Her face changed exactly as he had seen it change on the bridge when she had drawn nearer to him. Its ugly hardness suddenly looked human. And that she could look human was fantastic.
"'Ow much 'ave yer?" she asked. "'Ow much is it?"
"About ten pounds."
She stopped and stared at him with open mouth.
"Gawd!" she broke out; "ten pounds 'd send Apple Blossom Court to 'eving. Leastways, it'd take some of it out o' 'ell."
"Take me to it," he said roughly. "Take me."
She began to walk quickly, breathing fast. The fog was lighter, and it was no longer a blinding thing.
A question occurred to Dart.
"Why don't you ask me to give the money to you?" he said bluntly.
"Dunno," she answered as bluntly. But after taking a few steps farther she spoke again.
"I 'm cheerfler than most of 'em," she elaborated. "If yer born cheerfle yer can stand things. When I gets a job nussin' women's bibies they don't cry when I 'andles 'em. I gets many a bite an' a copper 'cos o' that. Folks likes yer. I shall get on better than Polly when I'm old enough to go on the street."
The organ of whose lagging, sick pumpings Antony Dart had scarcely been aware for months gave a sudden leap in his breast. His blood actually hastened its pace, and ran through his veins instead of crawling--a distinct physical effect of an actual mental condition. It was produced upon him by the mere matter-of-fact ordinariness of her tone. He had never been a sentimental man, and had long ceased to be a feeling one, but at that moment something emotional and normal happened to him.
"You expect to live in that way?" he said.
"Ain't nothin' else fer me to do. Wisht I was better lookin'. But I've got a lot of 'air," clawing her mop, "an' it's red. One day,"
chuckling, "a gent ses to me--he ses: 'Oh! yer'll do. Yer an ugly little devil--but ye ARE a devil.'"
She was leading him through a narrow, filthy back street, and she stopped, grinning up in his face.
"I say, mister," she wheedled, "let's stop at the cawfee-stand. It's up this way."
When he acceded and followed her, she quickly turned a corner. They were in another lane thick with fog, which flared with the flame of torches stuck in costers' barrows which stood here and there--barrows with fried fish upon them, barrows with second-hand-looking vegetables and others piled with more than second-hand-looking garments. Trade was not driving, but near one or two of them dirty, ill-used looking women, a man or so, and a few children stood. At a corner which led into a black hole of a court, a coffee-stand was stationed, in charge of a burly ruffian in corduroys.
"Come along," said the girl. "There it is. It ain't strong, but it's 'ot."
She sidled up to the stand, drawing Dart with her, as if glad of his protection.
"'Ello, Barney," she said. "'Ere's a gent warnts a mug o' yer best.
I've 'ad a bit o' luck, an' I wants one mesself."
"Garn," growled Barney. "You an' yer luck! Gent may want a mug, but y'd show yer money fust."
"Strewth! I've got it. Y' aint got the chinge fer wot I 'ave in me 'and 'ere. 'As 'e, mister?"
"Show it," taunted the man, and then turning to Dart. "Yer wants a mug o' cawfee?"
"Yes."
The girl held out her hand cautiously--the piece of gold lying upon its palm.
"Look 'ere," she said.
There were two or three men slouching about the stand. Suddenly a hand darted from between two of them who stood nearest, the sovereign was snatched, a screamed oath from the girl rent the thick air, and a forlorn enough scarecrow of a young fellow sprang away.
The blood leaped in Antony Dart's veins again and he sprang after him in a wholly normal passion of indignation. A thousand years ago--as it seemed to him--he had been a good runner. This man was not one, and want of food had weakened him. Dart went after him with strides which astonished himself. Up the street, into an alley and out of it, a dozen yards more and into a court, and the man wheeled with a hoarse, baffled curse. The place had no outlet.
"Hell!" was all the creature said.
Dart took him by his greasy collar. Even the brief rush had left him feeling like a living thing--which was a new sensation.
"Give it up," he ordered.
The thief looked at him with a half-laugh and obeyed, as if he felt the uselessness of a struggle. He was not more than twenty-five years old, and his eyes were cavernous with want. He had the face of a man who might have belonged to a better class. When he had uttered the exclamation invoking the infernal regions he had not dropped the aspirate.
"I 'm as hungry as she is," he raved.
"Hungry enough to rob a child beggar?" said Dart.
"Hungry enough to rob a starving old woman--or a baby," with a defiant snort. "Wolf hungry--tiger hungry--hungry enough to cut throats."
He whirled himself loose and leaned his body against the wall, turning his face toward it. Suddenly he made a choking sound and began to sob.
"Hell!" he choked. "I'll give it up! I'll give it up!"
What a figure--what a figure, as he swung against the blackened wall, his scarecrow clothes hanging on him, their once decent material making their pinning together of buttonless places, their looseness and rents showing dirty linen, more abject than any other squalor could have made them. Antony Dart's blood, still running warm and well, was doing its normal work among the brain-cells which had stirred so evilly through the night. When he had seized the fellow by the collar, his hand had left his pocket. He thrust it into another pocket and drew out some silver.
"Go and get yourself some food," he said. "As much as you can eat. Then go and wait for me at the place they call Apple Blossom Court. I don't know where it is, but I am going there. I want to hear how you came to this. Will you come?"
The thief lurched away from the wall and toward him. He stared up into his eyes through the fog. The tears had smeared his cheekbones.
"God!" he said. "Will I come? Look and see if I'll come." Dart looked.
"Yes, you'll come," he answered, and he gave him the money. "I 'm going back to the coffee-stand."
The thief stood staring after him as he went out of the court. Dart was speaking to himself.
"I don't know why I did it," he said. "But the thing had to be done."
In the street he turned into he came upon the robbed girl, running, panting, and crying. She uttered a shout and flung herself upon him, clutching his coat.
"Gawd!" she sobbed hysterically, "I thort I'd lost yer! I thort I'd lost all of it, I did! Strewth! I 'm glad I've found yer--" and she stopped, choking with her sobs and sniffs, rubbing her face in her sack.
"Here is your sovereign," Dart said, handing it to her.
She dropped the corner of the sack and looked up with a queer laugh.
"Did yer find a copper? Did yer give him in charge?"