Peter made no reply.
“Down on your uppers? My word, you look bad—Poor Kid! Well, never say die—strike me blimy but there's a good day coming—”
“I sat here once before,” said Peter, leaning forward and addressing her very earnestly, “and it was the first time that I ever heard the noise that London makes. If you listen you can hear it now—London's a beast you know—”
But the lady had paid very little attention. “Men are beasts, beasts,” she said, scowling at a gap in the side of her boots, “beasts, that's what they are. 'Aven't 'ad any luck the last few nights. Suppose I'm losin' my looks sittin' out 'ere in the mud and rain. There was a time, young feller, my lad, when I 'ad my carriage, not 'arf!” She spat in front of her—“'E was a good sort, 'e was—give me no end of a time ... but the lot of men I've been meetin' lately ain't fit to be called men—they ain't—mean devils—leavin' me like this, curse 'em!” She coughed. The sun had set now and the lights were coming out, like glass beads on a string on the other side of the river. “Stoppin' out all night, ducky? Stayin' 'ere? 'Cause I got a bit of a cough!—disturbs fellers a bit ... last feller said as 'ow 'e couldn't get a bit o' sleep because of it—damned rot I call it. 'Owever it isn't out of doors you ought to be sittin', chucky. Feelin' bad?”
Peter looked at her out of his half-closed eyes.
“I can't bother any more,” he said to her sleepily. “They're so cruel—they won't let me go to sleep. I've got a pain here—in my chest you know. Have you got a pain in your chest?”
“My leg's sore,” she answered, “where a chap kicked me last week—just because—oh well,” she paused modestly and spat again—“It's comin' on cold.”
A cold little wind was coming up the river, ruffling the tips of the trees and turning the leaves of the plane-trees back as though it wanted to clean the other sides of them.
Peter got up unsteadily. “I'm going home to sleep,” he said, “I'm dreadfully tired. Good-night.”
“So long, chucky,” the lady with the damaged feather said to him. He left her eyeing discontentedly the hole in her boot and trying to fasten, with confused fingers, the buttons of the red blouse.