He referred the question to Katharine and they debated it earnestly.

Tattlecombe’s shut at half-past five, and William drove her home. Miss Cole, who had put on her hat and coat and walked briskly away in the opposite direction, took the first turning to the right, and the first to the right again, which brought her into the narrow cut immediately behind the shop. William did not see her because he had to back his car out of the shed in which it lived, but by walking very fast indeed and occasionally breaking into a short run she was able to reach the corner in time to see him stop, lean sideways to open the near door, and let that Miss Eversley in, after which they drove away together.

‘And not for the first time, Mr. Tattlecombe!’ said Miss Cole, in tones which trembled with moral indignation.

Mrs. Salt hadn’t wanted to let her in, but she had got in. A really determined woman can always get in if she wants to. It is just a question of how many of the finer feelings she is prepared to disregard, and how much driving-power she can develop. Miss Cole walked past Abigail Salt at her own door and said she had come to see Mr. Tattlecombe. On being told that in his sister’s opinion he should be kept quiet and not encouraged to upset himself about the business, she sniffed and said that he would be a great deal more upset if the business got a bad name, and see him she must. Abigail was displeased, but, handicapped by her ignorance of what had happened and a suspicion that Abel would indeed upset himself if he thought she was interfering between him and his business, she gave way, ushered Miss Cole into her spare room, and left her there. Tempted to close the door sharply, she restrained herself and went down to the parlour, where she applied herself to playing hymn tunes on the harmonium. Her momentary indecision about the door may have resulted in its failing to latch. The tongue of steel engaged and slipped out again, the door remained ajar.

Miss Cole sat in an upright chair beside Mr. Tattlecombe’s bed and poured out her soul. She wore a ginger-coloured hat and a thick black coat. Her sallow skin glistened in the gaslight. She washed it night and morning with yellow soap, and considered face-powder immoral. Her hands in black woollen gloves were tightly clasped upon her knee. Her voice trembled with earnest disapproval.

‘Every day and all day long – painting at the same table, and their heads as good as touching!’

Abel Tattlecombe leaned against his pillow and said,

‘The painting has got to be done, Miss Cole.’

‘Very true, Mr. Tattlecombe, and I’m not denying it. But when I say that I understood Miss Eversley was engaged to help me in the shop I’m only saying what was clearly understood at the time. And what happens? The very second day she is there Mr. Smith takes her out of the shop and puts her in the workshop and gives her the painting to do, which is what he wouldn’t let anyone lay a finger on. Because I offered, and he said, ‘oh no, he could manage very nicely.’ She gave a really dreadful sniff and repeated this telling phrase in a loud tone of scorn. ‘He could manage very nicely! And how does he manage, Mr. Tattlecombe?’ She sniffed again. ‘Him and her with no more than the width of a table between them, and for all I know dipping their brushes in the same paint-pot! And that boy away at the other end of the shop taking it all in!’

Miss Cole was a fellow chapel member. Abel Tattlecombe gazed at her mildly.

‘William Smith is a single young man,’ he said, ‘and Miss Eversley is a single young woman. I have spoken to William on the subject of marriage. If he is thinking of Miss Eversley in the light of that conversation, there would be nothing wrong about it.’

Miss Cole tossed her head.

‘You didn’t see her when she came about the place! Painted she was, and no other word for it, and I told her straight out it wasn’t what you’d approve of! I wouldn’t have engaged her if it had been left to me, but Mr. Smith pushed in and said she was just what we were looking for – right over my head!’

Abel said sharply, ‘She doesn’t wear paint in the shop.’

Miss Cole sniffed.

‘There’s no saying what she might have done if I hadn’t spoken up. I told her you wouldn’t allow it, and I’ve kept a pretty sharp look-out to see she didn’t get round what I said.’

Abel was becoming weary of the bickering voice. He said, ‘Well, that’s all right,’ and immediately became aware that the remark was optimistic.

Miss Cole looked at him in a pitying manner.

‘If you call it all right for him to drive her away in his car and stay out till all hours!’

Abel’s temper slipped a little.

‘What do you call all hours? And how do you know how long he stays out?’

Miss Cole bridled.

‘I suppose Mrs. Bastable has a tongue in her head! Eleven one night, and half-past eleven another, and before we know where we are there’s no saying whether he’ll come home at all! It’s not what I call respectable!’

Mr. Tattlecombe was a good deal more disquieted than he wished it to appear. He put Miss Cole down for a meddlesome old maid. But the respectability of his shop was very dear to him. It should be beyond question or comment, and here was Miss Cole gossiping with Mrs. Bastable, and both of them questioning and commenting just about as hard as they could go. He wished, as many a man has wished, that something could be done to stop women talking, and he remembered that when he was twenty-four he had taken a girl on the river in June and not brought her back until midnight, and what a blazing row there had been. She was a pretty girl, and she had married a stout middle-aged shopwalker at Prentice & Biddle’s and had seven or eight children, all the image of their father. And he had married Mary Sturt and been very happy with her until the Lord took her… He fixed his blue eyes on Miss Cole’s face and said,

‘Does the young woman live with her parents?’ – Because if she did, and William was courting her, he would naturally go there of an evening.

‘Parents!’ said Miss Cole. ‘There isn’t much of that, Mr. Tattlecombe! A flat in a mews – 21, Rasselas Mews – that’s where she lives! Lent her by a friend is what she says! And all alone there – because she let that out! So if that’s where Mr. Smith stays half the night, you may call it respectable, Mr. Tattlecombe, but I don’t!’

This outburst was delivered in a series of short gasps. If Mr. Tattlecombe had been at all mobile, it is tolerably certain that he would have left the room. Unable even to leave his bed, he had perforce to sustain the onslaught.

Miss Cole took a good long breath and began again.

‘A front door painted scarlet isn’t what I’d call respectable either – steps going up to it and the railings as red as any pillar-box! And no hearsay gossip about that, for I saw them with my own eyes, and if you want to know what came into my mind, well, it was the Scarlet Woman! And can you be surprised?’

Abel Tattlecombe primmed up his mouth. If he wasn’t surprised, he was certainly shocked. He said so, just like that.

‘Miss Cole, I am shocked!’

Miss Cole appeared quite pleased about it.

‘I thought you would be!’

‘I am shocked at the way you are jumping to conclusions. Red paint on the front door of a flat that someone else has lent you – ’

Miss Cole interrupted with vigour.

‘Don’t say lent me, Mr. Tattlecombe! We’ve all heard about flats in mews before this, and we know what to think about them, let alone scarlet paint on the doors!’

Abel restrained himself with difficulty. Miss Cole was a valued assistant. Persons of unblemished moral probity and years of business experience did not grow on gooseberry bushes. If you possessed one you did not lightly let her go. He said with praiseworthy calm,

‘I think that’s enough about the paint, Miss Cole.’