A sentence rang through his mind: "The birds of the air have nests."
"Where do you sleep?" he asked.
"Anywhere," she replied.
"And how do you live?"
"Anyhow."
The lowest depths of human poverty had not been abolished by Act of Parliament after all.
A knock at the door interrupted the reflection. The child had already heard the step and sought to efface herself in the darkest corner.
Hampden had not noticed the significance of the knock. He opened the door, prepared to admit the Home Secretary. So thoroughly had he dissociated his own personality from the issue, that he felt the keenest interest that the man should arrive before it was too late. He opened the door to admit him, and experienced an actual pang of disappointment when he saw who stood outside.
He had sent a telegram instead. Whatever the telegram said did not matter very much. Hampden instinctively guessed that he was not coming then—was not on his way. Anything less than that would be too late.
He took the orange envelope and opened it beneath the flaring gas that piped and whistled at the stairhead.