With that came the recollection that she was penniless. The few chance shillings that she had with her she had spent on her railway ticket. She remembered thinking of that in the train;—she remembered finding Lady Henrietta's battered brooch that she had pinned in her dress to take to the jeweller,—and the diamond star that was the one thing she had to sell. Ah, that was between her and destitution. She started up. What had she done with it? She had been too utterly weary to think or care.
The draught was beating the dingy dividing curtain that swung on its iron rod; it bulged like a sail over the top of the chest of drawers, sweeping it clear; and it parted, giving a glimpse of a girl beyond with the star in her hands. She started.
"I was just putting it back," she said. "The curtain knocked it off on my side. How it sparkles!"
Susan stretched out her fingers, a little too eagerly.
"You needn't be so sharp," said the girl, disconcerted. "I could buy heaps like it for a shilling apiece at a shop in the Edgware Road," and she threw it back carelessly, and began to whistle to show she was not abashed.
She had a plain, good-humoured, impudent face and dusty hair. On her arms she wore a pair of black stockings with the feet cut off, fastened by safety pins to her under bodice. She was tying her petticoat.
"I want to sell this," said Susan. In her loneliness she was loth to offend a stranger.—"But I hope I shall get more than a shilling for it."
"I'll give you three," said the girl, and then was all at once smitten with awe. "I say—you don't mean to say it's real?"
Her off-hand manner became subdued; she looked curiously but respectfully at Susan.
"You came here unexpectedly, didn't you?" she said. "Did you know you had slept all Sunday? Mrs. White said you were dead tired, and that you were a lady. I'll lend you my brush, if you like;—and a bit of soap."