Part 35 (1/2)
”No. Wouldn't even kiss me.”
”Aha. So you made love to another girl, and then she threw you over--that was it, I'm sure.”
”Right again! Yes--made love to another girl--that was it. And quite enough too.”
”Oh, it's always the way with--well, that sort of girls. They don't understand how to make love a bit. There's heaps of love to be had, if you only know where to look for it.”
They both laughed--the girl in easy, teasing gaiety, Olof still thankful at finding it so easy to suit himself to his company.
”What'll you have to drink? Sherry, madeira, or stout, perhaps? I like sherry best.”
”Let's have all three!” cried Olof.
”That'll be twenty, please.” He gave her the money and she slipped from the room.
Olof looked round. How was this going to end? He was thankful at any rate that the room was neatly, almost tastefully furnished, and that the girl was so easy to talk to.
The bottles and gla.s.ses were brought in. ”Here's to us both!” cried the girl, lifting her gla.s.s with an enticing glance.
They drank--it was the first time Olof had ever tasted wine. And all the bitterness and unrest in his soul seemed drowned at once.
”I say--is this your first time?” The girl explained her question with a meaning glance.
”Yes.” The word stuck in his throat. ”Have some more to drink,” he added hastily.
”That's right!” The gla.s.ses rang. ”Got any cigarettes?”
Each lit a cigarette. The girl leaned back in a careless posture, throwing one leg over the other, and watched the smoke curling up in the air.
”First-rate inst.i.tution, isn't it?” she said, with a laugh. ”Sort of public sanatorium--though the fools of police or Government or whatever you call it won't make it free. All you men come here when you're tired and worried and ill, and we cure you--isn't that it?”
”I dare say....”
”But it is, though, take my word for it. How'd you ever get on without us, d'you think? Like fish out of water! And yet we're reckoned as outcasts and all that. Devil take all your society women, I say.
There's one I see pa.s.s by every day, a judge's wife, haughty and stuck up as a weatherc.o.c.k on a church spire. Think she'd look at one of us?
But her husband, bless you, he....”
”For Heaven's sake talk of something else,” cried Olof. He swallowed a gla.s.s of sherry to cover his disgust.
”Eh? Oh, all right, anything you please. Sing you a song if you like.
What d'you say to that.”
”Yes, but nothing....”
”Not a word. Dainty little song. Here you are:
”'Here's a corner for you and me, Room for two--but not for three!
A gla.s.s for each within easy reach...