But all my former wonder paled before this my latter. For he stood here like some young Eastern king among his slaves, one hand on his hip, the other at his chin, his face expressionless, his eyes fixed but unblinking. Meantime, the crowd, which had stretched out arms to him as he came, was now seated quietly on the grass, intently waiting, watching for a sign. They sat, all those people, in a wide ring about him; he was in the midst, a hand to his chin.
Whether sign was made or not, I saw none; but after some moments of pause a figure rose erect out of the ring and hobbled toward the boy. I made out an old woman, an old wreck of womanhood, a scant-haired, blue-lipped ruin of what had once been woman. I heard her snivel and sniff and wheeze her "Lord ha' mercy" as she went by, slippering forward on her miserable feet, hugging to her wasted sides what remnant of gown she had, fawning before the boy, within the sphere of light that came from him. If he loathed, or scorned, or pitied her, he showed no sign; if he saw her at all his fixed eyes looked beyond her; if he abhorred her, his nostrils did not betray him. He stood like marble and suffered what followed. It was strange.
Enacting what seemed to be a proper rite, she put her shaking left hand upon his right shoulder, her right hand under his chin, as if to cup it; and then, with sniffs and wailings interspersed, came her petition to his merciful ears.
What she precisely asked of him, muttering, wheezing, whining, snivelling, as she did, repeating herself--with her burthen of "O dear, O dear, O dear!"--I don't know. Her lost girl, her fine up-standing girl, her Nance, her only one, figured in it as needing mercy. Her "Oh, sir, I ask you kindly!" and "Oh, sir, for this once ...!" made me sick: yet he bore with her as she ran on, dribbling tears and gin in a mingled flood; he bore with her, heard her in silence, and in the end, by a look which I was not able to discover, quieted and sent her shuffling back to her place. So soon as she was down, the life-guardsman was on his feet, a fine figure of a man. He marched unfalteringly up, stiffened, saluted, and then, observing the ritual of hand to shoulder, hand to chin, spoke out his piece like the honest fellow he was; spoke it aloud and without fear, evenly and plainly. I thought that he had got it by heart, as I thought also of another person I was to hear by-and-by. He wanted, badly it seemed, news of his sweetheart, whom he was careful to call Miss Dixon. She had last been heard of outside the Brixton Bon Marché, where she had been seen with a lady friend, talking to "two young chaps" in Volunteer uniform. They went up the Brixton Road toward Acre Lane, and Miss Dixon, at any rate, was never heard of again. It was wearing him out; he wasn't the man he had been, and had no zest for his meals. She had never written; his letters to her had come back through the "Dead Office." He thought he should go out of his mind sometimes; was afraid to shave, not knowing what he might be after with "them things." If anything could be done for him he should be thankful. Miss Dixon was very well connected, and sang in a choir. Here he stopped, saluted, turned and marched away into the night. I heard him pass a word or two to the policeman, who turned aside and blew his nose. The hospital nurse, who spoke in a feverish whisper, then a young woman from the Piccadilly gas-lamps, who cried and rocked herself about, followed; and then, to my extreme amazement, two ladies with cloaks and hoods over evening gowns--one of them a Mrs. Stanhope, who was known to me. The taller and younger lady, chaperoned by my friend, I did not recognise. Her face was hidden by her hood.