he
anxiety I felt as to her reply. She looked me straight in the face.
There was one virtue she possessed--the virtue that animals hold above
mankind--truthfulness. She knew I disliked her--hate would be, perhaps,
a more exact expression, did not the word sound out of date, and she made
no pretence of not knowing it and returning the compliment.

"Because I am here," she answered. "Why don't you save him? Have you no
influence over him? Tell the Saint to keep him; I don't want him. You
heard what I said to him last night. I shall only marry him for the sake
of his position, and the money he can earn if he likes to work and not
play the fool. Tell him what I have said; I shan't deny it."

She passed on to greet a decrepit old lord with a languishing smile, and
I stood staring after her with, I fear, a somewhat stupid expression,
until some young fool came up grinning, to ask me whether I had seen a
ghost or backed a "wrong 'un."

There was no need to wait; I felt no curiosity. Something told me the
woman had spoken the truth. It was mere want of motive that made me
linger. I saw him come in, and watched him hanging round her, like a
dog, waiting for a kind word, or failing that, a look. I knew she saw
me, and I knew it added to her zest that I was there. Not till we were
in the street did I speak to him. He started as I touched him. We were
neither of us good actors. He must have read much in my face, and I saw
that he had read it; and we walked side by side in silence, I thinking
what to say, wondering whether I should do good or harm, wishing that we
were anywhere but in these silent, life-packed streets, so filled with
the unseen. It was not until we had nearly reached the Albert Hall that
we broke the silence. Then it was he who spoke:

"Do you think I haven't told myself all that?" he said. "Do you think I
don't know I'm a damned fool, a cad, a liar! What the devil's the good
of talking about it?"

"But I can't understand it," I said.

"No," he replied, "because you're a fool, because you have only seen one
side of me. You think me a grand gentleman, because I talk big, and am
full of noble sentiment. Why, you idiot, the Devil himself could take
you in. _He_ has his fine moods, I suppose, talks like a saint, and says
his prayers with the rest of us. Do you remember the first night at old
Fauerberg's? You poked your silly head into the dormitory, and saw me
kneeling by the bedside, whil