ow! She found houses for the poor; she might find a house for me. She had been kind to me once - wouldn''t she be kind, if I appealed to her, a second time? I thought of her comely face, and her curling hair. I had lost Diana, I had lost Zena; and now I had lost Mrs Milne and Grace. In all of London she was the closest thing I had, at that moment, to a friend - and it was a friend just then that, above all else, I longed for.
On the balcony above me, the man had turned away. Now I called him back: ''Hey, mister!'' I walked closer to the wall of the tenement, and gazed up at him: he and his daughter leaned from the balcony rail - she looked like an angel on the ceiling of a church. I said, ''You won''t know me; but I lived here once, with Mrs Milne. I am looking for a girl, who called on you when you moved in. She worked for the people that found you your flat.''
He frowned. ''A girl, you say?''
''A girl with curly hair. A plain-faced girl called Florence. Don''t you know who I mean? Don''t you have the name of the charity she worked for? It was run by a lady ?a very clever-looking lady. The lady played the mandolin.''
He had continued to frown, and to scratch at his head; but at this last detail he brightened. That one,'' he said; ''yes, I remember her. And that gal what helped her, that was your chum, was it?''
I said it was. Then: ''And the charity? Do you remember them, and where their rooms are?''