"Oh! pluck--!" he protested, hurt.
At that moment Constance came down the passage singing.
"Constance, my pet!" Mrs. Baines called.
"Yes, mother."
She put her head into the room.
"Oh!"
Mr. Povey was assuming his coat.
"Mr. Povey is going to the dentist's."
"Yes, I'm going at once," Mr. Povey confirmed.
"Oh! I'm so GLAD!" Constance exclaimed.
Her face expressed a pure sympathy, uncomplicated by critical sentiments.
Mr. Povey rapidly bathed in that sympathy, and then decided that he must show himself a man of oak and iron.
"It's always best to get these things done with," said he, with stern detachment.
"I'll just slip my overcoat on."
"Here it is," said Constance, quickly.
Mr. Povey's overcoat and hat were hung on a hook immediately outside the room, in the passage.
She gave him the overcoat, anxious to be of service.
"I didn't call you in here to be Mr. Povey's valet," said Mrs. Baines to herself with mild grimness; and aloud: "I can't stay in the shop long, Constance, but you can be there, can't you, till Mr. Povey comes back?
And if anything happens run upstairs and tell me."
"Yes, mother," Constance eagerly consented.
She hesitated and then turned to obey at once.
"I want to speak to you first, my pet," Mrs. Baines stopped her.
And her tone was peculiar, charged with import, confidential, and therefore very flattering to Constance.
"I think I'll go out by the side-door," said Mr. Povey.
"It'll be nearer."
This was truth. He would save about ten yards, in two miles, by going out through the side-door instead of through the shop.
Who could have guessed that he was ashamed to be seen going to the dentist's, afraid lest, if he went through the shop, Mrs. Baines might follow him and utter some remark prejudicial to his dignity before the assistants? (Mrs. Baines could have guessed, and did.)
"You won't want that tape-measure," said Mrs. Baines, dryly, as Mr. Povey dragged open the side-door.
The ends of the forgotten tape-measure were dangling beneath coat and overcoat.
"Oh!" Mr. Povey scowled at his forgetfulness.
"I'll put it in its place," said Constance, offering to receive the tape-measure.
"Thank you," said Mr. Povey, gravely.
"I don't suppose they'll be long over my bit of a job," he added, with a difficult, miserable smile.
Then he went off down King Street, with an exterior of gay briskness and dignified joy in the fine May morning.
But there was no May morning in his cowardly human heart.
"Hi! Povey!" cried a voice from the Square.
But Mr. Povey disregarded all appeals.
He had put his hand to the plough, and he would not look back.
"Hi! Povey!"
Useless!
Mrs. Baines and Constance were both at the door.
A middle-aged man was crossing the road from Boulton Terrace, the lofty erection of new shops which the envious rest of the Square had decided to call "showy."
He waved a hand to Mrs. Baines, who kept the door open.
"It's Dr. Harrop," she said to Constance.
"I shouldn't be surprised if that baby's come at last, and he wanted to tell Mr. Povey."
Constance blushed, full of pride.
Mrs. Povey, wife of "our Mr. Povey's" renowned cousin, the high-class confectioner and baker in Boulton Terrace, was a frequent subject of discussion in the Baines family,, but this was absolutely the first time that Mrs. Baines had acknowledged, in presence of Constance, the marked and growing change which had characterized Mrs. Povey's condition during recent months.
Such frankness on the part of her mother, coming after the decision about leaving school, proved indeed that Constance had ceased to be a mere girl.
"Good morning, doctor."
The doctor, who carried a little bag and wore riding-breeches (he was the last doctor in Bursley to abandon the saddle for the dog- cart), saluted and straightened his high, black stock.