Martin's lips curled.

"Purple just here," he said.

Thyme's cheeks were crimson.

At the end of the little street he stopped before a shop.

"Come on," he said, "you'll see the sort of place where they buy their
grub."

In the doorway were standing a thin brown spaniel, a small fair woman
with a high, bald forehead, from which the hair was gleaned into
curlpapers, and a little girl with some affection of the skin.

Nodding coolly, Martin motioned them aside. The shop was ten feet
square; its counters, running parallel to two of the walls, were covered
with plates of cake, sausages, old ham-bones, peppermint sweets, and
household soap; there was also bread, margarine, suet in bowls, sugar,
bloaters--many bloaters--Captain's biscuits, and other things besides.
Two or three dead rabbits hung against the wall. All was uncovered, so
that what flies there were sat feeding socialistically. Behind the
counter a girl of seventeen was serving a thin-faced woman with portions
of a cheese which she was holding down with her strong, dirty hand, while
she sawed it with a knife. On the counter, next the cheese, sat a
quiet-looking cat.

They all glanced round at the two young people, who stood and waited.

"Finish what you're at," said Martin, "then give me three pennyworth of
bull's-eyes."

The girl, with a violent effort, finished severing the cheese. The
thin-faced woman took it, and, coughing above it, went away. The girl,
who could not take her eyes off Thyme, now served them with three
pennyworth of bull's-eyes, which she took out with her fingers, for they
had stuck. Putting them in a screw of newspaper, she handed them to
Martin. The young man, who had been observing negligently, touched
Thyme's elbow. She, who had stood with eyes cast down, now turned. They
went out, Martin handing the bull's-eyes to the little girl with an
affection of the skin.

The street now ended in a wide road formed of little low houses.

"Black," said Martin, "here; all down this road-casual labour, criminals,
loafers, drunkards, consumps. Look at the faces!"

Thyme raised her eyes obediently. In this main thoroughfare it was not
as in the by-street, and only dull or sullen glances, or none at all,
were bent on her. Some of the houses had ragged plants on the
window-sills; in one window a canary was singing. Then, at a bend, they
came into a blacker reach of human river. Here were outbuildings, houses
with broken windows,