ad my
experience. If I let 'im 'ang on 'e get much worse. If I push 'im
off--poof!--an explosion! Then 'e find a nice leetle girl who is not
like me at all and marry--ver' respectable--and 'ave 'eaps of babies.
That is what 'e want. But it is not my _affaire_--and I won't be
bothered. I tell you 'e is too _ennuyeux_----"

He lashed out at her.

"--and too poor. My God, you're no better than a woman of the streets."

She assented with a certain gravity.

"_C'est bien vrai, ca--bien vrai_. I was born in ze gutter--I crawl
out of ze gutter by myself. I keep out of ze gutter--always. And I
don't cry and wring my 'ands when people try to kick me back again. I
kick them. I look after myself. Monsieur Cosgrave--and all those
others--they must look after themselves too. Do you think they bother
about me if I become _ennuyeuse_--like them--and cry because they don't
love me and like some leetle girl in ze chorus better? Not they. They
want fun and life from me--and I give them that. When they want more
they can--'ow you say?--get out?"

He stared at her in white-hot detestation.

"I see. I've just wasted my time. You're--you're as infamous as they
say. You're taking everything he has, and now he can go and hang
himself. You're worse than a woman of the streets because you're more
clever."

She kissed her fingers at him in good-humoured farewell. "I like you
ver' much--_quand meme_," she said. "Next time I come and call on you,
per'aps!"

2

That same night Cosgrave, frustrated at the theatre, tried to force an
entrance to the Kensington house, and the old woman, seconded by a
Japanese man-servant, flung him out again and into the arms of a
policeman who promptly arrested him. Stonehouse went bail for him, and
there was a strange, frantic scene in his own rooms.

For this was not the gentle young man who had met Connie Edwards'
infidelity with an apathetic resignation. He was violent and
indignant. His sense of outrage was a sort of intoxication which gave
an extraordinary forcefulness to his whole bearing. He stormed and
threatened--the misery that stared out of his haggard blue eyes
shrivelling in the heat of an almost animal fury. (And yet he
stammered too--which was comically what the other Rufus Cosgrave would
have done.)

"I--I love her. I've never loved anyone else. That Connie business--a
b-boy and girl affair--a silly flirtation--this--the real thing.
I--I'm a m-man now.