"
"Look here!" said Bosinney, and Soames was both annoyed and surprised
by the shrewdness of his glance. "You've got my services dirt cheap. For
the kind of work I've put into this house, and the amount of time I've
given to it, you'd have had to pay Littlemaster or some other fool
four times as much. What you want, in fact, is a first-rate man for a
fourth-rate fee, and that's exactly what you've got!"
Soames saw that he really meant what he said, and, angry though he was,
the consequences of a row rose before him too vividly. He saw his house
unfinished, his wife rebellious, himself a laughingstock.
"Let's go over it," he said sulkily, "and see how the money's gone."
"Very well," assented Bosinney. "But we'll hurry up, if you don't mind.
I have to get back in time to take June to the theatre."
Soames cast a stealthy look at him, and said: "Coming to our place, I
suppose to meet her?" He was always coming to their place!
There had been rain the night before-a spring rain, and the earth smelt
of sap and wild grasses. The warm, soft breeze swung the leaves and the
golden buds of the old oak tree, and in the sunshine the blackbirds were
whistling their hearts out.
It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a
painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking
at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not
what.
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