quartern in that public house.
I'll wait whilst you go in. But don't buy a bottle; I know you haven't
got any money to throw away?" she added.

When he came out, she noted, with evident satisfaction, that he had
obeyed her. "This will make a lovely supper," she declared, and her
smile showed she meant it. "I like shopping like this. It's always nicer
than a cafe, and much less expensive."

Her last remark reminded him of what she had said just as he was going
in for the whisky.

"Why do you think I haven't got any money to throw away?" he asked.

She gave a wise little nod. "You tell me you write, and I know literary
men never have anything to spare."

Jimmy laughed. "How do you know?"

Lalage turned away. "Never mind, but I do know, only too well."

CHAPTER XI

"I have not heard from you for several days," Mrs. Marlow wrote to
Jimmy, "though I have had a couple of letters from Eliza Benn, who says
that for two consecutive nights you did not come home. The first night
you wired to her, but the second time she sat up until after midnight,
fearing lest it might not be safe to let you have a light. I need not
say how annoying it is to hear these things from one's former servants.
Both Henry and I trust that you are not already getting into dissipated
ways, and that you will remember that you belong to a respectable
family, which will have to bear a large share of any disgrace into which
you may fall, or be led." Then there was a postscript. "Eliza Benn is a
person for whom I have a great regard; and I hear that her husband holds
quite an excellent situation in Mr. Grimmer's salesrooms, where he is
paid thirty-five shillings a week, which, Henry says, would only be
given to a most experienced and steady man."

Jimmy tore the letter across savagely and tossed it into the fire. It
annoyed him the more because his sister had got within measurable
distance of the truth, at least from her point of view. He had already
had some uncomfortable moments over the thought of what the family would
say if it ever came to know of Lalage. He had not seen the latter again,
but, though it was less than forty-eight hours since they had parted, he
had written to her twice, and he could not disguise from himself the
fact that she filled his life to the exclusion of all else. No other
woman had ever appealed to him in the same way. Lalage had gripped his
imagination. He could remember every word she had said, and, having been