. Father was in a French
cavalry regiment, and got knocked out on the Marne. They lived in Arras
before the war, and you can guess that there wasn't much left of the
home. One much older sister was a widow with a big family; the other was
a kid of ten or eleven, so this one went into the business to keep the
family going. Fact. The mother used to come and see her, and I got to
know her. She didn't seem to mind: said the doctors looked after them
well, and the girl was making good money. Hullo!" he broke off, "there's
Louise," and to Peter's horror he half-rose and smiled across at a girl
some few tables away.

She got up and came over, beamed on them all, and took the seat Alex
vacated. "Good-evening," she said, in fair English, scrutinising them.
"What is it you say, 'How's things'?"

Alex pressed a drink on her and beckoned the waiter. She took a syrup,
the rest martinis. Peter sipped his, and watched her talking to Alex and
Pennell. The other Australian got up and crossed the room, and sat down
with some other men.

The stories he had heard moved him profoundly. He wondered if they were
true, but he seemed to see confirmation in the girl before him. Despite
some making up, it was a clean face, if one could say so. She was
laughing and talking with all the ease in the world, though Peter noticed
that her eyes kept straying round the room. Apparently his friends had
all her attention, but he could see it was not so. She was on the watch
for clients, old or new. He thought how such a girl would have disgusted
him a few short weeks ago, but he did not feel disgusted now. He could
not. He did not know what he felt. He wondered, as he looked, if she were
one of "the multitude," and then the fragment of a text slipped through
his brain: "The Friend of publicans and sinners." "_The_ Friend": the
little adjective struck him as never before. Had they ever had another?
He frowned to himself at the thought, and could not help wondering
vaguely what his Vicar or the Canon would have done in Travalini's. Then
he wondered instantly what that Other would have done, and he found no
answer at all.

"Yes, but I do not know your friend yet," he heard the girl say, and saw
she was being introduced to Pennell. She held out a decently gloved hand
with a gesture that startled him--it was so like Hilda's. Hilda! The
comparison dazed him. He fancied he could see her utter disgust, and then
he involuntarily shook his head; it would be too