“Oh, I’ve nobody much, you know! Only mother and Geraldine, and the old aunties. They don’t approve of me either—never did.”
“Poor little girl, they don’t understand you!”
“I don’t care while I’ve got you, Leslie.”
They made love to one another, their voices low, until Morrison reminded Elsie suddenly that it was late.
“You’ll hardly get to the West End by seven now. I’m glad you’re going to enjoy yourself to-night, anyway.”
“I wish we were going together, Les, just you and I. That’s how it ought to be. Are we going to meet to-morrow, dearest?”
“Lunch here, can you? One o’clock. And meanwhile, darling, I’m going to think hard what I can do to make things better for you. He’s got to stop leading you this sort of life, anyway, and it’s up to me to find a way of making him do so. When I think of his knocking you about....”
The blood rushed into his face, and Elsie saw that he had clenched his hand involuntarily. It was balm to her to realise that she still had the power of exciting him to a frenzied anxiety on her account.
“He’s hit me before now, you know,” she said suddenly, hardly realising, and caring not at all, that she was not speaking the truth.
“You never told me. I’ve sometimes wondered....”