Sparrows Part 53

"Any place is beastly when one has to be there. And you've been here a whole fifteen months. Think what I've missed!"

Mavis had, by now, got over her first excitement at meeting her old friend: her habitual prudence essayed to work--essayed, because its customary vigour was just now somewhat impaired.

"I'm glad to have met you again. Good-bye," she said.

"Eh!"

"It's time I got back."

The man stared at her in some astonishment.

"Perhaps you're right," he remarked presently.

"Right!" she echoed, faintly surprised.

"I'm only a waster. n.o.body wants anything to do with me."

Something in the tone of the man's voice stirred her heart to pity.

"I'm not a bit like that," she said.

"Rot! All women are alike. When a chap's down, they jump on him. After all, you can't blame 'em."

Mavis stood irresolute.

"Good-bye," said Perigal.

"One moment!"

"I can't wait. I must be off too."

"I want to ask you something."

"What is it? Remember, I didn't ask you to wait."

"Who has given you a bad name, and why?"

"Most people who know me."

"I read the other day that majorities are always wrong," she remarked.

"Majorities are always right, just the same as minorities and everybody else."

"Everybody right!"

"According to their lights. We are as we are made, and, whatever some people say, we can never be anything else. And that's the devil of it.

It's all so unfair."

"Why unfair?"

"It's just one's confounded luck what temperament one's inflicted with.

I should think you were to be congratulated. You look as if you could be infernally happy."

"Aren't you?"

"Who is?"

"Loads of people," she declared emphatically.

"The very vain and the very stupid. Who else?"

Mavis was beginning to be interested. It amused and, at the same time, touched her to notice the difference between the dreary nature of the sentiments and the youthful, comely face of the speaker.

"I'm going now," she said.

"Frightened of being seen with me?" he asked.

"When I've Jill for a chaperone?"

"Why don't you come as far as Broughton with me?"

"Across the river?"

"I've a punt moored not far from here."

"But I've got to get back to a meal."

"We can get something to eat there."

"I don't think I will."

"Is it too far?"

"I can walk any distance."

"Someone was asking about you the other day."

"Who?"

"Archie Windebank. He wrote from India."

"What did he say?" asked Mavis, striving to conceal the interest she felt.

"I forget, for the moment, what it was. If I remember, I'll tell you."

"Don't forget."

"He's rather keen on you, isn't he?"