"No, leave it as it is, I like it." He sat down in a chair near her and put
a pile of manuscript on the floor beside him. "I've brought it for you to
read," he said, "I'm frightened about it. I suddenly think it is the most
rotten thing that ever was written." He had become very intimate with her
during these seven years. At first he had admired her because she behaved
so splendidly to her abominable mother--then she had obviously been
interested in him, had talked about the things that he was reading and his
life at the bookshop. They had speedily become the very best of friends,
and she understood friendship he thought in the right way--as though she
had herself been a man. And yet she was with that completely feminine, a
woman who had known struggle from the beginning and would know it to the
end; but her personality--humorous, pathetic, understanding--was felt in
her presence so strongly that no one ever forgot her after meeting her.
Some one once said of her, "She's the nicest ugly woman to look at I've
ever seen."
She cared immensely about her appearance. She saved, through blood and
tears, to buy clothes and then always bought the wrong ones. She had
perfect taste about everything except herself, and as soon as it touched
her it was villainous. She was untidy; her hair--streaked already with
grey--was never in its place; her dress was generally undone at the back,
her gloves had holes.
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