“Nonsense, Winnie! sit down,” cried Clytie. “Take him away Mr. Kent, or I'll do him some mischief myself!”
Kent shook the urchin till his teeth chattered and his evil little face grew red. Winifred still clung to his arm.
“Don't! you shan't do it! He is no better than an animal! He did not know what he was doing. Nothing you could do to him would give me back my picture. It would be simple vengeance. Oh, send him away! Send him away!” and turning from Kent, she burst into tears and clung to Clytie, sobbing.
“Miss Marchpane is right,” said Kent slowly and looking at Clytie. “Let the little brute go. Here, you, go! If ever I see you near the place, I will give you to a policeman!”
Visions of the lowering blue storm-cloud, ever seeming to the children of the streets ready to burst upon their heads, loomed before the little outcast's imagination. He shivered, shrunk away from Kent's relaxed grasp, darted a keen, swift look of malignity at Clytie, and disappeared like a flash through the open door.
Clytie held Winifred protectingly with one arm, soothing her, mingling words of comfort with outbursts of self-reproach and unrighteous indignation. As Jack slipped away she made an impulsive movement forward, but Winifred restrained her.
“How dare you let him go?” she exclaimed, turning her anger upon Kent. “If it had not been for you I would have given him a lesson he'd have remembered all his life. To do a work of devilry like that and not be punished! I'll set the police upon him!”
“No, no!” murmured Winifred.
“I will. What are reformatories for? Go and call a policeman, Mr. Kent. It is the least you can do!”
“I shall leave him alone,” replied Kent. “It would not do him any good and it would not do Miss Marchpane any good. He'll never come here again, and I should advise you not to introduce any more of his sort into your studio. When a child of the flesh and the devil gets hold of a thing of the spirit, the spiritual suffers.”