hey had always been enemies, and
now that the gloves were off they were almost glad.

"So that's my line. Cradle-snatching. Vamping the helpless infant!" She
burst into a fit of angry, ugly laughter. "A good time! Running round
with a poor kid with ten shillings a week pocket-money--eating in beastly
cheap restaurants--riding on the tops of 'buses when some girls I know
are feeding at the Ritz and rolling round in limousines. That's what I
get for being soft. And now because I won't shoot myself, or go off to
nowhere steerage, I'm a bad, abandoned woman. What d'you take me for?"

"What you are," he said.

She went dead white under her streaky paint.

"You--you've got no right to say that. You're a devil--a stuck-up
devil--I hate you--I'd have always hated you if I'd bothered to mind.
I--I gave _him_ a good time. That's the truth. He was down and out when
I met him, and I set him on his feet. I didn't mind what I missed--or
the other girls guying me--I made him laugh and believe he had as good a
chance in the world as anyone else. I put a bit of fun into him. I
liked the kid. I--I like him now. If he wanted a good time to-morrow
I'd run round with him again. But I'm no movie heroine--I'm not out for
poison and funerals and slow music. Life's too damn serious for my sort
to make a wail and a moan about it."

He stood close to her. He almost menaced her. He did in fact look
dangerous enough with his white, set face and unflinching eyes in which
stood two points of metallic light. If he had seen himself then he might
have cowered away as from a ghost.

"I don't care a rap about you. I do care about my friend. You've got to
stand by Cosgrave till he's over the worst."

"I won't--I won't!"

"I'll make you. You took him up. You made him think you cared about
him. You're responsible----"

"I'm not--I won't be responsible; it's not my line. I've got myself to
look after."

She had the look of someone struggling against an invisible
entanglement--a pitiable, rather horrible look of naked purpose. She
meant to cut free at whatever cost.

"You little beast!" he said.

He was sick with contempt. He swung away from her, and she stood in the
middle of the pavement and called names after him like a drunken, furious
street-girl. She did not seem to be even aware of the people who stared
at her. When he was almost out of hearing, she added:

"Give him my love!" shrilly, vindictively, as thoug