“Like practising on the maid before you dare make love to the mistress.”
“Very possibly,” said he, digging the blunt end of his fork into the coarse salt—they were at lunch. “To put it another way—if you learn Latin you learn the structure of all languages.”
“What a regular schoolmaster’s simile,” she remarked, scornfully.
He flushed. “I’m no longer a schoolmaster,” said he.
“Since when?”
“Since I came here.”
“Do you mean to say you’re not going back to it?”
He paused before replying to the sudden question which accident had occasioned. To himself he had put it many times of late, but hitherto had evaded a definite answer. Now, with a thrill, he looked at her.
“Never,” said he.
She laid down her knife and fork and stared at him. Was he, after all, taking this fool journey seriously? To her it had been a reckless adventure, a stolen trip into lotus-land, with the knowledge of an inevitable return to common earth eating into her heart. Even now she dreaded to ask how much of her twenty pounds had been spent. But she knew that the day of doom was approaching. She could not live without money. Neither could he.