‘No, I’m not,’ he replied hastily. ‘Something quite different.’
‘Then I know what it is,’ she went on, ‘and I’m going to tell you. You were just going to point out that you hadn’t much money and didn’t exactly know where you were going to earn any and that I’d have a damned thin time, weren’t you? I knew you were. Well, that doesn’t matter. If you really like me enough, we can have some fun together and manage somehow. To begin with, I can get a job. I really have been in the chorus, you know—though lately I’ve been resting—though I’ve not had much from Bill, you needn’t think it; he’s not been keeping me really—and I can go back to the chorus. If there’s nothing doing there, I can easily get a job of some sort—there’s a girl I know managing a milliner’s who’d get me into the shop. And we’d find a cheap little flat, high up, somewhere not too far out, and if you found anything at all to do, we’d manage all right. I know I’d be pretty rotten, and you probably wouldn’t be comfortable at first. I can’t do much—something quick and easy on a gas-ring is about my limit in cooking—but I’d try and I’d be happy so long as you didn’t curse me too often. I know what it means, of course; I’m not a kid. Living like that with anybody else but you would be little hell; but with you it would be all different—there’d be fun and excitement all the time—and we’d go roaming round together and talk and talk about everything, just as we’ve been doing to-night, and we wouldn’t feel lost and lonely any more. I know I’m not the sort of girl you used to think about—like that other one—but I understand; and if you ever got depressed I’d tease you out of it and then love you hard—Oh! you must think I’m silly.’ A little choked cry, and she had flung her arms round him and was pressing her face against his.
‘My dear, my dear,’ he found himself saying. He saw the two of them crazily garreting it together somewhere above the bus tops; laughing or grousing together if nothing came off; jubilant over the occasional windfalls; rushing one another into life. He was holding her close now, was protective, soothing; yet all the time he had a dim feeling that it was he who was finding comfort, sustenance itself, in this happy weight in his arms. Here was the way back into things. But he wouldn’t sneak up to share her attic. His own idea, mad as it seemed, was better than that. They’d get married, risk all and then plunge in together. No doubt people were right, he’d wanted the moon; now he’d start again and simply want cheese; and perhaps in the end he’d find that the moon was made of cheese after all.
He put a hand on her hair and gently tilted back her face so that he could kiss her again. ‘It’s a great idea, Gladys,’ he told her, ‘and you’re wonderful, and we’ll make it all happen. Only my idea improves on yours, though you’ll probably think it crazy.’
‘Tell me,’ she whispered. ‘What is it?’
‘Let’s go back first, and then I will.’ She must hear it back in the house, with other people not far away, where she could test it. Anything was plausible here, in this tiny odd world they seemed to have created for themselves. ‘We’ve been too long away as it is. We’ll go back now.’
‘No, no. You want to leave me.’ He felt her body stiffen in his arms.
‘I don’t. Not ever. But we must see what the others are doing. They’re probably asleep.’ He couldn’t help feeling that they weren’t, though. ‘Then we’ll talk it all out. I’ve a special reason for wanting to finish it off there.’
‘All right.’ She drew back but kept her eyes fixed on his. Then, after a pause, she went on: ‘But are you sure——?’ The question died away. Her voice was dubious; her stare was dubious, sombre. He was instantly visited by a curious mixed feeling of alarm and shame. It had occurred to her that she really knew nothing about him. And he knew nothing about her. They were strangers, staring through the dusk at one another. Voices, questioning eyes, the electric contact of flesh, and you seemed to know everything—a turn of the wheel, a click, and you knew nothing. The old despair returned; he was trapped again. Without thinking what he was doing, he took hold of her hand and the next moment it had given him a warm hard squeeze. At the same time a thought arrived, just as if it had been squeezed into him.
‘Why,’ he cried aloud, ‘it’s all bosh!’