Expecting a protest she was surprised that he should merely blow on the shivering flame, saying, in the interval between two long breaths: “I agrees with madam.”
“And it’s me that must end it.”
He blew gently again. “I guess that’d be so too.”
She thought of the little mermaid leaping into the sea, and trembling away into foam. “If he wants to marry the girl he’s in love with he’ll never do it the way we’re living now.”
He rose from his knees, dusting one hand against the other. “Madam’s quite right. ’E won’t—not never.”
She threw out her arms, and moaned. “And, O Steptoe! I’m so tired of it.”
“Madam’s tired of––?”
“Of living here, and doing nothing, and just watching and waiting, and nothing never happening––”
“Does madam remember that, the dye when she first come I said there was two reasons why I wanted to myke ’er into a lydy?”