'And the young man who has followed her up to town will probably know where to find you,' added Mrs Hurtle.
To such a threat as this, no answer could be made, and Sir Felix left the room. At any rate, John Crumb was not there at present. And were there not policemen in London? And what additional harm would be done to John Crumb, or what increase of danger engendered in that true lover's breast, by one additional evening's amusement? Ruby had danced with him so often at the Music Hall that John Crumb could hardly be made more bellicose by the fact of her dining with him on this evening. When he descended, he found Ruby in the hall, all arrayed. 'You don't come in here again to-night,' said Mrs Pipkin, thumping the little table which stood in the passage, 'if you goes out of that there door with that there young man.'
'Then I shall,' said Ruby linking herself on to her lover's arm.
'Baggage! Slut!' said Mrs Pipkin; 'after all I've done for you, just as one as though you were my own flesh and blood.'
'I've worked for it, I suppose;--haven't I?' rejoined Ruby.
'You send for your things to-morrow, for you don't come in here no more. You ain't nothing to me no more nor no other girl. But I'd 've saved you, if you'd but a' let me. As for you,'--and she looked at Sir Felix,--'only because I've lodgings to let, and because of the lady upstairs, I'd shake you that well, you'd never come here no more after poor girls.' I do not think that she need have feared any remonstrance from Mrs Hurtle, even had she put her threat into execution.
Sir Felix, thinking that he had had enough of Mrs Pipkin and her lodger, left the house with Ruby on his arm. For the moment, Ruby had been triumphant, and was happy. She did not stop to consider whether her aunt would or would not open her door when she should return tired, and perhaps repentant. She was on her lover's arm, in her best clothes, and going out to have a dinner given to her. And her lover had told her that he had ever so many things,--ever so many things to say to her! But she would ask no impertinent questions in the first hour of her bliss. It was so pleasant to walk with him up to Pentonville;--so joyous to turn into a gay enclosure, half public-house and half tea-garden; so pleasant to hear him order the good things, which in his company would be so nice! Who cannot understand that even an urban Rosherville must be an Elysium to those who have lately been eating their meals in all the gloom of a small London underground kitchen? There we will leave Ruby in her bliss.