Ah, well; that was all over: Ben would
go back to his regular job again; they would get married; then there
would be her money, too: no need for old Mrs. Cohen to do another
hand's turn. Plenty of time for her to rest now: all her life for
resting in.
"Your mother." As she spoke Ben remembered, for the first time,
actively remembered, for of course it was his mother that he meant when
he thought of home.
"She wasn't there, Jenny! She wasn't there!"
"She was very busy, 'adn't not finished 'er work." Something beyond
Jenny's will stiffened within her. So he had only just realised it! She
tried not to remember, but she could not help it--the flushed face, the
glassy eyes: the whole look of a woman beaten, with her back against a
wall; condemning Ben by her very silence, desperate courage.
"Work?"
"Yes, work." Jenny snapped it: hating herself for it, drawing him
closer, and yet unable to help it. "Why----" began Ben, and then
stopped--horrified. At last he realised it: perhaps it ran to him
through Jenny's arm; perhaps it was just that he was down on earth
again, humble, ductile, seeing other people's lives as they were, not
as he meant to make them.
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