t help being fed up with it. But she knows where
I work, and I know she's hard up; so I don't like to go anywhere else,
because if anybody asked me if he should go there, I couldn't honestly
recommend him to; and yet, you see how it is, I shouldn't like to leave
her in the lurch, if she knew I was just gone somewhere else down the
street."

"No," sympathetically agreed Emmy. "I quite see. It's very awkward for
you. Though it's no use being too kind-hearted with these people;
because they _don't_ appreciate it; and if you don't say anything they
just go on in the same way, never troubling themselves about you. They
think, as long as you don't say anything you're all right; and it's not
their place to make any alteration. They're quite satisfied. Look at
Jenny and me."

"Is she satisfied!" asked Alf.

"With herself, she is. She's never satisfied with me. She never tries to
see it from my point of view."

"No," Alf nodded his head wisely. "That's what it is. They don't." He
nodded again.

"Isn't it a lovely night," ventured Emmy. "See the moon over there."

They looked up at the moon and the stars and the unfathomable sky. It
took them at once away from the streets and the subject of their talk.
Both sighed as they stared upwards, lost in the beauty before them. And
when at last their eyes dropped, the street lamps had become so yellow
and tawdry that they were like stupid spangles in contrast with the
stars. Alf still held Emmy's arm so snugly within his own, and her wrist
was within the clasp of his fingers. It was so little a thing to slide
his fingers into a firm clasp of her hand, and they drew closer.

"Lovely, eh!" Alf ejaculated, with a further upward lift of his eyes.
Emmy sighed again.

"Not like down here," she soberly said.

"No, it's different. Down here's all right, though," Alf assured her.
"Don't you think it is?" He gave a rather nervous little half laugh.
"Don't you think it is?"

"Grand!" Emmy agreed, with the slightest hint of dryness.

"I say, it was awfully good of you to come to-night," said Alf.
"I've ... you've enjoyed it, haven't you?" He was looking sharply at her,
and Emmy's face was illumined. He saw her soft cheeks, her thin, soft
little neck; he felt her warm gloved hand within his own. "D'you mind?"
he asked, and bent abruptly so that their faces were close together. For
a moment, feeling so daring that his breath caught, Alf could not carry
out his threat. Then, roughly, he pu