The English youth was rapt; for some moments his eyes were unseeing, and his lips moved without sound. It was not difficult to see what home meant for him, a goal achieved at hazard, something familiar and sympathetic, worth all the rest of the world. He came back to his surroundings with a long sigh.
"You don't happen to know Clapham Junction, ma'am?" he suggested. "Not the station, I don't mean, but the place? No? Well, that's where I'm off to. I 'aven't seen a tramcar for eight years; it'll be queer at first, I expect." He looked round him slowly at the low bare room and the men in white clothes and the whispering night without. "My mother takes lodgers," he added inconsequently.
"She will be glad to see you," said Miss Gregory.
"She will that," he agreed. He dropped his voice to the tones of confidence. "I got an idea," he said. "Give her a surprise. I'll go along to the house just about dark and say I'm lookin' for a room. Eh? And she'll begin about terms. Then I'll begin. 'Never you mind about terms,' I'll say. ''Ere's the price of eight years sweatin', and God bless you, old lady!'" He blinked rapidly, for his eyes were wet. "What do you think of that for a surprise?"
"Capital!" agreed Miss Gregory. "Are you going down the Coast by the boat to-morrow?"
"That's it," he cried. "I'm going second-class, like a gentleman.
Home, by gosh!"
"Then," suggested Miss Gregory, eyeing his sullen companions, "don't you think it would be best if you went and got some sleep now? You wouldn't care to miss the boat, I suppose?"
He stared at her. "No," he said, as if the contingency had just occurred to him. He sat back; his mild, insignificant face wore a look of alarm. "No, I shouldn't. It wouldn't do." His voice dropped again. "It wouldn't do," he repeated. "I've got it on me, an' this ain't what you call a moral place."
Miss Gregory nodded comprehendingly. "I know," she said. "So wouldn't it be as well on all accounts to get to bed behind a locked door?"
"You've hit it," he said. "That's what I got to do—and lock the door. That's common sense, that is." He stared at her for an instant, then rose with care and deliberation to his feet. He had altogether forgotten his companions; he did not even see them.