“I don’t know that,” said her husband. “That reminds me I’ve a piece of news for you too. But I want to hear yours first. Tell me what you’ve been doing all day.”
“This afternoon I have been busy at home like a good wife, darning your stockings, or socks, as Mrs. Appleby calls them. Really and truly, Geoffrey, I have darned four pair—that is to say three pair and a half, for in the eighth sock, to my unspeakable delight there was no hole. I poked m y hand all round inside it, but not one of my fingers came through. There weren’t even any thin places which wanted strengthening, if you know what that is? You have no idea of the excitement of looking for holes. It is almost more fascinating than pulling shirt-buttons to see if they are loose. I have to force myself to be dreadfully conscientious about it. Sometimes I feel so tempted only to give a very gentle tug, which couldn’t pull even a very loose one off. Millington must be a ruinous place for poor people. You have no notion how quickly you wear out your stockings.”
“No, I certainly haven’t, as my good fairy takes care I never find any holes in them,” he answered tenderly. “But never mind stockings,” he went on, “tell me what you did this morning.”
“This morning,” she replied, “oh, this morning I went a tremendously long walk.”
“By yourself?”
“No, with Mrs. Sharp. You know I told you that nice little Mrs. Sharp had called here last week. The wife of the curate at St. Matthias’s. Her husband was a pupil at the Temples’, Veronica’s father’s, years ago, and that seemed a sort of introduction. She is really very nice. She knew something about us—about the bank breaking, I mean, and why we came here. I told her the first time I saw her how anxious I was to do something to help you, and—and—don’t be angry, Geoffrey—she came to-day to tell me she had heard of two pupils for me.”
“Marion!” exclaimed her husband.
She crept down to the floor beside him and hid her face on his arm, as she went on.
“It seems so very nice, Geoffrey. Listen and don’t say anything till you hear all about it. Mrs. Sharp took me to see the lady—a Mrs. Allen—whose two little boys I am to teach. They are very little boys, the eldest only ten. They generally go to school, but scarlet fever broke out there a month ago, and they are not to return till Christmas. It is only till then I am to teach them, and it is only to be three mornings in the week. Just to keep them in the way of lessons a little, their mother said. She is rather nice, fat and good-humoured-looking—but guiltless of H’s. She was very kind and pleasant about ‘terms,’ as she called it. Five guineas a month, I think very good. Don’t you?”
But Geoffrey was incapable of replying in the same light cheerful tone. He stooped down and passed his arm round Marion’s waist, thus drawing her nearer to him. Then he said in a choked husky voice,