She was never away.... But was he—sure! How did he know what went on—all day... half past seven till seven at night? In the evenings she mended the children’s clothes and he looked over the paper. Sometimes they talked about things and planned how they could get along. Rosalind was a good manager. He saw her sitting beside the lamp, in her cheap dress, her head bent over the figures, working it out with him—and he saw the woman in the alcove—the clothes she wore—he drew back before it—more than the whole family spent in a year!... The gloves alone might have bought her Sunday suit—Sunday was, after all, the only day he knew where she was—in church with him and, in the afternoon, lying down in her room while he took the children for a walk.... He was a good father—he set his teeth to it defiantly, against the wind. She could not accuse him of neglect.... Suddenly a hurt feeling stirred somewhere deep down—He did not look at it; he did not know it was there. But the first shock had passed. He was not bewildered any more. He could think steadily, putting point to point, building up the “case”.... Then, suddenly, he would see her in the great spectacles, reminding him of the clothes-line—and his “case” collapsed like a foolish little card house.... Not Rosalind—other women, perhaps—but not Rosalind.... He turned slowly back, the wind behind him urging him on. He would go home—to her. Perhaps when he saw her he should know what to think.... But perhaps she had not yet come home. If he hurried he might get there before her and face her as she came in. He hurried fast, he almost ran, and when he reached the streets he signalled a cab; he had not used a cab for years; it would cost a dollar, at least—He looked out at the half-deserted street—the crowd had thinned. He held his watch where the light of the street arc flashed across it—six-thirty. Half an hour before his usual time. He paid the fare and went quickly up the steps.... The children were talking in the dining-room. There was no other sound. He opened the door and looked in. She was standing by the table looking at Tommie’s coat—There was a rent in the shoulder and the face bent above it had a look of quiet patience—The grey-drab hair was parted exactly in the middle and combed smoothly down; the eyes behind the spectacles looked up—with the little line between them. When she saw who it was she glanced for a moment at the clock and then back at him—“Did you bring the clothesline?” she asked.
He stared at her a moment—at her plain, cheap dress and homely face. Then he turned away. “I—forgot,” he said.
II
WHEN supper was done and the children in bed she moved about the room for a few minutes putting things to rights. Eldridge, sitting by the table, held his newspaper in his hand and now and then he rustled it and turned it over; his eyes did not leave the little black printed marks, but his real eyes were not following the marks; they were watching the woman; they tried to dart upon her in her plainness and make her speak. There was something monstrous to him—that they should be here together, in this room—he could have touched her with his hand as she moved past him—yet they were a thousand miles apart. He cleared his throat; he would force her, accuse her, make her reveal what was going on behind the earnest-looking glasses.... He turned the paper and began another page.... If he were another man he might spring at her—take her by the throat—force her back—back against the wall—and make her speak! She had finished tidying the room and came over to the table, the torn coat in her hand; she was looking down at the frayed threads in the rent, the little line between her eyes; he did not look up or move; he could hear her breathing—then she gave a little sigh and laid the coat on the table.... She was leaving the room. His eyes leaped after her and came back.
When she returned she spread the roll of pieces on the table and selected one, slipping it in beneath the rent; he could see—without taking his eyes from the page—he could see the anxious, faintly red knuckles and her fingers fitting the piece in place with deft, roughened tips. She had a kind of special skill at mending, making old things new. When they were first married it had been one of their little jokes—how lucky she was to have married a poor man. He had kissed her fingers one day—he recalled it—when she had shown him the little skilful darn in his coat; he had called it a kind of poem and he had kissed her. It seemed almost shameless to him, behind his paper—the foolishness was shameless—of kissing her for that....
She was sewing swiftly now with the short, still movements that came and went like breaths; her head was bent over the coat and he could see the parting of her hair; he dropped his eye to it for a minute and rustled the paper and turned it vaguely. “I was in at Merwin’s this afternoon,” he said.
The needle paused a dart—and went on rhythmically, in and out. “Did you like it?” she asked. She had not lifted her head from her work.
He turned a casual page and read on—“Oh, so-so.” It was the sort of absent-minded talk they often had—a kind of thinking out loud without interest in one another.