Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/190

180 “How do I know?”

“You won’t grudge her a couple of pounds a week, or so, just to enable her to live with the Byasses, as she has been doing?”

“I s’pose the money’s your own to do what you like with.”

“Very kind of you to say so, my dear. But we’re well-to-do people now, and we must be polite to each other. Where shall we take a house, Clem? Would you like to be a bit out of town? There’s very nice places within easy reach of King’s Cross, you know, on the Great Northern. A man I know lives at Potter’s Bar, and finds it very pleasant; good air. Of course I must be within easy reach of business.”

She kept drawing her nails over a fold in her dress, making a scratchy sound. “It happened just at the right time,” he continued. “The business wants a little more capital put into it. I tell you what it is, Clem; in a year or two we shall be coining money, old girl.”

“Shall you?”

“Right enough. There’s just one thing I’m a little anxious about; you won’t mind me