At
present you are pauperising yourself."
Bob did not quite understand--so she explained:
"You are twenty-one, and still receiving food and lodging from your
parents as a dole. At your age, if a man receives anything at all from
father or mother, he should be earning it as a right."
She spoke impatiently, and longed to add that he was also
impoverishing his intellect. She felt a touch of contempt for him; but
a touch of contempt may go with love, and, indeed, competent observers
have held that this mixture makes the very finest cement. Certain it
is that when Bob answered pathetically, "But I don't want to leave
this roof, I--I _can't_, Miss Ormiston, you know!" she missed her
opportunity of pointing out that this confession stultified every one
of his previous utterances. She began a sentence, indeed, but broke
off, with her grey eyes fixed on the ground; and when at length she
lifted them, Bob felt something take him by the throat. The few
words he proceeded to blurt out stunned him much as if a grenade had
exploded close at hand. But when Miss Ormiston burst into tears and
declared she must go upstairs at once and pack her box, he recovered,
and, looking about, found the aspect of the world bewilderingly
changed.
Pages:
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176