He kissed her on the mouth, while Charlie stood looking at them with eyes that seemed to stare themselves out of his head, turned and went out.
"Nighty-night!" Kitty called after him.
After the front door clicked again there was a moment's silence. Kitty advanced, shook off her cloak, took up one of the sugary cakes, and began to munch it. She looked beautiful and careless and sorry and hard all at once.
"What are you sitting up for, Charlie?" she asked. "I didn't expect to see you. I brought that fellow in to talk."
"What about?" said Charlie in a hoarse desolate voice.
"Charlie," said Kitty, hurriedly, "you know this arrangement of ours can't last, now, can it, dear? You haven't the cash for one thing, dear. Now, have you? And I've got to think of myself a little; a girl's got to provide. You've been awf'ly good to me. Let's part friends."
"'Part!'" he repeated.
His eyes seemed to start from his head.
"Let's part friends," wheedled Kitty. "Shall us?"
The night passed in a kind of evil vision of desolation, and Kitty was asleep long before he had stopped his futile whisperings into her ear.