hat,
and the most important fact in the universe for me then was that I had no
hat. My whole life was changed; my heart and mind were in the throes of a
revolution. I dared not imagine what would happen between my aunt and me;
but this deficiency in my attire distressed me more than all else. At the
other end of the obscure corridor was a chambermaid kneeling down and
washing the linoleum. Ah, maid! Would I not have exchanged fates with
you, then! I walked boldly up to her. She seemed to be surprised, but she
continued to wring out a cloth in her pail as she looked at me.

'What time is it, please?' I asked her.

'Better than half-past six, ma'am,' said she.

She was young and emaciated.

'Have you got a hat you can lend me? Or I'll buy it from you.'

'A hat, ma'am?'

'Yes, a hat,' I repeated impatiently. And I flushed. 'I must go out at
once, and I've--I've no hat And I can't--'

It is extraordinary how in a crisis one's organism surprises one. I had
thought I was calm and full of self-control, but I had almost no command
over my voice.

'I've got a boat-shaped straw, ma'am, if that's any use to you,' said the
girl kindly.

What she surmised or what she knew I could not say. But I have found out
since in my travels, that hotel chambermaids lose their illusions early.
At any rate her tone was kindly.

'Get it me, there's a good girl,' I entreated her.

And when she brought it, I drew out the imitation pearl pins and put them
between my teeth, and jammed the hat on my head and skewered it savagely
with the pins.

'Is that right?'

'It suits you better than it does me, ma'am, I do declare,' she said.
'Oh, ma'am, this is too much--I really couldn't!'

I had given her five shillings.

'Nonsense! I am very much obliged to you,' I whispered hurriedly,
and ran off.

She was a good girl. I hope she has never suffered. And yet I would
not like to think she had died of consumption before she knew what
life meant.

I hastened from the hotel. A man in a blue waistcoat with shining black
sleeves was moving a large cocoa-nut mat in the hall, and the pattern of
the mat was shown in dust on the tiles where the mat had been. He glanced
at me absently as I flitted past; I encountered no other person. The
square between the hotel and the station was bathed in pure
sunshine--such sunshine as reaches the Five Towns only after a rain-storm
has washed the soot out of the air. I felt, for a moment, obscene in that
sunsh