‘We all know that you’ve got beautiful arms,’ said Bruin angrily. ‘There’s no need for you to make an exhibition of them in the street, at midnight. Let’s get out of this.’ He laid his hand on her shoulder and made as if to draw her away. ‘We’d better be going. Goodness knows what’s happening behind us.’ He indicated with a little movement of the head the loiterers round the coffee-stall. ‘Some disturbance among the canaille.’
Mrs Viveash looked round. The cab-drivers and the other consumers of midnight coffee had gathered in an interested circle, curious and sympathetic, round the figure of a woman who was sitting, like a limp bundle tied up in black cotton and mackintosh, on the stall-keeper’s high stool, leaning wearily against the wall of the booth. A man stood beside her drinking tea
