"Then it's something you don't like to speak of. I say—have the other women been worrying you?"
"No, I should think not indeed. Catch any one trying that on with me!"
"Then I can't see what it can be."
"I daresay you can't. You don't know what it is! It's not much, but it's the same thing day after day, day after day, till I'm sick and tired of it all! I don't see any end to it either."
"I'm so sorry, Floss," said Rickman in a queer thick voice. She had turned her face towards him now, and its expression was inscrutable—to him. To another man it would have said that it was all very well for him to be sorry; he could put a stop to it soon enough if he liked.
"Oh—you needn't be sorry."
"Why not? Do you think I don't care?"
Immense play of expression on Flossie's face. She bit her lip; and that meant that he might care no end, or he mightn't care a rap, how was she to know? She smiled a bitter smile as much as to say that she didn't know, neither did she greatly care. Then her lips quivered, which meant that if by any chance he did care, it was a cruel shame to leave a poor girl in the dark.
"Care? About the Bank?" she said at last. "You needn't. I shan't stand it much longer. I shall fling it up some of these days; see if I don't."
"Would that be wise?"