“I’ll shut the window,” he said, and did so.
It was so subtle, this business, that his remarks, too, could be interpreted. For instance, his words, “I’ll shut the window,” meant really, “Is that so? Well, I guessed as much. You’re utterly heartless. I shall have to resign myself to it, anyway. So, as you suggest, we’ll change the subject.”
The taxi turned into the Bockley High Street.
Catherine was like a child with a new toy. And this toy was the most intricate, complicated, and absorbingly interesting toy that had ever brought ecstasy to its possessor. How strange that he should be in love with her! How marvellous that there should be something strange and indefinable in her that had attracted something strange and indefinable in him!
And she thought, in spasms amidst her exhilaration: “Probably Ransomes will sell the furniture for me.... He killed himself for me. I’m the reason....”
It tickled her egoism that he should have done so. He must have done so. It could only have been that.
Here was George Trant, head over heels in love with her. And here was her father, stupid, narrow-minded, uncompromising bigot, yet committing suicide because she had run away from home. She preferred to regard herself as a runaway rather than as a castaway.
Truly she was developing into a very marvellous and remarkable personage!...
§ 2
As she entered the side door of No. 14, Gifford Road at the improper hour of three a.m., the thin voice of Mrs. Carbass called down the stairs: “That you, Miss Weston?”