Consols happened to be at eighty-nine that day.
Her lips curled. "I'm really quite surprised you should encourage me to gamble," said she. "But I'll bet you a shilling I can. And I'll bet you one shilling against half-a-crown that I do it in my head, if you like. And if I lose I'll pay."
She made a slight movement, and he noticed for the first time that she was carrying a small purse as black as her glove.
He hesitated, and then he proved what a wise and experienced man he was.
It is painful to be compelled to reinforce the old masculine statement that women have no sense of honour. But have they? Helen clearly saw that he had hauled down his flag. Yet did she cease firing? Not a bit. She gave him a shattering broadside, well knowing that he had surrendered. Her disregard of the ethics of warfare was deplorable.
"Two pounds and one half-penny--to the nearest farthing," said she, a faint blush crimsoning her cheek.
Mr. Ollerenshaw glanced round at the bowling-green, where the captain in vain tried to catch his eye, and then at the groups of children playing on the lower terraces.
"I make no doubt ye can play the piano?" he remarked, when he had recovered.
"Certainly," she replied. "Not that we have to teach the piano. No! But it's understood, all the same, that one or another of us can play marches for the children to walk and drill to. In fact," she added, "for something less than thirty shillings a week we do pretty nearly everything, except build the schools. And soon they'll be expecting us to build the new schools in our spare time." She spoke bitterly, as a native of the Congo Free State might refer to the late King of the Belgians.
"Thirty shillings a _wik_!" said James, acting with fine histrionic skill. "I thought as you said seventy-two pounds a month!"
"Oh no, you didn't!" she protested, firmly. "So don't try to tease me. I never joke about money. Money's a very serious thing."
("Her's a chip o' th' owd block," he told himself, delighted. When he explained matters to himself, and when he grew angry, he always employed the Five Towns dialect in its purest form.)
"You must be same as them hospital nurses," he said, aloud. "You do it because ye like it--for love on it, as they say."