A woman, lean, hard-featured, with thin grey hair disordered and unkempt, looked up quickly at his coming and as quickly down again.

Her face was perhaps too lifeless to express any emotion whatsoever, but there might have been a shade of disappointment in the swift withdrawal of her gaze.

A customer would have been next door to a miracle, but hope dies hard.
"You!" she muttered.

"What are you bothering about ?" "I want David," Aaron Thurnbrein panted.

"I have news! Is he behind ?" The woman moved away to let him pass.
"He is behind," she answered, in a dull, lifeless tone.