He stopped, staring more wildly. The word he suppressed was greedy, and it was most painfully explanatory.
“So what?”
“I mean—I liked her. She seems a good sort.”
“No nonsense about Elsie.”
“Doesn’t it make you understand mother more?”
“Mother? She’s a queer little devil. Didn’t speak to me for a fortnight after I told her, and she took to going to church again. She’s a rum ’un, is mother. I believe she’d do anything if it wasn’t she’s so darned fond of you.”
“Oh, you think it’s me?”
“If it wasn’t for you she’d have chucked the whole thing long ago and gone right off into a convent or something. She doesn’t like the money part of it being put off on to you. Really, I don’t think she minded anything else. She knows what life is, mother does.”
“How will you live?”
“Oh, a snug little house. Her father’ll give us furniture. He’s an old sport, he is. Keeps the Denmark, you know, in Upper Kite Street. ’Normous family. Delighted when the girls go off. Elsie worked in a shop. No more work for Elsie.”