“I’m sure you’re tired,” he said gently, “and probably fed-up. So am I. I was just wondering what in the world to do with myself when I heard you crying. It made me feel a sort of kinship with you––it did, upon 7 my word. If I’d been a woman I dare say I should have been howling like anything. Will you come along with me and let me give you some supper? I’m hungry too....”

7

She shrank back from him with a little gesture of fear.

“Oh no––please let me go!...”

She tried to pass him, but Micky barred the way.

“You can’t walk about the streets all night,” he said determinedly. “The cat will hate it anyway, even if you don’t mind.” There was a hint of laughter in his voice, though he had never felt more serious in all his life. “And if you don’t want me to take pity on you, you might at least take pity on me ... please don’t think I’m a bounder trying to annoy you or anything like that ... perhaps I want a friend just as badly as you do....” He stopped, aghast at his own temerity.

“If you do,” she said tremulously, “I am more sorry for you than I can say.”

“I’m glad you said that,” Micky answered, “because now you’ll come along and have that supper with me. There’s a little café quite near here that I know. If we are both miserable, we can at least be miserable together.”

Something told him that this girl was at the end of her tether; that she was desperate, and his first casual curiosity concerning her deepened in the most surprising fashion.

He felt in some inexplicable way that a curtain had been lifted from a phase of life hitherto hidden from him; as if he were standing on the threshold of a new world, where women only weep for something real and tragic, not just butterfly tears of petulance like the women of his own class.

The girl was silent for a moment; then suddenly she laughed, a hard little laugh of recklessness.

“Very well,” she said. “I suppose I may as well.”

8

Micky was infinitely relieved; somehow he had not really thought that she would allow him to accompany her.

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