§3

Kipps returned from his second interview with Mr. Bean in a state of strange excitement. He let himself in with his latch–key and slammed the door. "Ann!" he shouted, in an unusual note; "Ann!"

Ann replied distantly.

"Something to tell you," said Kipps; "something noo!"

Ann appeared apprehensive from the kitchen.

"Ann," he said, going before her into the little dining–room, for his news was too dignified for the passage, "very likely, Ann, o' Bean says, we shall 'ave―" He decided to prolong the suspense. "Guess!"

"I can't, Artie."

"Think of a lot of money!"

"A 'undred pounds p'raps?"

He spoke with immense deliberation. "O v e r a f o u s a n d p o u n d s!"

Ann stared and said nothing, only went a shade whiter.

"Over, he said. A'most certainly over."

He shut the dining–room door and came forward hastily, for Ann, it was clear, meant to take this mitigation of their disaster with a complete abandonment of her self–control. She came near flopping; she fell into his arms.

"Artie," she got to at last and began to weep, clinging tightly to him.

"Pretty near certain," said Kipps, holding her. "A fousand pounds!"

"I said, Artie," she wailed on his shoulder with the note of accumulated wrongs, "very likely it wasn't so bad."…

"There's things," he said, when presently he came to particulars, "'e couldn't touch. The noo place! It's freehold and paid for, and with the bit of building on it, there's five or six 'undred pound p'raps—say worf free 'undred, for safety. We can't be sold up to finish it, like we thought. O' Bean says we can very likely sell it and get money. 'E says you often get a chance to sell a 'ouse lessen 'arf done, 'specially free'old. Very likely, 'e say. Then there's Hughenden. Hughenden 'asn't been mortgaged not for more than 'arf its value. There's a 'undred or so to be got on that, and the furniture and the rent for the summer still coming in. 'E says there's very likely other things. A fousand pounds, that's what 'e said. 'E said it might even be more."…

They were sitting now at the table.

"It alters everything," said Ann.

"I been thinking that, Ann, all the way 'ome. I came in the motor car. First ride I've 'ad since the smash. We needn't send off Gwendolen, leastways not till after. You know. We needn't turn out of 'ere—not for a long time. What we been doing for the o' people we can go on doing a'most as much. And your mother!…I wanted to 'oller coming along. I pretty near run coming down the road by the hotel."

"Oh, I am glad we can stop 'ere and be comfortable a bit," said Ann. "I am glad for that."

"I pretty near told the driver on the motor—only 'e was the sort won't talk…. You see, Ann, we'll be able to start a shop, we'll be able to get into something like. All about our 'aving to go back to places and that; all that doesn't matter any more."

For a while they abandoned themselves to ejaculating transports. Then they fell talking to shape an idea to themselves of the new prospect that opened before them.

"We must start a sort of shop," said Kipps, whose imagination had been working. "It'll 'ave to be a shop."

"Drapery?" said Ann.

"You want such a lot of capital for the drapery, mor'n a thousand pounds you want by a long way—to start it anything like proper."

"Well, outfitting. Like Buggins was going to do."

Kipps glanced at that for a moment, because the idea had not occurred to him. Then he came back to his prepossession.

"Well, I thought of something else, Ann," he said. "You see, I've always thought a little book–shop. It isn't like the drapery—'aving to be learnt. I thought—even before this smash–up—'ow I'd like to 'ave something to do, instead of always 'aving 'olidays always like we 'ave been 'aving."

He reflected.

"You don't know much about books, do you, Artie?"

"You don't want to." He illustrated. "I noticed when we used to go to that Lib'ry at Folkestone, ladies weren't anything like what they was in a draper's—if you 'aven't got just what they want it's 'Oh, no!' and out they go. But in a book shop it's different. One book's very like another—after all, what is it? Something to read and done with. It's not a thing that matters like print dresses or serviettes—where you either like 'em or don't, and people judge you by. They take what you give 'em in books and lib'ries, and glad to be told what to. See 'ow we was—up at that lib'ry."…

He paused. "You see, Ann―

"Well, I read 'n 'dvertisement the other day. I been asking Mr. Bean. It said—five 'undred pounds."

"What did?"

"Branches," said Kipps.

Ann failed to understand. "It's a sort of thing that gets up book shops all over the country," said Kipps. "I didn't tell you, but I arst about it a bit. On'y I dropped it again. Before this smash, I mean. I'd thought I'd like to keep a shop for a lark, on'y then I thought it silly. Besides it 'ud 'ave been beneath me."

He blushed vividly. "It was a sort of projek of mine, Ann.

"On'y it wouldn't 'ave done," he added.

It was a tortuous journey when the Kippses set out to explain anything to each other. But through a maze of fragmentary elucidations and questions, their minds did presently begin to approximate to a picture of a compact, bright, little shop, as a framework for themselves.

"I thought of it one day when I was in Folkestone. I thought of it one day when I was looking in at a window. I see a chap dressin' a window and he was whistlin' reg'lar light–'arted…. I thought then I'd like to keep a bookshop, any'ow, jest for something to do. And when people weren't about, then you could sit and read the books. See? It wouldn't be 'arf bad."…

They mused, each with elbows on table and knuckles to lips, looking with speculative eyes at each other.

"Very likely we'll be 'appier than we should 'ave been with more money," said Kipps presently.

"We wasn't 'ardly suited," reflected Ann, and left her sentence incomplete.

"Fish out of water like," said Kipps….

"You won't 'ave to return that call now," said Kipps, opening a new branch of the question. "That's one good thing."

"Lor'!" said Ann, visibly brightening, "no more I shan't!"

"I don't s'pose they'd want you to, even if you did—with things as they are."

A certain added brightness came into Ann's face. "Nobody won't be able to come leaving cards on us, Artie, now, any more. We are out of that!"

"There isn't no necessity for us to be stuck up," said Kipps, "any more for ever! 'Ere we are, Ann, common people, with jest no position at all, as you might say, to keep up. No sev'nts, not if you don't like. No dressin' better than other people. If it wasn't we been robbed—dashed if I'd care a rap about losing that money. I b'lieve"—his face shone with the rare pleasure of paradox—"I reely b'lieve, Ann, it'll prove a savin' in the end."