Weyburn pronounced for a plate of her home-cured. She had children, the
woman told him--two boys and a girl. Her husband wished for a girl. Her
eldest boy wished to be a sailor, and would walk miles to a pond to sail
bits of wood on it, though there had never been a sea-faring man in her
husband's family or her own. She agreed with the lady and gentleman that
it might be unwise to go contrary to the boy's bent. Going to school or
coming home, a trickle of water would stop him.

Aminta said to her companion in French, 'Have you money?'

She chased his blood. 'Some: sufficient. I think.' It stamped their
partnership.

'I have but a small amount. Aunt was our paymaster. We will buy the
little boy a boat to sail. You are pale.'

'I 've no notion of it.'

'Something happened it Ashead.'

'It would not have damaged my complexion.'

He counted his money. Aminta covertly handed him her purse. Their
fingers touched. The very minor circumstance of their landlady being in
the room dammed a flood.

Her money and his amounted to seventeen pounds. The sum-total was a
symbol of days that were a fiery wheel.