      “I didn't feel up to it, ma'am; I didn't really—”

      A tear ran down her cheek, and was caught in a furrow near the mouth.

      Mrs. Dallison said hurriedly: “Yes, yes; I'm very sorry.”

      “This old gentleman, Mr. Creed, lives in the same house with us, and he is going to speak to my husband.”

      The old man wagged his head on its lean stalk of neck.

      “He ought to know better than be'ave 'imself so disrespectable,” he said.

      Cecilia looked at him, and murmured: “I hope he won't turn on you!”

      The old man shuffled his feet.

      “I likes to live at peace with everybody. I shall have the police to 'im if he misdemeans hisself with me! … Westminister, sir?” And, screening his mouth from Mrs. Dallison, he added in a loud whisper: “Execution of the Shoreditch murderer!”

      Cecilia felt suddenly as though the world were listening to her conversation with these two rather seedy persons.

      “I don't really know what I can do for you, Mrs. Hughs. I'll speak to Mr. Dallison, and to Mr. Hilary too.”

      “Yes, ma'am; thank you, ma'am.”

      With a smile which seemed to deprecate its own appearance, Cecilia grasped her skirts and crossed the road. “I hope I wasn't unsympathetic,” she thought, looking back at the three figures on the edge of the pavement—the old man with his papers, and his discoloured nose thrust upwards under iron-rimmed spectacles; the seamstress in her black dress; the skimpy little boy. Neither speaking nor moving, they were looking out before them at the traffic; and something in Cecilia revolted at this sight. It was lifeless, hopeless, unaesthetic.

      “What can one do,” she thought, “for women like Mrs. Hughs, who always look like that? And that poor old man! I suppose I oughtn't to have bought that dress, but Stephen is tired of this.”

      She turned out of the main street into a road preserved from commoner forms of traffic, and stopped at a long low house half hidden behind the trees of its front garden.

      It was the residence of Hilary Dallison, her husband's brother, and himself the husband of Bianca, her own sister.

      The queer conceit came to Cecilia that it resembled Hilary. Its look was kindly and uncertain; its colour a palish tan; the eyebrows of its windows rather straight than arched, and those deep-set eyes, the windows, twinkled hospitably; it had, as it were, a sparse moustache and beard of creepers, and dark marks here and there, like the lines and shadows on the faces of those who think too much. Beside it, and apart, though connected by a passage, a studio stood, and about that studio—of white rough-cast, with a black oak door, and peacock-blue paint—was something a little hard and fugitive, well suited to Bianca, who used it, indeed, to paint in. It seemed to stand, with its eyes on the house, shrinking defiantly from too close company, as though it could not entirely give itself to anything. Cecilia, who often worried over the relations between her sister and her brother-in-law, suddenly felt how fitting and symbolical this was.

      But, mistrusting inspirations, which, experience told her, committed one too much, she walked quickly up the stone-flagged pathway to the door. Lying in the porch was a little moonlight-coloured lady bulldog, of toy breed, who gazed up with eyes like agates, delicately waving her bell-rope tail, as it was her habit to do towards everyone, for she had been handed down clearer and paler with each generation, till she had at last lost all the peculiar virtues of dogs that bait the bull.

      Speaking the word “Miranda!” Mrs. Stephen Dallison tried to pat this daughter of the house. The little bulldog withdrew from her caress, being also unaccustomed to commit herself. …

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