Now Max, in the interest of his conversation with the girl, had forgotten all about less pleasant subjects.  Now that they were suddenly recalled to his mind, he felt uneasy at the idea of the unseen but ever-watchful “Granny,” who might be listening to every word he uttered, noting every glance he threw at the girl.

And then the natural suspicion flashed into his mind:  Was there a “Granny” after all? or was the invisible one some person more to be dreaded than any old woman?

Another glance at the girl, and the fascinated, bewildered Max resolved to risk everything for a little more of her society.

CHAPTER X.

GRANNY.

There was some constraint upon them both at first; and Max had had time to feel a momentary regret that he had been foolish enough to stay, when he was surprised to find the girl’s eyes staring fixedly at a small parcel which he had taken from his coat-tail pocket and placed upon the table.

It was a paper of biscuits which he had brought from the public-house.  He had forgotten them till that moment.

“I brought these for you—­” he began.

And then, before he could add more, he was shocked by the avidity with which she almost snatched them from his hand.

“I—­I’d forgotten!” stammered he.

It was an awful sight.  The girl was hungry, ravenously hungry, and he had been chatting to her and talking about kisses when she was starving!

There was again a faint spot of color in her cheeks, as she turned her back to him and crouched on the hearth with the food.

“Don’t look at me,” she said, half laughing, half ashamed.  “I suppose you’ve never been without food for two days!”

Max could not at first answer.  He sat in one of the wooden chairs, with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped, calling himself, mentally, all sorts of things for his idiotic forgetfulness.

“And to think,” said he, at last, in a hoarse and not over-steady-voice, “that I dared to compare myself to a knight-errant!”

The biscuits were disappearing rapidly.  Presently she turned and let him see her face again.

“Perhaps,” suggested she, still with her mouth full, “as you say, one didn’t hear quite all about those gentlemen.  Perhaps they forgot things sometimes.  And perhaps,” she added, with a most gracious change to gratitude and kindness, “they weren’t half so sorry when they forgot as you are.”

Max listened in fresh amazement.  Where on earth had this child of the slums, in the cheap-stuff frock and clumsy shoes, got her education, her refinement?  Her talk was not so very different from that of the West-End dinner-tables she had laughed at.  What did it mean?

“Do you really feel so grateful for the little I have done?” he asked suddenly.

The girl drew a long breath.

“I don’t dare to tell you how grateful.”