“Work?”
“Yes—there’s a light in her room.”
Victoria May Alice looked at him whimsically:
“Lord,” said she, “you men are mostly only fit for comic opera.... Well, if you want to know within an acre or two of the truth, call again when the cats are coming home.”
“What? Till daylight?” he gasped.
“So help me Henery Irving,” she nodded. “You’d see that light burning still when the cockydoos are crowing in the lemon of the morning.”
“Good God!” said Noll hoarsely.
“That’s right. Put it on to God,” she said. “It’s so like a man.”
She looked at him, and added drily:
“But, of course, Mr. Noll, you don’t know.... How should you? You’re her husband.... I think you’d better go up and pull her nut-brown hair about the waste of candles, myself, eh! What’s the good of being married to a woman if you can’t order her about?”