rigged out, and looking in the distance like a gay young thing of twenty-five. She had grown twenty years older every way in those ten days. Her hair was no longer fluffy, and it wasn't gold any more. It was quite a proper, respectable brown, and it was done up neatly in an entirely unnoticable way. Her complexion was no more pink and white, but the ordinary rather-the-worse-for-wear complexion of a woman of forty-five. As for the gay and festive costumes that Fluffy used to wear on every occasion, in season and out of season, one wondered what fate had befallen them. Fluffy was dressed modestly and soberly as a woman of forty-five on a long railway journey should be.
Fluffy's eyes met mine full. I tried to keep the bulginess out of mine as much as I could, but I guess they looked a bit surprised. And then what do you think happened? Fluffy cut me dead! I had never been cut in my life before, so far as I knew, and at first I didn't quite know how I felt after it. It was done in the coolest, most collected way possible, but there was no mistaking it. Now I suppose there must be some satisfaction in cutting people or no one would do it. But for Fluffy to go and cut me was about the most suicidal thing she could do if she didn't want the people in that camp to know all about her. If she had been just ordinarily polite, and behaved herself, I might have hesitated before giving her away, thinking she wanted to lead a new life, and all that sort of thing. I believe in giving everybody a chance But to go and behave like an
