His knees trembled so that he suddenly sat down and stared across at them.
"Why didn't you lock the door?" he repeated. "You knew I'd be coming back."
"Look here ..." Harry began. He stopped, took a pull at himself, straightened his back, stood instinctively as though he were obeying orders—"I love your wife. I've loved her for weeks. Of course, it's all my fault. She doesn't care for me in that way. She's just lonely, that's all."
"Lonely!" said Mr. Nix.
"Yes—lonely! You don't know that you've been neglecting her all this time, do you? But you have! And it's your own fault, all this. Nothing's happened. She'd never deceive you. She's too good for that. But it would be your own fault if she did.... Not that I'm not a cad. Of course I am, coming in and your being such a friend to me and then behaving like this. I'm a cad all right, but you're to blame too. She's the only one who hasn't done any wrong."
Where had Mr. Nix heard all this before? He'd seen it on the stage. Just like this. Exactly. Nevertheless, his anger mounted. He saw the room coloured crimson. He suddenly bounded from his chair and rushed at Harry. He tried to hit him in the face. There was a most ludicrous struggle. The two hot faces were suddenly close to one another. Then a chair fell with a crash, and, as though the noise made both men feel the absurdity of their situation, they withdrew from one another and stood there glaring....
Mr. Nix hated that he should be trembling as he was. Every part of him was shaking, and he was so conscious of this that he wanted to escape and return only when he was calmer.
"Very well ..." he said. "Of course, I know what to do. I hope that I shall never see either of you again."
"One moment." It was his wife's voice, and he turned round surprised that it should sound just as it had always sounded.
That was pathetic, and there was an impulse in him, that he instantly fiercely defeated, to go to her and take her hand.