“Of course,” she began again, “there's a room that I could let you have at the back of the house that's only four shillings a week and really you'd be doing me a kindness in taking it off my hands. I'm sure—”
“No, there's more in it than that,” he answered. “I've got to go away—right away. It's time I had a change of scene. It's good for me to get along a bit by myself. You've all been too kind to me, spoilt me—”
She stood up and faced him sternly. “In all my years,” she said, “I've never spoilt anybody yet and I'm not likely to be going to begin now. Spoilt you! Bah!” She almost snorted at him—but there were tears in her eyes.
“I'm not a philanthropist,” she went on more dryly than ever, “but I like to have you about the house—you keep the lodgers contented and the babies quiet. I'm sure,” and the little break in her voice was the first sign of submission, “that we've been very good friends these seven years and it isn't everywhere that one can pick up friends for the asking—”
“You've been splendid to me,” he answered. “But it isn't as though I were going away altogether—you'll see me back in a week or two. And—and—I say I shall make a fool of myself if I go on talking like this—”
He suddenly gripped her hand and wrung it again and again—then he burst away from her, leaving her standing there in the middle of the room.
The old black bag was very soon packed, his possessions had not greatly increased during these seven years, and soon he was creeping down the stairs softly so that no one should hear.
The hall was empty. He gave it one last friendly look, the door had closed behind him and he was in the street.
II
In its exuberance and high spirits and general lack of self-control London was similar to a small child taken to the Drury Lane Pantomime for the first time. Of the numbers of young men who, with hats on the back of their heads, passed arm-in-arm down the main thoroughfares announcing it as their definite opinion that “Britons never shall be slaves,” of the numbers of young women who, armed with feathers and the sharpest of tongues, showed conclusively the superiority of their sex and personal attractions, of the numbers of old men and old women who had no right whatever to be out on a night like this but couldn't help themselves, and enjoyed it just as much as their sons and daughters did, there is here no room to tell. The houses were ablaze with light, the very lamp-posts seemed to rock up and down with delight at the spirit of the whole affair and the Feast of the Glorification of the Bomb that Didn't Come Off was being celebrated with all the honours.