The landlady had followed and was standing by.
I asked how much and found I was to be charged five shillings which seemed a modest sum.
The girl locked the door, as the landlady went out, and began taking off her hat and jacket. She stood before me with half-challenging, half-speculative eyes. She was a slim, graceful, shabby figure and a note of pathos came out unexpectedly in a little air of bravado as she rested one hand on her hip and smiled at me. I was standing in front of the mantelpiece, below which was the grate ready to be fired. The girl stood beside me and watched and plainly wondered. She was beginning to suspect that I was not there on the usual errand. Her eyes, so curiously soft and blue, began to irritate me. Her hair I noticed was brown but coarse and dusty—not well kept. These poor little creatures know absolutely nothing of the art of living or fascination. They are the shabbiest pawns in life, mere husks of beauty and living on husks.
“Sit down, please,” I said. She obeyed like a child. “So you’re Welsh. What part of Wales do you come from?”
She told me some outlandish name.
“What were your parents? Poor, I suppose.”
“Indeed not,” she bridled with that quaint country accent. “My father was a grocer. He had three stores.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said mockingly. “You women lie so. I don’t believe you’re telling me the truth.”
It was brutal, but I wanted to get beneath the conventional lies these girls tell, if I could.
“Why not?” Her clear eyes looked into mine.