"Come round to Barbara's Building at six o'clock and tell me how she
is."
He came on the stroke of six.
The fame of Lola spread through the borough, and now she can walk
feared, honoured, unmolested by night or by day through the streets
of horror and crime, which neither I nor any other man--no matter how
courageous--dare enter at certain hours without the magical protection
of a policeman.
Sunshine has come at last, both into this little backwater of the world
by the sea and into my own life, and it is time I should end this futile
record.
Yesterday as we lay on the sands, watching the waves idly lap the shore,
Lola brought herself nearer to me with a rhythmic movement as no other
creature form of woman is capable of, and looked into my eyes. And she
whispered something to me which led to an infinite murmuring of foolish
things. I put my arms round her and kissed her on the lips and on her
cheek--whether the beautiful or the maimed I knew not--and she sank into
a long, long silence. At last she said:
"What are you thinking of?"
I said, "I'm thinking that not a single human being on the face of the
earth has a sense of humour.
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