“Get up!” said Mrs. Watson, with a cold little silver tinkle of a laugh. “I didn't ask you to sit down!”
Ferdinand got up.
“I don't spy on my neighbours as a rule,” continued Mrs. Watson, “but a little after noon to-day I happened to be standing by this window looking out over the town, and this pair of opera glasses happened to be on the table there and... well, take them, you oaf! You fat fool! And look at that window, down there! It's your own kitchen window!”
Ferdinand took them and looked... he was crushed and speechless, and he obeyed mechanically.
He dropped the glasses with a gasp. He had not only seen into his own kitchen window, lighted as this one was, but he had seen Nell there... and, as perverse fate would have it, some whim had inspired Nell to take her own opera glasses and look out over the city. She was standing there with them now. Had she seen him a moment before, with Mrs. Watson's head upon his shoulder?
He started out.
“Wait a moment,” said Mrs. Watson. Ferdinand stopped. He still seemed oddly without volition. It reminded him of what he had heard about certain men suffering from shell shock.
“There... I wanted to do that before you went,” said Mrs. Watson, and slapped him across the face. And Ferdinand's soul registered once more the flavour of a damp dishcloth. “It's the second time a woman has slapped you to-day,” said Mrs. Watson. “Try and finish the rest of the day without getting a third one. You can go now.”
Ferdinand went. He reached the street, and walked several blocks in silence. Neither his voice nor his assurance seemed to be inclined to return to him speedily. His voice came back first, with a little of his complacence, after fifteen or twenty minutes. And:
“Hell!” said Ferdinand, in his rich, harplike voice, running his fingers through his tawny hair. “Hell!”