“Nothing much in the papers to-day, my dear. Not much happening anywhere as a matter of fact. I had lunch to-day with Robinson and he called it the lull before the storm. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if he wasn’t right. You can’t trust these Radicals.”
He was a scrubby little man: for thirty years he had worked in the same house; there had been no friction and no excitement in his life; he had by now lost any independence of thought and action.
“I’ve just found a splendid place, my dear, where you can get a really first-class lunch for one-and-sixpence.”
“Have you, dear?”
“Yes; in Soho, just behind the Palace. I went there to-day with Robinson. We had four courses, and cheese to finish up with. Something like.”
“And was it well cooked, dear?”
“Rather; the plaice was beautifully fried. Just beginning to brown.”
His face flushed with a genuine animation. Change of food was the only adventure that life brought to him. He rose slowly.
“Well, I must go up and change, I suppose. I’ve one or two other things to tell you, dear, later on.”
He did not ask his wife what she had been doing during the day; it was indeed doubtful whether he appreciated the existence of any life at 105 Hammerton Villas, Hammerton, during the hours when he was away from them. He himself was the central point.