"Oh," she said, "I didn't want all that for the fare. I've other things to pay for—railway to Glasgow, etc. You will lend it me, won't you?"
Her fingers were already in the cashbox. She was behaving just like a little girl, like a spoilt child. It was remarkable, he considered, how old and mature Helen could be when she chose, and how kittenish when she chose.
She went off with four five-pound notes and five sovereigns. "Will you ask me to come back and cook the dinner?" she smiled, ironically, enchantingly.
"Ay!" he said. He was bound to smile also.
She returned in something over two hours.
"There you are!" she said, putting a blue-green paper into his hand. "Ever seen one of these before?"
It was the ticket for the steamer.
This staggered him. A sensible, determined woman, who disappears to buy a steamer-ticket, may be expected to reappear with a steamer-ticket. And yet it staggered him. He could scarcely believe it. She was going, then! She was going! It was inevitable now.
"The boat leaves the Clyde at ten in the morning," she said, resuming possession of the paper, "so we must go to Glasgow on Friday, and stop the night at an hotel."
"We?" he murmured, aghast.