Inside the cab the spell of silence, in which the two women had endured shoulder to shoulder the jolting, rattling, and jingling of the journey, had been broken by Stevie’s outbreak. Winnie raised her voice.
“ You’ve done what you wanted, mother. You’ll have only yourself to thank for it if you aren’t happy afterwards. And I don’t think you’ll be. That I don’t. Weren’t you comfortable enough in the house? Whatever people’ll think of us—you throwing yourself like this on a Charity?”
“ My dear,” screamed the old woman earnestly above the noise, “you’ve been the best of daughters to me. As to Mr Verloc—there—”
Words failing her on the subject of Mr Verloc’s excellence, she turned her old tearful eyes to the roof of the cab. Then she averted her head on the pretence of looking o
