"Give me a cup of coffee," he said.
The youth clattered his wares in excited obedience.
While he was pouring out the steaming liquid there drifted down to Julian through the grey weariness of the morning a painted girl of the streets, crowned with a large hat, on which a forest of feathers waved in the weak and chilly breeze. Julian glanced at her idly enough and she glanced back at him. Horror, he thought, looked from her eyes as if from a window. As she returned his gaze she hovered near him in the peculiar desultory way of such women, and Julian, glad of any distraction, offered her a cup of coffee. She drew nearer and accepted it.
"And a bun, my dear," she hinted to the sharp-featured youth.
"And a bun," echoed Julian, seeing his doubtful pause of hesitation.
The bun came into view from a hidden basket, and the meal began, Julian, Rip, and the lady of the feathers forming a companionable group upon the kerb. The lady's curious and almost thrilling expression, which had seemed to beacon from some height of her soul some exceptional and dreary deed, faded under the influence of the dough and currants. A smile overspread her thin features. She examined Julian with a gracious interest.
"It's easy to see you've been makin' a night of it, Bertie," she remarked casually at length, in the suffocated voice of one divided between desire of conversation and love of food.
"You think so?" said Julian.
"Think so, dear, I'm sure so! Ask me another as I don't know; do darlin'."
Julian took another draught from the thick coffee-cup that held so amazingly little.