at I meant to say."

She was a thin-faced, but rather pretty girl, with auburn hair.
Belonging to a class which, especially in its women, has little
intelligence to boast of, she yet redeemed herself from the charge of
commonness by a certain vivacity of feature and an agreeable suggestion
of good feeling in her would-be frank but nervous manner. Hilliard
laughed merrily at the vision in her mind of "great, rough, sooty men."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Miss Ringrose."

"No, but really--what sort of a place is Dudley? Is it true that they
call it the Black Country?"

"Let us walk about," interposed Eve. "Mr. Hilliard will tell you all he
can about the Black Country."

She moved on, and they rambled aimlessly; among cigar-smoking clerks
and shopmen, each with the female of his kind in wondrous hat and
drapery; among domestic groups from the middle-class suburbs, and from
regions of the artisan; among the frankly rowdy and the solemnly
superior; here and there a man in evening dress, generally conscious of
his white tie and starched shirt, and a sprinkling of unattached young
women with roving eyes. Hilliard, excited by the success of his
advances, and by companionship after long solitude, became very unlike
himself, talking and jesting freely. Most of the conversation passed
between him and Miss Ringrose; Eve had fallen into an absent mood,
answered carelessly when addressed, laughed without genuine amusement,
and sometimes wore the look of trouble which Hilliard had observed
whilst in the train.

Before long she declared that it was time to go home.

"What's the hurry?" said her friend. "It's nothing like ten o'clock
yet--is it, Mr. Hilliard?"

"I don't wish to stay any longer. Of course you needn't go unless you
like, Patty."

Hilliard had counted on travelling back with her; to his great
disappointment, Eve answered his request to be allowed to do so with a
coldly civil refusal which there was no misunderstanding.

"But I hope you will let me see you again?"

"As you live so near me," she answered, "we are pretty sure to meet.
Are you coming or not, Patty?"

"Oh, of course I shall go if you do."

The young man shook hands with them; rather formally with Eve, with
Patty Ringrose as cordially as if they were old friends. And then he
lost sight of them amid the throng.

CHAPTER VII

How did Eve Madeley contrive to lead this life of leisure and
amusement? The question occupied Hilliard well