Basil Haslam came next day bursting with sympathy and high hope. Minna received him, for the sake of effect, in the kitchen. Like Charlotte, she was cutting bread and butter. She had sent the servant out on an errand.
Basil came in very quietly, and made Minna think of a young inexperienced doctor cultivating a bedside manner. However, she repressed her desire to tease him and said:
“I have learned my lesson.”
“What lesson?”
“Something about a stalled ox.”
She scraped the butter very thin on the bread by way of heightening her own sensation of a chastening poverty.
“We shall be very poor,” she said.
“Oh, Minna! I will make you rich.”
“I suppose there is a lot of money in London.”
“Will you come to London with me?”