CHAPTER IV
I PLAY ANOTHER PHILANTHROPIC PART
I went round the corner, slowed my hurrying steps to a gait less likely to attract attention, and became aware that I would have given a good deal for a glass of brandy—the Franco-Italian dinner is no foundation for strenuous action. A sudden diversion distracted me from the consideration of my feelings; the door of a house some twenty yards ahead of me opened, a girl came out, or was thrust out, on the steps; a harsh voice cried, "Out you go! I won't 'ave no beggarly 'ussies in my 'ouse renting rooms they doesn't pye for!" And the door banged to again.
Unmanned as I had been by the Siberian pheasant, I seemed to snatch at this diversion of my thoughts, stopped short, and with extreme care watched the girl stagger down the steps, and stand at the bottom of them looking this way and that, pull herself together with an effort plain even to my dazed mind, and take her way slowly down the street. I followed her; her figure and the thick plait of hair which hung down her back seemed familiar to me; but my mind was in such
