"You'd better read it," she said wearily. "It's from Father." She handed it to him, and then pointed to the place. "That bit there. . . . 'So I'm sorry to say, little Joan, it's come at last. I've been hoping against hope that I might be able to pull things through, but it simply can't be done. The less will not contain the greater, and my irreducible minimum expenditure is more than my income. Humanly speaking, as far as one can see, there can be no considerable fall in the cost of living and income tax for many years after the war.' . . ."
Vane's eyes skimmed on over the short, angular writing, picking up a phrase here and there. "Gordon to be considered. . . . It means practical penury at Blandford, comparative affluence if we go. . . .
"If I could lay my hand on a hundred thousand it might pull things through till the country is more or less settled once again; that is if it ever does get settled. If labour goes on as it is at present, I suppose we shall have to be grateful for being allowed to live at all. . . ."
Vane looked at Joan, who was still staring at the floor in front of her, and almost mechanically he returned her the letter. . . .
"You've known this was coming, Joan," he said at last. . . .
"Of course," she answered. "But it doesn't make it any better now it has. One always hopes." She shrugged her shoulders, and looked up at him. "Give me a cigarette, Derek, I don't think I'd have minded quite so much if it hadn't come to-day. . . ."
He held out the match for her, and then with his elbow on the mantelpiece he stood watching her. She seemed inert, lifeless, and the contrast with the laughing, happy girl at dinner hit him like a blow. If only he could help—do something; but a hundred thousand was an absurdity. His total income was only about fifteen hundred a year. And as if to torment him still more there rose before his mind the cold, confident face of Henry Baxter. . . .
"Joan—does it matter so frightfully much giving up Blandford?"
She looked at him for a moment, with a sort of amazement on her face.
"My dear," she said, "I simply can't imagine life without Blandford.
It's just part of me. . . ."
"But when you marry you wouldn't live there yourself," he argued.