Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/188

178 “Do you think I’ve got no fatherly feeling, man? Why, if it wasn’t for my wife, I’d ask nothing better than to settle down with Jane to keep house for me. She’s a good girl, I tell you, and I wish her happiness.”

“And do you think I’m exactly the man to make her a model husband?”

“I don’t see why not—now you’re going to be a partner in a good business. Don’t you think I’m ten times as honest a man to-day as I was yesterday? Poor devils can’t afford to be what they’d wish, in the way of honesty and decent living.”

“True enough, for once,” remarked the other, without irony.

“You think it over, Scaw. I’m a man of my word. You shall have your money as soon as things are straight: and if you can bring about that affair, I’ll do all I said,—so there’s my hand on it. Say the word, and I’ll make you acquainted with her before—before I take that little trip you know of, just for my health.”

“We’ll speak of it again.”

Thereupon they parted. In the course of the following day Scawthorne’s report received