"Luggage, miss, in the van?" he asked. "Just you wait 'ere."
"I have no luggage," Mr. Brimsdown heard her say. Her eyes wandered downward to the little handbag she carried. "I wanted to ask you--I am a stranger to London. Can you tell me a place where I could stay; for the night--somewhere quiet and respectable?"
Mr. Brimsdown found himself listening anxiously for the porter's reply. By all the laws of Romance he should have had an old mother in a clean and humble home who would have been delighted to give the girl shelter for the sight of her pretty face. But pretty girls are plentiful in London, and kind-hearted old women are rare. The porter seemed surprised at the inquiry. He pushed his blue cap back from a shock of red hair, and pondered the question deeply. Then he made a valiant feint of earning his shilling by throwing out suggestions of temperance hotels in Russell Square and the Euston Road. He warmed to the subject and depicted the attractions of these places. Quiet and cheap, and nothing respectabler in the 'ole city of London. They was open at all hours. His own sister stayed in one when she come to town.
"Would you give me the address?" the girl wistfully asked.
The porter shook his head cautiously. He had evidently no intention of pawning his sister's reputation for a shilling given him by a strange girl who might have designs on the spoons of temperance hotels.
"How do I get to Euston Road?" asked the girl with a quick realization of the fact that she had obtained London value for her shilling.
"By the Metropolitan." He pointed to a blazing subterranean archway which at that late hour was still vomiting forth a mass of people. "Book at the first winder."
Mr. Brimsdown watched the girl until she disappeared out of sight down the steps. He then turned away to seek his own train, the insistent feeling still haunting him that he had seen her pretty wistful face before. He taxed his memory to recall where, but memory made no response. It seemed a long time ago--like a glimpse from the face of the dead. Mr. Brimsdown strove to put the idea from him as a trick of the imagination.
He beckoned to a porter, who took his bag to a first-class carriage in the Penzance train. Mr. Brimsdown settled himself comfortably in a corner seat. A few minutes later the train moved out on the long night journey to Penzance.