"Look here, Maryska, people will talk if you come to my lodgings!"
"Will they not talk if I stop away?"
"They'll say rotten things. I shouldn't like to have them said about you."
"But, Harry, do you always live alone in your rooms?"
"I don't take ladies there, Maryska."
She was amazed.
"It is not wicked to be with you in the street, then, but wicked in your rooms. Ecco! what a country! And all the people are frozen and the wind eats them up, and they are so frightened of us they lock us out of their lodgings. How he would have laughed! Why, all the ladies in Ragusa came to his room, and he would sing and laugh all day. It was not wicked there! He would not have done it when I was with him, if it had been."
He tried to tell her that countries have different customs, and that what is done in the south may not be done in the north with impunity. But she was wholly unconvinced, and the spice of daring being added to the dish of her thoughts, she led him insensibly towards Holly Place and not towards Well Walk as they approached Hampstead.
"Just to see what this wicked place is like, Harry. Surely, I may stand at your door and see you go in? They will not punish me, these horrid English, for that. Oh, yes, I shall stand at your door and see you go in, and you will give me some wine. Do you know that we have nothing but syrup at the Silvesters'? Oh, mon pauvre! it is all ice inside as well as out. I go thirsty all day—there was wine always when he was alive, and now there is none! I shall wait upon your doorway until you give me a little wine, Harry."
This idea pleased her very much, and she danced and sang her way through the silent streets upon it. Even the searching cold of the early night did not affright her, nor those suggestions of loneliness and isolation which usually attended her journey northward. She was going to see Harry's rooms and to drink some wine when she got there! The fact that he had nothing but good Scotch whisky did not enter into her calculations.