“Life in London is terribly monotonous,” she said as I pushed the dessert-plate aside, and lit a cigarette. “I often wish I were back in Stamford again. Here one can never make any friends.”
“That’s quite true,” I replied, for only those who have come from the country to earn their bread know the utter loneliness of the great metropolis with its busy, hurrying millions. In London one may be a householder for ten years without knowing the name of one’s next-door neighbour, and may live and work all one’s life without making scarce a single friend. Thus the average shop-girl is usually friendless outside her own establishment unless she cares to mix with that crowd of clerks and others who are fond of “taking out” good-looking shop-assistants.
I often felt sorry for Muriel, knowing how dull and monotonous was her life, but while I sat chatting to her that evening a vision of another face rose before me—the pale face with the strange blue eyes, the beautiful countenance of the mysterious Aline.
It seemed very much as if Roddy knew my mysterious friend. If so, it also seemed more than likely that I had been deceived in her; because was not Roddy a well-known man about town, and what more likely than that he had met her in London? To me, however, she had declared that she had only arrived in London a week before, and had never been out. Whatever was the explanation, Roddy’s concern at hearing her name was certainly extraordinary.
I therefore resolved to seek her again, and obtain some explanation.
Why, I wondered, had she made that vague prophecy of evil which would befall me if we continued our acquaintanceship? It was all very extraordinary. The more I thought of it, the more puzzling became the facts.