When she was gone he stood up and brushed the crumbs from his dressing-gown, and emitted a short, harsh laugh. He was laughing at himself. Regency furniture and china! Neckties! Trouser-stretching! In the next room was a youngish woman whose minstrel boy to the war had gone—gone, though he might be only in the next street! And had she said a word about her feelings as a wife? Not a word! But dozens of words about the inconvenience to the god-like employer! She had apologised to him because Braiding had departed to save the Empire without first asking his permission. It was not merely astounding—it flabbergasted. He had always felt that there was something fundamentally wrong in the social fabric, and he had long had a preoccupation to the effect that it was his business, his, to take a share in finding out what was wrong and in discovering and applying a cure. This preoccupation had worried him, scarcely perceptibly, like the delicate oncoming of neuralgia. There must be something wrong when a member of one class would behave to a member of another class as Mrs. Braiding behaved to him—without protest from him.
"Mrs. Braiding!" he called out.
"Yes, sir." She almost ran back into the drawing-room.
"When shall you be seeing your husband?" At least he would remind her that she had a husband.
"I haven't an idea, sir."
"Well, when you do, tell him that I want to speak to him; and you can tell him I shall pay [41] you half his wages in addition to your own."
Her gratitude filled him with secret fury.
He said to himself:
"Futile—these grand gestures about wages."