Perceval Gibbon

“ That purse—I went straight to my room and locked the door and dug it out. I hardly dared open it for a moment; it felt so fat and rich, and yet I knew there was n't much in it. I turned it out on the bed and counted the cash. There was one twenty-mark gold piece, and seventeen marks in silver—thirty-seven marks altogether to get away from Berlin with and begin the world again. I tell you—it made me laugh! It was like one of those jokes Conyers is always playing on his crowd; it makes you laugh, but it hurts your feelings. ”

“ The two men smoked in placid contentment.
"Well," said Madame suddenly, "I 'll tell you, if you like."
"Good girl," said Mr. Neuman; and Mr. Smith opened eyes that had a tendency to close drowsily.
Madame surveyed the pair of them with a look in which a vague distrust was tempered by amusement. She drew a chair away from the table, and sat upon it where she could still lean her elbow on the railing. She waited while Mr. Smith fortified himself with yet another glass of curaçao.
"I was in Berlin by myself," she began slowly, "after going to Russia with the Conyers crowd—you heard about that. ”

“ When people begin to wonder about you, you never know what they won't find out. So I'd packed the whole lot into my best handbag, and was taking them along to a place I had seen in the Friedrichstrasse—one of those shops, with windows protected by wire netting, where they show bowls full of louis and sovereigns and all different kinds of foreign paper money. You know! Conyers had one once, and got rid of a truck-load of false stuff during the old Paris Exhibition."
"Conyers is a great man," remarked Mr. Neuman. ”

“ Conyers lent me what I wanted for the Petersburg job. There was a hotel bill of about four hundred marks to face, and my fare from Berlin to Paris or Cannes to find; and I'd need some food, too. It was a smash at last, and I was frightened. I had to brace myself hard to sail in at the hotel door slowly and go past the porter without looking at his face. Those fellows can tell whether you 've got money or not by the noise your heels make on the floor. ”

“ Miss Gregory was, all the time.
"Somehow, that emptied the spirit out of me. I went out slow and dignified, but with the feeling that I had no chance; I was handicapped in the very doorway by four hundred and seventeen marks. It was n't fair; it did n't leave me time. I went out toward the busier streets, but there was no hope left in me. There's only one way a woman can scoop in money at short notice in a place like Berlin, and—well, when it came to that, I bought laudanum. ”

“ Neuman, and sat back in his chair to look about him with undisguised approval of his surroundings.
"Well, Jane," he remarked, "you've got things just about right here, haven't you? That suprême de volaille—that was great!"
"An' that Berncastler," agreed Mr. Smith. "Women generally make a mess of the wine, but that was on the spot. Jane! Here's wishing you all there is!"
He drank the liqueur with a flourish, and Madame Olivant, leaning on the railing, acknowledged the toast with a slow smile. She was a slender, noticeable woman, whose whole personality was regulated to a serene composure ”

“ Do you know England?' she asked.
"'Oh, yes,' I told her. 'I have been many times in London.'
"'London's a country by itself,' she answered. 'Very wonderful—yes! But it is not London that I am beginning to be homesick for. Kent,' she said, 'where my home is, and the big beech trees and orchards and the little villages—that's what England means to me.'
"'It is a beautiful land,' I said, very politely. She was n't to know, of course, that I was English myself. I did n't intend her to know it. But, the way she spoke of it, I could see that Kent of hers in my mind's eye. ”

“ There's no need to tell you how I walked about, on Unter den Linden and the Friedrichstrasse and Mittelstrasse and Taubenstrasse and all the other strassen; that kind of thing would n't interest you. I never knew, till then, how little we 're good for—people like us. We need fools and blackguards before we can get to work; and cities like Berlin, where they work and do business and behave themselves, are no use to us. ”

“ I'd hardly got it into my mind that I was running three risks a second, when a hand came from behind me and slid down my arm to my wrist! I could n't tear away—I was jammed in the crowd; and the hand took hold round my wrist, where the bones stick out, just here"—Madame showed her slender wrist with the lace about it—"and squeezed. You know how that hurts; it made my whole arm limp; and then the handle of the bag was slipped out of my fingers, and I got a shove in the back that pitched me forward against a fat man who was ploughing past. ”

“ This place was all right. I did n't take a cab; who was to know what I had in my bag? There was an old grey man in the shop, shut up in a brass cage like a rich ape, and smoking the tail-end of a cigar. ”

“ I spent one of my marks for some coffee and food at midday, and another late in the afternoon; and it was n't till the lamps were alight, and the people in the streets had changed from young men charging along on business to couples strolling for pleasure, that I got a hint.
"I was in a quiet sort of street off the Friedrichstrasse, with orderly, decent-looking houses and shops along it, and a couple of young men stopped close to me and knocked at a door. It would n't have interested me if I had n't seen, as I went past, that the man who opened it for them was dressed like a waiter. ”

“ I followed her to the screened part of the hall where the little tables are, and I was never so glad to sit down in my life.
"There's one good thing about the Germans—they do give you credit for having an appetite; and there were plenty of things to eat as well as the tea. I never do eat any breakfast to speak of, and as for lunch—the man that got my money probably had a good one—I hope he had, anyway ”

“ But it was n't a place for me, with sixteen marks between me and the gutter.
"The porter had a telegram for me as I went in. It was the answer from Conyers. I took it across the hall to read, so that people should n't see my face. Oh, he's a brute! He wasted a dozen francs to have a sneer at me all the war from Paris to Berlin. 'Should n't ask money from a married man,' was what he had written—the cad! ”