In the full beauty of the afternoon they stood together, only the scraggy hedge between them, he on grass-tufted clay, and she on orderly .  
“Well,” said Janet, earnestly looking at him, “how do you like the effect of that window, now it’s done?”
 
“Very nice!” he laughed . “Very nice indeed!”
 
“Father said it was,” she remarked. “I do hope Mr Clayhanger will like it too!” And her voice really was charged with sympathetic hope. It was as if she would be saddened and cast down if Darius did not approve the window. It was as if she wished that Darius should not be disappointed with the window. The unskilled spectator might have assumed that anxiety for the success of the window would endanger her sleep at nights. She was sincere. Her power of emotional sympathy was all-embracing and inexhaustible. If she heard that an acquaintance of one of her acquaintances had lost a relative or broken a limb, she would express genuine deep concern, with a of her honest and voice. And if she heard the next moment that an acquaintance of one of her acquaintances had come into five thousand pounds or affianced himself to a sister-spirit, her eyes would sparkle with heartfelt joy and her hands clasp each other in sheer delight.
 
“Oh!” said Edwin, touched. “It’ll be all right for the dad. No fear!”
 
“I haven’t seen it yet,” she proceeded. “In fact I haven’t been in your house for such a long time. But I do think it’s going to be very nice. All father’s houses are so nice, aren’t they?”
 
“Yes,” said Edwin, with that sideways shake of the head that in the vocabulary of his gesture signified, not , but . “You ought to come and have a look at it.” He could not say less.
 
“Do you think I could through here?” she indicated the hedge.
 
“I— I—”
 
“I know what I’ll do. I’ll get the steps.” She walked off , and came back with a small pair of steps, which she opened out on the narrow flower-bed under the hedge. Then she picked up her skirt and delicately the rocking ladder till her feet were on a level with the top of the hedge. She smiled charmingly, savouring the harmless escapade, and gazing at Edwin. She put out her free hand, Edwin took it, and she jumped. The steps fell , but she was safe.
 
“What a good thing mother didn’t see me!” she laughed. Her grave, sympathetic, almost handsome face was now alive everywhere with a sort of challenging merriment. She was only pretending that it was a good thing her mother had not seen her: a delicious make-believe. Why, she was as motherly as her mother! In an instant her feet were choosing their way and carrying her with grace and stateliness across the of the unformed garden. She was the woman of the world, and Edwin the raw boy. The harmony and dignity of her movements charmed and Edwin. Compare her to Maggie... That she was hatless added .
 
Two.
They went into the echoing bare house, gravel and dry clay on the dirty, new floors. They were alone together in the house. And all the time Edwin was thinking: “I’ve never been through anything like this before. Never been through anything like this!” And he recalled for a second the figure of Florence Simcox, the clog-dancer.
 
And below these images and reflections in his mind was the thought: “I haven’t known what life is! I’ve been asleep. This is life!”
 
The upper squares of the drawing-room window were filled with small leaded diamond-shaped of many colours. It was the latest fashion in domestic . The effect was at once rich and gorgeous. She liked it.
 
“It will be beautiful on this side in the late afternoon,” she murmured. “What a nice room!”
 
Their eyes met, and she transmitted to him her joy in his joy at the admirableness of the house.
 
He nodded. “By Jove!” he thought. “She’s a splendid girl. There can’t be many girls knocking about as fine as she is!”
 
“And when the garden’s full of flowers!” she breathed in . She was thinking, “Strange, nice boy! He’s so romantic. All he wants is bringing out.”
 
They wandered to and fro. They went upstairs. They saw the bathroom. They stood on the landing, and the unseen spaces of the house were busy with their echoes. They then entered the room that was to be Edwin’s.
 
“Mine!” he said self-consciously.
 
“And I see you’re having shelves on both sides of the mantelpiece! You’re very fond of books, aren’t you?” she appealed to him.
 
“Yes,” he said .
 
“Aren’t they wonderful things?” Her glowing eyes seemed to be expressing to Shakespeare and all his successors in the dynasty of literature.
 
“That shelving is between your father and me,” said Edwin. “The dad doesn’t know. It’ll go in with the house-fittings. I don’t expect the dad will ever notice it.”
 
“Really!” She laughed, eager to join the innocent . “Father invented an excellent for shelving in the hall at our house,” she added. “I’m sure he’d like you to come and see it. The dear thing’s most absurdly proud of it.”
 
“I should like to,” Edwin answered diffidently.
 
“Would you come in some evening and see us? Mother would be delighted. We all should.”
 
“Very kind of you.” In his diffidence he was now on one leg.
 
“Could you come to-night? ... Or to-morrow night?”
 
“I’m afraid I couldn’t come to-night, or to-morrow night,” he answered with firmness. A statement untrue! He had no engagement; he never did have an engagement. But he was frightened, and his spirit sprang away from the idea, like a at a sudden noise in the brake, and stood still.
 
He did not suspect that the unconscious gruffness of his tone had her. She blamed herself for a too brusque advance.
 
“Well, I hope some other time,” she said, mild and benignant.
 
“Thanks! I’d like to,” he replied more boldly, now that he had heard again the same noise but indefinitely farther off.
 
She departed, but by the front door, and hatless and up Trafalgar Road in the delicate sunshine to the next turning. She was less .
 
He hoped he had not offended her, because he wanted very much—not to go in cold blood to the famed of the Orgreaves—but by some magic to find himself within it one night, at his ease, sharing in brilliant conversation. “Oh no!” he said to himself. “She’s not offended. A fine girl like that isn’t offended for nothing at all!” He had been invited to visit the Orgreaves! He wondered what his father would say, or think. The unexpressed basic idea of the Clayhangers was that the Clayhangers were as good as other folks, be they who they might. Still, the Orgreaves were the Orgreaves... In sheer absence of mind he remounted the muddy stairs.
 
Three.
He regarded the shabbiness of his clothes; he had been by their defects for about a quarter of an hour; now he examined them in detail, and said to himself disgusted, that really it was ridiculous for a man about to occupy a house like that to be wearing garments like those. Could he call on the Orgreaves in garments like those? His Sunday suit was not, he felt, in fact much better. It was newer, less tumbled, but scarcely better. His suits did not cost enough. Finance was at the root of the crying scandal of his career as a dandy. The financial question must be reopened and settled anew. He should attack his father. His father was extremely dependent on him now, and must be brought to see reason. (His father who had never seen reason!) But the attack must not be made with the weapon of clothes, for on that subje............