her consciousness; something that seemed perhaps vulgarly accounted for
by the fact that, as the blast of the season roared louder and the waves
of fashion tossed their spray further over the counter, there were more
impressions to be gathered and really--for it came to that--more life to
be led. Definite at any rate it was that by the time May was well
started the kind of company she kept at Cocker's had begun to strike her
as a reason--a reason she might almost put forward for a policy of
procrastination. It sounded silly, of course, as yet, to plead such a
motive, especially as the fascination of the place was after all a sort
of torment. But she liked her torment; it was a torment she should miss
at Chalk Farm. She was ingenious and uncandid, therefore, about leaving
the breadth of London a little longer between herself and that austerity.
If she hadn't quite the courage in short to say to Mr. Mudge that her
actual chance for a play of mind was worth any week the three shillings
he desired to help her to save, she yet saw something happen in the
course of the month that in her heart of hearts at least answered the
subtle question. This was connected precisely with the appearance of the
memorable lady.




CHAPTER III


She pushed in three bescribbled forms which the girl's hand was quick to
appropriate, Mr. Buckton having so frequent a perverse instinct for
catching first any eye that promised the sort of entertainment with which
she had her peculiar affinity. The amusements of captives are full of a
desperate contrivance, and one of our young friend's ha'pennyworths had