"You can't make me," retorted Fancy. "Unless, o' course, you choose to use force, here in broad daylight. As a friend of mine said, only the other day," she went on, snatching at a purple patch from 'Pickerley,' "the man as would lift his hand against a woman deserves whatever can be said of him. Public opinion will condemn him in this life, and, in the next, worms are his portion. So there!"
"I dunno what you're talkin' about," said 'Bias, preoccupied with the thought of coming vengeance.
"Who's meanin' to lift his hand against a woman?"
"Well, mind you don't, that's all!"
She left him standing on the doorstep, and skipped away up the steps. Having reached a point which commanded a view over the blinds of Mr Philp's front window, she gave a glance into the room, and at once her arms and legs started to twitch as though in the opening movement of some barbaric war-dance.
'Bias, still inattentive, took no heed of these contortions. After a moment's pause he rapped sharply on the door with the knob of his walking-stick, then boldly lifted the latch and strode into the passage.
On his right the door of the front parlour stood ajar. He thrust it wide open and entered. And, as he entered, a female figure arose from a chair on the far side of the room.
"I—I beg your pardon, ma'am!" stammered 'Bias, falling back a pace.
"Polly wants a kiss!" screamed a voice. It did not seem to proceed from the lady. . . . Somehow, too, it was strangely familiar. . . . 'Bias stared wildly about him.
At the same moment, and just as his eyes fell on the parrot-cage on the table, the lady—But was it a lady? Heavens! what did it resemble—this figure in female attire?