"No, I'm a London girl. I've never been out of the town since I was
a little child."

"And how old are you now?"

"Guess."

"Not twenty."

"Eighteen a month ago. All my life before me, isn't it?"

Waymark kept silence for a moment.

"How do you like my room?" she asked suddenly, looking round.

"It's very comfortable. I always thought there were nothing but
business places all about here. I should rather like to live in the
very middle of the town, like this."

"Should you? That's just what I like. Oh, how I enjoy the noise and
the crowds! I should be ill if I had to live in one of those long,
dismal streets, where the houses are all the same shape, and
costermongers go bawling about all day long. I suppose you live in a
place like that?"

"Very much the same."

In taking his handkerchief out, Waymark just happened to feel a book
in his overcoat-pocket. He drew it forth to see what it was, having