in an appealing fashion, and crying, "Oh,
don't! Don't hit me!..." The other figure was that of a man, and as the
woman shrank from him, the man advanced towards her with his fist
uplifted....

Henry could feel himself shrinking back into the shadow.

"He's going to hit her," he was saying to himself, and he closed his
eyes, afraid lest he should see the man's fist smashing into the woman's
face. He could hear a foul oath uttered by the man and the woman's
scream as she retreated still further from him ... and then, trembling
with fright, he ran across the street and thrust himself between them.
"Oh, my God, what am I doing?" he moaned to himself as he stood in the
glare of the yellow light that fell from the street lamp. He felt rather
than saw that the woman had risen from the ground and run away the
moment the man's attention was distracted from her, and a shudder of
fear ran through him as he realised that he was alone. He could see the
man's brutal face and his blazing, drink-inflamed eyes, and in the
middle of his fear, he thought how ugly the man's eyebrows were ... one
long, black line from eye to eye across the top of his nose. The man,
his fist clenched and raised, advanced towards him. "He's going to hit
me now," Henry thought. "He'll knock me down and ... and kick me!...
These people always kick you!..."

He stood still waiting for the blow, mesmerised by the man's blazing
eyes; but the man, though his fist was still clenched, did not strike
him. He reeled up to him so closely that Henry was sickened by the
smell of his drink-sodden breath. "Fight for a woman, would you?" he
shouted at him. "Eih? P'tect a woman, would you?..."

Henry wanted to laugh. The man was repeating phrases from melodramas!...

"Tyke a woman's part, eih? I know you, you bloody toff! You ... you
think you're a bloody 'ero, eih, p'tectin' a woman from 'er 'usband!" He
pushed Henry aside, almost falling on the pavement as he did so. "I've a
goo' mind to break your bloody neck for you, see, bloody toff,
interferin' ... 'usband an' wife. See? Thash what I'll do!..."

He came again at Henry, but still he did not strike. He mumbled his
melodramatic phrases, swaying in front of Henry, and threatening to
break his neck and punch his jaw and give him a thick ear, but he did no
more than that, and while he threatened, a crowd gathered out of the
shadows, and a woman, with bare arms, touched Henry's arm and drew him
away from the drunken ma