Lois' patter, acquired in the streets, invariably approached the purely vulgar when she was either angry or annoyed--for at other times her nationality saved her from many of its penalties. Alban quite understood that something beyond ordinary must have passed between father and daughter to-day; but this was neither the time nor the place to discuss it.
"We'll meet outside the Pav to-night and have a good talk, Lois," he said; "everybody's listening here. Be there at nine sharp. Who knows, it may be the last time we shall ever meet in London--"
"You're not going away, Alb?"
A look of terror had come into the pretty eyes; the frail figure of the girl trembled as she asked the question.
"Can't say, Lois--how do I know? Suppose I went as a sailor--"
Lois laughed louder than before.
"You--a blueboy! Lord, how you make me laugh. Fancy the aristocrat being ordered about. Oh, my poor funny-bone! Wouldn't you knock the man down that did it--oh, can't I see him."
The idea amused her immensely and she dwelt upon it even in the street outside. Her Alb as Captain Jack--or should it be the cabin-boy. And, of course, he would bring her a parrot from the Brazils and perhaps a monkey.
"An' I'll keep a light in the winder for fear you should be shipwrecked in High Street, Alb, and won't we go hornpiping together. Oh, you silly boy; oh, you dear old Captain Jack--whatever put a sailorman into your mind?"
"The water," said Alban, as stolidly--"it leads to somewhere, Lois. This is the road to nowhere--good God, how tired I am of it."
"And of those who go with you, Alb."
"I am ashamed of myself because of them, Lois."
"You silly boy, Alb--are they ashamed, Alb? Oh, no, no--people who love are never ashamed."
He did not contest the point with her, nor might she linger. Bells were ringing everywhere, syrens were calling the people to work. It was a new thing for Alban Kennedy to be strolling the streets with his hands in his pockets when the clock struck one. And yet there he was become a loafer in an instant, just one of the many thousand who stare up idly at the sky or gaze upon the windows of the shops they may not patronize, or drift on helpless as though a dark stream of life had caught them and nevermore would set them on dry land again. Alban realized all this, and yet the full measure of his disaster was not wholly understood. It was so recent, the consequences yet unfelt, the future, after all, pregnant with the possibilities of change. He knew not at all what he should do, and yet determined that the shame of which he had spoken should never overtake him.