“I have an appointment for this evening,” said he; “I must get out of it.  Max, if you persist in going with me to the wharf, you’re a fool.  When your friends are doing well, you should stick to them; when they have got into a mess, you should have appointments elsewhere.”  Although he spoke cynically, there was underneath his scoffing tone a strain of tenderness.  He turned quickly to the girl at this point, as if afraid of betraying more feeling than he had intended to do.  “You’ve delivered your message,” said he, sharply, “now you can go.”

But Carrie lingered.  Looking shyly at Max, she said in a low voice: 

“Have you made up your mind that you will go with him?”

“Yes,” said Max.

“All right,” nodded Carrie.  “Then I’ll go, too.”

Dudley looked down at the girl with an impatient frown on his face.

“Supposing we don’t want you?” said he, dryly.

“You will,” she answered briefly, without even looking at him.

Dudley considered for a moment, and then said shortly: 

“All right.  We may as well keep an eye on you.”

Carrie laughed, and then remained silent.  As for Max, he was struck with an odd likeness between the girl’s dry, short manner of speaking to Dudley and Dudley’s manner of speaking to her.

At that moment there was an interruption in the shape of the waiter from a neighboring restaurant, who came in with the dinner Dudley had ordered for himself.

“I shan’t want it now,” said Dudley, as the man put down the covered dishes on the table.

“Why, surely you’re not in such a hurry that you haven’t time to dine?” said Max.

Dudley made an impatient gesture.

“I can get a biscuit somewhere, if I want it.  I can’t eat just now.”

“Let me eat your dinner for you, then,” said Max.  “I’ve had none.  And if I’m to go rambling all over the town to look after you, I shall want something to keep me going.”

“All right,” said Dudley.  “I’m to come back here for you, then?”

And he took up his overcoat.  Max began to help him on with it.

“Come in here a moment,” said Dudley, in the same dry, abrupt manner as before; “I want to speak to you.”

Max followed him into the ante-room, and Dudley shut the sitting-room door.

“That girl,” said he, with, a frown—­“where did you pick her up?  At the wharf?”

“I met her there.  She was walking about outside, afraid to go in.  The old woman had left her there alone, with a—­a—­dead body in the place.”

At these words a change came over Dudley’s face.

“You had better have left her alone,” said he, sharply.  “I wonder you hadn’t more sense than to take up with a girl like that.”

Max fired up indignantly.

“Like what?  There’s nothing wrong with the girl—­nothing whatever.  Surely her behavior to-night showed you that.”