"
"Yes, but--but."
She seemed really frightened. Julian supposed she realized her rudeness
vaguely, and imagined she had made an abominable _faux pas_. Acting on
this supposition, he said reassuringly:
"He didn't mind your chaff. He knew you were only joking."
"Lord, it isn't that," she rejoined with trembling lips. "But what's he
goin' to do?"
"Do?"
"Yes. Go and see. Hark!"
She held up her hand and leaned forward in a strained attitude of
attention. But there was no sound in the flat. Then she turned again
to Julian and said:
"And he's your friend. Well, I never!"
The words were spoken with an extraordinary conviction of astonishment
that roused Julian to keen attention.
"Why, what do you mean?" he asked.
"He's a wicked fellow," she said with a snatch of the breath. "A real
downright wicked fellow, like Marr. That's what he is."
Julian was amazed.
"You don't know what you are saying," he answered.
But she stuck to her guns with the animation of hysteria.
"Don't I, though? Don't I? A girl that lives like me has to know, I tell
you. Where should I be if I didn't? Tell me that, then. Why, there's men
in the streets I wouldn't speak to; not for twenty pounds, I wouldn't.
And he's one of them.
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