Page 204 - sons-and-lovers

er. ‘I should consider it again, my boy.’
‘Oh, well, I’ve gone too far to break off now,’ he said, ‘and
so I shall get married as soon as I can.’
‘Very well, my boy. If you will, you will, and there’s no
stopping you; but I tell you, I can’t sleep when I think about
it.’
‘Oh, she’ll be all right, mother. We shall manage.’
‘And she lets you buy her underclothing?’ asked the
mother.
‘Well,’ he began apologetically, ‘she didn’t ask me; but
one morning—and it WAS cold—I found her on the sta-
tion shivering, not able to keep still; so I asked her if she
was well wrapped up. She said: ‘I think so.’ So I said: ‘Have
you got warm underthings on?’ And she said: ‘No, they
were cotton.’ I asked her why on earth she hadn’t got some-
thing thicker on in weather like that, and she said because
she HAD nothing. And there she is—a bronchial subject! I
HAD to take her and get some warm things. Well, mother,
I shouldn’t mind the money if we had any. And, you know,
she OUGHT to keep enough to pay for her season-ticket;
but no, she comes to me about that, and I have to find the
money.’
‘It’s a poor lookout,’ said Mrs. Morel bitterly.
He was pale, and his rugged face, that used to be so per-
fectly careless and laughing, was stamped with conflict and
despair.
‘But I can’t give her up now; it’s gone too far,’ he said.
‘And, besides, for SOME things I couldn’t do without her.’
‘My boy, remember you’re taking your life in your hands,’

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