Part 25 (1/2)

take on like that ... better clear off then”; and a moment later, seeing Edgar Strong b.u.t.toning up his coat, he called out, ”Wait a minute, Strong--we're going down too--get your hat, Laura----”

Five minutes later Cosimo Pratt and his wife were alone.

It was the first time they had been so for nearly a fortnight. Indeed, for weeks the departure of the last visitor had been the signal for their own good-night, Cosimo going his way, she hers. There had never been anything even remotely approaching a ”scene” to account for this.

It had merely happened so.

Therefore, finding himself alone with his wife in the studio again, Cosimo yawned and stretched his arms above his head.

”Ah-h-h!... You going to bed?”

As he would hardly be likely to take himself off before she had answered his question, Amory did not reply at once. She sat down on the footstool and stretched her hands out to the asbestos log. Then, after a minute, and without looking up, she broke one of their tacitly accepted rules by asking a direct question.

”What were you and Edgar Strong discussing?” she asked.

He yawned again.--”Oh, the Bookshop advertis.e.m.e.nt--and advertis.e.m.e.nts generally. It begins to look as if we should have to be less exclusive about these things. Strong tells me that it's unheard-of for a paper to refuse any advertis.e.m.e.nt it can get.”

”I mean when you got out the atlas.”

”Oh--India, of course. The Indian policy. Strong isn't altogether satisfied about Prang. He seems to think he might get us into trouble.”

”How? Why?” Amory said, her eyes reflectively on the purring gas-jets.

”Can't make out. Some fancy of his. The policy hasn't changed, and Prang hasn't changed. I wonder whether Wilkinson's right when he says Strong's put his hand to the plough but is now ... _ah!_ That reminds me!--Were you here when that preposterous fellow--what's his name--Crabtree--rather let the cat out of the bag about Wilkinson?”

”You mean about another paper? No. But Walter said something about it.”

”Yes, by Jove! He seems to have it all cut-and-dried! Crabtree seems to think I knew all about it. Of course I did know that Wilkinson had a scheme, but I'd no idea he was jumping ahead at that rate. I don't want two papers. One's getting rather serious.”

Still without looking at her husband, Amory said, ”How, serious?”

”Why, the expense. I'm not sure that we didn't take the wrong line about the advertis.e.m.e.nts. Anyway, something will have to be done. Thirty pounds a week is getting too stiff. I'm seriously thinking of selling out from the Eden and the Bookshop. Do you know that with one thing and another we're down more than three thousand pounds this year?”

Amory was surprised; but she realized instinctively that that was not the moment to show her surprise. Were she to show it, the moment would not be opportune for the raising of the subject of the fund, and she wanted to raise that subject. And she wanted to raise it in connexion with Cosimo and Britomart Belchamber. She continued to gaze at the log.

The servants, she thought, might have taken the opportunity of dinner to sweep up the litter of cigarette-ends that surrounded it; and then she had a momentary fancy. It was, that the domestic relations that existed between herself and Cosimo were a thing that, like that mechanical subst.i.tute for a more generous fire, could be turned off and on as it were by the mere touching of a tap. She wondered what made her think of that....

Cosimo had taken out his penknife and was sc.r.a.ping his nails, moodily running over items of disburs.e.m.e.nt as he sc.r.a.ped; and then the silence fell between them again.

It was Amory who broke it, and in doing so she turned her head for the first time. She gave her husband a look that meant that, though he might talk about expenses, she also had a subject.

”Walter was excessively stupid to-night,” she said abruptly.

He said ”Oh?” and went on sc.r.a.ping.

”At the best he's never a model of tact, but I thought he rather overstepped the mark at dinner.”

Again he said ”Oh?” and added, ”What about?”

”His manners. His ideas are all right, I suppose, but I'm getting rather tired of his platform-tricks.”

”His habit of ill.u.s.tration and so on?”