“Take care they don’t get the best of you,” Miss Ensor advised him.
“Oh, I’m not afraid,” he answered. “I’ll get another place all right: give me time. The only thing I’m worried about is my young woman.”
“Doesn’t agree with you?” inquired Miss Ensor.
“Oh, it isn’t that,” he answered. “But she’s frightened. You know. Says life with me is going to be a bit too uncertain for her. Perhaps she’s right.”
“Oh, why don’t you chuck it,” advised Miss Ensor, “give the Bourgeois a rest.”
Mr. Simson shook his head. “Somebody’s got to tackle them,” he said. “Tell them the truth about themselves, to their faces.”
“Yes, but it needn’t be you,” suggested Miss Ensor.
Mary was leaning over the table. Miss Ensor’s four-penny veal and ham pie was ready. Mary arranged it in front of her. “Eat it while it’s hot, dearie,” she counselled. “It won’t be so indigestible.”
Miss Ensor turned to her. “Oh, you talk to him,” she urged. “Here, he’s lost his job again, and is losing his girl: all because of his silly politics. Tell him he’s got to have sense and stop it.”
Mary seemed troubled. Evidently, as Miss Ensor had stated, advice was not her line. “Perhaps he’s got to do it, dearie,” she suggested.