Burton turned round in his stool.  “What are you doing to-night?” he asked.  “Nothing,” the young lady replied, eagerly.  “Take me to the theatre, there’s a dear.”

“Righto!” he declared.  “I expect I can manage it.”

Miss Maud waltzed playfully around the room, her hands above her head.  She put her head out of the door and called into the bar.

“Milly, Mr. Burton’s taking me to the theatre to-night.  Why don’t you get Mr. Waddington to come along?  We can both get a night off if you make up to the governor for a bit.”

“I’ll try,” was the eager reply,—­“that is, if Mr. Waddington’s agreeable.”

Maud came back to her place by the piano.  She was a plump young lady with a pink and white complexion, which suffered slightly from lack of exercise and fresh air and over-use of powder.  Her hair was yellower than her friend’s, but it also owed some part of its beauty to artificial means.  In business hours she was attired in an exceedingly tight-fitting black dress, disfigured in many places by the accidents of her profession.

“You are a dear, Mr. Burton,” she declared.  “I wonder what your wife would say, though?” she added, a little coyly.

“Not seeing much of Ellen just lately,” Burton replied.  “I’m living up in town alone.”

“Oh!” she remarked.  “Mr. Burton, I’m ashamed of you!  What does that mean, I wonder?  You men!” she went on, with a sigh.  “One has to be so careful.  You are such deceivers, you know!  What’s the attraction?”

“You!” he whispered.

“What a caution you are!” she exclaimed.  “I like that, too, after not coming near me for months!  What are you looking so scared about, all of a sudden?”

Burton was looking through the garishly papered walls of the public-house sitting-room, out into the world.  He was certainly a little paler.

“Haven’t I been in for months?” he asked softly.

She stared at him.

“Well, I suppose you know!” she retorted.  “Pretty shabby I thought it of you, too, after coming in and making such a fuss as you used to pretty well every afternoon.  I don’t like friends that treat you like that.  Makes you careful when they come round again.  I’d like to know what you’ve been doing?”

“Ah!” he said, “you will never know that.  Perhaps I myself shall never know that really again.  Get me a whiskey and soda, Maud.  I want a drink.”

“I should say you did!” the young woman declared, pertly.  “Sitting there, looking struck all of a heap!  Some woman, I expect, you’ve been gone on.  You men are all the same.  I’ve no patience with you—­not a bit.  If it wasn’t,” she added, taking down the whiskey bottle from the shelf, “that life’s so precious dull without you, I wouldn’t have a thing to say to you—­no, not me nor Milly either!  We were both talking about you and Mr. Waddington only a few nights ago, and of the two I’m not sure that he’s not the worst.  A man at his age ought to know his mind.  Special Scotch—­there you are, Mr. Burton.  Hope it will do you good.”