LITMIR.BIZ

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“to become enslaved to one of your likings till it makes a beast of you. Look what a spectacle he is for his children, and what a disgusting disgrace for his wife.”

      “Well, if he can’t help it, he can’t, poor chap,” said Tom. “Though I do think a man should have more backbone.” We heard heavy noises from the room above.

      “He is getting up,” said Emily. “I suppose I’d better see if he’ll have any breakfast.” She waited, however. Presently the door opened, and there stood George with his hand on the knob, leaning, looking in.

      “I thought I heard three voices,” he said, as if it freed him from a certain apprehension. He smiled. His waistcoat hung open over his woollen shirt, he wore no coat and was slipper-less. His hair and his moustache were dishevelled, his face pale and stupid with sleep, his eyes small. He turned aside from our looks as from a bright light. His hand as I shook it was flaccid and chill.

      “How do you come to be here, Cyril?” he said subduedly, faintly smiling.

      “Will you have any breakfast?” Emily asked him coldly. “I’ll have a bit if there’s any for me,” he replied.

      “It has been waiting for you long enough,” she answered. He turned and went with a dull thud of his stockinged feet across to the dining-room. Emily rang for the maid, I followed George, leaving the betrothed together. I found my host moving about the dining-room, looking behind the chairs and in the corners.

      “I wonder where the devil my slippers are!” he muttered explanatorily. Meanwhile he continued his search. I noticed he did not ring the bell to have them found for him. Presently he came to the fire, spreading his hands over it. As he was smashing the slowly burning coal the maid came in with the tray. He desisted, and put the poker carefully down. While the maid spread his meal on one corner of the table, he looked in the fire, paying her no heed. When she had finished:

      “It’s fried white-bait,” she said. “Shall you have that?”

      He lifted his head and looked at the plate.

      “Ay,” he said. “Have you brought the vinegar?”

      Without answering, she took the cruet from the sideboard and set it on the table. As she was closing the door, she looked back to say:

      “You’d better eat it now, while it’s hot.”

      He took no notice, but sat looking in the fire.

      “And how are you going on?” he asked me.

      “I? Oh, very well! And you —?”

      “As you see,” he replied, turning his head on one side with a little gesture of irony.

      “As I am very sorry to see,” I rejoined.

      He sat forward with his elbows on his knees, tapping the back of his hand with one finger, in monotonous two-pulse like heart-beats.

      “Aren’t you going to have breakfast?” I urged. The clock at that moment began to ring a sonorous twelve. He looked up at it with subdued irritation.

      “Ay, I suppose so,” he answered me, when the clock had finished striking. He rose heavily and went to the table. As he poured out a cup of tea he spilled it on the cloth, and stood looking at the stain. It was still some time before he began to eat. He poured vinegar freely over the hot fish, and ate with an indifference that made eating ugly, pausing now and again to wipe the tea off his moustache, or to pick a bit of fish from off his knee.

      “You are not married, I suppose?” he said in one of his pauses.

      “No,” I replied. “I expect I shall have to be looking round.”

      “You’re wiser not,” he replied, quiet and bitter.

      A moment or two later the maid came in with a letter. “This came this morning,” she said, as she laid it on the table beside him. He looked at it, then he said:

      “You didn’t give me a knife for the marmalade.”

      “Didn’t I?” she replied. “I thought you wouldn’t want it. You don’t as a rule.”

      “And do you know where my slippers are?” he asked.

      “They ought to be in their usual place.” She went and looked in the corner. “I suppose Miss Gertie’s put them somewhere. I’ll get you another pair.”

      As he waited for her he read the letter. He read it twice, then he put it back in the envelope, quietly, without any change of expression. But he ate no more breakfast, even after the maid had brought the knife and his slippers, and though he had had but a few mouthfuls.

      At half-past twelve there was an imperious woman’s voice in the house. Meg came to the door. As she entered the room, and saw me, she stood still. She sniffed, glanced at the table, and exclaimed, coming forward effusively:

      “Well I never, Cyril! Who’d a thought of seeing you here this morning! How are you?”

      She waited for the last of my words, then immediately she turned to George, and said:

      “I must say you’re in a nice state for Cyril to see you! Have you finished? — If you have, Kate can take that tray out. It smells quite sickly. Have you finished?”

      He did not answer, but drained his cup of tea and pushed it away with the back of his hand. Meg rang the bell, and having taken off her gloves, began to put the things on the tray, tipping the fragments of fish and bones from the edge of his plate to the middle with short, disgusted jerks of the fork. Her attitude and expression were of resentment and disgust. The maid came in.

      “Clear the table, Kate, and open the window. Have you opened the bedroom windows?”

      “No’m — not yet”— she glanced at George as if to say he had only been down a few minutes.

      “Then do it when you have taken the tray,” said Meg. “You don’t open this window,” said George churlishly. “It’s cold enough as it is.”

      “You should put a coat on then if you’re starved,” replied Meg contemptuously. “It’s warm enough for those that have got any life in their blood. You do not find it cold, do you, Cyril?”

      “It is fresh this morning,” I replied.

      “Of course it is, not cold at all. And I’m sure this room needs airing.”

      The maid, however, folded the cloth and went out without approaching the windows.

      Meg had grown stouter, and there was a certain immovable confidence in her. She was authoritative, amiable, calm. She wore a handsome dress of dark green, and a toque with opulent ostrich feathers. As she moved about the room she seemed to dominate everything, particularly her husband, who sat ruffled and dejected, his waistcoat hanging loose over his shirt.

      A girl entered. She was proud and mincing in her deportment. Her face was handsome, but too haughty for a child. She wore a white coat, with ermine tippet, muff, and hat. Her long brown hair hung twining down her back.

      “Has Dad only just had his breakfast?” she exclaimed in high censorious tones as she came in.

      “He has!” replied Meg.

      The girl looked at her father in calm, childish censure.

      “And we have been to church, and come home to dinner,” she said, as she drew off her little white gloves. George watched her with ironical amusement.

      “Hello!” said Meg, glancing at the opened letter which lay near his elbow. “Who is that from?”

      He glanced round, having forgotten it. He took the envelope, doubled it and pushed it in his waistcoat pocket.

      “It’s from William Housley,” he replied.

      “Oh! And what has he to say?” she asked.

      George turned his dark eyes at her.

      “Nothing!”

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