Early evening, tip-toeing through the window, was drawing her dusky hangings about the room when at length George withdrew the brown hands; stirred.
II.
Upon a little sigh Mary let go the string that held the dreams she had been dreaming. Like a great gay bundle of many-coloured toy balloons suddenly released, they soared away. She came to the desperate present; noted her George filling his pipe.
He got upon his legs; paced the floor, puffing.
It was his characteristic pose when he was most tremendous. She watched this tremendous fellow adoringly.
He told her: “I've settled it all, Marykins. I've fixed it all up. We'll pull through right as rain.” He caught the admiring glance in his Mary's eye; inhaled and gusted forth a huge breath of smoke; repeated the fine sentence. “We'll pull through right as rain.”
“Dear George!” she softly applauded.
He pushed ahead. “There's this locum tenens I was going to take up in the North. I haven't offed that yet—haven't refused it, I mean. Well, I shall take it. The screw's pretty rotten, but up in the North—in the North, you know—well, it's not like London. It's cheap—frightfully cheap. You can live on next to nothing—”
She pushed out the irritating, practical, womanish side of her. “Can you? How do you know, Georgie?”
We men hate these pokes at our knowledge; women will not understand generalisations. George jerked back: “How do I know? Oh, don't interrupt like that, Mary. Everybody knows that living is cheap in the North—in the North.”