“Some other life?” he repeated. “Why, what other life do you want?”
She hesitated.
“Something else besides housework and hanging about. And I want to earn something.”
Her curious, brutal hardness of speech, and the fierce invincibility of her youth, which ignored him, made him also harden with anger.
“And how do you think you’re going to earn anything?” he asked.
“I can become a teacher—I’m qualified by my matric.”
He wished her matric. in hell.
“And how much are you qualified to earn by your matric.?” he asked, jeering.
“Fifty pounds a year,” she said.
He was silent, his power taken out of his hand.