She lingered over her tea, and glancing around, a sudden reflection on the change in her surroundings from the scene of her last night’s supper brought a faint, humorous smile to her lips.
“In two days,” she reflected, “Mrs. White will present her bill. I have one shilling and sevenpence halfpenny left. I have two days in which to earn nearly thirty shillings—that is with no dinners, and get a situation. I fancy that this is a little more than playing at Bohemianism.”
“So far,” she continued, eyeing hungrily the last morsel of roll which lay upon her plate, “my only chance of occupation has lain with a photographer who engaged me on the spot and insulted me in half an hour. What beasts men are! I cannot typewrite, my three stories are still wandering round, two milliners have refused me as a lay figure because business was so bad. I am no use for a clerk, because I do not understand shorthand. After all, I fancy that I shall have to apply for a situation as a nursery governess who understands French. Faugh!”
She took up the last morsel of roll, and held it delicately between her long slim fingers. Then her white teeth gleamed, and her excuse for remaining any longer before that little marble table was gone. She rose, paid her bill, and turned westwards.
She walked with long swinging steps, scorning the thought of buses or the tube. If ever she felt fatigue in these long tramps which had already taken her half over London, she never admitted it. Asking her way once or twice, she passed along Fleet Street into the Strand, and crossed Trafalgar Square, into Piccadilly. Here she walked more slowly, looking constantly at the notices in the shop windows. One she entered and met with a sharp rebuff, which she appeared to receive unmoved. But when she reached the pavement outside her teeth were clenched, and she carried herself unconsciously an inch or so higher. It was just then that she came face to face with Nigel Ennison.
He was walking listlessly along, well-dressed, debonnair, good-looking. Directly he saw Anna he accosted her. His manner was deferential, even eager. Anna, who was disposed to be sharply critical, could find no fault with it.
“How fortunate I am, Miss Pellissier! All day I have been hoping that I might run across you. You got my note?”
“I certainly received a note,” Anna admitted.
“You were going to answer it?”
“Certainly not!” she said deliberately.