She glanced up questioningly. This tone of sympathetic plain speaking appealed to the best in her nature and partially deceived her. Like a flash the suggestion presented itself that life with this man need not after all be the intolerable burden she had feared, even though love might be wanting; that she had perhaps mistaken anxiety for coldness and absence of mind for callousness.
“Is it too late to save him?” she asked.
She looked up quickly as she spoke, and the sight of her husband’s face dismissed at once all her mocking fancies.
“To save——?” Inman’s mouth opened in astonishment; but immediately took on curves of disdain as he replied:
“Don’t talk like a fool, Nancy! We’ve thrown enough into that muck-heap, and now we’ve got to think about ourselves. Baldwin wouldn’t have considered twice about sending you to the devil—let him go there himself! He’ll be made bankrupt, I tell you, and there won’t be more’n a few shillings in the pound for his creditors. The question is, am I to take the business over, or what?”
He played with his silver watch-chain, waiting for an answer, but not looking into his wife’s face, and Nancy speedily made up her mind.
For better or worse she had tied herself to the man, and whatever his qualities as a husband, there could be no question of his business ability. If she were to thwart him by withholding her money, what purpose would she serve? Would she not indeed be sowing for herself the seeds of certain trouble? The more time her husband devoted to business the less there would be to spend with her. Let the machinery be kept running there, and the wheels of their domestic life would probably run smoothly.
“I don’t doubt but what you’ll make things hum,” she said, and although there was no enthusiasm in the tone, a look of satisfaction came into Inman’s eyes as he recognised the implication of the tense she had employed.
“Lend me the money,” he replied, “and I’ll make this the best country business in Craven. I’ll——But it’s no use dreaming dreams; I’ve thought this thing out and I know what I can do. I can make you rich in a few years, Nancy!”
“Can you?” Nancy had better have withheld the exclamation or have uttered it with less meaning, for its weary note told a story with which Inman was already too familiar; but the contraction of brow was only momentary, and he forced himself to laugh.