He flushed. “Five pounds! But wouldn’t three be enough if two people were very, very much in love?”
“Five pounds, Gubbins.” She rose from her chair and went back to her dishes. “Not a penny less. I knows wot I’m talkin’ abart My ma wuz a queen, p’raps; ter h’offer a lady less would be a h’insult.”
CHAPTER VIII—THE EXPENSE OF LOVING
It happened in a comfortable room on the ground floor, looking out into the garden. All afternoon he had been puzzling over what Harriet had told him. Mrs. Sheerug sat by the fire knitting; he dared not question her.
Muted by garden walls and distance, a muffin-man passed up and down the streets, ringing his bell and crying to the night like a troubadour in search of romance. He crouched against the window, watching the winter dusk come drifting down. While watching, he fell asleep.
As though he had been coldly touched, he awoke startled, all his senses on edge. On the other side of the glass, peering in, standing directly over him, was a figure which he recognized as Harriet’s. At first he thought that she was trying to attract his attention; then he saw that she seemed unaware of him and that her attention was held by something beyond. A voice broke the stillness. It must have been that same voice that had roused him.
“My God, I’m wretched! For years it’s been always the same: the restlessness when I’m with her; the heartache when I’m without her. She won’t send me away and she won’t have me, and—and I haven’t the strength to go away myself. No, it isn’t strength. It’s something that I can’t tell even to you. Something that keeps me tortured and binds me to her.”
Scarcely daring to stir, Teddy turned his eyes away from Harriet, and stared into the darkness of the room. The air was tense with tragedy. In the flickering half-circle of firelight a man was crouched against the armchair—kneeling like a child with his head in the faery-godmother’s lap. He was sobbing. Teddy had heard his mother cry; this was different. There was shame in the man’s crying and the dry choking sound of a horrible effort to regain self-mastery. The faery-godmother bent above him. Teddy could see the glint of her spectacles. She was whispering with her cheek against the flaxen head. The voice went on despairingly.