She had stopped on the stairs, telling him this, turning round to him, who was on the steps above. He looked down on her, calculating. Then he smiled sourly.
“Bad job, eh, if it is all gone—!” he said.
“I don’t mind, really, if I can live,” she said.
He spread his hands, deprecating, not understanding. Then he glanced up the stairs and along the corridor again, and downstairs into the hall.
“A fine big house. Grand if it was yours,” he said.
“I wish it were,” she said rather pathetically, “if you like it so much.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Hé!” he said. “How not like it!”
“I don’t like it,” she said. “I think it’s a gloomy miserable hole. I hate it. I’ve lived here all my life and seen everything bad happen here. I hate it.”
“Why?” he said, with a curious, sarcastic intonation.