“A poor thing, are you? Well, yes; there are different ways of being poor. I have been poor enough in my time, but I never thought myself a poor thing. And you must not say it ever of yourself again.”
“My girl must not think herself a poor thing. May I not say, my girl?” Then there was just a little murmur, a sound which would have been “yes” but for the inability of her lips to open themselves. “And if my girl, then my wife. And shall my wife be called a poor thing? No, Lucy. I have seen it all. I don’t think I like poor things;--but I like you.”
“I do. And now I must go back to the City Road and give up charge and take my money. And I must leave this at seven--after a cup of tea. Shall I see you again?”
“See me again! Oh, to-day, you mean. Indeed you shall. Not see you off? My own, own, own man?”
“I don’t care what they say. Let them say what they like. I have never been absent a day yet without leave. What time shall I be here?” Then he named an hour. “Of course I will have your last words. Perhaps you will tell me something that I must do.”
“No; no; no; not yet. That shall come after.” This she said smiling up at him, with a sparkle of a tear in each eye, but with such a smile! Then he caught her in his arms and kissed her. “That may come at present at any rate,” he said. To this, though it was repeated once and again, there was no opposition. Then in his own masterful manner he put on his hat and stalked out of the room without any more words.
She must return to the office that afternoon, of course, if only for the sake of explaining her wish to absent herself the rest of the day. But she could not go forth into the streets just yet. Though she had been able to smile at him and to return his caress, and for a moment so to stand by him that she might have something of the delight of his love, still she was too much flurried, too weak from the excitement of the last half-hour, to walk back to the Post Office without allowing herself some minutes to recruit her strength and collect her thoughts. She went at once up to her own room and cut for herself a bit of bread which she began to eat,--just as one would trim one’s lamp carefully for some night work, even though oppressed by heaviest sorrow, or put fuel on the fire that would be needed. Then having fed herself, she leaned back in her chair, throwing her handkerchief over her face, in order that she might think of it.