'Oh, I'm not following you,' said Victoria. 'Only I saw you about and thought I'd like to talk to you.'
'What's your game?' she asked. 'You're not one of those blasted sisters. Too toffish. Seen you come out of the Vez', besides.'
'I'm in the profession,' said Victoria coolly. 'But that doesn't mean I've got to be against the others.'
'Doesn't it!' The girl's eyes glowed. 'You don't know your job. Of course you've got to be against the others. We were born like that. Or got like that. What's it matter?'
'Matter? oh, a lot,' said Victoria. 'We want friends, all of us.'
'Friends. Oh, Lord! The likes of you and me don't have friends. Women, they won't know us . . . too good. Except our sort. We can't talk; we got nothing to talk of, except money and the boys. And the boys, what's the good of them? There's the sort you pick up and all you've got to do's to get what you can out of them. Haven't fallen in love with one, have you?' The girl's voice broke a little, then she went on. 'Then, there's the other sort, like my Hugo, p'raps you've heard of him?'
'No,' she said, 'I haven't. What is he like?'
'Bless you, he's a beauty.' The girl smiled; her face was full of pride.
'So so. Sometimes.' The shadow had returned. 'Not like my first. Oh, it's hard you know, beginning. He left me with a baby after three months. I was in service in Pembridge Gardens--such a swell house! I had to keep baby. It died then, jolly good thing too! Couldn't go back to service. Everybody knew.'
The girl burst into tears and Victoria putting an arm round her drew her against her breast.
'Everybody knew, everybody knew!' wailed the girl.
Victoria had the vision of a thousand spectral eyes, all full of knowledge, gazing at the housemaid caught by them sinning. The girl rested her head against Victoria's shoulder for a moment, holding one of her hands. Suddenly she raised her head again and cleared her throat.
'There,' she said, 'let me go. Hugo's waiting for me at the Carcassonne. Never mind me. We've all got to live, he-he!'
She turned into Regent Street and another 'he-he' floated back. Victoria felt a heavy weight at her heart; poor girl, weak, the sport of one man, deceived, then a pirate made to disgorge her gains by another man; handsome, subtle, playing upon her affections and her fears. What did it matter? Was she not in the same position, but freer because conscious; poor slave soul. But the time had come for Victoria to make for the Vesuvius. 'It must be getting late,' she thought, putting up her hand to her little gold watch-brooch.