“ You look a sight, you do, red in the face,” she cried.
“ I might look worse if I was green,” he answered.
“ Boozing in Ilkeston.”
“ And what’s wrong wi’ Il’son?”
She flounced away. He watched her with amused, twinkling eyes, yet in spite of himself said that she flouted him.
They were a curious family, a law to themselves, separate from the world, isolated, a small republic set in invisible bounds. The mother was quite indifferent to Ilkeston and Cossethay, to any claims made on her from outside, she was very shy of any outsider, exceedingly courteous, winning even. But the moment the visitor had gone, she laughed and dismissed him, he did not exist. It had been all a game to her. She was still a foreigner, unsure of her ground. But alone with her own children and husband at
