Shortly before Christmas Mrs. Beatup decided that Steve Kadwell had “intentions.” He was now back at Eastbourne, but came over to Worge every Sunday, and after little more than half an hour beside a crushed and plaintive Mus’ Beatup would sit in the kitchen till it was time to go home.

“Never shows the end of his nose to ’em at Stilliands Tower,” said Mrs. Beatup. “Reckon thur’s someone [227] here he liks better.”

“Do you mean me?” asked Nell wearily.

“Well, I doan’t mean me—and I doan’t mean that trug-faaced lump of an Ellen, so I reckon it’s you. You needn’t look so black at me, Nell—thur’s no harm in a maid getting wed. I’d bin wed a year at your age, surelye, and three month gone wud my fust child—the one that never opened his eyes on day.”

“Did father always drink?”

“Always a bit more or less—naun very lamentable—just here a little and there a little, as the Bible says. He’s got wuss this last few year. It’s that hemmed war.”

“You and father aren’t a very good advertisement for marriage.”

Mrs. Beatup was huffed.

“I dunno wot you want—here we are three years past our silver wedding, and five strong children still alive. It aun’t the fault of his marriage he’s bruk his leg—he might have done it single, and you cud say the saum of his drinking too.”

Further argument was prevented by the arrival of Steve Kadwell on his Sunday visit. Nell, who had been a little excited by her mother’s remarks, received him with more friendliness than usual. Certainly he was a very personable man—better-looking even than Ivy’s Corporal Seagrim, and younger. The grip of his huge hand gave her an extraordinary sense of well-being and self-confidence, and the flush which always came while his eyes appraised her was this time half pleasurable. She fidgeted a good deal while he was upstairs.

His conversational powers were not great, and she suffered a reaction of boredom during tea, which she and her mother had ready for him when he came down. He ate enormously and not very elegantly, though he was not entirely a bumpkin—for he had spent an occasional leave in London, “having a good time,” he told her with a wink. He talked a good deal about himself and various [228] men in his platoon, whose dull doings and sayings he related in detail. Nell lost her new fr............