It was very dark inside, and for some seconds Millie stared into what seemed absolute blackness, but as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she saw the interior begin to take outline, and when she moved a couple of steps into the place and allowed more light to come in through the doorway, various tins, boxes and packets in the shelves behind the counter were faintly distinguishable.
Once inside, the spirit of plunder took hold of her, and she began to take down boxes of cigars and cigarettes and packets of tobacco, piling them up in a heap on the counter. But she had no basket in which to carry the accumulation she was making, and she was feeling under the counter for some box into which to put her haul, when the shadows round her deepened again into almost absolute darkness. Cautiously she peered up over the counter and saw the silhouette of a woman standing in the doorway.
For ten breathless seconds Millie hung motionless, her eyes fixed on the apparition. She was very civilized still, and she was suddenly conscious of committing a crime. She feared horribly lest the figure in the doorway might discover Millicent Gosling stealing tobacco. But the intruder, after recognizing the nature of the shop’s contents, moved away with a sigh. Millie heard her dragging footsteps shuffle past the window.
That scare decided her movements. She hastily looped up the front of her skirt, bundled into it as much plunder as she could conveniently carry, and made her way out into the street again.
She was nearly at the corner of Wisteria Grove before she was molested, and then an elderly woman came suddenly out of a doorway and laid a hand on Millie’s arm.
“Whacher got?” asked the woman savagely.
Millie, shrinking and terrified, displayed her plunder.
“Cigars,” muttered the woman. “Whacher want with cigars?” She opened the boxes and stirred up the contents of Millie’s improvised bundle in an eager search for something to eat. “Gawd’s truth! yer must be crazy, yer thievin’ little slut!” she grumbled, and pushed the girl fiercely from her.
Millie made good her escape, dropping a box of cigars in her flight. Her one thought now was the fear of meeting a policeman. In three minutes she was beating fiercely on the door of the little house in Wisteria Grove, and, disregarding her father’s exclamations of pleased surprise when he let her in, she tumbled in a heap on to the mat in the passage.
Gosling’s first declaration of male superiority had been splendidly successful.