So complete was her stupidity, that Bob had to make a laborious explanation of this mathematical term. She could have understood what was meant by a half or a quarter, but the unfamiliar ‘third’ conveyed no distinct meaning.
‘I don’t care,’ she said at length. ‘That ‘ud be enough.’
‘Clem—you’d better leave this job alone. You’d better, I warn you.’
‘I shan’t,’
Another long silence. A steamboat drew up to the Temple Pier, and a yellow shaft of sunlight fell softly upon its track in the water.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Bob recommenced. ‘How?’
Their eyes met, and in the woman’s gaze he found a horrible fascination, a devilish allurement to that which his soul shrank from. She lowered her voice.
‘There’s lots of ways. It ‘ud be easy to make it seem as somebody did it just to rob him. He’s always out late at night.’
His face was much the colour of the muddy water yellowed by that shaft of sunlight. His lips quivered. ‘I dursn’t, Clem. I tell you plain, I dursn’t.’
‘Coward!’ she snarled at him, savagely. ‘Coward! All right, Mr. Bob. You go your way, and I’ll go mine.’