"I'm sorry to lose thee, my girl; but what must be must."
And when he caught the look in her eyes, he was more than ever convinced that he would be able to keep Helen without satisfying her extremely expensive whim.
Helen, for her part, began to suspect that if she played the fish with sufficient skill, she would capture it. Thus they both, in a manner of speaking, got out their landing-nets.
"I don't say," James Ollerenshaw proceeded, in accents calculated to prove to her that he had just as great a horror of sentimentality as she had--"I don't say as you wouldn't make a rare good mistress o' Wilbraham Hall. I don't say as I wouldn't like to see you in it. But when a man reaches my age, he's fixed in his habits like. And, what's more, supposing I _am_ saving a bit o' money, who am I saving it for, if it isn't for you and your mother? You said as much yourself. I might pop off any minute--"
"Ay, any minute!" he repeated, firmly. "I've known stronger men nor me pop off as quick as a bottle o' ginger-beer near the fire." Here he gazed at her, and his gaze said: "If I popped off here and now, wouldn't you feel ashamed o' yerself for being so hard on your old uncle?"
"You'll live many and many a year yet," Helen smiled.
He shook his head pessimistically. "I've set my heart," he continued, "on leaving a certain sum for you and yer mother. I've had it in mind since I don't know when. It's a fancy o' mine. And I canna' do it if I'm to go all around th' Five Towns buying barracks."
Helen laughed. "What a man you are for exaggerating!" she flattered him. Then she sat down.
He considered that he was gradually winding in his line with immense skill. "Ay," he ejaculated, with an absent air, "it's a fancy o' mine."
"How much do you want to leave?" Helen questioned, faintly smiling.
"Don't you bother your head about that," said he. "You may take it from me as it's a tidy sum. And when I'm dead and gone, and you've got it all, then ye can do as ye feel inclined."
"I shall beat her, as sure as eggs!" he told himself.
"All this means that he'll give in when it comes to the point," she told herself.
And aloud she said: "Have you had supper, uncle?"
The next development was that, without another word, she removed her gloves, lifted her pale hands to her head, and slowly drew hatpins from her hat. Then she removed her hat, and plunged the pins into it again. He could scarcely refrain from snatching off his own tasselled Turkish cap and pitching it in the air. He felt as if he had won the Battle of Hastings, or defeated the captain of the bowling club in a single-handed match.