Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/206

 delicate hands, the beautiful accent, the dim weak face with dark eyes under a high white forehead, filled her with a strange pride. This was indeed a rare flower that had fallen into her hands. Even as she lay beside him on the bed (there was nowhere else for her to sleep) she felt that she was committing sacrilege.

At length one day he looked at her and said, "My name is Lionel Blundon. What's yours?"

She blushed and said, "Bessie Cudlip." It sounded so cheap and commonplace beside the elegance of Lionel Blundon. "Lionel," she said to herself, "Lionel." That was an elegant name.

He began presently to sit up weakly in bed and to take a faint interest in things.

But Bessie soon found that her funds were vanishing. Funds were a thing that never mattered before. There was always the Pot and Pie or she could borrow from Teena Bitts or get an advance from Winterbottom. But it mattered now; Mr. Blundon was a responsibility. He could not be sent out into the streets, white and ill and shaking with fever. He seemed content with his lot and displayed no inclination to go.

So one night after Mr. Blundon had gone to sleep, she slipped out to the Pot and Pie dressed in her best clothes. She took up a place in the corner and became the center of interest. The place had not been the same since she left and they now received her with cheers. The men bought her drinks.