“How do you know he’s glad of it?”
“He’s been drunk every night since she died.”
“Then he’s the worse for losing her?”
“He may well be. Crying like a hypocrite, too, over his own work!”
“A fool he must be. A hypocrite, perhaps not. A hypocrite is a terrible name to give. Perhaps her death will do him good.”
“He doesn’t deserve to be done any good to. I would have made this coffin for him with a world of pleasure.”
“I never found that I deserved anything, not even a coffin. The only claim that I could ever lay to anything was that I was very much in want of it.”
The old smile returned—as much as to say, “That’s your little game in the church.” But I resolved to try nothing more with him at present; and indeed was sorry that I had started the new question at all, partly because thus I had again given him occasion to feel that he knew better than I did, which was not good either for him or for me in our relation to each other.
“This has been a fine old room once,” I said, looking round the workshop.
“You can see it wasn’t a workshop always, sir. Many a grand dinner-party has sat down in this room when it was in its glory. Look at the chimney-piece there.”