348 ANGEL PAVEMENT

see a bit of a door—it may be open and it may be shut—
and if you knock on it, you'll make her hear. The
servant they have is out to-day because I met her here
myself this afternoon, all dressed up and telling me she's
to meet her young man, a sailor in the Royal Navy. Up
the stairs then, it is, and a hard knock on the door."

Just beyond the head of the stairs, there was a door,
and it was open a little, so that he could plainly hear the
sound of a gramophone playing jazz. He knocked hard.
The gramophone stopped abruptly.

It was Miss Lena herself who came to the door. She
was dressed in a shimmering greenish-blue, and she was
prettier than ever. At the sight of her standing there,
solid and real again at last, his heart bumped and his
mouth went suddenly dry.

"I've come from Twigg and Dersingham's, Miss
Golspie," he announced, stammering a little.

Her face lit up at once. "Oh, have you brought that
money?" she cried, in that same queer fascinating voice
he remembered so well. "How much is it? Come in,
though. This way."

The room was very exciting. It was a big room, but
in spite of its size, it was full of things. Turgis had never
seen, except on the pictures, so many cushions; there
seemed to be dozens of them, huge bright cushions, piled
up on a big deep sofa sort of thing, stuffed into arm-
chairs, and even scattered about the floor. And then
there were gramophone records and books and maga-
zines all over the place, and bottles and tins of biscuits
and fancy boxes heaped together on little tables, and
then enough glasses and fruit and cigarettes and ash-
trays for a whist drive or a social; and all in this one rich
bewildering room. It was lit with two big, crimson and