"I expect he's been reading that paper," said Mary.
"Do you mean to say," George asked scornfully, "that your uncle reads a
rag like that? I thought all _his_ lot looked down on worldliness."
"So they do," said Mary. "But somehow they like reading about it. I
believe uncle has read it every week for twenty years."
"Well, why didn't you tell me?"
"The other morning?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I didn't want to worry you. What good would it have done?"
"What good would it have done!" George repeated in accents of terrible
disdain, as though the good that it would have done was obvious to the
lowest intelligence. (Yet he knew quite well that it would have done no
good at all.) "Georgie, take that spoon out of your sleeve."
And Georgie, usually disobedient, took the porridge-laden spoon out of
his sleeve and glanced at his mother for moral protection. His mother
merely wiped him rather roughly. Georgie thought, once more, that he
never in this world should understand grown-up people. And the recurring
thought made him cry gently.
George lapsed into savage meditation. During all the seven years of his
married life he had somehow supposed himself to be superior, as a man,
to his struggling rivals.
Pages:
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415