From the first he pleased her, and not least in treating her exactly as she would have wished to be treated—­namely, as a quite plain person of that part of the middle class which is neither upper nor lower.  Few men in the Five Towns would have been capable of forgetting Ezra Brunt’s income in talking to Ezra Brunt’s daughter.  Fortunately, Timmis had a proud, confident spirit—­the spirit of one who, unaided, has wrested success from the world’s deathlike clutch.  Had Eva the reversion of fifty thousand a year instead of five, he, Clive, was still a prosperous plain man, well able to support a wife in the position to which God had called him.

Their walks together grew more and more frequent, and they became intimate, exchanging ideas and rejoicing openly at the similarity of those ideas.  Although there was no concealment in these encounters, still, there was a circumspection which resembled the clandestine.  By a silent understanding Clive did not enter the house at Pireford; to have done so would have excited remark, for this house, unlike some, had never been the rendezvous of young men; much less, therefore, did he invade the shop.  No!  The chief part of their love-making (for such it was, though the term would have roused Eva’s contemptuous anger) occurred in the streets; in this they did but follow the traditions of their class.  Thus, the idyll, so matter-of-fact upon the surface, but within which glowed secret and adorable fires, progressed towards its culmination.  Eva, the artless fool—­oh, how simple are the wisest at times!—­thought that the affair was hid from the shop.  But was it possible?  Was it possible that in those tiny bedrooms on the third floor, where the heavy evening hours were ever lightened with breathless interminable recitals of what some ‘he’ had said and some ‘she’ had replied, such an enthralling episode should escape discovery?  The dormitories knew of Eva’s ‘attachment’ before Eva herself.  Yet none knew how it was known.  The whisper arose like Venus from a sea of trivial gossip, miraculously, exquisitely.  On the night when the first rumour of it traversed the passages there was scarcely any sleep at Brunt’s, while Eva up at Pireford slumbered as a young girl.

On the Thursday afternoon with which we began, Brunt’s was deserted save for the housekeeper and Eva, who was writing letters in her room.

‘I saw you from my window, coming up the street,’ she said to Clive, ’and so I ran down to open the door.  Will you come into father’s room?  He is in Manchester for the day, buying.

‘I knew that,’ said Timmis.

‘How did you know?’ She observed that his manner was somewhat nervous and constrained.

‘You yourself told me last night—­don’t you remember?’

‘So I did.’

’That’s why I sent the note round this morning to say I’d call this afternoon.  You got it, I suppose?’

She nodded thoughtfully.

‘Well, what is this business you want to talk about?’