Читать книгу The Passionate Quest онлайн

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"Nothing to speak of," he declared shortly. "However, enough to put us on about level terms. I suppose the three of us could live together cheaper than separately. What are your plans?"

"Philip thought that he might secure a position in some publisher's office until he can get some of his stories accepted," Rosina explained. "Very likely, if he is a sensible publisher, he will want to publish them himself. After that, of course, it will be quite easy."

"And you?"

"I shall eventually go on the stage," Rosina announced, "only, as Philip thinks I am rather young just yet, I shall probably type his stories and work in an office for a little time. It is quite easy to make enough money to live on in London, if one is not extravagant."

"Is it?" Matthew answered laconically.

There was a brief silence. Philip and Rosina watched their companion a little anxiously. In a way, although they had lived under the same roof since childhood, they were conscious of a certain aloofness between them and him. He represented different things. Yet, when it came to breaking away from such home as they had possessed, and facing the world under new and strange conditions, they felt somehow that there were certain qualities about Matthew which engendered confidence. His very self-reliance, his almost arrogant belief in himself, were infectious. They had no thought of any actual assistance from him. Their only idea was that life was likely to prove more easy, and its problems more readily faced, if he were at hand. Matthew, smoking stolidly on, and gazing with unseeing eyes towards the distant moorland, was weighing the matter slowly in his mind. Were these two likely to be an encumbrance to him? He almost smiled at the thought. He knew very well that he would never permit any one in life to become that. To break away from Norchester alone, at that moment, might have its embarrassments. Their leaving would provide him with a reasonable excuse. And then there was another thing—just a feeling—something he was never likely to give way to, or allow to come between himself and his interests, but which still, in its bald, unlovely way, existed. He turned his head and suffered himself to look at Rosina. She had relapsed for a moment into her old position, and was lying on her back, her eyes watching the slow, upward flight of a lark already high above the tree tops. She was slim, thin almost, with the immaturity of youth, but, although Matthew knew nothing of beauty, he saw the promise of her almost perfect young body. He realised that the pallor of her cheeks had nothing to do with ill health. He even found pleasure in watching the curve of her full but delicate lips, and the specks of gold which the sun seemed to find in her crumpled hair. It was a feeling, he told himself, which he would never allow to come between him and complete success. Yet one must live whilst one climbed the ladder.