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"Well, anyhow, I don't see why I should have a child just because you want one." "I don't want one. For shame to say such things, Ellen Alce." "You want me to have one, then, for your benefit." "Don't you want one yourself?" "No not now. I've told you I don't care for children." "Then you should ought to! Dear little mites! It's a shame to talk like that.
It seemed to her now as if that precipitate taking of Arthur Alce had been at the bottom of all her troubles; she had been only a poor little schoolgirl, a raw contriver, hurling herself out of the frying-pan of Ansdore's tyranny into the fire of Donkey Street's dullness. She knew better now besides, the increased freedom and comfort of her conditions did not involve the same urgency of escape.
"There's Joanna Godden saving her tin to buy Great Ansdore," said Bates of Picknye Bush to Cobb of Slinches, as they watched her choosing her shorthorns at Romney. She had Arthur Alce beside her, and he was, as in the beginning, trying to persuade her to be a little smaller in her ideas, but, as in the beginning, she would not listen. "Setting up cow-keeping now, is she?
"Own up, Joanna, and say that the last thing you'd want in life would be someone to look after you." "Well, it strikes me," said Joanna, "as most of the people I meet want looking after themselves, and it 'ud be just about waste for any of 'em to start looking after me." Arthur Alce unexpectedly murmured something that sounded like "Hear, hear."
Leaving this place, we entered the next gaming-hall, when our man again bet nineteen dollars alce on the first card. Again he won, and we went the length of the street, Runt wagering nineteen dollars alce on the first card for ten consecutive times without losing a bet.
Alce usually went to his parish church at Old Romney, but had accepted Ellen's invitation to accompany the Goddens that day, and now Ellen seemed anxious that he should not walk with her and Joanna, but had taken him on ahead, leaving Joanna to walk with the Southlands. The elder sister watched them Alce a little oafish in his Sunday blacks, Ellen wearing her new spring hat with the daisies.
The pioneer, standing behind his wife, plucked her by the sleeve. "Ecod, Alce, 't is the Governor himself! Mind your manners!" Alce, who had been a red-cheeked dairymaid in a great house in England, needed no admonition. Her curtsy was profound; and when the Governor took her by the hand and kissed her still blooming cheek, she curtsied again.
She was, besides, a married woman, and the fact made all the difference to Ellen herself. She felt herself immeasurably older and wiser than Joanna, her teacher and tyrant. Her sister's life seemed to her puerile.... Ellen had at last read the riddle of the universe and the secret of wisdom. The sisters' relations were also a little strained over Arthur Alce.
She worked as an amateur and a schoolgirl, with only a certain fundamental shrewdness to guide her; she was doubtless becoming closer friends with Alce he liked to sit and talk to her after tea, and often gave her lifts in his trap but he used their intimacy chiefly to confide in her his love and admiration for her sister, which was not what Ellen wanted.
She sometimes, too, had moments of depression at the thought of losing her sister, of being once more alone at Ansdore, but having made up her mind that Ellen was to marry Arthur Alce, she was anxious to carry through the scheme as quickly and magnificently as possible.
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