the second
interview; yet he tried his best to do so, and amused himself with
imagining for Ida a romantic past, for her and himself together a yet
more romantic future. In spite of the strange nature of their
relations, he did not delude himself with the notion that the girl had
fallen in love with him at first sight, and that she stood before him
to take or reject as he chose. He had a certain awe of her. He divined
in her a strength of character which made her his equal; it might well
be, his superior. Take, for instance, the question of the life she was
at present leading. In the case of an ordinary pretty and good-natured
girl falling in his way as Ida Starr had done, he would have exerted
whatever influence he might acquire over her to persuade her into
better paths. Any such direct guidance was, he felt, out of the
question here. The girl had independence of judgment; she would resent
anything said by him on the assumption of her moral inferiority, and,
for aught he knew, with justice. The chances were at least as great
that he might prove unworthy of her, as that she should prove unworthy
of him.

When he presented himself at the house in the little court by Temple
Bar, it was the girl Sally who opened the door to him. She beckoned him
to follow, and ran before him upstairs. The sitting-room presented the
same comfortable appearance, and Grim, rising lazily from the
hearthrug, came forward purring a welcome, but Ida was not there.

"She was obliged to go out," said Sally, in answer to his look of
inquiry. "She won't be long, and she said you was to make yourself
comfortable till she came back."

On a little side-table stood cups and saucers, and a box of cigars. The
latter Sally brought forward.

"I was to ask you to smoke, and whether you'd like a cup of coffee with
it?" she asked, with the curious _naivete_ which marked her mode of
speech.

"The kettle's boiling on the side," she added, seeing that Waymark
hesitated. "I can make it in a minute."

"In that case, I will."

"You don't mind me having one as well?"

"Of course not."

"Shall I talk, or shall I keep quiet? I'm not a servant here, you
know," she added, with an amusing desire to make her position clear.
"Ida and me's friends, and she'd do just as much for I."

"Talk by all means," said Waymark, smiling, as he lit his cigar. The
result was that, in a quarter of an hour Sally had related her whole
history. As Ida had said, she came from Wey