“No, you haven’t.”
“What a good thing!” She laughed as she spoke, but Richard remained unsmiling and miserable, and gradually it became evident to Rita’s friends that one of Rita’s trials was her husband’s inability to face their position with a gallant laugh, as she did.
As time went on, and there appeared to be no hope of a salary for Richard, she sent away the little girl’s nurse.
“I think I ought to be able to manage. Lots of poor women have to, only it’s a great pity I was brought up to play the piano, and dance, and play tennis, instead of learning to cook. One somehow never thought of it’s being necessary.”
“It oughtn’t to be necessary now,” said Richard violently, “if you’d married a fellow with money, or brains enough to make some.”
“Why, I might have been a millionairess, if I’d married the first man that ever proposed to me,” she said brightly. “Doesn’t it seem odd?”
He made no answer.
“D’you know, darling, I saw a really lovely jumper in Colson’s window to-day. It was real old rose, the colour that suits me. It was one of the sale things and marked down to half a guinea. I had a frightful struggle—it is such ages since I had anything new. I wouldn’t even let myself go into the shop, though I had to get some things for baby. I went somewhere else. I felt I couldn’t bear to come out of Colson’s without that jumper. It was so lovely—and really marvellously cheap. It’s been haunting me ever since.”
“Surely we can find half a guinea,” said Richard, his face flushing.
“Richard!” She gave a little laughing scream. “Why, I work out every penny of my income on paper before I spend it, and do you know what’s left over for my clothes, when I’ve paid the wages and the rent, and rates and taxes, and the housekeeping books? Just—exactly—five pounds a year!”