One morning Alf came round quietly to see her. She was at the wash-tub, busy and bare-armed; and met him with eyes that were neither fearful nor defiant.
"I'm not a-goin to hurt you, Ruth," he began caressingly, with a characteristic lift of his chin. "I only come to say it's all right. You got nothink against me now and I'll forget all I know about you. A bargain's a bargain. And now you've done your bit I'll do mine."
The announcement, so generous in its intention, did not seem to make the expected impression.
"I am a gentleman," continued Alf, leaning against the door-post. "Always ave been. It's in me blood, see? Can't help meself like even if I was to wish to." He started off on a favourite theme of his. "Lord Ravensrood—him that made that speech on the Territorials the other night in the House of Lords, he's my second cousin. I daresay if enough was to die I'd be Lord Ravensrood meself. Often whiles I remember that. I'm not like the rest of them. I got blue blood running through me veins, as Reverend Spink says. You can tell that by the look of me. I'm not the one to take advantage."
Ruth, up to her elbows in soap-suds, lifted her face.
"I'm not afraid o you, Alf," she said quite simply. "Now I got my Ern."
The announcement annoyed Alf. He rolled his head resentfully.
"No one as does right has anythink to fear from me," he said harshly. "It's only wrong-doers I'm a terror to. Don't you believe what they tell you. So long as you keep yourself accordin and don't interfere with nobody, nobody won't interfere with you, my gurl."
Ruth mocked him daintily.
"I'm not your girl," she said, soaping her beautifully moulded arms. "I'm Ern's girl, and proud of it." Her lovely eyes engaged his, teasing and tempting. "That's our room above—his and mine. It's cosy."