(_By Charing Cross._)
* * *
"My hair?" she said. "It touches the ground."
As she spoke, she seized her fringe by the roots and flung it on the
floor.
"A marvellous feat for a European," I murmured with some difficulty.
"Will you have another drink?"
"Yes," said _Tooraloora;_ "I make it a rule always to get intoxicated
in a public-house."
I did not offer her a chair, I flung one at her head. That impulse
towards some physical demonstration, that craving for physical contact
which attacks us go suddenly with its terrific impulse, and chokes and
stifles us, ourselves, beneath it, blinding us to all except itself,
rushed upon _Tooraloora_ then: and she landed me one in the eye. Now,
this was the moment I had been expecting and dreading, practically,
ever since her hand had left my ear the night before--this moment when
it should strike me again. I do not mean consciously, but there are a
million slight, vague, physical experiences and sensations within us
of which the mind remains almost unconscious; and I have no
pretensions to physical courage. For a second I felt the colour rise
to my face. Every expletive that should have been forgotten, I
remembered. My pulses seemed beating as they do in fever, my ears
seemed full of sounds, and I felt the cold touch of the policeman's
grasp like ice upon my shoulder as a voice murmured, "This means forty
shillings or a month."... When we reached the station I flung myself
upon the floor, leaning my head upon my hand, the white powder upon my
coat still lingered. I seemed to hear _Tooraloora_ murmur, "'E don't
know where 'E are!"
* * * * *