To eke out their rent they had to forego meat. For several consecutive days they lived on bread and butter and coffee. Boris grew extremely nervous and irritable.
One morning, coming back from the pawn shops, Boris, pale and solemn, quietly laid on the kitchen table the package which he had under his arm.
"They wouldn't take it," he said almost in a whisper. "It is not worth anything, they say."
Tanya only raised at him a meek glance, and went on with her work. Boris fell to pacing the front room. They could not speak.
Presently she stepped up to his side and said, with rueful tenderness:—
"Well, what is the good of grieving, Borya?"
Their hands clasped tightly, and their eyes fixed themselves forlornly on the floor.
"I have promised Dalsky an answer," he said, after a little.
"Let him move in," she returned lugubriously, with a slight shrug of her shoulder, as if submitting to fate.