“How do you mean? The papers all said it was influenza. Oh, I see—you mean the Shakespeare one.” Her good faith was undoubted. “But no, we were speaking of drowning—of suicide.”
“No, we weren’t,” he said, soberly. The memory of his own mood a brief half-hour ago stirred uneasily within him. “And we’re not going to, either. What the mischief have you—young and healthy and happy and pretty as a peach—to do with any such things?”
“In fact,” she went on thoughtfully, as if he had not spoken, “all kinds of death seem an outrage to me. They make me angry. It is too stupid to have to die. What right have other people to say to me, ‘How you must die’? I was born to live just as much as they were, and I have every whit as much right on the earth as they have. And I have a right to what I need to keep me alive, too. That must be so, according to common-sense!” Mosscrop had listened to this declaration of principles but indifferently. A sense of drowsiness had stolen over him, and, yielding to it for the moment, he had hung his head, with an aimless regard upon the pavement. All at once he caught sight of something that roused him. His companion’s little boot, disclosed in movement beneath her skirt, was broken at the side, and almost soleless. He lagged behind for a step or two, and made sure of what he saw. The girl in the silken blouse was shod like a beggar.
“Which way are you going?” he asked, with a pretence of suddenly remembering something. He had halted, and they stood at the corner, looking up Whitehall. He smothered a yawn with a little explanatory laugh. “I made rather a night of it—it’s my birthday to-day—and I’m half asleep. I hadn’t noticed where we’d walked to. I hope I haven’t taken you out of your way.”
The girl hesitated, looked up the broad, stately street, and bit her lip in strenuous thought of some sort.
“Good morning, then!” she blurted out, confusedly, and turned to move away.
The impulse to be quit of her had been very sharply defined in his mind, and had dictated not only his words, but his awkward, half-shamefaced, half-familiar, manner in suggesting a parting. Now it vanished again with miraculous swiftness.
“No, no! You mustn’t go off like that!” he urged, and sprang forward to her side. “I only asked you which was your way.”
She was blinking her eyes in a struggle to regain facial composure. He could see that she had been on the point of tears, and the sight moved him to recklessness. It was not surprising to hear her confess: “Me? I have no way.”
He took charge of her with a fine paternal tone. “Oh yes, you have! Your way is my way. You are going with me. It’s my birthday, you know, and you have come to help me celebrate it. What do you say to beginning with a special breakfast?—or perhaps you’ve spoiled your appetite already. But you can pretend to eat a little.”