Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/226

 the usual income was to be sent to Brinoë out of her own money. So now, with Mr. Blundon, she supported two gentlemen instead of one.

She dressed herself in the thickest and blackest crêpe and then discovered something which she had not noticed before—that for nearly four years old Mr. Winnery had been her entire life and that without him she was lost. He had taken the place of Bayswater and the Pot and Pie and of Alf and 'Arry and Teena Bitts and Mrs. Crumyss and now she had neither the one nor the other. As she had grown immensely fat and very indolent, she did nothing about it for a long time. Even the temptation to return to the Pot and Pie seemed to have weakened, or at least taken another form. She wanted to return now on a single visit only to show Teena Bitts and Winterbottom how well she had done.

Her only diversion was an occasional visit to the lodgings of Mr. Blundon. Sometimes he was in and sometimes not and when she did find him there he received her with the same dignity and detachment that had marked their long friendship. But, as Bessie said, he was never much of a one for small talk and their conversation lagged. The dialogue consisted usually of inquiries about the book, the character of which remained a perpetual mystery to Bessie, and remarks about the weather. The regeneration of Mr. Blundon seemed well on the way to become an accomplished fact. He no longer got drunk, and in decent clothes appeared the gentleman he was by birth. He was fond of Bessie, but cold, and her own attitude toward him was a