"How much?"
Humility kept a small account-book in the work-box beside her. She opened the pages, but, seeing his outstretched hand, gave it obediently to Taffy, who took it to the window.
"Almost two hundred pounds." He knit his brows and began to drum with his fingers on the window-pane. "And we must put the interest at five per cent.... With my first in moderations I might find some post as an usher in a small school.... There's an agency which puts you in the way of such things; I must look up the address.... We will leave this house, of course."
"Must we?"
"Why, of course, we must. We are living here by her favor. A cottage will do—only it must have four rooms, because of grandmother.... I will step over and talk with Mendarva. He may be able to give me a job. It will keep me going, at any rate, until I hear from the agency."
"You forget that I have over forty pounds a year—or, rather, mother has. The capital came from the sale of her farm, years ago."
"Did it?" said Taffy, grimly. "You forget that I have never been told. Well, that's good, so far as it goes. But now I'll step over and see Mendarva. If only I could catch this cowardly lie somewhere, on my way!"
He kissed his mother, caught up his cap, and flung out of the house. The sea-breeze came humming across the sandhills. He opened his lungs to it, and it was wine to his blood; he felt fit and strong enough to slay dragons. "But who could the liar be? Not Lizzie herself, surely? Not—"
He pulled up short, in a hollow of the towans.
"Not—George?"