At the sight of that hated face, seen by him before only for a moment but never to be forgotten, rage took him by the throat, his heart pounded, his hands shook; in another instant he had Baxter by the waistcoat and was shaking him.
"You blackguard! You blackguard! You blackguard!" he cried. Then he stepped back; "Come on, you swine! You dirty coward! . . ." With his hand he struck him across the face.
At that moment Baxter must have been the most astonished man in England. He was waiting for his omnibus and suddenly some one from nowhere had caught him by the throat, screamed at him, smacked his cheek. He was no coward; he responded nobly, and in a whirl of sky, omnibuses, women, shop-window and noise they were involved, until, slipping over the edge of the kerb, they fell both into the road.
Baxter, rising first, muttered: "Look here! What the devil . . ." then suddenly realized his opponent.
They had no opportunity for a further encounter. A crowd had instantly gathered and was pressing them in. A policeman had his hand on Henry's collar.
"Now, then, what's all this?"
No one can tell what were Baxter's thoughts, the tangle of his emotions, regrets, pride, remorse, since that last scene with Millie. All that is known is that he pushed aside some small boy pressing up with excited wonder in his face, brushed through the crowd and was gone.
Henry remained. He stood up, the centre of an excited circle, the policeman's hand on his shoulder. His glasses were gone and the world was a blur; he had a large bump on his forehead, his breath came in confused, excited pants, his collar was torn. So suddenly had the incident occurred that no one could give an account of it. Some one had been knocked down by some one—or had some one fallen? Was it a robbery or an attempted murder? Out of the mist of voices and faces the large, broad shoulders of the policeman were the only certain fact.
"Now, then, clear out of this. . . . Move along there." The policeman looked at Henry; Henry looked at the policeman. Instantly there was sympathy between them. The policeman's face was round and red like a sun; his eyes were mild as a cow's.