read well--even with your mouth full
of sausage. Mr. Hoopdriver formed a vague idea of drawing
"something"--for his judgment on the little old lady was already formed.
He pictured the little old lady discovering it afterwards--"My gracious!
One of them Punch men," she would say. The room had a curtained recess
and a chest of drawers, for presently it was to be his bedroom, and the
day part of it was decorated with framed Oddfellows' certificates and
giltbacked books and portraits, and kettle-holders, and all kinds of
beautiful things made out of wool; very comfortable it was indeed. The
window was lead framed and diamond paned, and through it one saw the
corner of the vicarage and a pleasant hill crest, in dusky silhouette
against the twilight sky. And after the sausages had ceased to be, he
lit a Red Herring cigarette and went swaggering out into the twilight
street. All shadowy blue between its dark brick houses, was the street,
with a bright yellow window here and there and splashes of green and red
where the chemist's illumination fell across the road.

XV. AN INTERLUDE

And now let us for a space leave Mr. Hoopdriver in the dusky Midhurst
North Street, and return to the two folks beside the railway bridge
between Milford and Haslemere. She was a girl of eighteen, dark,
fine featured, with bright eyes, and a rich, swift colour under her
warm-tinted skin. Her eyes were all the brighter for the tears that swam
in them. The man was thirty three or four, fair, with a longish nose
overhanging his sandy flaxen moustache, pale blue eyes, and a head that
struck out above and behind. He stood with his feet wide apart, his hand
on his hip, in an attitude that was equally suggestive of defiance and
aggression. They had watched Hoopdriver out of sight. The unexpected
interruption had stopped the flood of her tears. He tugged his abundant
moustache and regarded her calmly. She stood with face averted,
obstinately resolved not to speak first. "Your behaviour," he said at
last, "makes you conspicuous."

She turned upon him, her eyes and cheeks glowing, her hands clenched.
"You unspeakable CAD," she said, and choked, stamped her little foot,
and stood panting.

"Unspeakable cad! My dear girl! Possible I AM an unspeakable cad. Who
wouldn't be--for you?"

"'Dear girl!' How DARE you speak to me like that? YOU--"

"I would do anything--"

"OH!"

There was a moment's pause. She looked squarely into his face, her eyes
a