"What was your father saying, Lois?"

"That you were going away, dear, and that the sooner I gave up thinking about you the fatter I should be."

"How did he know what was going to happen?"

"Ask me another and don't pay the bill. He's been as queer as white rabbits since yesterday--didn't go to work this morning, but sat all day over a letter he's received. I shall be frightened of father just now. I do really believe he's getting a bit balmy on the crumpet."

"Still talking about the man who stole the furnace?"

"Why, there you've got it. We're going to Buckingham Palace in a donkey cart and pretty quick about it. You'll be ashamed of such fine people, Alb--father says so. So I'm not to speak to you to begin with--not till the dresses come home from Covent Garden and the horses are pawing the ground for her lidyship. That's the chorus all day--lots of fun when the bricks come home and father with a watch-chain as big as Moses. He knew you were going to get the sack and he warned me against it. 'We can't afford to a.s.sociate with those people nowadays'--don't yer know--'so mind what you're a-doing, my child.' And I'm minding it all day--I was just minding it when you came in, Alb. Don't you see her lidyship is taking mutton chops? Couldn't descend to nothink less, my dear--not on such a day as this--blimme."

Lois' patter, acquired in the streets, invariably approached the purely vulgar when she was either angry or annoyed--for at other times her nationality saved her from many of its penalties. Alban quite understood that something beyond ordinary must have pa.s.sed between father and daughter to-day; but this was neither the time nor the place to discuss it.

"We'll meet outside the Pav to-night and have a good talk, Lois," he said; "everybody's listening here. Be there at nine sharp. Who knows, it may be the last time we shall ever meet in London--"

"You're not going away, Alb?"

A look of terror had come into the pretty eyes; the frail figure of the girl trembled as she asked the question.

"Can't say, Lois--how do I know? Suppose I went as a sailor--"

Lois laughed louder than before.

"You--a blueboy! Lord, how you make me laugh. Fancy the aristocrat being ordered about. Oh, my poor funny-bone! Wouldn't you knock the man down that did it--oh, can't I see him."

The idea amused her immensely and she dwelt upon it even in the street outside. Her Alb as Captain Jack--or should it be the cabin-boy. And, of course, he would bring her a parrot from the Brazils and perhaps a monkey.

"An' I'll keep a light in the winder for fear you should be shipwrecked in High Street, Alb, and won't we go hornpiping together. Oh, you silly boy; oh, you dear old Captain Jack--whatever put a sailorman into your mind?"

"The water," said Alban, as stolidly--"it leads to somewhere, Lois. This is the road to nowhere--good G.o.d, how tired I am of it."

"And of those who go with you, Alb."

"I am ashamed of myself because of them, Lois."

"You silly boy, Alb--are they ashamed, Alb? Oh, no, no--people who love are never ashamed."

He did not contest the point with her, nor might she linger. Bells were ringing everywhere, syrens were calling the people to work. It was a new thing for Alban Kennedy to be strolling the streets with his hands in his pockets when the clock struck one. And yet there he was become a loafer in an instant, just one of the many thousand who stare up idly at the sky or gaze upon the windows of the shops they may not patronize, or drift on helpless as though a dark stream of life had caught them and nevermore would set them on dry land again. Alban realized all this, and yet the full measure of his disaster was not wholly understood. It was so recent, the consequences yet unfelt, the future, after all, pregnant with the possibilities of change. He knew not at all what he should do, and yet determined that the shame of which he had spoken should never overtake him.

And so determining, he strolled as far as Aldgate Station--and there he met the stranger.

CHAPTER VI

THE STRANGER

There is a great deal of fine philanthropic work done east of Aldgate Station by numbers of self-sacrificing young men just down from the Universities. So, when a slim parson touched Alban upon the arm and begged for a word with him, he concluded immediately that he had attracted the notice of one of these and become the objective of his charity.

"I beg your pardon," he said a little stiffly. The idea of stooping to such a.s.sistance had long been revolting to him. He was within an ace of breaking away from the fellow altogether.

"Your name is Alban Kennedy, I think? Will you permit me to have a few words with you?"

Alban looked the parson up and down, and the survey did something to satisfy him. He found himself face to face with a man, it might be of thirty years of age, whose complexion was dark but not unpleasant, whose eyes were frank and open, the possessor, too, of fair brown hair and of a manner not altogether free from a suspicion of that which scoffers call the "wash-hand" basin cult.

"I do not know you, sir."

"Indeed you do not--we are total strangers. My name is Sidney Geary; I am the senior curate of St. Philip's Church at Hampstead. If we could go somewhere and have a few words, I would be very much obliged to you."

Alban hardly knew what to say to him. The manner was not that of a philanthropist desiring him to come to a "pleasant afternoon for the people"; he detected no air of patronage, no vulgar curiosity--indeed, the curate of St. Philip's was almost deferential.

"Well, sir--if you don't mind a coffee shop--"

"The very place. I have always thought that a coffee shop, properly conducted and entirely opposed to the alcoholic principle, is one of the most useful works in the civic economy. Let us go to a coffee shop by all means."

Alban crossed the road and, leading the stranger a little way eastward, turned into a respectable establishment upon the Lockhart plan--almost deserted at such an hour and the very place for a confidential chat.

"Will you have anything, sir?"

The curate looked at the thick cups upon the counter, turned his gaze for an instant upon a splendid pile of sausages, and shuddered a little ominously.

"I suppose the people here have excellent appet.i.tes," he reflected sagely. "I myself, unfortunately, have just lunched in Mount Street--but a little coffee--shall we not drink a little coffee?"

"Suppose I order you two doorsteps and a thick 'un?"

"My dear young fellow, what in heaven's name are 'two doorsteps and a thick 'un?'"

Alban smiled a little scornfully.

"Evidently you come from the West. I was only trying you. Shall we have two coffees--large? It isn't so bad as it looks by a long way."

The coffee was brought and set steaming before them. In an interval of silence Alban studied the curate's face as he would have studied a book in which he might read some account of his own fortunes. Why had this man stopped him in the street?

"Your first visit to Aldgate, sir?"

"Not exactly, Mr. Kennedy--many years ago I have recollections of a school treat at a watering-place near the river's mouth--an exceedingly muddy place since become famous, I understand. But I take the children to Eastbourne now."

"They find that a bit slow, don't they? Kids love mud, you know."

"They do--upon my word. A child's love of mud is one of the most incurable things in nature."

"Then why try to cure it?"

"But what are you to do?"

"Wash them, sir,--you can always do that. My father was a parson, you know--"