‘She’s got more to bear. There’s the children always making her anxious. She took Alf to the hospital this afternoon, and the doctor says he must have—I forget the name, somebody’s food. But it’s two-and-ninepence for ever such a little tin. They don’t think as his teeth ‘ll ever come.’
‘Oh, I daresay they will,’ said Richard encouragingly.
He had put his arm about her. Emma knelt down by him, and rested her head against his shoulder.
‘I’m tired,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve had to go twice to the Minories to-day. I’m so afraid I shan’t be able to hold my eyes open with Jane, and Kate’s tireder still.’
She did not speak as if seeking for sympathy it was only the natural utterance of her thoughts in a moment of restful confidence. Uttermost weariness was a condition too familiar to the girl to be spoken of in any but a patient, matter-of-fact tone. But it was priceless soothing to let her forehead repose against the heart whose love was the one and sufficient blessing of her life. Her brown hair was very soft and fine; a lover of another kind would have pressed his lips upon it. Richard was thinking of matters more practical. At another time his indignation—in such a case right good and manful—would have boiled over at the thought of these poor women crushed in slavery to feed the world’s dastard selfishness; this evening his mood was more complaisant, and he smiled as one at ease.
‘Hadn’t you better give up your work?’ he said.
Emma raised her head. In the few moments of repose her eyelids had drooped with growing heaviness; she looked at him as if she had just been awakened to some great surprise.
‘Give up work? How can I?’
‘I think I would. You’d have more time to give to Jane, and you could sleep in the day. And Jane had better not begin again after this. Don’t you think it would be better if you left these lodgings and took a house, where there’d be plenty of room and fresh air?’
‘Richard, what are you talking about?’