'So it is,' he stopped her with a hint of annoyance. 'I'm short of capital. Always have been.'
'I see,' she said, not seeing. 'Well, do what you like.'
'Right, my girl. Now—roost!' He extinguished the gas over the mantelpiece.
The familiar vulgarity of some of his phrases always vexed her, and 'roost' was one of these phrases. In a flash he fell from a creature engagingly masculine to the use-worn daily sharer of her monotonous existence.
'Have you heard about Arthur Twemlow coming over?' she demanded, half vindictively, as he was preparing to blow out the last candle on the piano. He stopped.
'Who's Arthur Twemlow?'
'Mr. Twemlow's son, of course,' she said. 'From America.'
'Oh! Him! Coming over, did you say? I wonder what he looks like. Who told you?'
'Uncle Meshach. And he said I was to say you were to look out for yourself when Arthur Twemlow came. I don't know what he meant. One of his jokes, I expect.' She tried to laugh.
John looked at her, and then looked away, and immediately blew out the last candle. But she had seen him turn pale at what Uncle Meshach had said. Or was that pallor merely the effect on his face of raising the coloured candle-shade as he extinguished the candle? She could not be sure.