Part 29 (2/2)
”You needn't remind me. I'm not likely to forget that any good thing that's come to me here has come through you.”
”I don't want anything but good to come to you through me”
He leaned forward.
”You're not very happy in Wyck, are you?”
”Happy? Oh, yes. But it's not what you'd call wildly exciting. And Toby's worrying me. He says he can't stand it, and he wants to emigrate.”
”Well, why not?”
Mr. Waddington's heart gave a great thump of hope. He saw it all clearly. Toby was the great obstruction. Elise might have held out for ever as long as Toby lived with her. But if Toby went--She saw it too; that was why she consented to his going.
”It isn't much of a job for him, Bostock's Bank.”
”N-no,” she a.s.sented, ”n-no. I've told him he can go if he can get anything.”
He played, stroking the long tails of her fur. It lay between them like a soft, supine animal.
”Would you like to live in Cheltenham, Elise?”
”Cheltenham?”
”If I took a little house for you?”
(He had calculated that he might just as well lose his rent in Cheltenham as in Wyck. Better. Besides, he needn't lose it. He could let the White House. It would partly pay for Cheltenham.)
”One of those little houses in Montpelier Place?”
”It's too sweet of you to think of it.” She began playing too, stroking the fur animal; their hands played together over the sleek softness, consciously, shyly, without touching.
”But--why Cheltenham?”
”Cheltenham isn't Wyck.”
”No. But it's just as dull and stuffy. Stuffier.”
”Beautiful little town, Elise.”
”What's the good of that when it's crammed full of school children and school teachers, and decayed army people and old maids? I don't _know_ anybody in Cheltenham.”
”Can't you see that that would be the advantage?”
”No. I can't see it. There's only one place I _want_ to live in.”
”And that is--?”
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