Sam paused in the act of fastening his collar. “To pay?” he asked, not unsuspiciously now.
“Are your selfish pleasures all you think about?” Ada wanted to know. “Isn’t it a privilege to be allowed to buy me nice clothes?”
He had not looked upon it in that light. In budgeting for their future he had indeed assumed that a trousseau lasted a bride for her first year. “I see,” he said gloomily; then remembering that he was in love with her, “of course,” he added with a smile which might count to him for heroism. “But we must not forget the fares, and after I have paid the bill here I shall not have more than two pounds left to spend.”
“Then I spend two pounds on blouses,” she said.
He made a monosyllabic noise which might have been “Yes.” It might also have been “Damn.”
The truth was that he had deliberately kept those two pounds back, intending to spend some, but not, he hoped, all of it, on a present for Ada. He had thought of a hand-bag, had imagined her gasp of delight when he audaciously entered with her one of those forbiddingly inviting shops, her appreciation of his generosity.
Last night had driven the thought entirely from his mind, and he was annoyed now not only at his forgetfulness, but at Ada. She did not ask, she demanded. A night in the Gallery may be regarded as dissipation, but at least it is not a crime. It is even patriotic, and he was asked to foot a bill for two pounds as the price of his patriotism. Ambition, he thought, would be an expensive luxury if he had to pay in clothes for Ada every time he went to a political meeting. For that, plainly, was her attitude: she demanded a quid pro quo: she announced a policy of retaliation.
There is a queer perverted pleasure in scratching an open wound, in cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. He had meant to be generous and he wanted still to be generous, but the money he had laid aside for generosity was now hypothecated to meet her claim. He would give her her pound of flesh, but wanted very badly to roast it for her with coals of fire.
Gloom lifted from him suddenly. He took off the old tie which he had put on as being good enough to travel in, and fastened very carefully one which he had bought “for London.”
“I’ll do it,” he was thinking. “It is—almost—a stroke.”