BREAKFAST
"They are. That means either the eight-twenty-seven or the eight-fifty-three. The eight-fifty-three!"
"The eight-twenty-seven," they decided unanimously.
"Then that'll just have to mean breakfast earlier," said Mrs. Russel brightly; "you won't mind, will you, girls?" Her appeal included Aunt Willoughby, who made no response. "You see, we couldn't hardly rush them over their breakfasts, could we?"
This was "home comforts." This was one of the privileges for which Rossiter paid her twenty-four shillings a week. Being sat round and watched while you were eating. Not being rushed. He had a vision of a "rushed breakfast," of whirling endlessly through space while one snapped at a sausage with little furtive bites; of munching bread and marmalade with the wind of one's velocity whistling through one's teeth.
Would it be better? Could it be worse?
Not worse than his chair-edge creaking against Miss Emily's; the unceasing consciousness of her unceasing consciousness of him. Not worse than Hilary Bevel,
12
