At last Mary had arranged the table to her satisfaction, and they sat down to a comfortable little supper. Mary had but very rarely drunk anything stronger than tea, and the Burgundy was a new and, it must be confessed, not unpleasant sensation to her after the wear of the first day of liberty. But she soon perceived that it was a perilous pleasure and was cautious. The conversation was still rather constrained. Each was sounding the other. He was trying to find out what was the real disposition of this very incomprehensible girl. She, amazed at this unwonted kindness from a stranger, was reserved, suspicious of his motives; for Mary was a London girl, and was not gifted with that absolute innocence which is sometimes attributed to such heroines--heroines who, living in pitch, are in some miraculous way all undefiled, are even ignorant that the pitch is there. At eleven o'clock Hudson knew Mary's history, but he was as far as ever from her. He was accustomed to shy, to bold, to coquettish, to silly, to mercenary, women, to almost every sort of girl, and knew how to manage them: but before this girl he was lost. This was not merely because she was cold--had she been _stupidly_ so, he would have known how to act; but she inspired a real respect that kept him at a distance. There was no enlargement of the intimacy, and after supper matters were worse again: the awkward feeling on either side chilled the conversation. Mary began to think that it was time for her to be going--to resume her wanderings, to find some shelter for the night, and at the thought a gloom fell on her face. Hudson read the look and said, "Miss Grimm" (he had got back to this though he had called her Mary earlier in the evening), "if you go out now you will find it very difficult to get a lodging. It is too late. You had better stay here. I will camp out in this room on the sofa, you can have my bed-room. To-morrow we will think together over what you had better do." Mary looked at his kind face, and was touched; her coldness broke down. "You are very good," she said gratefully, and she rose and took his hand. "You are the only one who has ever been kind to me. I will never forget you." When she had retired, the barrister rigged himself up a berth on the sofa, and lay smoking his pipe awhile, as he thought of this strange girl who had awakened his emotions and chilled them again a dozen times in the hour with her inconsistencies, her sympathy one moment, her coldness the next. He had noticed the different expressions of her features and murmured to himself as he blew out the light: "She has an angel looking out of her eyes and a devil sitting on her mouth, but I believe I should fall really in love this time if I saw much of her." CHAPTER VI. FROM SCYLLA TO CHARYBDIS. Mary slept well after her long day of adventure and did not wake until the sun was high.