Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/193

Rh was full tide, and the muddy surface looked almost solid.

“You wouldn’t get it all,” were Bob’s next words. “I’ve been asking about that.”

“You have? Who did you ask?”

“Oh, a feller you don’t know. You’d only have a third part of it, and the girl ‘ud get the rest.”

“What do you call a third part?”

So complete was her stupidity, that Bob had to make a laborious explanation of this mathematical term. She could have understood what was meant by a half or a quarter, but the unfamiliar “third” conveyed no distinct meaning.

“I don’t care,” she said at length. “That ‘ud be enough.”

“Clem,—you’d better leave this job alone. You’d better, I warn you.”

“I shan’t.”

Another long silence. A steamboat drew up to the Temple Pier, and a yellow shaft of sunlight fell softly upon its track in the water.

“What do you want me to do?” Bob recommenced. “How?”

Their eyes met, and in the woman’s gaze he