and in those faces, according to their different temperaments, could be seen first the same vague, hard interest that had been Thyme’s when she first looked at them, then the same secret hostility and criticism, as though they too felt that by this young girl’s untouched modesty, by her gushed cheeks and unsoiled clothes, their sex had given them away.  With contemptuous movements of their lips and bodies, on that doorstep they proclaimed their emphatic belief in the virtue and reality of their own existences and in the vice and unreality of her intruding presence.

“Give the doll to Bill; ’e’d make ’er work for once, the—–­” In a burst of laughter the epithet was lost.

Martin’s lips curled.

“Purple just here,” he said.

Thyme’s cheeks were crimson.

At the end of the little street he stopped before a shop.

“Come on,” he said, “you’ll see the sort of place where they buy their grub.”

In the doorway were standing a thin brown spaniel, a small fair woman with a high, bald forehead, from which the hair was gleaned into curlpapers, and a little girl with some affection of the skin.

Nodding coolly, Martin motioned them aside.  The shop was ten feet square; its counters, running parallel to two of the walls, were covered with plates of cake, sausages, old ham-bones, peppermint sweets, and household soap; there was also bread, margarine, suet in bowls, sugar, bloaters—­many bloaters—­Captain’s biscuits, and other things besides.  Two or three dead rabbits hung against the wall.  All was uncovered, so that what flies there were sat feeding socialistically.  Behind the counter a girl of seventeen was serving a thin-faced woman with portions of a cheese which she was holding down with her strong, dirty hand, while she sawed it with a knife.  On the counter, next the cheese, sat a quiet-looking cat.

They all glanced round at the two young people, who stood and waited.

“Finish what you’re at,” said Martin, “then give me three pennyworth of bull’s-eyes.”

The girl, with a violent effort, finished severing the cheese.  The thin-faced woman took it, and, coughing above it, went away.  The girl, who could not take her eyes off Thyme, now served them with three pennyworth of bull’s-eyes, which she took out with her fingers, for they had stuck.  Putting them in a screw of newspaper, she handed them to Martin.  The young man, who had been observing negligently, touched Thyme’s elbow.  She, who had stood with eyes cast down, now turned.  They went out, Martin handing the bull’s-eyes to the little girl with an affection of the skin.

The street now ended in a wide road formed of little low houses.

“Black,” said Martin, “here; all down this road-casual labour, criminals, loafers, drunkards, consumps.  Look at the faces!”