“If I speak now,” thought Hazel, “it will only make more unpleasantness.” So she filled up the teapot which was half full of leaves, and then sat down to her comfortless meal.
Finding that she was silent, Percy took it that she had repented, so he assumed the offensive as he sat and smoked, showing himself an adept at the practice, and soon half-filling the little room with the pungent vapour.
“Precious mean little place this for you to have to live in, mamma,” he said contemptuously.
“Yes, it is, my boy, and I feel it very deeply,” said Mrs Thorne in a lachrymose tone.
“Ah, just you wait a bit,” he said. “I’ve left that old office, but don’t you be afraid. A fellow I know has put me up to a few things, and perhaps I shall astonish you one of these days.”
“You mean you will get on well, my dear?”
“That’s it. Only you wait. There’s plenty of money to be picked up by any one with nous. Ten times as much as any one can get by keeping his nose to a desk and trying to please a set of cads.”
“Yes, dear, I suppose so.”
“Some people have no more spirit than a fly,” continued Percy. “Fancy a girl like our Hazel settling down in a bit of a hut like this, when she might have been the making of us all.”
“Ah, yes, my dear,” sighed Mrs Thorne, “that is what I often tell your sister, who might, if she had liked, have married—”