e
bowels of London, after midnight, everything seemed horrible and
unnatural.

"How I hate this London," said Tanny. She was half Norwegian, and had
spent a large part of her life in Norway, before she married Lilly.

"Yes, so do I," said Josephine. "But if one must earn one's living one
must stay here. I wish I could get back to Paris. But there's nothing
doing for me in France.--When do you go back into the country, both of
you?"

"Friday," said Lilly.

"How lovely for you!--And when will you go to Norway, Tanny?"

"In about a month," said Tanny.

"You must be awfully pleased."

"Oh--thankful--THANKFUL to get out of England--"

"I know. That's how I feel. Everything is so awful--so dismal and
dreary, I find it--"

They crowded into the train. Men were still yelling like wild
beasts--others were asleep--soldiers were singing.

"Have you really broken your engagement with Jim?" shrilled Tanny in a
high voice, as the train roared.

"Yes, he's impossible," said Josephine. "Perfectly hysterical and
impossible."

"And SELFISH--" cried Tanny.

"Oh terribly--" cried Josephine.

"Come up to Hampstead to lunch with us," said Lilly to Aaron.

"Ay--thank you," said Aaron.

Lilly scribbled directions on a card. The hot, jaded midnight
underground rattled on. Aaron and Josephine got down to change trains.

CHAPTER VII. THE DARK SQUARE GARDEN

Josephine had invited Aaron Sisson to dinner at a restaurant in Soho,
one Sunday evening. They had a corner to themselves, and with a bottle
of Burgundy she was getting his history from him.

His father had been a shaft-sinker, earning good money, but had been
killed by a fall down the shaft when Aaron was only four years old. The
widow had opened a shop: Aaron was her only child. She had done well
in her shop. She had wanted Aaron to be a schoolteacher. He had served
three years apprenticeship, then suddenly thrown it up and gone to the
pit.

"But why?" said Josephine.

"I couldn't tell you. I felt more like it."

He had a curious quality of an intelligent, almost sophisticated mind,
which had repudiated education. On purpose he kept the midland accent in
his speech. He understood perfectly what a personification was--and an
allegory. But he preferred to be illiterate.

Josephine found out what a miner's checkweighman was. She tried to find
out what sort of wife Aaron had--but, except that she was the daughter
of a publican and was delicate in health, s