“And, by God, why haven’t I?” he insisted, striking his knee with his clenched fist.  “Haven’t you been my girl for six years before he came?  You were kind of shy, but you’d have been mine in the end, and you know it.  Waiting was all I had to do, and I was content to wait.  And now he’s come along, and I know very well that I haven’t a dog’s chance.  You’re a working lass, Julia, fit mate for a working man.  Do you think he’s one of our sort?  Not he!  Do you think he’s for marrying a girl who works for her bread?  If you do, you’re a bigger fool than I think you.  He’s forever nosing around amongst these swell ladies and gentlemen with handles to their names, ladies and gentlemen who live on the other side of the earth to us.  He can talk like a prophet, I grant you, but that’s all there is of the prophet about him.  People’s man, indeed!  He’ll be the people’s man so long as it pays him and not a second longer.”

“Have you finished?” she asked quietly.

“No, nor never shall have finished,” he continued, raising his voice, “while he’s playing the rotten game he’s at now, and you’re mooning around after him as though he were a god.  I’ll never stop speaking until I’ve knocked the bottom out of that, Julia.  You never used to think anything of fine clothes and all these gentlemen’s tricks, it’s all come of a sudden.”

“Have you finished?” she asked again.

“Never in this life!” he replied fiercely.  “I tell you he shan’t have you, and you shan’t have him.  I’m there between, and I’m not to be got rid of.  I’ll take one of you or both of you by the throat and strangle the life out of you, before I quit.  It isn’t,” he went on, his face once more disfigured by that ample sneer, “it isn’t that I’m afraid of his wanting to marry you.  He won’t do that.  But he’s one of those who are fond of messing about—­philanderer’s the word.  If he tries it on with you, he’ll find hell before his time!  Sit down!”

She had risen to her feet.  He clutched at her skirt.  The sense of his touch—­she was peculiarly sensitive to touch—­gave her the strength she needed.  She snatched it away.

“Now,” she declared’, “you have had your say.  This is what you get for it.  You have offended me.  Our friendship is forgotten.  The less I see of you, the more content I shall be.  And as to what I do or what becomes of me, it isn’t your business.  I shall do with myself exactly as I choose—­exactly as I choose, Richard Graveling!  You hear that?” she reiterated, with blazing eyes and tone cruelly deliberate.  “I haven’t much in the world, but my body and my soul are my own.  I shall give them where I choose, and on what terms I please.  If you try to follow me, you’ll put me to the expense of a cab home.  That’s all!”

She walked away with firm footsteps.  She felt stronger, more of a woman than she had done all day.  Graveling made no attempt to follow her.  He sat and smoked in stolid silence.