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‘Isn’t there anywhere we can go and talk?’
‘I don’t want to talk,’ she said sullenly. ‘Leave me alone,
can’t you?’
The thought struck him that perhaps she was in ur-
gent need of money and could not afford to go away at that
hour.
‘I’ve got a couple of sovereigns on me if you’re hard up,’
he blurted out.
‘I don’t know what you mean. I was just walking along
here on my way back to my lodgings. I expected to meet one
of the girls from where I work.’
‘For God’s sake don’t lie now,’ he said.
Then he saw that she was crying, and he repeated his
question.
‘Can’t we go and talk somewhere? Can’t I come back to
your rooms?’
‘No, you can’t do that,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m not allowed to
take gentlemen in there. If you like I’ll met you tomorrow.’
He felt certain that she would not keep an appointment.
He was not going to let her go.
‘No. You must take me somewhere now.’
‘Well, there is a room I know, but they’ll charge six shil-
lings for it.’
‘I don’t mind that. Where is it?’
She gave him the address, and he called a cab. They drove
to a shabby street beyond the British Museum in the neigh-
bourhood of the Gray’s Inn Road, and she stopped the cab
at the corner.
‘They don’t like you to drive up to the door,’ she said.