"To my certain and absolute knowledge." This mutual candour continued, and presently she said: "But you—where do you come from?"
"From far away—I've been out of England. After my visit here I went back to my post."
"And now you've returned with your fortune?"
He gave her a smile from which the friendliness took something of the bitter quality. "Call it my misfortune!" There was nothing in this to deprive Mrs. Beever of the pleasant play of a professional sense that he had probably gathered such an independence as would have made him welcome at the Bank. On the other hand she caught the note of a tired grimness in the way he added: "I've come back with that. It sticks to me!"
For a minute she spared him. "You want her as much as ever?"
His eyes confessed to a full and indeed to a sore acceptance of that expression of the degree. "I want her as much as ever. It's my constitutional obstinacy!"
"Which her treatment of you has done nothing to break down?"
