“Here, I say, you know!” said Freddie.
Henry, now thoroughly overwrought, made a rush at Jill: and Jill, who had a straight eye, hit him accurately on the side of the head.
“Goo!” said Henry, and sat down.
And then, from behind Jill, a voice spoke.
“What’s all this?”
A stout policeman had manifested himself from empty space.
“This won’t do!” said the policeman.
Erb, who had been a silent spectator of the fray, burst into speech. “She ’it ’im!”
The policeman looked at Jill. He was an officer of many years’ experience in the Force, and time had dulled in him that respect for good clothes which he had brought with him from Little-Sudbury-in-the-Wold in the days of his novitiate. Jill was well-dressed, but, in the stirring epoch of the Suffrage disturbances, the policeman had been kicked on the shins and even bitten by ladies of an equally elegant exterior. Hearts, the policeman knew, just as pure and fair may beat in Belgrave Square as in the lowlier air of Seven Dials, but you have to pinch them just the same when they disturb the peace. His gaze, as it fell upon Jill, red-handed as it were with the stick still in her grasp, was stern.
“Your name, please, and address, miss?” he said.