“After all, I don’t think you ought to complain about the company’s sending you off,” Kit remarked.
“I don’t know that I do complain,” Austin rejoined. “If I was often bothered like this, I’d be resigned to quit, but I’m persuaded the trouble’s going. One can stand for keen frost—to wear wet clothes, to jump up as soon as you get to sleep and tumble about in the rain and dark is another proposition. To-night my back hurts and I’m dull and cold, but I expect to be all right in the morning.”
Kit doubted, but he said: “Mrs. Austin would sooner you were at the drawing office.”
“Carrie’s glad,” Austin agreed. “Still at Toronto she was rather important, and she ought to have cultivated friends. She likes music and pictures and so forth, but so long as my pay is small she must go without. I had hoped to get ahead and give her a better time. To be beaten by a weak body is riling.”
“Philosophy’s the proper plan; but perhaps you ought to go to bed.”
“I’ll go soon. Now I’ve got myself fixed right and my back is easier, I don’t want to move.”
Kit said nothing. Snow beat the windows and the iron roof rattled; he was tired and frankly did not want to face the storm. The stove-front got red and the heat was soothing. For an hour he resolved to let himself go slack.
By and by a foreman pushed back the door. He breathed fast, and his look was grim.
“We have got the brace across at the end pier, but the ends won’t meet the bolt holes in the lugs.”
Austin threw off the blanket and jumped up.