the present time I don’t quite see how I can…. You see, all I’ve got to live on at the present time is what I earn as an instructor at the university—they pay me eighteen hundred dollars a year—”
“Gosh!” Joel whispered, arching his eyebrows in polite astonishment—“That’s a lot, isn’t it?”
“It’s not much, Joel: it amounts to $150 a month; you can get along on that, but you’re not going to paint New York red on it, the way things are today, especially if you’ve got a healthy appetite and love to eat, the way I do.”
“Yes,” Joel whispered, laughing his beautiful, radiant, and almost soundless laugh. “I can see that—that belly of yours is going to cost you a lot of money before you get through with it. A man who loves food the way you do ought to be a millionaire. But you see, don’t you,” he said, with a flash of his rare and gentle malice—“that’s what you get for not being a vegetarian like Bernard Shaw and me…. Eugene,” he cried softly, laughing, after a moment’s brief reflection, “—you’ll love France—the food is wonderful—but Lord!” and he laughed again his radiant soundless laugh “—how you’re going to hate England!”
“Why? Is the food bad?”
“It’s unspeakable!” Joel whispered—“that is for anyone who loves food the way you do: they go through the tortures of the damned… of course, for me it doesn’t matter. I can eat anything—anything, that is, so long as it’s vegetables—it all tastes alike to me—but you’ll hate it… of course,” he whispered earnestly, “you really won’t: you’ll love the country and you’ll like the English. They’re swell.”
“Have you been there much, Joel?”
“Only once,” he whispered. “When Mums and Rosalind were there. We had a house out in the country and we stayed there for fifteen months. And it was grand! You’ll love it…. Gosh! I hope you can stay over there a whole year!” he went on eagerly. “Don’t you think you can?”
“I don’t think so: you see, as I was telling you, I have only $150 a month; when I finish up in September I’ll have about five pay-cheques coming to me: that’s only $750. So I figure I can get over there on that and live for several months, but unless I can get money from my mother—I think perhaps she’ll help me—I don’t see how I can get along for a whole year.”
“Then look,” said Joel, speaking swiftly, and casually, and looking away
