Page:Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes - The Lodger.djvu/39



But what was a little snub compared with the intense relief and joy of going down and telling Bunting of the great piece of good fortune which had fallen their way?

Staid Mrs. Bunting seemed to make but one leap down the steep stairs. In the hall, however, she pulled herself together, and tried to still her agitation. She had always disliked and despised any show of emotion; she called such betrayal of feeling "making a fuss."

Opening the door of their sitting-room, she stood for a moment looking at her husband’s bent back, and she realised, with a pang of pain, how the last few weeks had aged him.

Bunting suddenly looked round, and, seeing his wife, stood up. He put the paper he had been holding down on to the table: "Well," he said, "well, who was it, then?"

He felt rather ashamed of himself; it was he who ought to have answered the door and done all that parleying of which he had heard murmurs.

And then in a moment his wife’s hand shot out, and the ten sovereigns fell in a little clinking heap on the table.

"Look there!" she whispered, with an excited, tearful quiver in her voice. "Look there, Bunting!"