He went out, and with his own right arm fetched in sulky and wage-demanding workmen. He talked to them and found that there was a great deal to be said on their side.
He began to discover that strange truth that almost everyone was discovering just at this time—namely, that when you read the papers or thought of your fellow human beings in the mass, you hated and despised them, but that, if you talked to any individual, man or woman, you liked and understood them.
Pride grew in his heart, and happiness and contentment.
By the middle of July Hortons was itself again. The crisis was over. Prices were impossible, labour rebellious, the world topsy-turvy, but Hortons was at peace. He sighed, put back his shoulders, patted his little stomach appreciatively, loved all the world and, once again, considered Mrs. Nix.
He would give her now all his time. He would take her out; make her presents; they should have a splendid new life together.
He came back one evening after a successful meeting with the Board, opened his little hall door, hung up his coat, whistling to himself, opened his drawing-room door, saw Mrs. Nix on the red sofa, enveloped in the arms of Harry, who was kissing her ears, her eyes, her mouth.
He saw this, and then he saw the neat little sitting-room sway and heave. A bright blue vase, holding yellow sprays of some dried flower, raced towards him across the mantelpiece, and he stepped back, putting his hand on to a chair behind him to avoid its contact. The room steadied itself and he realised that he felt sick. He put up his hand to his mouth. Then every sensation was swallowed up by a mad, violent anger, an anger that seemed to increase with every wild beat of his heart, as though that heart were, of its own purpose, pounding him on to some desperate act.
Behind his anger he saw the two faces. Nancy was sitting square on the sofa, her hands spread out, plunging deep into the red stuff of the sofa. Harry was standing, his face white, his eyes bewildered and defiant.
"You might at least have locked the door," Mr. Nix said, whispering.