I have three or four customers--ladies
in the country, and one of them is a lady of title,
too--and they order gardening books and other books through me,
and when they get up to town, once a year or so, they come
here and they talk to me about it. And there isn't one
of them that at the bottom of her heart doesn't hate it.
They'd rather dodge busses at Charing Cross corner all
day long, than raise flowers as big as cheeses, if they
had their own way. But they don't have their own way,
and they must have something to occupy themselves with--and
they take to gardening. I daresay I'd even do it myself
if I had to live in the country, which thank God I don't!"
"That's because you don't know anything about the country,"
he told her, but the retort, even while it justified itself,
had a hollow sound in his own ears. "All you know outside
of London is Margate."
"I went to Yarmouth and Lowestoft this summer,"
she informed him, crushingly.
Somehow he lacked the heart to laugh. "I know what you mean,
Lou," he said, with an affectionate attempt at placation.
"I suppose there's a good deal in what you say. It is dull,
out there at my place, if you have too much of it.
Perhaps that's a good hint about my wife. It never
occurred to me, but it may be so. But the deuce of it is,
what else is there to do? We tried a house in London,
during the Season----"
"Yes, I saw in the papers you were here," she said impassively,
in comment upon his embarrassed pause.
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