Stephen, regretting that he had begun, since a volcano might be the consequence, was obliged to go on.
“You said I wasn’t out of her class just before.”
“Yes, there, there! That’s you; that’s my own flesh and blood. I’ll warrant that you’ll pick holes in everything your mother says, if you can, Stephen. You are just like your father for that; take anybody’s part but mine. Whilst I am speaking and talking and trying and slaving away for your good, you are waiting to catch me out in that way. So you are in her class, but ’tis what HER people would CALL marrying out of her class. Don’t be so quarrelsome, Stephen!”
Stephen preserved a discreet silence, in which he was imitated by his father, and for several minutes nothing was heard but the ticking of the green-faced case-clock against the wall.
“I’m sure,” added Mrs. Smith in a more philosophic tone, and as a terminative speech, “if there’d been so much trouble to get a husband in my time as there is in these days—when you must make a god-almighty of a man to get en to hae ye—I’d have trod clay for bricks before I’d ever have lowered my dignity to marry, or there’s no bread in nine loaves.”
The discussion now dropped, and as it was getting late, Stephen bade his parents farewell for the evening, his mother none the less warmly for their sparring; for although Mrs. Smith and Stephen were always contending, they were never at enmity.
“And possibly,” said Stephen, “I may leave here altogether to-morrow; I don’t know. So that if I shouldn’t call again before returning to London, don’t be alarmed, will you?”
“But didn’t you come for a fortnight?” said his mother. “And haven’t you a month’s holiday altogether? They are going to turn you out, then?”
“Not at all. I may stay longer; I may go. If I go, you had better say nothing about my having been here, for her sake. At what time of the morning does the carrier pass Endelstow lane?”
“Seven o’clock.”