I'll tear her eyes out.' 'No, you won't, now
then,' he said. 'Won't I? I will, then,' and with that I just lost
control of my feelings, I felt that wild...."

"What did you do, Doll?" asked Daisy, plying her with brandy to soothe
the outraged memory.

"What did I do? Why, I spat in his tea and came straight off down to the
Orange. 'Yes,' I said, 'you can sit drinking tea while you break my
heart.' Don't you ever go and have a fancy boy, Daise. Why, I was a
straight girl when I first knew him. Straight--well, anyway not on the
game like what I am now." Here Dolly Wearne began to weep with bitter
self-compassion. "I've slaved for that fellow, and now he serves me like
dirt."

"Go on. Don't cry, duck," Daisy begged. "Come home with me to-night and
we can send and fetch your things away to-morrow. I wouldn't cry over
him," she said fiercely. "There's no fellow worth crying over. The best
of them isn't worth crying over."

The four offensive youths in the alcove began to mock Dolly's tears, and
Michael, who was already bitten with some of the primitive pugnacity of
the underworld, rose to attack them.

"Sit down," Daisy commanded. "I wouldn't mess my hands, if I was you,
with such a pack of filth. Sit down, you stupid boy. You'll get us all
into trouble."

Michael managed by a great effort to resume his seat, but for a minute
or two he saw the beerhall through a mist of rage.

Gradually Dolly's tears ceased to flow, and after another brandy she
became merely more abusive of the faithless Dave. Her cheeks swollen
with crying seemed flabbier than ever, and her long retreating chin
expressed a lugubrious misanthropy.

"Rotten, I call it, don't you?" said the sympathetic Daisy, appealing to
Michael.

He agreed with a profound nod.

"And she's been that good to him. You wouldn't believe."

Michael thought it was rather risky to embark upon an enumeration of
Dolly's virtuous acts. He feared another relapse into noisy grief.

At this moment the subject of Daisy's eulogy rose from her seat and
stared very dramatically at a corner of the main portion of the
beerhall.

"My God!" she said, with ominous calm.

"What is it, duck?" asked Daisy, anxiously peering.

"My God!" Daisy repeated intensely. Then suddenly she poured forth a
volley of obloquy, and with an hysterical scream caught up her glass
evidently intending to hurl it in the direction of her abuse. Daisy
seized one arm: Michael gripped the other, and togeth