"But, why not?" said Bunny, with cynical composure. "We shall never be comfortable on our own, that’s certain. If the man is fool enough to want to lay out his money in that way, why, let him!"
"Live on his--charity!" said Maud very bitterly.
The boy’s mouth twisted. "We’ve got to live on someone’s," he said. "There’s nothing new in that. I think you’re rather an ass, Maud. It’s no good being proud when you can’t afford it. We can’t earn a living for ourselves, so someone must do it for us, that’s all."
"Bunny!" There was passionate protest in the exclamation; but he passed it by.
"What’s the good of arguing?" he said irritably. "We can’t help ourselves. If the mother would rather marry that bawling beast Sheppard than starve on a doorstep with us, who’s to blame her? I suppose we’re included in the bargain for good, are we?"
Maud nodded mutely, her fingers locked and straining against each other.
Bunny screwed his face up for a moment. Then: "There’s that filthy gramophone again!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Go and stop it, I say! I can’t bear the noise! I won’t bear it! It’s--it’s--it’s infernal! That’s what it is!" He flung his arms up frenziedly above his head, and then suddenly uttered an anguished cry of pain.
Maud was on her feet on the instant. She caught the arms, drew them firmly down again. "Oh, don’t, dear, don’t!" she said. "You know you can’t!"
The boy’s face was convulsed. "I didn’t know! I can sometimes! Oh, Maud, I hate life! I hate it! I hate it!"
His voice choked, became a gasping moan, ceased altogether.
Maud stooped over him. His eyes were shut, his face white as death. "Bunny, Bunny darling!" she whispered passionately. "I would give--all the world--to make it better for you!"
There fell a silence, while gradually the awful paroxysm began to pass.
Then very abruptly Bunny opened his eyes. "No, you wouldn’t!" he said unexpectedly.
"Indeed I would!" she said very earnestly.
"You wouldn’t!" he reiterated, with the paralysing conviction that refuses to hear any reasoning. "If you would, you’d have married Lord Saltash years ago, and been rich enough to pay one of the big men to put me right."
She winced sharply. "Bunny! You’re not to talk to me of Lord Saltash. It isn’t kind. He is the one man in the world I--couldn’t marry."