"It couldn't come to anything else, the way it was going."
"Oh Lord"—Spinks buried a crimson face in his hands. If only he hadn't felt such a horrible exultation!
"I thought you knew. Isn't that what we've been talking about all the time?"
"I didn't understand. I only thought—he didn't tell me, mind you—I thought it was just put off because he couldn't afford to marry quite so soon."
"Don't you think three hundred a year is enough to marry on?"
"Well, I shouldn't care to marry on that myself; not if it wasn't regular. He's quite right, Flossie. You see, a man hasn't got only his wife to think of."
"No—I suppose he must think of himself a little too."
"Oh well, no; if he's a decent chap, he thinks of his children."
Flossie's face was crimson, too, while her thoughts flew to that unfurnished room in the brown house at Ealing. She was losing sight of Keith Rickman; for behind Keith Rickman there was Sidney Spinks; and behind Sidney Spinks there was the indomitable Dream. She did not look at Spinks, therefore, but gazed steadily at the top of Mr. Partridge's head. With one word Spinks had destroyed the effect he had calculated on from his honourable reticence. Perhaps it was because Flossie's thoughts had flown so far that her voice seemed to come from somewhere a long way off, too.
"What would you think enough to marry on, then?"