The little model’s lower lip drooped more than ever.  There were dark marks beneath her eyes; her face was altogether rather pinched and pitiful.

“Won’t you tell me any news?” she said in her matter-of-fact voice.

The old butler gave a strange grunt.

“Ho!” he said.  “The baby’s dead, and buried to-morrer.”

“Dead!” repeated the little model.

“I’m a-goin’ to the funeral—­Brompton Cemetery.  Half-past nine I leave the door.  And that’s a-beginnin’ at the end.  The man’s in prison, and the woman’s gone a shadder of herself.”

The little model rubbed her hands against her skirt.

“What did he go to prison for?”

“For assaultin’ of her; I was witness to his battery.”

“Why did he assault her?”

Creed looked at her, and, wagging his head, answered: 

“That’s best known to them as caused of it.”

The little model’s face went the colour of carnations.

“I can’t help what he does,” she said.  “What should I want him for—­a man like that?  It wouldn’t be him I’d want!” The genuine contempt in that sharp burst of anger impressed the aged butler.

“I’m not a-sayin’ anything,” he said; “it’s all a-one to me.  I never mixes up with no other people’s business.  But it’s very ill-convenient.  I don’t get my proper breakfast.  That poor woman—­she’s half off her head.  When the baby’s buried I’ll have to go and look out for another room before he gets a-comin’ out.”

“I hope they’ll keep him there,” muttered the little model suddenly.

“They give him a month,” said Creed.

“Only a month!”

The old butler looked at her.  ‘There’s more stuff’ in you,’ he seemed to say, ‘than ever I had thought.’

“Because of his servin’ of his country,” he remarked aloud.

“I’m sorry about the poor little baby,” said the little model in her stolid voice.

“Westminister” shook his head.  “I never suspected him of goin’ to live,” he said.

The girl, biting the finger-tip of her white cotton glove, was staring out at the traffic.  Like a pale ray of light entering the now dim cavern of the old man’s mind, the thought came to Creed that he did not quite understand her.  He had in his time had occasion to class many young persons, and the feeling that he did not quite know her class of person was like the sensation a bat might have, surprised by daylight.

Suddenly, without saying good-bye to him, she walked away.

‘Well,’ he thought, looking after her, ’your manners ain’t improved by where you’re living, nor your appearance neither, for all your new clothes.’  And for some time he stood thinking of the stare in her eyes and that abrupt departure.

Through the crystal clearness of the fundamental flux the mind could see at that same moment Bianca leaving her front gate.

Her sensuous exaltation, her tremulous longing after harmony, had passed away; in her heart, strangely mingled, were these two thoughts:  ’If only she were a lady!’ and, ‘I am glad she is not a lady!’