Читать книгу The Passionate Quest онлайн

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The shadow of that unformed trouble which had never wholly passed came back into her face.

"But, Matthew," she expostulated, "how can I leave Philip?"

"He has no more claim upon you than I have," was the brusque reply.

Rosina shook her head.

"I am not so sure about that, Matthew," she told him. "We have not talked about it very much, because it seems rather a mockery just now, but I think that it is understood between us that some day, when his books are published and these evil times are over, we are going to be married."

"His novels will never be published," Matthew declared. "Philip is of no account. I have watched him in the factory and in the office, making a daily muddle of the simplest jobs. If you want the silks and laces of Bond Street, Rosina, you will never get them from him."

"Then I will do without them," she replied valiantly.

Matthew called for the bill, tipped the waiter liberally, and also the maître d'hôtel. His liberality, like his meanness, was of the measured order. Even during these first few months in London, he was building all the time for bigger things. To spend a purposeless sixpence which at no time could bring him any return, was an agony to him. A Treasury note given to a maître d'hôtel with influence, he thought nothing of—it was an investment which was to return him value later on.