he had come to regard as the fixed symbol of his affluence.
It gave him a disagreeable feeling about the diaphragm, akin in a remote degree to the sensation he had when the perfidy of the red-haired schoolgirl became plain to him. It made his brow moist.
“Going down a vortex!” he whispered.
By a characteristic feat of subtraction he decided that he must have spent sixty-two pounds.
“Funererial baked meats,” he said, recalling possible items.
The happy dream in which he had been living of long warm days, of open roads, of limitless unchecked hours, of infinite time to look about him, vanished like a thing enchanted. He was suddenly back in the hard old economic world, that exacts work, that limits range, that discourages phrasing and dispels laughter. He saw Wood Street and its fearful suspenses yawning beneath his feet.
And also he had promised to marry Miriam, and on the whole rather wanted to.
He was distraught at supper. Afterwards, when Mrs. Johnson had gone to bed with a slight headache, he opened a conversation with Johnson.
“It’s about time, O’ Man, I saw about doing something,” he said. “Riding about and looking at shops, all very debonnairious, O’ Man, but it’s time I took one for keeps.”
“What did I tell you?” said Johnson.