er young, handsome
and smart as a superior barber's assistant, gibbered incomprehensibly of
songs they couldn't sing and lies they could tell.

The splendid irresponsibility of the music hall was wasted on Victoria.
She had the mind of a schoolmistress grafted on a social sense. She saw
nothing before her but the gross riot of the drunken. She saw no humour
in that cockney cruelty, capable though it be of absurd generosity. She
resented too Cairns's boyish pleasure in it all; he revelled, she felt,
as a buffalo wallows in a mud bath. He was gross, stupid, dull. It was
degrading to be his instrument of pleasure. But, after all, what did it
matter? He was the narrow way which would lead her to the august.

Though Cairns was not thin-skinned he perceived a little of this.
Without a word he watched the cross-talk comedians, then the 'Dandy Girl
of Cornucopia,' a rainbow of stiff frills with a voice like a fretsaw.
As the lights went down for the bioscope, the idea of reconciliation
that springs from fat cheery hearts overwhelmed him. He put his hand out
and closed it over hers. With a tremendous effort she repressed her
repulsion, and in so doing won her victory. In the darkness Cairns threw
his arms round her. He drew her towards him, moved, the least bit
hysterical. As if fearful of losing her he crushed her against his shirt
front.

Victoria did not resist him. Her eyes fixed on the blackness of the roof
she submitted to the growing brutality of his kisses on her neck, her
shoulders, her cheeks. Pressed close against him she did not withdraw
her knees from the grasp of his.

'Kiss me,' whispered Cairns imperiously.

She cast down her eyes; she could hardly see his face in the darkness,
nothing but the glitter of his eyeballs. Then, unhurried and purposeful,
she pressed her lips to his. The lights went up again. Many of the crowd
were stirring; Victoria stretched out her arms in a gesture of
weariness.

'Let's go home, Vic,' said Cairns, 'you're tired.'

'Oh, no, I'm not tired,' she said. 'I don't mind staying.'

'Well, you're bored.'

'No, not at all, it's quite interesting,' said Victoria judicially.

'Come along, Vic,' said Cairns sharply. He got up.

She looked up at him. His face was redder, more swollen than it had been
half-an-hour before. His eyes followed every movement of her arms and
shoulders. With a faint smile of understanding and the patience of those
who play lone hands, she got up and let him