The apartment was so small and so bare that it was not difficult to take stock of its contents, and Mrs. Higgs laughed ironically.
"Isn't the place furnished to your liking?" she asked in a mocking tone. "Are you looking for the sofas and the sideboards and the silver and the plate?"
Dudley cast at the old woman a look which was more eloquent than he knew of hatred and disgust.
"No," said he, shortly. "I was looking to see whether any of your precious pals were about."
Mrs. Higgs drew her chair nearer to the deal table, and leaning on it with her head resting in her hands, stared at him malignantly.
"My precious pals! My precious pals!" muttered she to herself in an angry tone. "That's the way he talks to me! To me, he owes so much to! Ah! Ah! Ah!"
These three last ejaculations were uttered with so much suppressed passion, and there gleamed in her dull eyes such a dull look of stupid ferocity, that Dudley withdrew his attention from the cupboard and walls and transferred it wholly to her. After a pause, during which the two seemed to measure each other with cautious eyes, he said, abruptly:
"Do you know why I have come here to-night?"
"To show me a little gratitude at last, perhaps," suggested Mrs. Higgs, sharply. "To do your duty—yes, it's no more than your duty, you know, to do what I tell you—and to help yourself in helping me. That's true, isn't it?"
Dudley stared at her in silence for a few moments before he answered: