Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/129

 “Don’t!” she said in an undertone.

“Don’t—what?”

“Don’t go on like this! You’re different! Go on being the knight who wants to kiss my hand as his—what did you call it?” The ghost of a smile curved her face. “Gurdrum!”

“But!”

Then through a pause they both stared at each other, listening.

A muffled tumult on the other side of the wall asserted itself.

“Shut up, Rosie!” said a voice.

“I tell you I will see! I can’t half hear. Give me a leg up!”

“You Idiot! He’ll see you. You’re spoiling everything.”

The bottom dropped out of Mr. Polly’s world. He felt as people must feel who are going to faint.

“You’ve got someone” he said aghast.

She found life inexpressible to Mr. Polly. She addressed some unseen hearers. “You filthy little Beasts!” she cried with a sharp note of agony in her voice, and swung herself back over the wall and vanished. There was a squeal of pain and fear, and a swift, fierce altercation.

For a couple of seconds he stood agape.

Then a wild resolve to confirm his worst sense of what was on the other side of the wall made him seize a log, put it against the stones, clutch the parapet with