r savagely and
slowly walked away along the gangway between the tables, glowering from
right to left, looking managerially for possible complaints.

Victoria turned back from the counter. There, behind the coffee urn
where Cora presided, stood Burton, in his blue suit, tiny beads of
perspiration appearing on his forehead. His little blue eyes fixed
themselves upon her like drills seeking in her being the line of least
resistance where he could deliver his attack. She almost fled, as if she
had seen a snake, every facet of her memory causing the touch of his hot
warm hand to materialise.

'Vic,' said Neville's voice softly as she passed, 'is it yes?'

She looked down at the handsome face.

'Yes, Beauty Boy,' she whispered, and walked away.

CHAPTER XVI

'SILLY ass,' remarked Victoria angrily. She threw Edward's letter on the
table. Unconsciously she spoke the 'Rosebud' language, for contact had
had its effect upon her; she no longer awoke with a start to the fact
that she was speaking an alien tongue, a tongue she would once have
despised.

Edward had expressed his interest in her welfare in a letter of four
pages covered with his thin writing, every letter of which was legible
and sloped at the proper angle. He 'considered it exceedingly
undesirable for her to adopt a profession such as that of waitress.' It
was comforting to know that 'he was relieved to see that she had the
common decency to change her name, and he trusted. . . .' Here Victoria
had stopped.

'I can't bear it,' she said. 'I can't, can't, can't. Twopenny little
schoolmaster lecturing me, me who've got to earn every penny I get by
fighting for it in the dirt, so to say.' Every one of Edward's features
came up before her eyes, his straggling fair hair, his bloodless face,
his fumbling ineffective hands. This pedagogue who had stepped from
scholardom to teacherdom dared to blame or eulogise the steps she took
to earn her living, to be free to live or die as she chose. It was
preposterous. What did he know of life?

Victoria seized a pen and feverishly scribbled on a crumpled sheet of
paper.

'My dear Edward,--What I do's my business. I've got to live and I
can't choose. And you can be sure that so long as I can keep myself
I shan't come to you for help or advice. Perhaps you don't know what
freedom is, never having had any. But I do and I'm going to keep it
even if it costs me the approval of you people who sit at h