Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/181

 pounds a week; but that would be worse than the Foreign Office, which at least is quite a decent club. I could live in Peckham and come up each day by a tram, with linen a little more frayed each year, and clothes a little dingier. No, I'm afraid I lack the courage to face such a fate."

"But what are you going to do?" she persisted; then a moment after added, "I'm sorry, it's horribly rude of me to be so persistent."

"Not at all," he said, gazing straight in front of him. "I'm going to enjoy what I can enjoy, and—and not bother about the deluge, which is inevitable. Louis XIV built palaces on bogs, and was quite happy about it; I shall rear castles on sand, and be still happier."

"I don't understand." She puckered her brows.

"Shall I tell you?" he asked, smiling at her mystification.

"Would you mind? I should awfully like to know."

"I can go on as I am for two or three weeks more. I'm going to squeeze every drop of pleasure out of these few weeks, and not bother about what happens after."

"But," she persisted, "what are you going to do then?"

"You are almost as material as Aunt Caroline," he smiled. "Why cannot you be romantic? I once knew an artist who married a girl when all he possessed in the world was four pounds eighteen shillings and threepence, he was very insistent upon