Her cold resisted treatment, and became a sullen catarrh. Molloy refused to recognize its existence. “It’s nothing at all,” said he one day when she apologized for a coughing fit; “it’s the dust in the air. You’d probably never get rid of it unless you took a long sea-voyage—maybe not then. Lots o’ people have a congestion like that all their lives. Now me, for instance: I’d spit y’up a cupful o’phlegm any morning in the week. But I don’t let it bother me.” And so Monica decided that she would not let it bother her, either. But it did bother her, and particularly at night.

Her work with Molloy was the only life-giving element in her existence. Little by little he satisfied himself that she had some rudimentary notion of what muhd was, and could summon a small amount of it at will. It was true that Monica found it difficult to make love to a chair, which he regarded as an important test.

“Garrick could do’t,” said he; “time and again he’d astonish his friends that way. And it’s all a question of muhd. To th’artist, with his imagination at command, and his experience of life to draw on, making love to a chair is just as possible—not as easy, maybe, or as pleasant—but just as possible as making love to a pretty girl. Now watch me: I’m going to make love to you.”

The somewhat severe and admonishing expression which Molloy usually wore when he was teaching gave way to an alarming leer, and he approached Monica with youthful step. Seizing her hand he dropped on one knee and pressed it to his lips. “My darling,” said he and, rising, pressed her to him with many variations on this simple endearment, which appeared to be the only one he could think of. When it seemed that he must inevitably kiss her he suddenly broke away, and looked sternly into her eye.

“Y’see? That’s the way it is with the living subject. Now—what d’you say to this?”

And with a sudden turn he addressed himself to an armchair, caressed its dingy upholstery, knelt to it, entreated it to be his, praised its hair and complexion, called it his jewel, and swore that he could not live if it spurned him. Monica could not laugh, for unquestionably Molloy had the muhd, and however ridiculous his behaviour might be, the power in his voice might not be denied.

Nor could she rid herself of a feeling that Molloy liked showing her how to make love. He never missed a chance to feel her diaphragm, or gauge the expansion of her ribs at the back. And now, in these exercises with the chair it was always hard to know what he might do next. Obedient and teachable, Monica would do her best to pour out adoration for Molloy’s unappetizing armchair.

“It’s feeble,” he would say. “Now you’re not going to tell me that a girl like yourself doesn’t know what love-making is. Eh? Don’t blush; if you expect to be an artist you must get your feelings at command. Work on it at home, and show me what you can do next day.”

Part of Monica’s inability to enter whole-heartedly into these scenes of passion with the chair sprang from a feeling that other eyes than Molloy’s were upon her. There were two doors in his teaching-room, one of which led to the landing, and the other, which had a glass transom over it, presumably to his private apartments; it was from this latter door that occasional rustlings and soft thumpings were heard while lessons were in progress. And one day, as Monica was leaving, she met a short, grey-haired woman on the landing, who gave her a gimlet look through a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles—a look which, from a stranger, was surprising indeed. As soon as the woman had disappeared into Molloy’s apartment a sound of voices raised in high and unamiable converse broke out, and was audible until Monica had gone down the stairs and into the street.

It was late in her first spring in London that Monica visited Lorne and Meg McCorkill in South Wimbledon. She never fully understood how they came to know of her existence, although they explained it at length; but as they both talked at once, the chain which led from a friend of theirs in Salterton, who knew a Thirteener who had obtained her address from Pastor Beamis, and who had (the Salterton friend, that is to say) mentioned it in a letter to—no,—no, not the McCorkills, but to another Saltertonian, now resident in London—who had passed it on to them: she had never fully understood it. But it was a beautiful spring day, when she had been wishing that George Medwall wrote better letters, less concerned with the inner politics of the Glue Works, that a letter arrived for her, written in an unknown hand, which addressed her thus—

Thus it was that a little after six on the following Friday evening Monica walked down Hubbard Road looking for Beaver Lodge. It was not hard to find, for on the gate was painted the name in rustic lettering which simulated sticks of wood, and at one of these a painted animal, not too hard to identify as a beaver, was gnawing. The woodwork of the semi-detached villa was bright with new paint, and a man on a ladder was dabbing delicately at a second-floor casement. He spied Monica as she came in the gate, and with a shout of “Hi!” he climbed down and hurried forward to greet her.

“Good to see you,” he roared; “certainly good to see you. Can’t shake hands—all over paint; just grab me by the wrist. Hey Meggsie!—I’m Lorne McCorkill; just call me Lorne. This is Meg. And where’s Diane? Hey, Diane!”

“She’s playing with that Pamela, and I suppose we’ll have to get an earful of what Pamela’s Mothaw’s been saying,” said Meg McCorkill, who had appeared in a very gay and brilliantly clean apron. “Hello dear, it’s certainly great to see you. Come on in.”

They bustled Monica into Beaver Lodge, which was a beautifully clean and bright little house—so clean and bright, indeed, that Monica was startled, for her eyes had become accustomed to the dinginess of Mrs Merry’s, the comfortable but seedy furnishings of Molloy’s teaching room, and the downright squalor of the Heber and Schlesinger quarters.

“Isn’t this lovely,” said Monica; “it’s like being at home!”

“Aw, you poor kiddie!” said Meg McCorkill. “Did you hear that, Lorne? Oh he’s gone to change out of his paint-clothes.” She raised her voice to a piercing shriek. “Lorne, didja hear what Monica just said? The minute she set foot in the door she said this was like home. How’s that, eh?”

Lorne returned; he was wearing moccasin slippers, and was struggling into a sweatshirt which had the name of a western Canadian university printed across its chest. “That’s swell,” he said; “just swell. That makes up for all the trouble it was to get this paint here. Because let me tell you kid,” said he, very emphatically, “every wall and piece of woodwork in this house is covered with real Canadian rubber-base paint. None of this English oil-base stuff for me. We brought it over, and fought it through Customs, and now it’s on, and at least we know it isn’t all going to shale off in wet weather. And that’s something you can certainly count on here, boy—wet weather. Now how’s about a real drink. Do you have yours straight, or on the rocks, or with water?”