‘I shall indeed—to collect my rent,’ says Wyndham, a little touched by her evident earnestness, and assuming a more natural air of lightness.
‘Ah, that,’ says she. She pauses a moment, and then: ‘If’—timidly—‘you would promise to come here sometimes to see your dog and the flowers, I might think of it.... I could keep out of your way when you came. I could sit in my own room, and you could——’
‘What a cheerful prospect for you!’ says he. ‘I’m not a very agreeable fellow, I know, when all is told; but I believe I am so far on the road to respectability as to be incapable of enjoying myself at the expense of another fellow-creature’s comfort. Fancy my taking the joys of the country with the knowledge that you were stifling in some cellar downstairs with a view to saving me from the annoyance of your presence!’
‘It wouldn’t be a cellar, and it isn’t downstairs,’ says the girl anxiously. ‘It is a pretty little room upstairs.’
‘It’s all the same,’ says Wyndham. ‘The prettiest little room in the world is a bore if one is imprisoned in it.’
Silence follows upon this. Wyndham, going forward, stoops down to a bed of seedlings that he had ordered to be planted a month ago. They are in a very promising condition, and the regret he feels for this little home of his that is slipping through his fingers increases. And yet to thrust her out—he knows quite well now that he will never do that.
‘Mr. Wyndham,’ says the girl—she is at his elbow now—‘don’t be so sorry about it; I shall go—to-morrow, if possible.’
He is not prepared for this, nor for the soft breathings of her voice in his ear. He turns abruptly.
‘All that is arranged,’ says he peremptorily. ‘You cannot go; you have nowhere to go to, as’—pointedly—‘you tell me. In the meantime, it is absolutely necessary that you should have someone to live with you.’
‘There is Mrs. Denis,’ says she nervously.