“Don’t, dear,” he entreated, “you make me feel so ashamed of myself.”
“And so you ought to,” she answered, drying her eyes on the corner of her painting apron, and looking up at him with a very woebegone face. “I shall never forget that, I’m afraid; I have a horrid memory for cruel things, and I have loved you so truly all the time. I would go through a dozen bankruptcy courts with you, and—and—and end up in the work-house even sooner than lose you now.”
She dropped her head again with a fresh burst of tears, and St. John felt as intensely miserable as it is possible for a man to feel, intensely ashamed of himself also for giving voice to such an unjust suspicion. He racked his brains in search of something soothing, but the only thing he could find to say was,—
“Don’t keep hitting a fellow when he’s down, Jill.”
It wasn’t a very brilliant, nor a very original remark, but it was the very luckiest thing he could have hit upon. Its effect on Jill was marvellous; she recollected what she might have remembered sooner, that he had been passing through very stormy times lately, and all on her account. A man does not generally relish breaking with his family and throwing up a luxurious home for the doubtful prospect of earning his own living when he has not been brought up to any profession, and hasn’t a superabundance of capital to launch him into a going concern. St. John had certainly not relished it, but he had made no complaint and had met his ill fortune with a cheerfulness and pluck which did him infinite credit. Jill mopped her eyes again vigorously and put both arms around his neck.
“I have been horrid,” she said; “I have done nothing but worried you ever since you came, and you were worried enough before. Jack dear, I’m afraid we shall quarrel dreadfully after we are married. I really am bad-tempered, and you are not—not altogether amiable, are you?”
St. John laughed.
“I don’t care,” he said, “so long as we make it up again. Rows are like hills in cycling, beastly at first, but when you’re used to ’em a flat road seems dreadfully monotonous.”
Jill saw very little of her fiancé during the next week. He was busy looking for something to do! for she had declared that until he found permanent occupation their marriage must be postponed; she was not going to take such a serious plunge on the strength of the five hundred pounds. St. John acknowledged the wisdom of her decision but chafed at the delay. Having been ejected from the paternal roof he was anxious to have a home of his own, and more than anxious to see Jill at the head of his frugal board. He was not quite sure how Jill existed; it worried him rather to think of her poverty; but she would take no assistance from him. Once he deprecatingly offered her a ten pound note which she however firmly refused. She would not allow him to support her until he had the right to do so.
“Don’t you think that that’s rather straining at a gnat?” he said.