"It is not wicked to be with you in the street, then, but wicked in your rooms. _Ecco!_ what a country! And all the people are frozen and the wind eats them up, and they are so frightened of us they lock us out of their lodgings. How _he_ would have laughed! Why, all the ladies in Ragusa came to his room, and he would sing and laugh all day. It was not wicked there! He would not have done it when I was with him, if it had been." He tried to tell her that countries have different customs, and that what is done in the south may not be done in the north with impunity. But she was wholly unconvinced, and the spice of daring being added to the dish of her thoughts, she led him insensibly towards Holly Place and not towards Well Walk as they approached Hampstead. "Just to see what this wicked place is like, Harry. Surely, I may stand at your door and see you go in? They will not punish me, these horrid English, for that. Oh, yes, I shall stand at your door and see you go in, and you will give me some wine. Do you know that we have nothing but syrup at the Silvesters'? Oh, _mon pauvre_! it is all ice inside as well as out. I go thirsty all day--there was wine always when _he_ was alive, and now there is none! I shall wait upon your doorway until you give me a little wine, Harry." This idea pleased her very much, and she danced and sang her way through the silent streets upon it. Even the searching cold of the early night did not affright her, nor those suggestions of loneliness and isolation which usually attended her journey northward. She was going to see Harry's rooms and to drink some wine when she got there! The fact that he had nothing but good Scotch whisky did not enter into her calculations. As for Harry, the proposal annoyed him at the beginning, but grew upon his sympathies as they went. He tried to follow her logic, and to think that it would be absurd to treat her otherwise than as a child. What harm could there be after all, and was not her view of it safer than his own? The Silvesters were too busy looking after impossible people in the East End to do their duty by this little exile. What forbade him to treat her as a sister? Upon this there came tumbling many a picture of that bewitching apparition as sympathy could frame it. What a riot she would make in his puny lodging! And how good it would be to watch her swinging her shapely legs on the edge of his pet arm-chair! She filled the whole house with visions already. They marched up Heath Street forlorn, wind-swept, and deserted, and came at last to his door. He remembered how easily she took possession of the place, marching here and there as though she were its mistress--setting this or that in order instantly; tidying his desk; looking reproachfully upon his joyous negligence. When a lean landlady asked her genially if she would take a little tea, she answered immediately, "No; you are to go to the café for the wine, Mr. Harry will give you the money!"