Eleanor laughed. “I think he was jealous,” she suggested. She kissed the “fat one” tenderly. “And he had reason to be,” she added.
They played on the floor with the baby and the blocks—no; they played, using the baby and the blocks as an excuse. After a while George said:
“How little do you suppose we can live on?”
“Oh, as little as anybody,” replied she carelessly, intent upon the house of blocks they were making. “You see, so long as we’ve got ourselves, we don’t need much else. You’re building your side too thin.”
George filled out the lower walls with a second row, like the walls on her side. Said he:
“Sayler offered me his job—running the two machines.”
Eleanor gave a faint smile of amusement—as much attention as she could spare for an “outside” matter when she was teaching the “fat one’s” clumsy hands to lay blocks straight.
“Shall I ask him to dinner when I see him this afternoon, to thank him and tell him I won’t take it?”
“Yes—do ask him,” said Ellen. “He brought us together—when you were trying to get away. No, baby, not that way—the long side across.”
“Your father told me he was going to cut you off—and the baby, too, unless we gave it to him to raise.”