Free House of All Nations by Christina Stead

women, ‘Oh, late. It depends. I get off at seven and then I have to come back at eight and don’t get off till eleven.’
    Léon shook his head. ‘Eleven! No, that’s late. Young woman mustn’t—unhealthy. And what do you do between seven and eight?’ The girl didn’t even trouble to smile but said in a cash voice, ‘We stay in.’
    Léon was all consideration. ‘You stay in—here, ugh? Upstairs, ugh?’ He shook his head, said to Margaret Weyman, ‘It’s long hours, isn’t it?’ He asked the girl, ‘And then you have to go home: how long does that take you? Is it far?’
    The girl cast eyes at a handsome Balkan man, as she answered carelessly, ‘It’s quite a way. Near the Place de la Nation. I often have to get the all-night bus.’
    Mrs. Weyman, annoyed by Léon’s raw style, got up and asked her way to the ladies’ room. Marianne sat on, ghoulishly enjoying the scene. Léon felt somewhat relieved by Margaret’s exit and made haste to bring things to a head. He finished his canvass in a flurried warm tone: ‘It’s a shame, a pretty girl like you. Would you like to get into the chorus? I know someone in the theater. This gentleman here knows Henri Bernstein, almost all the actors and managers of Paris. Don’t you, Aristide?’
    Aristide was sullen, but Marianne said instantly, ‘Certainly: that’s true.’
    Léon nodded his head like a good little boy, ‘I’ll see if I can do something for you: should you like that, eh? See me after work some night and we’ll fix it up. What do you say, eh?’
    The girl yawned. ‘All right: I don’t mind.’
    â€˜When do you get off? Eleven tonight? Tonight?’
    â€˜Later,’ said the girl.
    â€˜I’ve got a car. I’ll take you in a taxi home. I don’t like to think—pretty girl. You’ll be tired at night. I’ll get you a job, depend on me.’
    The girl smiled sweetly. ‘What have I got to lose? … Tonight, perhaps.’ She went off lingeringly, and with some misshapen gratitude, it seemed, in her heart. Perhaps she was lonely.
    But Léon triumphed and puffed out his chest. He bent to them. ‘Eh? How was that? I don’t waste time. That’s what I say. Do something for a poor girl and she’s grateful. You give a poor girl two and six, and she says thank you and means it. You give a girl you pick up in the Scribe Bar a couple of hundred francs and she hardly opens her mouth. She never reckons it means more than a week’s wages for a miner. She never thinks of the miner working for his wife and children for a week for less than she gets. You’ve got to take working girls to know real gratitude. How did I make out, eh? You think she likes me, Marianne, eh? Yes, I think she took to me.’ He spied Margaret Weyman coming back and finished quickly. ‘Shh! Don’t say anything to her: she’s a nice girl, she’s a nice woman. You know American women—not sophisticated, not European.’
    Margaret sat down. He put his hand on her arm. ‘Margaret—another bottle of wine!—Margaret, did I tell you what I did in the General Strike in 1926? I was in London, see, staying with Strindl and Company, with Taube, he’s a fool, but old Elster is his uncle and let the boy run the business—boy, I say, fifty he is, but Elster is seventy—I was staying with Taube in Hampstead. I wake up in the morning. I eat breakfast at a quarter to eight. There’s no breakfast! There’s no gas to cook me an egg. There’s water running: I can wet my face. That’s all. There isn’t even a tin of salmon in the house. And no grocery boy. All right, I think, I’ll go downtown and get a cup of coffee. I call my chauffeur Corbin. ‘Sorry, sir: I’ve got no petrol. I can’t even get down to the gas station and at the gas