After the midday break, however, things took a different turn. Albert spent his lunchtime walking up and down in front of the shop, an exercise which was not forbidden because no one had ever thought it possible. Soon after he got in, Miller entered, full-blown, triumphant, carrying a copy of Tails Up Weekly. As he passed Albert he showed it to him, and grinned.
«What a fool!» said Albert. «What a fool I've been!»
«Look here, boys,» cried Miller as loudly as he dared. «Come in behind here. Clarkie! Sid! Gome on. Just half a tick. It's worth it.»
«Get back to your counters,» said the shopwalker, perceiving the excitement. «What is it now, Miller, for heaven's sake?»
«Only something that proves something,» said Miller with an air of righteousness, handing the shopwalker the fatal page.
«This is serious!» cried the shopwalker, staring at Albert. «This is a matter for the Secretary. I'm taking this paper, Miller. I'm taking it to Mr. Schilberg himself.»
He went, and Albert was left alone; standing, stared at, like a man brought out to be hanged. «It's the sack all right,» he said to himself. «Who knows? They might have me shut up.»
The thought set his legs in motion. «Here, you'd better stand by,» cried a good-natured man. «They'll be sending for you in a minute.»
«Let 'em,» said Albert. «I'm off.»
«Well, I ain't seen you go,» said the other defensively.
«I'm off!» cried Albert aloud, as he passed others^of the department. They all stared at him, then pretended not to notice. He went up the stairs and round the gallery, through the corridors, out past the time-keeper. «I'm off,» said he, punching the clock for the last time.
«You look it,» said the time-keeper indifferently.
He went into the street, and round into Oxford Street, crossing to the other side in the hope of making some undetected signal to Eva. As soon as he saw her, he knew what his real purpose was. He walked on without a change of pace, and entered the farther doorway, into the hardware department, where as yet the news could hardly be known, and where he himself would be unrecognized.
He went through a staff door, into a maze of corridors, and found his way to a nook in a store-room, where he could lie hidden till closing time. There he lay, with his eyes closed and his hands folded, like a dead man, but there was a clock ticking in his brain.
At exactly seven o'clock he got up and stepped out quietly. He was cool, collected, utterly different. The whole place was different. A little daylight leaked in through the blinds at the back of the windows; the high glass dome was blueing, the galleries were drowned in darkness; flying staircases leapt out where the light struck them, and stopped short in mid-air where darkness bit them off. Vast stacks of shadow, the leaning façades of towering dreams, mounted like the skyscrapers of a new-risen city from floor to unsubstantial floor, up to the dome itself. The watchman, a being of the shadows, drifted unhurriedly across the diminishing territories of the light. Albert, a deeper shade, followed him, blacker and quieter than the watchman, more utterly of the dark.
The watchman entered the main hall, crossed the region of the French models, and disappeared into a deep vista of darkness on the farther side. Albert, absolutely master of the situation, knowing exactly how many minutes were his before the watchman could stumble round again, ran noiselessly forward.
He pulled aside the dust-sheets. The models were huddled there, grouped like victims in the sack of some forgotten city. Some stood upright, unable to relax, tense to meet new outrage; some, on hands and knees, bowed their faces to the floor, straining for the relief of tears. Others, their wits wiped out by horror, sat with their legs straight out, their hands flat and dead beside them, staring idiotically into a darkness deeper than that of the night.
«Eva!» whispered Albert. «Where are you?» She was a little apart from the others, sitting as if waiting to be taken away.
«You knew I'd come,» said Albert, lifting her. Her face fell forward on his, her lips touched his cheek. «You're cold,» said Albert. «You're used to your bed.»
He caught up the dust-sheet and tucked it about her neck. Its pale folds fell over her and him.
This cloaked double figure, this walking embrace of life and death, this beautiful nightmare under its carapace of cotton cloud, now ran noiselessly, staggering a little, up the light spirals of fretted iron, over the flying bridges, now to be seen rounding some high gallery, now swallowed by darkness, now seen higher, still mounting like a spider, till at last it reached the uppermost corridors, and the sanctuary of the little store-room.
Albert closed the door, spread a bed of wrapping papers, laid Eva upon it, took her head upon his lap, and spread the dust-sheet over them. Eva gazed up at him. There was still light here, through a little round window like a porthole. He could see her eyes, steady and cool, gazing at him, weighing him up: his weak face with its tremulous, rickety outline, his flossy, inconsiderable hair. All the same, he was her saviour. More than that, for that was a job merely, he was for her the only man in the world. If ever she loved, she must love him. Whatever her memories were, there was no one else now. All the rest were monsters, raging in blindness. In all his unworthiness he was the only living creature she could love. «What can I do?» thought Albert, overwhelmed by the responsibilities laid on him by this tremendous act of chance, which blackmailed her into the necessity of loving him, and left it to him to make himself worthy.
The dawn, with its threat, recalled him from a thousand fine spiritual issues to a very practical one. «I can't leave you here,» said he. «What can I do?»
Albert was not a man of action. His mind was weak, broken, bound by the hundred habits of timid servitude. He crouched, with his head in his hand, conscious, less of the problem than of Eva's blue gaze, which expected a decision.
Suddenly Albert stood up. «I've got it,» said he. «They've driven me to it. Never mind. You do what I tell you. You trust me.» He actually emphasized the word «me.» He lifted Eva, and set her in the corner, as if she were a mere dummy. «Keep quiet,» he said. «I'm going to deliver you, like a chap in a book.»
He went out into the twilight of the vast shop; a dawn twilight, altogether different from that of the evening. Albert was equally changed. He was no longer a shadow scurrying ratlike from dark to dark, but a young man of nerve and decision. He was perfectly prepared, if he met him in the silks, to stun the night-watchman with a roll of art-shade ninon, or to hood him with a girdle if their paths crossed in the lingerie, or gag him with gloves in the gloves, or strangle him with a stocking in the hosiery, or fell him with a cucumber in the fruit. He devoutly hoped the encounter would not take place in the hardware or cutlery, for Albert was the mildest, gentlest creature that ever breathed, and abhorred the sight of blood. As it happened the night-watchman was no believer in burglaries at six o'clock on a June morning, and was now in his cubby-hole far away in the basement, engaged in the nice preparation of a cup of cocoa to keep at bay the ill effects of the night air.
Albert, not knowing this, and resolved to deal with a dozen night-watchmen if necessary, was intoxicated by his only experience of courageous action, and rose from height to height. When he had gathered up a complete wardrobe for Eva, of a rather gayer fashion than she had enjoyed before, he went boldly up to the main office, to a desk where forms were made out for special deliveries, and, finding a block of such forms, he chose a name from a list of customers on the desk: «Raymond Pinckney Esq., 14 Mulberry Grove, Hampstead.» This he scribbled on the form; filled in the words, «One model, special arrangement: deliver 9 A.M. —» «Now what the hell day is this?» murmured Albert. His heart sank; he was done for; he had come upon that blind spot which brings the greatest criminals to their downfall. But no! There was a calendar: yesterday was a Friday because his washing had to be made up; this, therefore, was Saturday. «Who says I'm crazy?» said Albert. «Deliver 9 A.M. Saturday, 14 June, without fail.» Now for the rubber stamp. He looked in the middle drawer, and there it was. Everything was going swimmingly. It was with a light heart that he drew out the cash for expenses and hurried back to Eva.