“Well, you may,” she answered, smiling and blushing. All those fellows who hang about the bar think they can do anything with me. You never tried to kiss me like they do.”
“It’s not because I didn’t want to, Jenny,” answered Basil, laughing.
She made no reply, but looked at him with smiling mouth and tender eyes; he would have been a fool not to recognise the invitation. He slipped his arm round her waist and touched her lips, but he was astonished at the frank surrender with which she received his embrace, and the fugitive pressure turned into a kiss so passionate that Basil’s limbs tingled. The cab stopped at the Golden Crown, and he helped her out.
“Good-night.”
Next day, when he went to the public-house, Jenny blushed deeply, but she greeted him with a quiet intimacy which in his utter loneliness was very gratifying. It caused him singular content that someone at last took an interest in him. Freedom is all very well, but there are moments when a man yearns for someone to whom his comings and goings, his health or illness, are not matters of complete indifference.
“Don’t go yet,” said Jenny; “I want to tell you something.”
He waited till the bar was clear.
“I’ve broken off my engagement with Tom,” she said then. “He waited on the other side of the street last night and saw us go out together. And this morning he came in and rounded on me. I told him if he didn’t like it he could lump it. And then he got nasty, and I told him I wouldn’t have anything more to do with him.”
Basil looked at her for a moment silently.
“But aren’t you fond of him, Jenny?”