"Well, now, thank you, guvner, but really, I don't want it. Thirty bob a week! What should I do with it? Nothing but go down to the Holly Tree and get drunk every night. I'm much better off as I am—total abstinence, in a manner of speaking. No, no, guvner, I appreciate your big heart, but I'm happy with my little bit of fish and a rabbit in the pot—why should I set up to be an honest workingman and get dissatisfied with my life?"
His refusal of my wellintentioned offer did not irk me. In a large and tolerant view you could almost say we were both parasites upon The Ivies and it would not hurt me if he stole a little of my game to keep himself alive. I gave him a note to protect him against any of the keepers who might come upon him as I had, and we parted with mutual liking; I remembering for my part that I was an American and all men, poacher and landlord alike, were created equal, no matter how far each had come from his beginnings.
80. Shortly after, Miss Francis ended her long sojourn at Mount Whitney and returned to England. The ordeal of living surrounded by the Grass, which had destroyed her assistants, seemed to have made no other change in her than the fading of her hair, which was now completely white, and a loss of weight, giving her a deceptive appearance of fragility at variance with the forthrightness of her manner.
I put down her immunity to agoraphobia as just another evidence that she was already mad. Her refusal to accept the limitations of her sex and her complete indifference to our respective stations were mere confirmations. With her usual disregard of realities she assumed I would go on financing her indefinitely in spite of the hundreds of thousands of pounds I had paid out without visible result.
"Ive really got it now, Weener," she assured me in a tone hardly befitting a suppliant for funds. "In spite of the incompetents you kept sending, in spite of mistakes and blind alleys, the work on Whitney is done—and successfully. The rest is routine laboratory work—a matter of quantities and methods of application."
"I don't know that I can spare you any more money, Miss Francis."
She laughed. "What the devil's the matter with you, Weener? Are your millions melting away? Or do you think any of the spies you set on me capable of carrying on—or are you just trying to crack the whip?"
"I set no spies and I have no whip. I merely feel it may not be profitable to waste any more money on fruitless experiments."
She snorted. "Time has streamlined and inflated your platitudes. When I am too old to work and ready for euthanasia I shall have you come and talk me to death. To hear you one would almost think you had no interest in finding a method to counter the Grass."
Her egomania and impertinence were really insufferable; her notion of her own importance was ludicrous.