* * * * *

Tramps do not demand very much, and these were completely contented when
they had made a small fire, damped down with a turf to prevent it
smoking, had boiled a little water, stewed some tea, and eaten what they
had. Even this was not luxurious. The Major produced the heel of a
cheese and two crushed-looking bananas, and Frank a half-eaten tin of
sardines and a small, stale loaf. The Major announced presently that he
would make a savory; and, indeed, with cheese melted on to the bread,
and sardines on the top, he did very well. Gertie moved silently about;
and Frank, in the intervals of rather abrupt conversation with the
Major, found his eyes following her as she spread out their small
possessions, vanished up the stairs and reappeared. Certainly she was
very like Jenny, even in odd little details--the line of her eyebrows,
the angle of her chin and so forth--perhaps more in these details than
in anything else. He began to wonder a little about her--to imagine her
past, to forecast her future. It seemed all rather sordid. She
disappeared finally without a word: he heard her steps overhead, and
then silence.

Then he had to attend to the Major a little more.

"It was easy enough to tell you," said that gentleman.

"How?"

"Oh, well, if nothing else, your clothes."

"Aren't they shabby enough?"

The Major eyed him with half-closed lids, by the light of the single
candle-end, stuck in its own wax on the mantelshelf.

"They're shabby enough, but they're the wrong sort. There's the cut,
first--though that doesn't settle it. But these are gray flannel
trousers, for one thing, and then the coat's not stout enough."

"They might have been given me," said Frank, smiling.

"They fit you too well for that."

"I'll change them when I get a chance," observed Frank.

"It would be as well," assented the Major.

* * * * *

Somehow or another the sense of sordidness, which presently began to
affect Frank so profoundly, descended on him for the first time that
night. He had managed, by his very solitariness hitherto, to escape it
so far. It had been possible to keep up a kind of pose so far; to
imagine the adventure in the light of a very much prolonged and very
realistic picnic. But with this other man the thing became impossible.
It was tolerable to wash one's own socks; it was not so tolerable to see
another man's socks hung up on the peeling mant