take it from the little table by the piano, you know,"
he continued. "It was rather a rash thing to do. Mrs. Fitzgerald was
looking for it before I reached the stairs. I expect she has called the
police in by now."

Slowly her hand stole into the depths of her pocket and emerged.
Something flashed for a moment high over her head. The young man caught
her wrist just in time, caught it in a veritable grip of iron. Then,
indeed, the evil fires flashed from her eyes, her teeth gleamed white,
her bosom rose and fell in a storm of angry, unuttered sobs. She was
dry-eyed and still speechless, but for all that she was a tigress. A
strangely-cut silhouette they formed there upon the housetops, with a
background of empty sky, their feet sinking in the warm leads.

"I think I had better take it," he said. "Let go."

Her fingers yielded the bracelet--a tawdry, ill-designed affair of
rubies and diamonds. He looked at it disapprovingly.

"That's an ugly thing to go to prison for," he remarked, slipping it
into his pocket. "It was a stupid thing to do, anyhow, you know. You
couldn't have got away with it--unless," he added, looking over
the parapet as though struck with a sudden idea, "unless you had a
confederate below."

He heard the rush of her skirts and he was only just in time. Nothing,
in fact, but a considerable amount of presence of mind and the full
exercise of a strength which was continually providing surprises for his
acquaintances, was sufficient to save her. Their struggles upon the
very edge of the roof dislodged a brick from the palisading, which went
hurtling down into the street. They both paused to watch it, his arms
still gripping her and one foot pressed against an iron rod. It was
immediately after they had seen it pitch harmlessly into the road that
a new sensation came to this phlegmatic young man. For the first time in
his life, he realized that it was possible to feel a certain pleasurable
emotion in the close grasp of a being of the opposite sex. Consequently,
although she had now ceased to struggle, he kept his arms locked around
her, looking into her face with an interest intense enough, but more
analytical than emotional, as though seeking to discover the meaning of
this curious throbbing of his pulses. She herself, as though exhausted,
remained quite passive, shivering a little in his grasp and breathing
like a hunted animal whose last hour has come. Their eyes met; then she
tore herself away.

"