“But you will one day.”
“How do you mean? When he dies? Oh no, he mustn’t die.”
“I wish you saw that about suffering.”
What could one say to her? If one was in her position and did not make it into something, it was not worth its own unpleasantness, that must be so. So that if she was too small to understand, she had much better go on the streets and have a good time on and off, if she could get it in no other way. She could not come to London with him, even if they went there, for she would only be unhappy. He could never introduce her to his friends, if he educated her she would only be genteel. Her value was her brutality, and she would lose that. Besides, there was the Shame, who was a fool from all accounts, almost an idiot. But you couldn’t let her go back to him in this frame of mind, it was waste. And what would she do when the old man died?—not that he was old, either, but quite young. Probably marry a commercial traveller. He would talk to Mamma. Oh, he was tired, tired.
There was a roar in the distance.
“June, what was that?”
“It’s a football match on the Town ground. Norbury are playing Daunton to-day, so Mrs. Donner told me. She has a son that plays, wonderful they say he is.”
“That must have been a goal, then. Or a foul.”
“Oh, John, you mustn’t go.”
“Where?”