Grindley junior’s view was that the wilds of Africa would afford a fitting background to the passing away of a blighted existence.
Peter Hope had a suspicion that Grindley junior had for the moment parted company with that sweet reasonableness that otherwise, so Peter Hope felt sure, was Grindley junior’s guiding star.
“I mean it, sir,” reasserted Grindley junior. “I am—” Grindley junior was about to add “well educated”; but divining that education was a topic not pleasing at the moment to the ears of Helvetia Appleyard, had tact enough to substitute “not a fool. I can earn my own living; and I should like to get away.”
“It seems to me—” said the sub-editor.
“Now, Tommy—I mean Jane,” warned her Peter Hope. He always called her Jane in company, unless he was excited. “I know what you are going to say. I won’t have it.”
“I was only going to say—” urged the sub-editor in tone of one suffering injustice.
“I quite know what you were going to say,” retorted Peter hotly. “I can see it by your chin. You are going to take their part—and suggest their acting undutifully towards their parents.”
“I wasn’t,” returned the sub-editor. “I was only—”
“You were,” persisted Peter. “I ought not to have allowed you to be present. I might have known you would interfere.”
“—going to say we are in want of some help in the office. You know we are. And that if Mr. Grindley would be content with a small salary—”