he had been to a theatre, and just now he 'vas so hopelessly poor
that he could really afford a little extravagance. So he was soon
sitting before the well-known drop of a favourite play-house, as
full of light-hearted expectancy as a boy who is enjoying a holiday.
The evening was delightful, and passed all too quickly.

The play over, he was in no mood to go straight home. He lit a cigar
and drifted with the current westward, out of the Strand and into
Pall Mall. A dispute between a cabdriver and his fare induced him to
pause for a moment under the colonnade, and, when the little cluster
of people had moved on, he still stood leaning against one of the
pillars, enjoying the mild air and the scent of his cigar. He felt
his elbow touched, and, looking round with indifference, met the
kind of greeting for which he was prepared. He shook his head and
did not reply; then the sham gaiety of the voice all at once turned
to a very real misery, and the girl began to beg instead of trying
to entice him in the ordinary way. He looked at her again, and was
shocked at the ghastly wretchedness of her daubed face. She was ill,
she said, and could scarcely walk about, but must get money somehow;
if she didn't, her landlady wouldn't let her sleep in the house
again, and she had nowhere else to go to. There could be no mistake
about the genuineness of her story, at all events as far as bodily
suffering went. Waymark contrasted her state with his own, and took
out what money he had in his pocket; it was the change out of a
sovereign which he had received at the theatre, and he gave her it
all. She stared, and did not understand.

"Are you coming with me?" she asked, feeling obliged to make a
hideous attempt at professional coaxing in return for such
generosity.