The very next moment, as I was rising, I sat down again as suddenly as if somebody had pulled me back.

Now a chap doesn’t like to be changed about like that; so, without looking at Benlian, I muttered a bit testily, “Don’t, Benlian!”

Then I heard him get up and knock his chair away.  He was standing behind me.

“Pudgie,” he said, in a moved sort of voice, “I’m no good to you.  Get out of this.  Get out—­”

“No, no, Benlian!” I pleaded.

“Get out, do you hear, and don’t come again!  Go and live somewhere else—­go away from London—­don’t let me know where you go—­”

“Oh, what have I done?” I asked unhappily; and he was muttering again.

“Perhaps it would be better for me too,” he muttered; and then he added, “Come, bundle out!”

So in home I went, and finished my ivory for the firm; but I can’t tell you how friendless and unhappy I felt.

Now I used to know in those days a little girl—­a nice, warm-hearted little thing, just friendly you know, who used to come to me sometimes in another place I lived at and mend for me and so on.  It was an awful long time since I’d seen her; but she found me out one night—­came to that yard, walked straight in, went straight to my linen-bag, and began to look over my things to see what wanted mending, just as she used to.  I don’t mind confessing that I was a bit sweet on her at one time; and it made me feel awfully mean, the way she came in, without asking any questions, and took up my mending.

So she sat doing my things, and I sat at my work, glad of a bit of company; and she chatted as she worked, just jolly and gentle and not at all reproaching me.

But as suddenly as a shot, right in the middle of it all, I found myself wondering about Benlian again.  And I wasn’t only wondering; somehow I was horribly uneasy about him.  It came to me that he might be ill or something.  And all the fun of her having come to see me was gone.  I found myself doing all sorts of stupid things to my work, and glancing at my watch that was lying on the table before me.

At last I couldn’t stand it any longer.  I got up.

“Daisy,” I said, “I’ve got to go out now.”

She seemed surprised.

“Oh, why didn’t you tell me I’d been keeping you!” she said, getting up at once.

I muttered that I was awfully sorry....

I packed her off.  I closed the door in the hoarding behind her.  Then I walked straight across the yard to Benlian’s.

He was lying on a couch, not doing anything.

“I know I ought to have come sooner, Benlian,” I said, “but I had somebody with me.”

“Yes,” he said, looking hard at me; and I got a bit red.

“She’s awfully nice,” I stammered; “but you never bother with girls, and you don’t drink or smoke—­”

“No,” he said.

“Well,” I continued, “you ought to have a little relaxation; you’re knocking yourself up.”  And, indeed, he looked awfully ill.