“Any objection to me offering you a word of advice, old man?” asked Ashton, on the pavement. “You’re on the wrong tack. When a woman’s made up her mind, the best plan is to agree with her. What you ought to do—”
“Keep quiet,” ordered the other exasperatedly. “Can’t you see I’m thinking?”
They crossed, and walked beside the blank wall of the works.
Ashton was again invited, in plain language, to preserve silence by putting his head in a bag. The lights went out in the restaurant opposite; on the first floor a match was struck and applied to the gas globes; the music of a pianoforte was heard.
“It’s a shame,” declared Hards, throwing out his arms emphatically, “a right-down shame for a nice-looking young woman of her sort to be left alone and neglected. Here she is, able to cook, able to play, very good to look at, and she’s no business to be left by herself.”
“Evidently she don’t want to be left with you.”
“You hop off home,” ordered Hards, “soon as ever you like, and take that book with you, and don’t you ever attempt to interfere again with matters you’ve got no concern in. Otherwise—”
His friend hurried away without taking the opportunity to hear the alternative.
Mr. Hards waited until his niece came out with a letter for the post. A whistle brought her to him from the pillar-box.
“Who was it addressed to?” he demanded. The girl replied that she had omitted to look.