II
When, after imperceptible manœuvres by Mrs. Larkins, he found himself starting circuitously through the inevitable recreation ground with Miriam to meet Annie, he found himself quite unable to avoid the topic of the shop that had now taken such a grip upon him. A sense of danger only increased the attraction. Minnie’s persistent disposition to accompany them had been crushed by a novel and violent and urgently expressed desire on the part of Mrs. Larkins to see her do something in the house sometimes. . . .
“You really think you’ll open a shop?” asked Miriam.
“I hate cribs,” said Mr. Polly, adopting a moderate tone. “In a shop there’s this drawback and that, but one is one’s own master.”
“That wasn’t all talk?”
“Not a bit of it.”
“After all,” he went on, “a little shop needn’t be so bad.”
“It’s a ’ome,” said Miriam.
“It’s a home.”
Pause.
“There’s no need to keep accounts and that sort of thing if there’s no assistant. I daresay I could run a shop all right if I wasn’t interfered with.”
“I should like to see you in your shop,” said Miriam. “I expect you’d keep everything tremendously neat.”
The conversation flagged.
