bedroom, and the day part of it was decorated with framed
Oddfellows' certificates and giltbacked books and portraits, and
kettle-holders, and all kinds of beautiful things made out of
wool; very comfortable it was indeed. The window was lead framed
and diamond paned, and through it one saw the corner of the
vicarage and a pleasant hill crest, in dusky silhouette against
the twilight sky. And after the sausages had ceased to be, he lit
a Red Herring cigarette and went swaggering out into the twilight
street. All shadowy blue between its dark brick houses, was the
street, with a bright yellow window here and there and splashes
of green and red where the chemist's illumination fell across the
road.



AN INTERLUDE

XV

And now let us for a space leave Mr. Hoopdriver in the dusky
Midhurst North Street, and return to the two folks beside the
railway bridge between Milford and Haslemere. She was a girl of
eighteen, dark, fine featured, with bright eyes, and a rich,
swift colour under her warm-tinted skin. Her eyes were all the
brighter for the tears that swam in them. The man was thirty
three or four, fair, with a longish nose overhanging his sandy
flaxen moustache, pale blue eyes, and a head that struck out
above and behind. He stood with his feet wide apart, his hand on
his hip, in an attitude that was equally suggestive of defiance
and aggression. They had watched Hoopdriver out of sight. The