“If you'll get along,” the former told him, “I can make a living till you come back. We can do without any Trübner money. I'm not a lot at German, but I guess you can understand me,” she again addressed August. “Not that I blame you for the change, such as it is.”
“I'll have to go with her,” Morice unhappily declared.
August Turnbull's face was stiff with congestion. The figures before him wavered in a sort of fog. He put out a hand, supporting himself on the back of his chair.
“Get out of my house,” he repeated in a hoarse whisper.
Fortunately Morice's leave had come to an end, and Rosalie and he withdrew in at least the semblance of a normal departure. August's rage changed to an indignant surprise, and he established himself with a rigid dignity on the veranda. There, happening on a cigar that burned badly, he was reduced to a state of further self-commiseration. That is, he dwelt on the general deterioration of the world about him. There was no discipline; there was no respect; authority was laughed at. All this was the result of laxness, of the sentimentality he condemned; a firmer hand was needed everywhere.
He turned with relief to the contemplation of Meta Beggs; she was enormously satisfactory to consider. August watched her now with the greatest interest; he even sat in his wife's room while her companion moved silently and gracefully about. Miss Beggs couldn't have noticed this, for scarcely ever did her gaze meet his; she had a habit of standing lost in thought, her slimness a little drooping, as if she were weary or depressed. She was in his mind continually—Miss Beggs and Emmy, his wife.
The latter had a surprising power to disturb him; lately he had even dreamed of her starving to death in the presence of abundant food. He began to be superstitious about it, to think of her in a ridiculous nervous manner as an evil design on his peace and security. She seemed unnatural with her shrunken face bowed opposite him at the table. His feeling for her shifted subconsciously to hatred. It broke out publicly in sardonic or angry periods under which she would shrink away, incredibly timid, from his scorn. This quality of utter helplessness gave the menace he divined in her its illusive air of unreality. She seemed—she was—entirely helpless; a prematurely aged woman, of the mildest instincts, dying of malnutrition.
Miss Beggs now merged into all his daily life, his very fiber. He regarded her in an attitude of admirable frankness. “Still it is extraordinary you haven't married.”
The tide was out, it was late afternoon, and they were walking over the hard exposed sand. Whenever she came on a shell she crushed it with a sharp heel.
“There were some,” she replied indifferently.