“Better in no time—I know she was putting poison in my coffee.”
“Hm!”
There was a glum silence. The driver stared at the road ahead, fixedly, managing the car as if it were a live thing. The nephew felt that his uncle was afraid, quite stupefied with fear, fear of life, of death, of himself.
“You’re in rooms, then?” asked the nephew.
“No, I’m in a house of my own,” said the uncle defiantly, “wi’ th’ best little woman in th’ Midlands. She’s a marvel.—Why don’t you come an’ see us?”
“I will. Who is she?”
“Oh, she’s a good girl—a beautiful little thing. I was clean gone on her first time I saw her. An’ she was on me. Her mother lives with us—respectable girl, none o’ your....”
“And how old is she?”
“—how old is she?—she’s twenty-one.”
“Poor thing.”