Think how many pig-dogs she must have had to sleep with for that!"
"Four thousand marks," said I, meditatively.
"Seems to be in the air."
Rosa looked at me mystified. "What about playing us something," said she, "just to change the tune?"
"All right—as we are all here again."
I sat down to the piano and played a few songs.
As I played I thought of Pat, how her money for the sanatorium would last only till the end of January, and that I would have to make more now than ever before.
I strummed mechanically over the keys and on the sofa beside me saw Rosa listening enraptured, and next to her Lilly's pale face set with a terrible disillusionment, colder and more lifeless than if it had been dead.
A cry waked me from my brooding.
Rosa had started from her dreams.
She was on her feet behind the table, her hat had slipped to one side, her eyes were staring, and slowly, without her noticing, the coffee was pouring from her overturned cup into her open handbag.
"Arthur!" she stammered. "Arthur, is it really you?"
I stopped playing.
A thin man with a shuffling gait, a bowler set well back on his head, came in.
His face was a yellow unhealthy colour; he had a big nose and a little egg-shaped head.
"Arthur!" stammered Rosa again. "You?"
"Who else should it be?" growled Arthur.
"My God, where have you sprung from?"
"Where should I spring from?
Out of the street through the door."
Considering that he was returning home after such a long absence, Arthur was not particularly amiable.
I looked at him interestedly.
So this was Rosa's idol.
He looked as if he had come straight from gaol.
I searched in vain for something that might have explained Rosa's infatuation.
But perhaps that was the explanation.
It is extraordinary what these diamond-hard judges of men do fall for.
Without so much as by your leave Arthur reached for the glass of beer that was standing on the table next to Rosa, and drank it off.
The adam's apple of his thin, sinewy throat went up and down like a lift.
Rosa watched him beaming. "Will you have another?" she asked.
"Of course," growled Arthur. "But bigger."
"Alois!" Rosa waved happily to the waiter. "He wants another beer."
"So I see," replied Alois imperturbably, drawing off another glass.
"Arid our little one, Arthur, my dear, you haven't even seen little Elvira!"
"Dear!" For the first time Arthur began to show signs of interest.
He raised a hand in a gesture of refusal. "Don't you blame me.
That's none of my business.
I told you to get rid of the brat.
And you would have too, if I hadn't . . ." He sank again into gloom. "Costs a nice penny, I'll be bound, and goes on costing . . ."
"It's not so bad really, Arthur.
Besides it's a girl."
"Don't they cost money?" said Arthur, putting the second glass of beer behind his collar. "You might get some cracked, rich dame to adopt it perhaps.
For a consideration, of course.
That's the only chance."
He roused again out of his gloom.
"Got any cash?"
Rosa, eager to be of service, produced her coffee-soaked handbag.
"It's only five marks, Arthur—you see, I wasn't to know you were coming—but I've got more at home."
Arthur slipped the money into his vest pocket like a pasha.
"And you won't earn anything sitting there on your behind on the sofa," he muttered ill-humouredly.