Mr. Preemby looked at her with grave and weary eyes. This was a new Christina Alberta to him. She ought not to swear. She did not ought to swear. She’d caught it up from these people. She didn’t know what it meant. He must talk to her—to-morrow. About that and one or two other things. But Heavens! how tired he was!
“You—” He yawned. “You must take care of yourself, Christina Alberta,” he said.
“I’ll do that all right, Daddy. Trust me.”
She came and sat down beside him on his little half-fictitious bed. “We can’t decide to-night, Daddy. We’re too tired. We’ll settle to-morrow. Have to see what the weather’s like for one thing. Wouldn’t do to walk about Tunbridge if it was wet. We’ll decide about everything to-morrow—when our heads are cool. Why! you dear little Daddy! It’s just upon half-past two.”
She put her arm round his shoulders and kissed him on the top of his head and the lobe of his ear. He loved her to touch him and kiss him. He did not understand in the least how much he loved her to kiss him.
“Dear tired little Daddy,” she said in her softest voice: “You are ever so kind to me. Good night.”
She had gone.
For some time Mr. Preemby sat quite motionless in a state of almost immobile thought.
The floor of the studio was littered with burnt matches and cigarette ends and the air smelt of stale smoke and beer. On the blue-painted table stood an empty beer-bottle and two or three glasses containing dregs of beer and cigarette ash.
It was all very different from Woodford Wells,—very different indeed.