“Yes.”
“That’s nothing. I shall lend you a hundred pounds. It just happens that I’ve got fifty pounds on me in notes. That and a cheque’ll settle the bailiff person, and the rest of the hundred I’ll send you by post. It’ll be a bit of working capital.”
She rose and threaded between chairs and tables to the sofa, several feet from Edwin. With a vanquished and weary sigh, she threw herself on to the sofa.
“I never knew there was anybody like you in the world,” she breathed, flicking away some fluff from her breast. She seemed to be regarding him, not as a benefactor, but as a natural curiosity.
Six.
He looked at her like a conqueror. He had taught her a thing or two. He had been a man. He was proud of himself. He was proud of all sorts of details in his conduct. The fifty pounds in notes, for example, was not an accident. Since the death of his father, he had formed the habit of never leaving his base of supplies without a provision far in excess of what he was likely to need. He was extravagant in nothing, but the humiliations of his penurious youth and early manhood had implanted in him a morbid fear of being short of money. He had fantastically surmised circumstances in which he might need a considerable sum at Brighton. And lo! the sequel had transformed his morbidity into prudence.
“This time yesterday,” he reflected, in his triumph, “I hadn’t even seen her, and didn’t know where she was. Last night I was a fool. Half an hour ago she herself hadn’t a notion that I was going to get the upper hand of her... Why, it isn’t two days yet since I left home! ... And look where I am now!”
With pity and with joy he watched her slowly wiping her eyes. Thirty-four, perhaps; yet a child—compared to him! But if she did not give a natural ingenuous smile of relief, it was because she could not. If she acted foolishly it was because of her tremendous haughtiness. However, he had lowered that. He had shown her her master. He felt that she had been profoundly wronged by destiny, and that gentleness must be lavished upon her.
In a casual tone he began to talk about the most rapid means of getting rid of the bailiff. He could not tolerate the incubus of the bailiff a moment longer than was absolutely unavoidable. At intervals a misgiving shot like a thin flying needle through the solid satisfaction of his sensations: “She is a strange and an incalculable woman—why am I doing this?” Shot, and was gone, almost before perceived!