II

They had not yet discussed finance at all, though Denry would have liked to discuss it.  Evidently she regarded him as a man of means.  This became clear during the progress of the journey to Llandudno.  Denry was flattered, but the next day he had slight misgivings, and on the following day he was alarmed; and on the day after that his state resembled terror.  It is truer to say that she regarded him less as a man of means than as a magic and inexhaustible siphon of money.

He simply could not stir out of the house without spending money, and often in ways quite unforeseen.  Pier, minstrels, Punch and Judy, bathing, buns, ices, canes, fruit, chairs, row-boats, concerts, toffee, photographs, char-a-bancs:  any of these expenditures was likely to happen whenever they went forth for a simple stroll.  One might think that strolls were gratis, that the air was free!  Error!  If he had had the courage he would have left his purse in the house as Ruth invariably did.  But men are moral cowards.

He had calculated thus:—­Return fare, four shillings a week.  Agreed terms at boarding-house, twenty-five shillings a week.  Total expenses per week, twenty-nine shillings,—­say thirty!

On the first day he spent fourteen shillings on nothing whatever—­which was at the rate of five pounds a week of supplementary estimates!  On the second day he spent nineteen shillings on nothing whatever, and Ruth insisted on his having tea with herself and Nellie at their boarding-house; for which of course he had to pay, while his own tea was wasting next door.  So the figures ran on, jumping up each day.  Mercifully, when Sunday dawned the open wound in his pocket was temporarily stanched.  Ruth wished him to come in for tea again.  He refused—­at any rate he did not come—­and the exquisite placidity of the stream of their love was slightly disturbed.

Nobody could have guessed that she was in monetary difficulties on her own account.  Denry, as a chivalrous lover, had assisted her out of the fearful quagmire of her rent; but she owed much beyond rent.  Yet, when some of her quarterly fees had come in, her thoughts had instantly run to Llandudno, joy, and frocks.  She did not know what money was, and she never would.  This was, perhaps, part of her superior splendour.  The gentle, timid, silent Nellie occasionally let Denry see that she, too, was scandalised by her bosom friend’s recklessness.  Often Nellie would modestly beg for permission to pay her share of the cost of an amusement.  And it seemed just to Denry that she should pay her share, and he violently wished to accept her money, but he could not.  He would even get quite curt with her when she insisted.  From this it will be seen how absurdly and irrationally different he was from the rest of us.

Nellie was continually with them, except just before they separated for the night.  So that Denry paid consistently for three.  But he liked Nellie Cotterill.  She blushed so easily, and she so obviously worshipped Ruth and admired himself, and there was a marked vein of common-sense in her ingenuous composition.