“The Salvation Army are doing what they can for us.
I expect something will turn up.”
Charley fished his note-case out of his pocket.
“I don’t suppose you’re very flush.
I’d like to give you something to help you along till you find work.”
“It would be useful,” the man smiled pleasantly.
“The Army doesn’t do much but give one board and lodging.”
Charley handed them five hundred francs.
“Give it to the kid to take care of.
He’s got the saving disposition of the peasant he is, he sweats blood when he has to spend money, and he can make five francs go farther than any old woman in the world.”
They went out of the cafe, the four of them, and shook hands.
During the hour they had spent together the two men had lost their shyness, but when they got out into the street it seized them again.
They seemed to shrink as though they desired to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible, and looked furtively to right and left as if afraid that someone would pounce upon them.
They walked off side by side, with bent heads, and after another quick glance backward slunk round the nearest corner.
“I suppose it’s only prejudice on my part,” said Charley, “but I’m bound to say that I didn’t feel very much at my ease in that company.”
Lydia made no reply.
They walked along the boulevard in silence; they lunched in silence.
Lydia was immersed in thought the nature of which he could guess and he felt that any attempt on his part at small talk would be unwelcome.
Besides, he had thoughts of his own to occupy him.
The conversation they had had with the two convicts, the questions Lydia asked, had revived the suspicion which Simon had sown in his mind and which, though he had tried to put it aside, had since then lurked in his consciousness like the musty smell of a long closed room which no opening of windows can quite dispel.
It worried him, not so much because he minded being made a fool of, as because he did not want to think that Lydia was a liar and a hypocrite.
“I’m going along to see Simon,” he said when they had finished luncheon.
“I came over largely to see him and I’ve hardly had a glimpse of him.
I ought at least to go and say good-bye.”
“Yes, I suppose you ought.”
He also wanted to return to Simon the newspaper cuttings and the article which he had lent him.
He had them in his pocket.
“If you want to spend the afternoon with your Russian friends, I’ll drive you there first if you like.”
“No, I’ll go back to the hotel.”
“I don’t suppose I shall be back till late.
You know what Simon is when he gets talking.
Won’t you be bored by yourself?”
“I’m not used to so much consideration,” she smiled.
“No, I shan’t be bored.
It’s not often I have the chance to be alone.
To sit in a room by oneself and to know that no one can come in—why, I can’t imagine a greater luxury.”
They parted and Charley walked to Simon’s.
He knew that at that hour he stood a good chance of finding him in.
Simon opened the door on his ring.
He was in pyjamas and a dressing-gown.
“Hulloa!
I thought you might breeze along.
I didn’t have to go out this morning, so I didn’t dress!”
He hadn’t shaved and he looked as though he hadn’t washed either.
His long straight hair was in disorder.
By the bleak light that came through the north window his restless, angry eyes looked coal-black in his white thin face and there were dark shadows beneath them.
“Sit down,” he continued.
“I’ve got a good fire to-day and the studio’s warm.”
It was, but it was as forlorn, cheerless and unswept as before.
“Is the love affair still going strong?”