The Green Rust | Page 6

up like the Hotel Doodledum --per arduis
ad astra--through labour to the stars--fine motto. Flying Corps'
motto--my motto. Goo' night!"
Off came his hat again and he staggered up the broad stone stairs and
disappeared round a turn. Later they heard his door slam.
"Awful--and yet--"
"And yet?" echoed the doctor.
"I thought he was funny. I nearly laughed. But how terrible! He's so
young and he has had a decent education."
She shook her head sadly.
Presently she took leave of the doctor and made her way upstairs. Three
doors opened from the landing. Numbers 4, 6 and 8.
She glanced a little apprehensively at No. 4 as she passed, but there was
no sound or sign of the reveller, and she passed into No. 6 and closed
the door.
The accommodation consisted of two rooms, a bed- and a sitting-room,
a bath-room and a tiny kitchen. The rent was remarkably low, less than
a quarter of her weekly earnings, and she managed to live comfortably.
She lit the gas-stove and put on the kettle and began to lay the table.
There was a "tin of something" in the diminutive pantry, a small loaf
and a jug of milk, a tomato or two and a bottle of dressing--the high tea
to which she sat down (a little flushed of the face and quite happy) was
seasoned with content. She thought of the doctor and accounted herself
lucky to have so good a friend. He was so sensible, there was no
"nonsense" about him. He never tried to hold her hand as the stupid

buyers did, nor make clumsy attempts to kiss her as one of the partners
had done.
The doctor was different from them all. She could not imagine him
sitting by the side of a girl in a bus pressing her foot with his, or
accosting her in the street with a "Haven't we met before?"
She ate her meal slowly, reading the evening newspaper and dreaming
at intervals. It was dusk when she had finished and she switched on the
electric light. There was a shilling-in-the-slot meter in the bath-room
that acted eccentrically. Sometimes one shilling would supply light for
a week, at other times after two days the lights would flicker
spasmodically and expire.
She remembered that it was a perilous long time since she had bribed
the meter and searched her purse for a shilling. She found that she had
half-crowns, florins and sixpences, but she had no shillings. This, of
course, is the chronic condition of all users of the slot-meters, and she
accepted the discovery with the calm of the fatalist. She considered.
Should she go out and get change from the obliging tobacconist at the
corner or should she take a chance?
"If I don't go out you will," she said addressing the light, and it winked
ominously. She opened the door and stepped into the passage, and as
she did so the lights behind her went out. There was one small lamp on
the landing, a plutocratic affair independent of shilling meters. She
closed the door behind her and walked to the head of the stairs. As she
passed No. 4, she noted the door was ajar and she stopped. She did not
wish to risk meeting the drunkard, and she turned back.
Then she remembered the doctor, he lived in No. 8. Usually when he
was at home there was a light in his hall which showed through the
fanlight. Now, however, the place was in darkness. She saw a card on
the door and walking closer she read it in the dun light.
|________________|
|Back at 12. Wait.|

|________________|
He was out and was evidently expecting a caller. So there was nothing
for it but to risk meeting the exuberant Mr. Beale. She flew down the
stairs and gained the street with a feeling of relief.
The obliging tobacconist, who was loquacious on the subject of
Germans and Germany, detained her until her stock of patience was
exhausted; but at last she made her escape. Half-way across the street
she saw the figure of a man standing in the dark hallway of the
chambers, and her heart sank.
"Matilda, you're a fool," she said to herself.
Her name was not Matilda, but in moments of self-depreciation she was
wont to address herself as such.
She walked boldly up to the entrance and passed through. The man she
saw out of the corner of her eye but did not recognize. He seemed as
little desirous of attracting attention as she. She thought he was rather
stout and short, but as to this she was not sure. She raced up the stairs
and turned on the landing to her room. The door of No. 4 was still
ajar--but what was much more