"But look at 'em, poor little beggars!" he said. "Dash it all, I'm not just blowing off—I could do such lots for him—he could ride—and shoot—and fish—and I've a corking little pony at grass now." He mentioned these things one after the other, slowly, as they occurred to him.
Louie groaned inwardly, but aloud she said: "Please don't come any farther. Good-bye."
"But I may come again? You see, I jolly well know I could persuade you."
"N-o——"
"I shall, though—you bet," Roy announced.
She left him, wondering whether it would have made any difference at all had he, in asking her to marry him, told her once, even once, that he loved her.
But she did not return home. Instead, she walked past the block of flats, crossed Putney Bridge, and sought her old Nursing Home in Mortlake Road. As a drunkard might pant for a drink, so now in her extremity she wanted to hear gaiety and laughter and talk. Though she paid for it in prostration afterwards, she felt that without some such intermission she could never get through the night. And to-morrow was that dead day, Sunday. Further than that she did not see; beyond the anodyne of an ordinary human laugh she did not inquire. It seemed to her a matter of the last moment to herself that Miss Dot and Miss Cora should be at home; if they were not, she felt that she must walk straight into a public-house, as a man might, and get herself something to drink.
But Miss Cora and Miss Dot were at home; they had just come in from a matinée. They made an onslaught on Louie. Had she seen the piece? Oh, the funniest thing! They really had had some luck at the theatre at last! The last time it had been a slum piece, all heartstrings and gutter-snipes; and the time before that—would Louie believe it!—just when they had expected to see frocks and dancing and suchlike, the curtain had gone up on a dentist's parlour! Two half-crowns for seats in the pit for that! It was almost like paying money to go and see another Nursing Home!
"But give the poor girl some tea—what are we thinking of!" said Miss Cora.
"No, thanks—I've given two people tea this afternoon already," said Louie. "Tell me about the play."