“Well, I should think it might be! It’s freezing.” Mrs. Laurence’s accumulated wrath poured forth. “There hasn’t been a sign of the coal you ordered this morning, and I’ve been waiting for it all day. It’s a perfect outrage, and I want you to tell Harner so, Will. You did order it, didn’t you?”
“Why, ye——” An extraordinary expression stole over Mr. Laurence’s thin face, it was as if his consciousness had been suddenly arrested in mid-air. Well as his wife knew his expressions and what they covered, this surprisingly baffled her. He drummed with his finger-tips on the edge of the dressing-table before relaxing enough to say guardedly, after a moment:
“By George! I don’t believe I did. I knew there was something—I’m awfully sorry, Anna, indeed I am.”
“You didn’t order it!—Will, please don’t drum on things that way, you know it drives me wild. Well, if you can’t remember one thing I ask you to do—if you can’t keep a single promise that you make me—— It isn’t the coal I care about—though my feet have been like stones all day—but it’s the fact that I can’t depend on you for anything. Please don’t whistle. You can attend to business matters well enough, but when it comes to the comfort of your wife and child——” an unforeseen sob broke across the words. “Of course, it’s been warm enough in your steam-heated office to-day. I’m glad it has been, I wouldn’t have had you cold for anything.” In spite of her tears she was following after him as he searched in his chiffonier drawer for a clean collar. “You’ve done it all so many times! You carried that important letter to Hetty in your pocket for six weeks before you told me.”
“Yes, and if you’re going on like this every time I tell you anything, I’ll stop it,” said Mr. Laurence doggedly. “You don’t give me any credit for owning up, Nan. You wouldn’t know half the time when I make mistakes, if I didn’t tell you.”
“I don’t see what else you could have said when I asked you if you had ordered the coal.”
“I could have lied about it, I suppose,” said Mr. Laurence impatiently.
“O Will!” she gasped with horror. Her white chin went up, her dark eyes looked at him full of agitation. She put her hands on his shoulders and shook him ineffectively. “You wouldn’t—you couldn’t do that! You always tell me the truth, don’t you—all of it?”
“Usually,” assented her husband. He had finished settling his tie and now put his arms around her. “But if it’s going to make you any happier if I don’t——”
“No, no, no! You know I never could mean that—never! I could forgive you anything as long as you told me the truth.”