"I like that, too, after not
coming near me for months! What are you looking so scared about, all of
a sudden?"
Burton was looking through the garishly papered walls of the
public-house sitting-room, out into the world. He was certainly a
little paler.
"Haven't I been in for months?" he asked softly.
She stared at him.
"Well, I suppose you know!" she retorted. "Pretty shabby I thought it
of you, too, after coming in and making such a fuss as you used to
pretty well every afternoon. I don't like friends that treat you like
that. Makes you careful when they come round again. I'd like to know
what you've been doing?"
"Ah!" he said, "you will never know that. Perhaps I myself shall never
know that really again. Get me a whiskey and soda, Maud. I want a
drink."
"I should say you did!" the young woman declared, pertly. "Sitting
there, looking struck all of a heap! Some woman, I expect, you've been
gone on. You men are all the same. I've no patience with you--not a
bit. If it wasn't," she added, taking down the whiskey bottle from the
shelf, "that life's so precious dull without you, I wouldn't have a
thing to say to you--no, not me nor Milly either! We were both talking
about you and Mr.
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