might come.

"She shows you people's letters, does she?" said Polly with a sneer.

"This one she did. Good reason. It was funny reading, old girl. That's
your opinion of me, is it? Do you mind telling me who the gentleman
is--the _real_ gentleman--you think of taking up with?"

Gammon could not strike a really ungenerous note. He had meant to be
severe, but did not get beyond sly banter.

"She's a cat for showing it to you!" replied Miss Sparkes. "That was
wrote before we--you know what. It was after you'd took your 'ook that
Sunday on the Embankment. I didn't mean it. I was a bit cross. I'll pay
her out some day for this, see if I don't."

Much more did Polly say, the gist of it all being an evident desire to
soothe her companion's feelings. Gammon found himself in an unexpected
and awkward position. He had taken for granted an outbreak of violence,
he had counted upon the opportunity of mutual invective, he wished to
tell Polly to go further. In the face of such singular mildness he was
at a loss for weapons. Mere brutality would soon have settled the
matter, but of that Mr. Gammon was incapable. At this juncture too, as
if in support of Polly's claim to indulgence, a strain, irresistible by
heart of man, preluded a song of the affections. Gammon began to
understand what a mistake it was to have brought Polly to a music-hall
for the purpose of breaking with her. Under cover of the languishing
lyric Miss Sparkes put her head nearer to him.

"What am I to do, eh?"

"To do?"

"I cawn't go on like this. Do you want me to get another job somewhere?
I sh'd think you might see I cawn't wear this jacket much longer."

The crisis was dreadful. Gammon clutched at the only possible method of
appeasing his conscience, and postponing decisive words he took Polly's
hand--poorly gloved--and secretly pressed the palm with a coin, which
Polly in less than a clock-tick ascertained to be one pound sterling.
She smiled. "What's that for?"

"For--for the present."

And in this way another evening went by, leaving things as before.

"I'd never have believed I was such a fool," said Gammon to himself at
a late hour. He meant, of course, that experience was teaching him for
the first time the force of a moral obligation, which, as theorist, he
had always held mere matter for joke. He by no means prided himself on
this newly-acquired perception; he saw it only as an obstacle to
business-like behaviour. But it was there, and--by