“And I’ll tell ye another thing, young miss,” Batchgrew went on.  “Every minute as ye spend with young Fores ye’ll regret.  He’s a bad lot, and ye may as well know it first as last.  Ye ought to thank me for telling of ye, but ye won’t.”

“I really don’t know what you mean, Mr. Batchgrew!” She could not invent another phrase.

“Ye know what I mean right enough, young miss!...  If ye only came in for ten minutes yer time’s up.”

Rachel moved to leave.

“Hold on!” Batchgrew stopped her.  There was a change in his voice.

“Look at me!” he commanded, but with the definite order was mingled some trace of cajolery.

She obeyed, quivering, her cheeks the colour of a tomato.  In spite of all preoccupations, she distinctly noticed—­and not without a curious tremor—­that his features had taken on a boyish look.  In the almost senile face she could see ambushed the face of the youth that Thomas Batchgrew had been perhaps half a century before.

“Ye’re a fine wench,” said he, with a note of careless but genuine admiration.  “I’ll not deny it.  Don’t ye go and throw yerself away.  Keep out o’ mischief.”

Forgetting all but the last phrase, Rachel marched out of the room, unspeakably humiliated, wounded beyond any expression of her own.  The cowardly, odious brute!  The horrible ancient!  What right had he?...  What had she done that was wrong, that would not bear the fullest inquiry.  The shopping was an absolute necessity.  She was obliged to come out.  Mrs. Maldon was better, and quietly sleeping.  Mrs. Tarns was the most faithful and capable old person that was ever born.  Hence she was justified in leaving the invalid.  Louis Fores had offered to go with her.  How could she refuse the offer?  What reason could there be for refusing it?  As for the cinema, who could object to the cinema?  Certainly not Thomas Batchgrew!  There was no hurry.  And was she not an independent woman, earning her own living?  Who on earth had the right to dictate to her?  She was not a slave.  Even a servant had an evening out once a week.  She was sinless....

And yet while she was thus ardently defending herself she knew well that she had sinned against the supreme social law—­the law of “the look of things.”  It was true that chance had worked against her.  But common sense would have rendered chance powerless by giving it no opportunity to be malevolent.  She was furious with Rachel Fleckring.  That Rachel Fleckring, of all mortal girls, should have exposed herself to so dreadful, so unforgettable a humiliation was mortifying in the very highest degree.  Her lips trembled.  She was about to burst into a sob.  But at this moment the rattle of the revolving machine behind the hole ceased, the theatre blazed from end to end with sudden light, the music resumed, and a number of variegated advertisements were weakly thrown on the screen.  She set herself doggedly to walk back down the slope of the aisle, not daring