"Poor devil!"--said Davidson, "I suppose these women are not much better
than slaves really. Was that fellow with the dyed beard decent in his
way?"

The mechanism remained silent. The sympathetic soul of Davidson drew its
own conclusions.

"Beastly life for these women!" he said. "When you say an English girl,
Mrs. Schomberg, do you really mean a young girl? Some of these orchestra
girls are no chicks."

"Young enough," came the low voice out of Mrs. Schomberg's unmoved
physiognomy.

Davidson, encouraged, remarked that he was sorry for her. He was easily
sorry for people.

"Where did they go to from here?" he asked.

"She did not go with them. She ran away."

This was the pronouncement Davidson obtained next. It introduced a new
sort of interest.

"Well! Well!" he exclaimed placidly; and then, with the air of a man who
knows life: "Who with?" he inquired with assurance.

Mrs. Schomberg's immobility gave her an appearance of listening
intently. Perhaps she was really listening; but Schomberg must have been