The girl sank into the chair and began to cry.
"I can't help it, Kincher," she said. "I don't know what to say or do. Fancy Fred being charged with murder! Oh, it's too dreadful to think about. And yet I can think of nothing else."
"Crying your eyes out won't help matters much," replied the unsympathetic Kemp.
The girl did not reply, but rocked herself backwards and forwards on the chair. She sobbed so violently that she appeared to be threatened with an attack of hysteria. Kemp watched her silently. The cat on the sofa-bedstead, as if awakened by the noise, got up, yawned, looked inquiringly round, and then with a measured leap sprang into the girl's lap. She was startled by his act and then she smiled through her sobs as she stroked the animal's coat.
"Poor old Peter!" she exclaimed. "He wants to console me! don't you, Peter? I say, Kincher, I wish you'd give me Peter; you don't want him. Oh, look at the dear!" The cat had perched himself on one of her knees to beg, and he sawed the air appealingly with his forepaws. "I must give him a tit-bit for that." She eyed the remains of the meal on the table disdainfully. "No, Peter, there is nothing fit for you to eat—positively nothing. Why, he understands me like a human being," she continued in amazement as the huge cat dropped on all fours and deliberately sprang back to the sofa-bedstead. "I say, Kincher, you really want a woman in this place to look after you. It's in a most shocking state—it's like a pigsty."
Kemp made no reply but continued to watch her. Her tears had vanished and she sat forward with her dark eyes sparkling, one hand supporting her pretty face as she glanced round the room.
"Have you a cigarette?" she asked suddenly.
Kemp went into the shop and came back with a packet of cheap cigarettes.
The girl pushed them away petulantly.
"I don't like that brand," she said; "haven't you anything better?"
The man shook his head.