She would stop him at once with pathetic and angry remonstrance. "It is not true; you know it is not true. Why do you say it?"
Her earnestness always moved him; he was ashamed of deceiving her.
Their last quarrel had been caused by Mr. Standish's confession that he had dined off fish.
"Fish!" cried Meg with scorn, tossing her head. "Can you work after a bit of fish? What fish—turbot, salmon, fried soles?" The ladies who occupied the drawing-room floor gave occasional dinner-parties, where such delicacies figured.
As Mr. Standish kept shaking his head, the smile in his eyes growing more amused and tender, a terrible idea dawned upon Meg. She grew pale.
"Herring!" she faltered.
"Herrings," he repeated in a voice of rich appreciation. "Two herrings, fat as lord mayors!"
Meg walked about the room, her eyes bright with angry misery, her lips trembling. "It's downright wicked! You want to kill yourself, that's what you want to do." She flicked a tear away. "A workman in the street down there has a better dinner than that."
"Now, Meg, be reasonable," the young man pleaded in a voice of protest. "Don't you see," he went on, striking his left palm with two fingers of the right hand, "there is a day called 'pay-day' that rules my bill of fare, as I explained to you the other day the moon rules the tides. On pay-day and its immediate followers I live in abundance. Then come days of lesser luxuries, then abstinence. I have reached this period. Soon plenty will reign again."