did she get off? Why--it's sale-time!"

"She's chucked them."

"What's she done that for?"

"You'd better ask her."

His instinct told him that he would do well to let it pass. He said no
more that night.

But in the morning, over his hurried breakfast, he returned to it.

"I don't like this about Winny," he said. "Has she got another job, or
what?"

"She's got what she wanted."

"What's that?"

"A job at Johnson's."

Johnson's was the new drapers at the other corner of Acacia Avenue,
opposite the chemist.

"Johnson's?" Ranny could not conceal his innocent dismay. Johnson's
operations and his premises were so diminutive that for Winny--after
Starker's--the descent seemed awful.

"Are you sure she wanted it?"

"She must have wanted it pretty badly when she's willing to take seven
bob a week less screw. And if she'd waited till Michaelmas she'd have
got her rise."

Ranny bent his head low over his cup. He felt his face burning with a
shame that he could not comprehend. He knew that Violet was looking at
him, and that made it worse.

"You needn't worry," she was saying. "It isn't your fault if she makes a
fool of herself."

"Makes a fool of herself? What do you mean?"

The heat in his face mounted and flamed in his ears; and he knew that he
was angry.

"_You_ ought to know," she sneered.

He was hotter. He was intolerably hot.

"I don't, then," he retorted.

"You silly cuckoo, d'you mean to say you don't know she's gone on you?
Lot of pains she takes to hide it. You've only got to look at her to
know."

At that the fire in him blazed out. He rose, bringing his fist down on
the table.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," he said. "A low animal wouldn't
say a thing like that. When she's been so good to you! Where would you
be, I should like to know, if it hadn't been for Winny?"

She looked at him under her lowered brows; and in her look there was
that strange tolerance, and mockery, and a feigned surprise. And with it
all a sort of triumph, as if she were rich in some secret and insolent
satisfaction and could afford her tolerance.

"Me?" she mocked. "Do you suppose it's me she comes for?"

"I don't know and I don't care. But as long as she does come you've got
to be decent to her. See?"

"I _am_ decent to her. _I_ don't mind her coming. What difference does
it make to _me_?"

"I should say it makes a thundering lot of difference, if you ask me.
Considering the work you've manage