'What you want,' he told her, with smiling vehemence, 'is a revenge. Hitherto you've done nothing; you've only had things done to you. You've made nothing; you've only been made into things yourself. Life has played with you; go and play with it.'
Trix listened, sitting very still, with eager eyes. There was a life, then—a life still open to her; the door was not shut, nor her story of necessity ended.
'I daresay you'll scorch your fingers; for the fire burns. But it's better to die of heat than of cold. And if trouble comes, call at 6A Danes Inn.'
'Where in the world is Danes Inn?' she asked, laughing.
'Between New and Clement's, of course.' He looked at her in momentary surprise, and then laughed. 'Oh, well, not above a mile from civilisation—and a shilling cab from aristocracy. I happen to lodge there.'
She looked at him curiously. He was shabby yet rather distinguished, shaggy but clean. He advised life, and he lived in Danes Inn, where an instinct told her that life would not be a very maddening or riotous thing.
'Come, you must live again, Mrs. Trevalla,' he urged.
'Do you live, as you call it?' she asked, half in mockery, half in a genuine curiosity.
A shade of doubt, perhaps of distress, spread over his face. He knocked out his pipe deliberately before answering.
'Well, hardly, perhaps.' Then he added eagerly, 'I work, though.'