"I'd been out of a berth for practically a year; not all the time--I'd been taken on for a few days here, for a week of two there, as odd hand when the rush of the sales was on; but for a year I had had no regular work. How I lived I can't tell you; you know, I had to live, and--well, you talk of the things you've endured, you have no conception how much worse that sort of thing is for a woman than for a man. At last I came down to selling flowers--yes I that was a nice profession, wasn't it?"

She put her hands up to her brow, pressing back her hair; she presented a sufficiently dainty picture then, with her well-fitting gown and her look of perfect health.

"One evening--I'd had a bad day--I was hawking in the Strand, just where I met you when I saw you with those boards upon your back. How it all came back to me! My flowers had not been in very good condition in the morning, they had not grown fresher as the day went on. I offered them to a man who came sauntering along; he stopped to look at them, he soon spotted the state that they were in. 'Why,' he said, 'these things are only fit for throwing away.' Then he looked at me. 'Bertha!' he exclaimed, 'surely it must be you?'"

She laughed. Turning, she stood looking down into the fire, tapping her toe against the curb.

"If I'd only had a peep at him in time I should have let him pass; I shouldn't have tried to make of him a customer, but I hadn't. I had just seen that he was well dressed and looked as though he had money, and, in the dim light, that was all."

She paused for so considerable a space of time that one wondered if she proposed to carry the story any farther. When she did go on it was in an altered tone of voice; she spoke very quietly, very coldly, as if she wished to make a mere statement of facts.

"In one of the shops in which I had had the honour of being an assistant he had acted as shopwalker. We had been on quite decent terms, which was not the case with most of the gentlemen of his sort that I had come across. Rather than that he should have seen me, in my rags, hawking faded flowers in the streets, I would--I would have done anything. When I tried to get away from him he wouldn't hear of it. He called a cab, put me in it, and took me home with him, to his wife; they had quite a nice little house Peckham way. I recognised her as one of the girls who had been at the opposite counter to mine. It was not strange that he had married her; what was queer was that they should be living in such a house, unless one of them had come into a fortune."

Again she paused, staring at the fire as if she were seeking words among the burning coals. Then, turning, she faced the man who was still seated at the table. He had scarcely moved since she had begun her story, as if he found in it a fascination that was not upon the surface, as if he were looking forward, with eager interest, to what he felt was coming.

"Nobody could have been kinder to me than those two people. They gave food, and drink, and clothing, and shelter, and, something more, they gave me the secret of the philosopher's stone; told me how it was that, though no one had left them a fortune, they came to be living there."

Holding her shapely hands in front of her she kept pressing the tips of the fingers together, and then withdrawing them.

"A piece of silk was missing at the shop. She was charged with stealing it. She assured me that she had not stolen it, that she did not know who had, that she knew nothing at all about it; they had not the slightest real evidence that she was the guilty party, but they sacked her all the same. And because the shop-walker sided with her, they chose to assume that he was at least in part responsible for its disappearance, and they sacked him too. So they married. That's a funny sort of love story, isn't it?"

The man spoke, for the first time since she had begun her story.

"It's as good as others I've heard."

"No doubt, love stories are the funniest things. For what would you marry?"

She was looking at him with laughing eyes.

"I shall never marry."

"Sure? Nothing's ever a certainty in that sort of thing. It was only after they were married that they thought of ways and means. They had about twenty pounds between them; they tried and tried, but neither could get a berth; so they decided to throw up the drapery--probably because it had thrown them up--and try another trade. They had given honesty a trial; they decided to try the other, and see if it couldn't be made to pay. It paid uncommonly well; the house in which they were living, the way in which it was furnished, the style in which they did things, was proof enough of that. They told me all about it, quite frankly; then they suggested that I should join them in their new profession. The occasions were not infrequent on which they wanted a partner of my sex, who had her wits about her, and upon whom they could absolutely rely. I did not need much persuasion; like them, I had had enough of honesty; and--here I am--flourishing like a green bay tree."

"Do you mean that you're a thief?"

"A professional thief, exactly; just as you're a gutter-snipe--a much less creditable, and a very much less profitable profession than mine."

She spoke in the airiest of tones, as if the thing that she admitted was a trifle of no account. When she saw that he kept silent she went on.

"I'm about to suggest that you come into the business as a partner of mine."

"What prompts you to suggest it--affection?"

"Not altogether--no." Her eyes were dancing. "What prompts a woman to do anything? She seldom knows, really and truly; I don't believe there ever was a woman who was able to give all the reasons which moved her to do anything. I've had you in my mind ever since I saw you last. I did not do you anything like the ill turn you seem to imagine; I vow and declare to you that when we parted you were, if anything, better off than when we met. But sometimes--oh, sometimes--I think that I must be the very queerest woman that ever was; but then I know better, because all women are queer, and, when she's in the mood, every woman can be the very queerest that ever was."

Quitting the fire, perching herself upon the side of the table, with one foot upon a chair, she began to light another cigarette.

"Sometimes I've felt very bad about you; I didn't like to think of what might have become of you after we had parted. Then when I began to learn certain little facts about your personal history, I was conscious of feeling a sympathy for you which you might have found amusing. I told myself that if ever chance did throw us across each other's path again, I would, if I could, if you stood in need of it, do you a real good turn. When I saw you just now, in that dreary procession of six, and realised that it was you, I knew that my opportunity had come. So now I hope you understand."

"Only very dimly. I am still not so clear-headed as I might be. I want to have things made very plain."

"I will try to make them as plain as you can possibly want them. First of all, I want a partner; do you want to know why?"

"If it wouldn't be troubling you too much."

"I'm not altogether without associates, though I do miss my two first friends."

"What became of them?"

"They brought off a big coup, got bags full of money, went off with it to America, where they started a business of their own, in which I believe they are now doing very well."

"Why didn't they take you with them? Didn't you get your share?"

"Rather, and a first-class time I had with it; one of the times of my life; and I may mention, between ourselves, that, of late years, I've had some good ones. I may tell you about some of them one fine day."

She seemed to be laughing to herself, as if the recollection tickled her. He sat stark, stiff and silent, his strange hollow eyes fixed on her face. She enjoyed her cigarette in silence for some seconds before she went on.

"And as for why they didn't take me with them, one reason is that I wouldn't have gone. Why should I? I should have been in their way, and they most certainly would have been in mine. We parted on the very best of terms; we correspond; one of these days I'm going to pay them a long visit. But, from a purely professional point of view, I've never been able to fill their place, especially his. You've very nearly finished that cigar. Won't you have another?"

"No, thank you; I'm not at the end of this; I'm enjoying it--slowly."

She watched the rings of her cigarette smoke ascending to the ceiling.

"You see, in my profession, there are so very few gentlemen; and of all the professions in the world, it's the one in which gentlemen are most needed, the one in which they're sure to get the best reward for their labours. There are one or two things in my mind, big things, things involving quite possibly thousands of pounds, which I can't work alone, in which I need the co-operation of a man whose birth and breeding, whose knowledge of the manners and customs of good society are beyond question. Now, you're the very sort of person I want; Eton and the Guards; from my point of view there couldn't be a finer qualification."

"How do you come to know anything about me?"

"Your name--Sydney Beaton--was on the tab of that very well-worn coat which you had on when first I met you. I know all about Sydney Beaton; shall I tell you what I do know?"

"You needn't."

"I thought you said that you'd forgotten such a lot; that your mind, beyond a certain point, was a blank?"

She was eyeing him with a malicious twinkle in her laughing eyes; he was grimly silent, meeting her look with what seemed to be a strange defiance.

"I'd rather not remember--now."

"I see; it's like that, is it? I don't blame you. I've no wish to touch your sore places, though never so lightly; I've plenty of my own which I'd just as soon people kept their fingers off; I'm not pachydermatous quite. But there's one thing which I should like to ask, if you will let me, and it's this: Have you any expectation of getting back to where you were?"

"None."

"I don't wish to push the knife in, but--do you think there's any probability of your regaining the position you once held? I repeat the question in another form because, as you said, I want to be plain; this time I want you and me to be colleagues, not what we were before, to run no risk of a misunderstanding."

"Not only is there no probability, there is no possibility."

"Not even a thousand to one chance?"

"Nor a million to one. That side of me is dead; there can be no resurrection. There is no person of the name you mentioned any longer; some of my new friends call me 'Balmy'; I call myself James Langham."

"Then, Mr. Langham, let me put it to you as a sound business proposition, that you've everything to gain, and nothing to lose, by becoming my partner in certain delicate matters which I have in my mind's eye."

"You're proposing that I should become a thief?"

"Well, 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'"

What might have been meant for a smile distorted his attenuated visage.

"The sort of thing that I've gone through turns the whole world topsy-turvy; the ladies and gentlemen with whom I have associated think nothing of stealing; they've robbed me times without number of the worthless trifles of which I could be plundered, and--I had to bear it. I've said to myself over and over again when I've been mad with misery, that I would rob a bank if I dared."

"Yes, and if you had the chance. You would not see your way, for instance, to enter, say, the London County and Westminster Bank attired as you are, with the intention of coming out of it a wealthier man."

"You're quite right, I shouldn't."

"What I'm offering you is the opportunity to do that sort of thing with perfect impunity; I'm not doing it out of philanthropic motives; at least I'm not a humbug. I'll give you the means to replenish your wardrobe, which needs it, and to live in comfort for a reasonable time, on the understanding that you'll consider seriously certain propositions that I shall make you, and, if you see your way, that you'll give me your assistance in carrying them out, on sharing terms. Is it a deal?"

For the first time he moved, withdrawing himself from the table and standing up; he was so thin, there was something about him which was so little human, that the ill-assorted, filthy rags of which his attire consisted seemed to be hanging on a scarecrow.

"You feel that you can trust me?"

"I am sure of it."

"Knowing my record?"

"Records like yours don't count in my eye. There's nothing in your record which hints that you ever played false to a woman. I know that you won't play false to me."

"You expect me to tell you that I know you'll never play false to me?"

"Not a bit of it; I know what you've got in your head quite well. I don't ask you to trust me one inch farther than you can see. But at the beginning, at any rate, the confidence will be all on the other side. I'm willing to make an investment for which my only security is faith in you. When you know what these little schemes are of which I have spoken as being in my head, you'll see that it isn't trust I'm asking for; that what I propose is merely a matter of plain and open dealing, in which no question of trust or mistrust can arise on either side. Once more, is it a deal? Are you going back to carrying sandwich-boards in the Strand at a shilling a day in weather like this; with the certainty of there being certain intervals in which you'll be even without a sandwich-board; or are you willing to get something out of the world in return for what it's done for you; to throw black care to the dogs, and laugh with me? Which do you choose--the sty and the swine, cold, hunger and misery; or as good a time as ever a gentleman had? England was made by freebooters; I'm suggesting that you should be a freebooter up to date. As things are, a man can choose no other life which gives much promise of adventure."

There was silence; although she waited for him to speak, the silence remained unbroken. Presently he turned, and looked through the window at the snow which had begun to fall fast, and was being driven here and there by the shrieking wind; then he turned again, and looked at her and at the fire. He still said nothing; but he shivered; and she said:

"I see that you have chosen."