"I am not sure it would not be better. In that case I shall start on my own. Not in a shop. I shall open a warehouse for the sale of my goods, alone."
"Those calicoes, and prints, and 'drabbets,' you go to Manchester to buy?" put in Deleah, anxious to show that she understood.
"Manchester goods. I shall carry with me all the little customers who come to me now to take my advice what they shall buy, and a lot of shopkeepers of a better class, who will deal with a wholesale mean but will not buy their goods of Boult."
"Poor Mr. Boult!"
"He must look after hisself. I heard Miss Bessie say the other day that the wholesale line was genteeler than retail—." He broke off and looked questioningly at Deleah, who had formed no opinion on the subject.
"Bessie knows about these things," she assured him. "Then, you will become a very rich man, Mr. Gibbon. And will go away, and never help us to make mincemeat any more, or to clear the table after Sunday tea. You will drive your carriage with a pair of horses—not one miserable screw like Mr. Boult—and you will live in a fine house, and grow roses, and build conservatories; won't you?"
"Yes," he assented solemnly. Then he unfolded his arms and' stretching them sideways gripped with each hand the ledge of the dresser against which he leant. "I shall want you to come with me," he said.
"Me!" said Deleah. The shock of the surprise made her for a moment breathless. She sat and gazed at him with wide eyes for what seemed an age, saying nothing; and he also, for the moment incapable of further speech, gazed back. At last "Bessie?" Deleah got out. "You mean Bessie?"
"Why should I mean Bessie? Bessie!" he said, and flung the thought of her from him with scorn. "Why should I mean Bessie? I mean you—you—you!" he said, and endured her silence with eyes that clung desperately to her face.
"When I leave here, to go into that fine house—with the carriage and—conservatories—will you come too?"