“More shame for you—a great hulking brute like you.”
“I don’t mind taking five pounds.”
“You won’t get a half-penny.”
“Then out I goes to fetch a policeman.”
He moved towards the door. Irene took a step forward.
“You dare threaten me!” she cried. “You! Get out of my house and never let me hear of you again, or, as there’s a Lord in heaven, I’ll put the Children’s Protection Society on your tracks and you’ll see the inside of a gaol.”
Whether it was the threat or Irene’s shining eyes that cowed the man, Hugh could not tell. He slunk away with muffled maledictions and banged the street door after him. Hugh ran to meet her, his heart aglow with her. It was the eternal combat of Mithra and Ahriman. He broke into boyish eulogies. She laughed a little excitedly and wiped her lips with her handkerchief.
“Let us go back to the smoking-room. The foul beast! The whole air tastes of him.”
“You have a delicious way of setting the law of England at defiance,” he said, laughing.
“Bad laws ought to be defied,” she retorted, full of the flush of victory. Which exquisitely feminine conviction he had not the heart to disturb.