lve pounds,
eight shillings and four pence. This was a terrible blow; the outfit for
the interview with Carrel and the trip to France had dug an enormous
hole in Victoria's resources.

'I must hurry up and find something,' said Victoria to herself. 'Twelve
pounds eight and fourpence--say twelve weeks--and then?'

The next morning reconciled her a little to her fate. True, the paper
yielded no help, but a lengthy account of Carrel's preliminary
examination occupied three quarters of a column in the police court
report. It was apparently a complicated case, for Carrel had been
remanded and bail refused. The report did not yield her much
information. Apparently Carrel was indicted for other counts than the
exporting of the dancing girls to Vichy, for nine women had appeared.
Victoria had quite a thrill of horror when she read the line in which
the well schooled reporter dismissed the evidence of Miss 'S,' by saying
that Miss 'S----' here gave an account of her experience in the green
room of the Folichon-Palace in 1902.' The baldness of the statement was
appalling in its suggestiveness. She had been called, apparently, but no
comment was made on her non-appearance.

'That's all over,' said Victoria with decision, throwing the newspaper
down. She rose from the armchair, shook herself and opened the window to
let out the smell of breakfast. Then she put on her hat and gloves and
decided to have a walk to cheer herself up. Mindful that she was in a
sense a fugitive, she avoided the Marble Arch and made for the Park
through the desolate respectability of Lancaster Gate.

She made for the South East, unconsciously guided by the hieratic shot
tower of Westminster. It was early; the freshness of May still
bejewelled with dew drops the crisp new grass; the gravel, stained dark
by moisture, hardly crunched under her feet, but gave like springy turf.
Forgetting her depleted exchequer Victoria stepped briskly as if on
business bent, looking at nothing but absorbing as through her skin the
kisses of the western wind. At Hyde Park Corner she turned into St
James's Park, and, passing the barracks, received with an old familiar
thrill a covert smile from the handsome sentry. After all she was young,
and it was good somehow to be once more smiled at by a soldier.
Soldiers, soldiers--stupid perhaps, but could one help liking them?
Victoria let her thoughts run back to Dicky--poor old wasted Dicky--and
the Colonel and his liver, and Bob