"Don't I always do what you tell me?" he asked, laughing.
"Oh, I don't want you to say that," she answered quickly. "You ought to be your own master; only when I know a thing is right I do like to tell you. A woman should, I think."
For an instant, Jimmy felt a wild longing to beg her to change the word "woman" to that of "wife," but she had already turned towards the door, and at the same moment the noise of the grimy street seemed to come in through the window and somehow fill the room. The sound recalled him to his normal self. How could he, a Grierson, take a wife from those surroundings?
CHAPTER XVI
Mrs. Marlow had learnt of her brother's sudden change of address with mingled annoyance and anxiety. It was not pleasant to have him quit the lodgings she had found for him after so short a trial, and she could not help feeling that there was some very strong attraction drawing him to town. Mrs. Benn, that uncompromising "Son of Temperance," had come over herself to explain matters to Jimmy's sister, and had taken the opportunity to enlarge on the number of bottles she had found in her lodger's room, omitting to state, however, that these had included the best part of a dozen of Bass, which, possibly because she hated liquor so much, she had promptly sold to her next-door neighbour at a halfpenny a bottle below the retail price.
"I'm afraid as how the house was too quiet for Mr. Grierson, mum," she wound up. "Having nothing to do hisself, except just write, he seemed to think other folks couldn't be tired and want to go to bed, folks that worked." She emphasised her words with a truly British scorn for those who live by their brains. "I'm sure the hours and hours as I've sat up for him, it's fair worn me out. And him your brother, mum, and uncle to these lovely little children, what I remember coming into the world."
Mrs. Marlow wrote plainly to her brother, doing her duty without flinching. Jimmy read the letter with a grim smile, then handed it to Lalage, who was bubbling over with wrath long before she reached the end of it.
"They are horrid, Jimmy, really they are. They see something wrong in everything you do. It's quite enough to drive you to the bad, never giving you a chance, and treating you like a silly little boy. I'm sure you don't drink as she says you do. She must be a nasty-minded woman. You know I should be the last to want to separate you from your family, or anything like that, if they were good to you; but as it is, I'm sure you're much better here than in those miserable lodgings, all alone and moping. That would make you drink."