They debated the position and found it desperate; discussed the immediate future to discover it threatening. Yet the gloom was irradiated by the glowing light of the prospective future; the rumbling of present fears was lost in the tinkling music of their voices, striking notes from love.
The cab twisted this way and that; clattered over Battersea Bridge, down the Park, to the right past the Free Library, and so into Meath Street and to the clean little house of the landlady whom George knew.
To her, in the tiny sitting-room, the story was told.
It appeared that she had never yet taken a lady lodger. In her street ladies were regarded with suspicion; that no petticoats were ever to be fetched across the threshold was a rule to which each medical student who engaged her rooms must first subscribe.
None the less she was here acquiescent. She knew George well; had for him an affection above that which commonly she entertained for the noisy young men who were her means of livelihood. Mary should pay for the little back bedroom that Mr. Thornton had; and, free of charge, should have use of the sitting-room rented by Mr. Grainger. There would be no lodgers until the medical schools reopened in October.
So it was settled—and together in the sitting-room where Mrs. Pinking made them a little lunch again they debated the immediate future. It was three weeks before George's examination was due. Again he declared himself confident that, when actually he had passed, his uncle would not refuse the 400 pounds which meant the world to them—which meant the tight little practice at Runnygate. But the intervening weeks were meanwhile to be faced. Mary must have home. At the Agency she must pour forth her tale and seek new situation till they could be married. If the Agency failed them—They shuddered.
Revolving desperate schemes for the betterment of this position into which with such alarming suddenness they had been thrust, George took his leave. He would have tarried, but his Mary was insistent that his work must not be interfered with. Upon its successful exploitation everything now depended.
Brightly she kissed her George good-bye. He was not to worry about her. She was to be shut from his mind. To-morrow she would go to the Agency. He might lunch with her, and, depend upon it, she would greet him with great news.
So they parted.