Her face grew wistful. "Yes—that's enough," she echoed, her eyes not looking at him. "I ought to have told you, Humphrey, long before this, but mother's rather dependent on me and Edith. There's Harry, of course, but he's still at the Technical Institute—he'll be able to help some day. Florence is still at school—and Mabel—Mabel's got something the matter with her hip."
"Well, what about your father?"
She winced. "Father—father doesn't help much. He's—he's an invalid."
Humphrey was young, and this was his first love, and the more obstacles there were to overcome, the greater seemed the prize to him. "We could send your mother a little money each week ..." he said. "It won't cost so much when you're not there."
"Yes, we could do that. And I could still go on with my work."
"What," he cried, horrified, "you go to the Special News Agency after we're married?"
"Yes, why not?"
"Oh, Lilian dear, I don't want you to do that. I want you to have a home of your own, just to sit there and arrange it as you like, and do nothing but loll in an arm-chair all day until I come home in the evening, and then we'll loll together."
She laughed. "You are a funny boy," she said. "I suppose you think a house doesn't want looking after. It's much harder work than typewriting."