"Have another cup?" Julian said.
"And a bun, dearie," the lady again rejoined. She shook her head till all
the feathers danced.
"Never you mind why," she said, reverting again to his vagrant question.
"There's some things as don't do to talk about."
"I'm sure I've no wish to pry into your private affairs," Julian rejoined
carelessly.
But again he noticed the worn terror of her face. Surely that night she,
too, had passed through some unwonted experience, which had written its
sign-manual amid the paint and powder of her shame.
The lady stared back at him. Beneath her tinted eyelids the fear seemed
to grow like a weed. Tears followed, rolling over her cheeks and mingling
with the coffee in her cup.
"Oh dear," she murmured lamentably. "Oh, dear, oh!"
"What's the matter?" said Julian.
But she only shook her head, with the peevish persistence of weak
obstinacy, and continued vaguely to weep as one worn down by chill
circumstance.
Julian turned his eyes from her to the coffee-stall, in which the
sharp-featured youth now negligently leant, well satisfied with the
custom he had secured. Behind the youth's head it seemed to Julian that
the phantom flame hung trembling, as if blown by the light wind of
the morning.
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