CHAPTER XXVI

PITY'S BILL COMES IN

RUDD, having been calling on Mrs. Voaden at

Hampstead, was walking down Fitzjohn's Avenue a little before seven, on his way to Swiss Cottage station, when a few yards ahead of him, through the dusk, he noticed a girl come out of the gate of one of the large houses and stand irresolute on the pavement, looking this way and that in dismal perplexity.

She was slight and graceful, and Rudd stopped to light a cigarette in order to observe her more closely.

After a few moments' more irresolution, she made a little after-all-what-does-it-matter? gesture and began to descend the hill with listless steps.

Her hat

Rudd saw the whole thing in a flash. told him that she was a servant, and he realized that she was probably from the country, that this was her evening out, and she had nowhere to go and no one to go with. A wave of pity for her and all her class thus stranded swept over him and in a moment he was at her side.

"Excuse me," he said, joining her and taking off his hat.

She turned a half-alarmed wistful little face towards him.

"Yes," she gasped, "what is it?”

"Please don't be frightened," Rudd said, "please don't; but could I do anything for you?"

"No, no," the girl hurriedly replied. "Why should you?" she added.

"Well," said Rudd, "I don't know why, but I was afraid you're not very happy and I thought perhaps you would let me look after you a little."

She drew back. Old stories of London and its wicked ways were crowding into her memory.

"Please don't be frightened," he repeated. "I'll go right away at once if you wish it. Only I had a sort of idea that you had the whole evening in front of you and didn't know how to spend it.”

She looked at him in surprise. "How did you know?" she asked.

"I just guessed it," he said, “and I thought perhaps you might care to go to a music-hall or theatre. I'm free too, you see. But I'm frightening you. It's all right, I'll go on. Good night."

"Oh, no," said the girl. "You're very kind," she added. "Are you sure you only guessed it?"

She looked at him searchingly and he was aware of pure grey troubled eyes of liquid candour.

"Honour bright," Rudd said. "It wasn't so very difficult. You looked a little as though you were from

the country and lost in London, you know. Now, then, is it a bargain? Shall I take care of you just for this evening?"

"But you're a gentleman," she said simply.

"I hope so," said Rudd.

"And I'm only a servant," she added.

"Oh," said Rudd, who had not quite taken her meaning and always hated class distinctions, "if it comes to that, we're all servants. I know I am. I have to begin work at nine every morning. But this evening I'm free, and I know so well what it is to be lonely in London. I'm from the country too. But look here. I know what you thought, for a moment at any rate. You thought I was one of those swine who walk about waiting to find girls alone. To prove I'm not and merely felt an impulse to try and make you a little happier, here's five shillings. Do take it, like a good girl, and go to a pit somewhere, and I'll

run on."

"Oh no, I couldn't," said the girl; "I can't go to plays alone. I don't care for them alone. Besides I have to be in by ten."

"Very well, then," said Rudd, "let me look after you till ten."

And the girl prettily acquiesced.

No sooner had she done so than he wondered why on earth he had been so foolish as to speak to her at all, but having now begun he continued.

They got on a bus at Swiss Cottage and bowled

down to Baker Street, talking with some difficulty the while.

The girl's name was Rose. She came from Norwich and had been in her present place only three weeks. She had an attractive East Anglian accent.

Rudd was wondering where he could possibly take her, for the necessity of her early return put any play out of the question, and a music-hall seemed rather silly, for this was before the days of the two-performances-a-night system, and the convenient cinema was not yet. And then he caught sight of Madame Tussaud's and proposed that.

"Oh yes," Rose said, "I've always heard about Madame Tussaud's. I'd like to go there."

They went first to a little Italian restaurant close by, in Baker Street; but the meal was a failure, for Rose refused to drink anything, either from the vestiges of suspicion or because she was a teetotaller, and Rudd, who wished himself miles distant, had difficulty in knowing what to say. Norwich was useful for a few minutes, as he had once been there for an afternoon; but the Norwich which interested him-the Norwich, that is, of Borrow-did not exist for her. They met however on common ground in the Cathedral and its Close and again in the market-place; but there parted once more.

Of books she knew nothing and he did not like to ask her much about her present employers; but she talked freely of her family, her married sisters and so forth.

"What would you have done if I hadn't been so rude and spoken to you?" Rudd asked.

"You weren't rude," she said, "you were very kind. I don't know why you should be so kind. I should have walked about, and looked in the shops in the Edgware Road, and bought some sweets, and then have walked back again."

"You must make some friends," Rudd said.

"I expect I shall in time," she replied.

"But how dull for you," he said, "until you do!" "It's all right," she said simply, and again, young as he was, he marvelled at the calm acquiescence in monotony that women can display.

At Madame Tussaud's they got on better. Here Rose quickly showed signs of animation. The great brightly lit galleries, the handsome costumes, the imposing personages counterfeited-all these delighted her.

"Isn't it wonderful?" she said again and again. "Fancy being among all these kings and queens and grand people!"

Before the Sleeping Beauty she gripped Rudd in a moment of excitement at the marvel of mechanical respiration, and after that he held her arm as he piloted her from one figure to another and explained who they were.

"That's President Carnot," he said, and related the circumstances of his assassination.

"They're all murdered, French Presidents, aren't they?" Rose asked.