“I don’t see where I come in,” she said, carelessly shrugging her shoulders; and she stooped and gathered up her skirts in her gloved hand as though to be moving again.
“Well, yer see,” said he—“it seems to me as you’re what the poet bloke calls the Juliet of a Night—and I’m goin’ to be your bloomin’ Romeo, see?”... He stepped nearer to her.... “Hold up yer bloomin’ mouth, and let’s kiss yer head.”
Ffolliott put out his hand:
“Go away, you vulgar fellow,” said he—“you smell.”
He was hustled from behind and tripped across the kerb-stone—threw up his hands—lurched forward and fell across the footway. As he fell he rolled over, showing a white face that gleamed death-like under the dim light of the gas-lamp. He lay very still.
The girl whimpered, pulled herself together, and fixed her eyes sternly on the scowling fellow before her, his hands thrust in his coat pockets:
“I saw you do it,” she said.
“And after that?” he asked with a sneer, his chin thrust out at her.
“When twelve men talk about these kind of accidents,” she said with biting precision and level voice, “I’ve heard them call it murder; and the judge——”
She shrugged her shoulders.