Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. I, 1889.djvu/267

 affections to Jack Bartley. Why, Suke Jollop (ostensibly Clem’s bosom friend, but treacherous at times because she had herself given an eye to Jack)—Suke Jollop reported that Clem would have killed Pennyloaf had she dared. Pennyloaf had been going about in fear for her life since that attack upon her in Myddelton Passage. “I dursn’t marry you, Bob! I dursn’t!” she kept saying, when the proposal was first made. But Bob laughed with contemptuous defiance. He carried his point, and now he was going to spend his wedding-day at the Crystal Palace,—choosing that resort because he knew Clem would be there, and Jack Bartley, and Suke Jollop, and many another acquaintance, before whom he was resolved to make display of magnanimity. Pennyloaf shone in most unwonted apparel. Everything was new except her boots,—it had been decided that these only needed soleing. Her broad-brimmed hat of yellow straw was graced with the reddest feather purchasable in the City Road; she had a dolman of most fashionable cut, blue, lustrous; blue