Page:Anthony John (IA anthonyjohn00jero).pdf/279

 herself wondering abstractedly whether she would be able to afford a bicycle. She had learnt to ride a bicycle when a girl. But that was long ago. She wondered whether she would be able to pick it up again. She pictured herself bargaining outside the butchers' shops, examining doubtful looking chickens—when chickens were cheap. There was a particular test you had to apply. She would have to make enquiries. She could see the grinning faces of the tradesmen, hear their oily tongues of mock politeness.

Her former friends and acquaintances—county folk who had motored in for a day's shopping, the stout be-jewelled wives of the rich magnates and manufacturers of Millsborough. Poor ladies! how worried they would be, not knowing what to do, meeting her by chance in the street. She with her umbrella and her parcels. And their red-faced husbands who would squeeze her hand and try to say the right thing. There would be plenty of comedy—at first, anyhow. That was the trouble. Tragedy she could have faced. This was going to be farce.

The dulness—the appalling dulness of it. The long evenings in the one small living room. She would have to learn sewing—make her own dresses, while Anthony read aloud to her. He read rather