She smiled a little sadly, but otherwise made no reply to Windebank's suggestion. She was bent on enjoying to the full her new-found sensation of security. When they reached Lupus Street, she went into the mean shops to order or get (in either case to pay for) the simple things she needed. These comprised bovril, tea, bacon, sugar, methylated spirit, bread, milk, a chop, a cauliflower, six bottles of stout, and three pounds of potatoes. Whatever shop she entered, Windebank insisted on accompanying her, and, in most cases, quadrupled her order; in others, bought all kinds of things which he thought she might want. In any other locality, the sight of a man in evening dress, with prosperity written all over him, accompanying a shabbily-dressed girl, as Mavis then was, in her shopping, would have excited comment; but in Pimlico, anything of this nature was not considered at all out of the way.
Windebank, loaded with parcels, accompanied Mavis to the door of her lodging. Here, she opened the door, and in three or four journeys to her room relieved Windebank of his burdens. She was loth to let him go. Seeing that her baby was sleeping peacefully, she said to Windebank, when she joined him outside:
"I'll walk a little way with you."
"It's very good of you."
As they walked towards Victoria, neither of them seemed eager for speech. They were both oppressed by the realisation of the inevitable roads to which life's travellers are bound, despite the personal predilections of the wayfarers.
"Little Mavis! little Mavis! what is going to happen?" he presently asked.
"I'm going to be married and live happily ever after," she answered.
"I've had shocking luck. I mean with regard to you," he continued.
Mavis making no reply to this remark, he went on:
"But what I can't understand is, why you ran away that night when I got you out of Mrs Hamilton's."