"Not like me, Jane," raising his voice, and trying
to speak carelessly. "Like himself. I'm so poor learned, I can't do
anything for sech as them. Like him. Jane," after another silence, "I've
seen IT."
She looked at him.
"The engine. Jane"--
"I know."
She turned sharply and walked away, the bluish light of the first
moonbeams lighting up her face and shoulders suddenly as she went off
down the wall. Was it that which brought out from the face of the
middle-aged working woman such a strange meaning of latent youth,
beauty, and passion? God only knows when the real childhood comes into a
life, how early or late; but one might fancy this woman had waited long
for hers, and it was coming to-night, the coarse hardness of look was
swept away so suddenly. The great thought and hope of her life surged up
quick, uncontrollably; her limbs shook, the big, mournful animal eyes
were wet with tears, her very horny hands worked together uncertainly
and helpless as a child's. On the face, too, especially about the mouth,
such a terror of pain, such a hungry wish to smile, to be tender, that I
think a baby would have liked to put up its lips then to be kissed, and
have hid its face on her neck.
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