Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/443

Rh “What?” he asked, looking at me suddenly.

“&thinsp;‘Life is real, life is earnest——’&thinsp;”

He flushed slightly at my good-natured gibe.

“I don’t know what it is,” he replied. “But it’s a pretty rotten business, when you think of her fooling about wasting herself, and all the waste that goes on up there, and the poor devils rotting on the embankment—and——”

“And you—and Mayhew—and me——” I continued.

He looked at me very intently to see if I were mocking. He laughed. I could see he was very much moved.

“Is the time quite out of joint?” I asked.

“Why!”—he laughed. “No. But she makes me feel so angry—as if I should burst—I don’t know when I felt in such a rage. I wonder why. I’m sorry for him, poor devil. ‘Lettie and Leslie’—they seemed christened for one another, didn’t they?”

“What if you’d had her?” I asked.

“We should have been like a cat and dog; I’d rather be with Meg a thousand times—now!” he added significantly. He sat watching the lamps and the people and the dark buildings slipping past us.

“Shall we go and have a drink?” I asked him, thinking we would call in Frascati’s to see the come-and-go.

“I could do with a brandy,” he replied, looking at me slowly.

We sat in the restaurant listening to the jigging of the music, watching the changing flow of the people. I like to sit a long time by the hollyhocks