“Why—what for—if there was nothing?”
“I don’t know. No special reason. One does—nowadays.”
“‘Nowadays’ has as broad a back as the parent, it seems,” wearily. “‘Nowadays’ must shoulder everything. But only not human nature, Deb. I have had experience of human nature, that even ‘nowadays’ cannot alter.”
Thoroughly exasperated, Deb wrenched herself away from all hope of convincing them.... “I haven’t—I didn’t—but I might as well have, and I wish I had!” was her sobbed-out threshold defiance.
... “My tea,” grandfather reminded Stella, after a long silence.
CHAPTER VIII
I
“I am writing to you, my dear Zoe, from the Café Romanico. But indeed the talk all round me is so loud, I can hardly collect my thoughts. My finger is better, but I have a pain in my neck. I do not know what it can be, for as you know I do not squander money on doctor’s bills, which reminds me, my dear Zoe, that it is quite impossible that you can already have spent the ten pounds I gave you on leaving....”