“Yes, it is very silly,” she said; “but I’m afraid you’re a dreadful man! Anyhow, Jack thinks you are, for he has taken to stop at home all day looking after me.”
“When is he going to get something to do? If he had more work and less drink he wouldn’t take fancies into his head.”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I’m afraid he will go away to some other place. Won’t that be wretched?” she said.
“Wretched, my dear! of course it will,” said Mr Smythe; and he would have said a good deal more, only the smoke of his cigarette made Jenny choke; and then her husband came into the room, scowled at his guest, helped himself to some whiskey, and left it again.
“By the by,” said Jenny, when he had gone, “I’ve never seen those diamonds: now, you know, you promised I should.”
“You must come to the office and see them,” he said. “I don’t like to bring them up here, unless he’s out, for I don’t like any one to see them but you.”
“Yes, I know that it’s a great privilege for me to see them, though I don’t know what harm it can do for a poor little woman like me to see diamonds she can’t hope ever to have; you must bring them up here, and show them to me when he’s out of the room.”
“No, I can’t do that; he is always in and out. You must come to the office.”
“You wretch,” she said, “you want me to go to your office by myself, but I won’t; it wouldn’t do at all. Besides, do you know, he never lets me out of his sight for a minute; he hardly ever sleeps for long, and he gets so fearfully violent, I think it’s the whiskey he takes. Do you know, the other day I thought he would strike me.”
Mr Smythe was a good deal impressed with this information, and he looked with no little awe at the culprit, who fidgeted in and out of the room with no particular object. Though he despised the man, he felt a good deal afraid of him. “By Jove,” he thought to himself, “suppose he took a fancy to go for me—the brute looks pretty strong!”