“Are you dumb?” he shouted angrily. “What’s it feel like, I say?... Blasted fools!” he muttered, when he had endured for a few seconds their continued silence. He went on up the stairs, saying half to himself and half to them: “Catch me doing it. Why, there’s more money in a whelk stall!”
He found his wife reading. She put down her book and asked him timidly what had been going on in the House.
His only answer was to put his hand to his head and say that he was suffering.
And so he was, for the pain, though less violent, had returned. She suggested, though very hesitatingly, that he should lie down. He made no reply. He put his hand before his eyes and waited with set teeth until the first violence of the pang had passed, and then said to her gently: “I beg your pardon, dear, what did you say?”
It was nearly twenty years since she had heard that tone from him. She was frightened.
“Did you ask what was going on in the House?” he sighed. “Well, I can tell you.” He put his hands on the chimneypiece and looked down at the fender. “There’s going on there,” he said decidedly, “as crass, imbecile and hypocritical a piece of futility as God permits: as Almighty God permits!”
“Oh Charles!” she cried, “Charles! Is there any trouble?”
“No,” he said, looking round at her with mild surprise, “just the usual thing. Nobody has the slightest idea what they’re talking about, and nobody cares.”
“Charles!” she said, feeling the gravity of the moment, for he was evidently suffering in some mysterious way. “Have you left it all right in your room? Haven’t you any appointments or anything?”
“I never thought of that,” he answered. His eyes had in them an expression quite childlike and he said suddenly: “One can still see what you were like when I married you, Maria. Turn your face round a little.”