Tatterdemalion | Page 9

him,
and he said:
"What's the matter?"
Again her eyelids fluttered sideways, and she stammered:
"Not'ing. The beautiful evening that's why!"
That a woman of what he now clearly saw to be " a certain type "
should perceive what he himself had just been perceiving, struck him
forcibly; and he said:
"Cheer up."
She looked up again swiftly. " All right! But you are not lonelee like
me."
For one of that sort, she looked somehow honest; her tear-streaked face
was rather pretty, and he murmured:
"Well, let's walk a bit and talk it over."
They turned the corner, and walked east, along streets empty and

beautiful, with their dulled orange-glowing lamps, and here and there
the glint of some blue or violet light. He found it queer and rather
exciting for an adventure of just this kind he had never had. And he
said doubtfully:
"How did you get into this? Isn't it an awfully hopeless sort of life?"
"Ye-es, it ees" her voice had a queer soft emphasis. "You are limping --
haf you been wounded?"
"Just out of hospital to-day."
"The horrible war -- all the misery is because of the war. When will it
end?"
He looked at her attentively, and said:
"I say what nationality are you?"
"Rooshian."
"Really! I never met a Russian girl."
He was conscious that she looked at him, then very quickly down. And
he said suddenly:
"Is it as bad as they make out?"
She slipped her yellow-gloved hand through his arm.
"Not when I haf any one as nice as you; I never haf yet, though;" she
smiled and her smile was like her speech, slow, confiding. "You
stopped because I was sad, others stop because I am gay. I am not fond
of men at all. When you know, you are not fond of them."
"Well! You hardly know them at their best, do you? You should see
them at the front. By George! they're simply splendid officers and men,
every blessed soul. There's never been anything like it just one long bit
of jolly fine self-sacrifice; it's perfectly amazing."

Turning her blue-grey eyes on him, she answered:
"I expect you are not the last at that. You see in them what you haf in
yourself, I think."
"Oh! not a bit you're quite out. I assure you when we made the attack
where I got wounded there wasn't a single man in my regiment who
wasn't an absolute hero. The way they went in never thinking of
themselves it was simply superb!"
Her teeth came down on her lower lip, and she answered in a queer
voice: " It is the same too, perhaps, with the enemy."
"Oh, yes, I know that."
"Ah! You are not a mean man. How I hate mean men!"
"Oh! they're not mean really they simply don't understand,"
"Oh! you are a baby -- a good baby, aren't you?"
He did not quite like being called a baby, and frowned; but was at once
touched by the disconcertion in her powdered face. How quickly she
was scared!
She said clingingly:
"But I li-ike you for it. It is so good to find a ni-ice man."
This was worse, and he said abruptly:
"About being lonely? Haven't you any Russian friends?"
"Rooshian! No! =" Then quickly added: "The town is so beeg! Haf you
been in the concert?"
"Yes."
"I, too -- I love music."

"I suppose all Russians do."
She looked up at his face again, and seemed to struggle to keep silent;
then she said quietly:
"I go there always when I haf the money."
"What! Are you so on the rocks?"
"Well, I haf just one shilling now." And she laughed.
The sound of that little laugh upset him she had a way of making him
feel sorry for her every time she spoke.
They had come by now to a narrow square, east of Gower Street.
"This is where I lif," she said. "Come in!"
He had one long moment of violent hesitation, then yielded to the soft
tugging of her hand, and followed. The passage-hall was dimly lighted,
and they went upstairs into a front room, where the curtains were drawn,
and the gas turned very low. Opposite the window were other curtains
dividing off the rest of the apartment. As soon as the door was shut she
put up her face and kissed him evidently formula. What a room! Its
green and beetroot colouring and the prevalence of cheap plush
disagreeably affected him. Everything in it had that callous look of
rooms which seem to be saying to their occupants:
"You're here to-day and you'll be gone tomorrow." Everything except
one little plant, in a common pot, of maidenhair fern, frssh and green,
looking as if it had been