ing
to sell the furniture of her flat in Paris. Complications! Under the
emergency law she was not obliged to pay her rent to the landlord; but
if she removed her furniture then she would have to pay the rent.
What did it matter, though? Besides, she might not be able to sell her
furniture after all. Remarkably few women in Paris at that moment were
in a financial state to buy furniture. Ah no!

"But I have not told you the tenth part!" said Christine.

"Terrible! Terrible!" murmured the man.

All the heavy sorrow of the world lay on her puckered brow, and
floated in her dark glistening eyes. Then she smiled, sadly but with
courage.

"I will come to see you again," said the man comfortingly. "Are you
here in the afternoons?"

"Every afternoon, naturally."

"Well, I will come--not to-morrow--the day after to-morrow."

Already, long before, interrupting the buttoning of his collar, she
had whispered softly, persuasively, clingingly, in the classic manner:

"Thou art content, _cheri_? Thou wilt return?"

And he had said: "That goes without saying."

But not with quite the same conviction as he now used in speaking
definitely of the afternoon of the day after to-morrow. The fact
was, he was moved; she too. She had been right not to tell the story
earlier, and equally right to tell it before he departed. Some men,
most men, hated to hear any tale of real misfortune, at any moment,
from a woman, because, of course, it diverted their thoughts.

In thus departing at once the man showed characteristic tact. Her
recital left nothing to be said. They kissed again, rather like
comrades. Christine was still the vessel of the heavy sorrow of the
world, but in the kiss and in their glances was an implication that
the effective, triumphant antidote to sorrow might be found in a
mutual trust. He opened the door. The Italian woman, yawning and with
her hand open, was tenaciously waiting.

Alone, carefully refolding the kimono in its original creases,
Christine wondered what the man's name was. She felt that the
mysterious future might soon disclose a germ of happiness.

Chapter 6

THE ALBANY

G.J. Hoape--He was usually addressed as "G.J." by his friends, and
always referred to as "G.J." by both friends and acquaintances--woke
up finally in the bedroom of his flat with the thought:

"To-day I shall see her."

He inhabited one of the three flats at the extreme northern end of the
Albany, Piccadilly, W.I. The