"These will never see me through all
the week end."
"They're better than nothing, anyway," she said, not noticing that he
had not thanked her.
"I've only ten more--that's thirty--till Monday at noon. I'll never see
it through, girl--never in life. How much did you get from Mrs. King?"
he asked wildly.
"I only wanted sixpence for those," she said.
"You've the brains of a gnat," he cried.
They spent a miserable evening. The cigarette question was preying on
his mind, and she made it no better by talking about people on desert
islands, and people at the South Pole who were forced to do without
things. She was worried about him; she felt that if he had something big
in his life these little, mean obsessions would be sublimated by it.
And the something big came, silently and unexpected.
CHAPTER XIX
She wanted to go and spend the day under the great trees on Lady
Macquarie's Chair. The cool lapping of the blue water was inviting and
the shade of the trees promised drowsy restfulness. It seemed to her
that, if they were not near a table or chairs, he would not notice the
lack of a meal--anyone can sit under trees by the sea wall and eat
bread and jam sandwiches, and forget they are doing it because they have
to. Louis objected. To him food eaten out of doors was reminiscent of
people from the slums having tea on Bank Holiday on Hampstead Heath or
Greenwich Park.
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