“He says he never will.”
Elsie spoke slowly. She was revolving a possibility, that she had often viewed before in her own mind.
“Les, can’t we go away together? I don’t care what happens, or what people think of me. I’d face anything, with you.”
Even as she spoke, she knew—and one side of her was relieved to know—that Morrison would negative the suggestion, as he had often done before.
“Out of the question, darling girl. Think what I’m getting—two twenty-five a year and no particular prospect of a rise for years to come. And look at what you’ve been used to!”
“Not before I married.”
“Times were different then. It was before the war. Living has gone up five hundred per cent. since then, and it’ll be many a long year before it comes down again. Why, Elsie, we couldn’t even live!”
“I don’t know whether you think I’m living now!” she exclaimed vehemently. “Existing, I call it. And we shall only be young once, Leslie, and it seems so hard to waste it all.”
He groaned, and they sat silent for a time, their hands locked together beneath the table.
“Would you be ready to—to end it all?” she asked suddenly. “I mean for us to go out together, right out of life?”