icity in the members of the force.
For Stevie was frank and as open as the day himself. What did they mean
by pretending then? Unlike his sister, who put her trust in face values,
he wished to go to the bottom of the matter. He carried on his inquiry
by means of an angry challenge.

"What for are they then, Winn? What are they for? Tell me."

Winnie disliked controversy. But fearing most a fit of black depression
consequent on Stevie missing his mother very much at first, she did not
altogether decline the discussion. Guiltless of all irony, she answered
yet in a form which was not perhaps unnatural in the wife of Mr Verloc,
Delegate of the Central Red Committee, personal friend of certain
anarchists, and a votary of social revolution.

"Don't you know what the police are for, Stevie? They are there so that
them as have nothing shouldn't take anything away from them who have."

She avoided using the verb "to steal," because it always made her brother
uncomfortable. For Stevie was delicately honest. Certain simple
principles had been instilled into him so anxiously (on account of his
"queerness") that the mere names of certain transgressions filled him
with horror. He had been always easily impressed by speeches. He was
impressed and startled now, and his intelligence was very alert.

"What?" he asked at once anxiously. "Not even if they were hungry?
Mustn't they?"

The two had paused in their walk.

"Not if they were ever so," said Mrs Verloc, with the equanimity of a
person untroubled by the problem of the distribution of wealth, and
exploring the perspective of the roadway for an omnibus of the right
colour. "Certainly not. But what's the use of talking about all that?
You aren't ever hungry."

She cast a swift glance at the boy, like a young man, by her side. She
saw him amiable, attractive, affectionate, and only a little, a very
little, peculiar. And she could not see him otherwise, for he was
connected with what there was of the salt of passion in her tasteless
life--the passion of indignation, of courage, of pity, and even of
self-sacrifice. She did not add: "And you aren't likely ever to be as
long as I live." But she might very well have done so, since she had
taken effectual steps to that end. Mr Verloc was a very good husband.
It was her honest impression that nobody could help liking the boy. She
cried out suddenly:

"Quick, Stevie. Stop that green 'bus."

And Stevie, tremul