"I'm getting two hundred a year," he said. "This year, come Christmas, I'm to have a rise to two hundred and fifty. Next year"—he paused, set his lips tightly—"next year I mean to ask for a share in the business."
"Do you?" said Deleah with polite interest. "Do you really think you will get it, Mr. Gibbon?"
"I shall get it, fast enough. I shall get it, for this reason: if Boult doesn't give it me I shall leave him. Boult can't afford to lose me. I don't want to boast, but it's true. He can't afford to lose me, and he knows it. Do you know," and he lifted his head, speaking more naturally and looking at her with pride in his achievement, "in the two years I have been in the concern I have doubled the takings in my department?"
"Really? How very clever of you, Mr. Gibbon! You must be pleased!"
He looked at her, and laughed hopelessly. "You don't understand these things, Miss Deleah. You don't realise that what I have done means much."
"Oh, but I do, Mr. Gibbon! I have always thought that you must be a quite wonderful business man; so quiet, so regular, thinking of nothing but your work."
"I do think of other things," he said fervidly. "I want to get on. I want to improve myself, and my position. There's an end I'm working for. If a man sets an end before him, and works for all he's worth to get it, does he get it, Miss Deleah?"
"He gets it. Never doubt it!"
"Well then, see! When I get my share of the business I shall work the whole show up as I have worked my own department. The other establishments in the same line can put their shutters up. It's the biggest drapery business in the town now—Boult is proud enough to ram that fact down your throat—but I shall make it the biggest drapery business in the Eastern Counties."
"How splendid of you, Mr. Gibbon! And supposing Mr. Boult won't give you the share?"