“Those are the ones you painted the attic in last spring,” said Mrs. Townsend, “and the pair next are what you keep for fishing. Those belong to your dress-suit, and the ones beyond are too short, and worn all over so that you were afraid to put them on.”
Mr. Townsend surveyed the last named with raised eyebrows and a consenting, cornerwise glance at his wife. “Yes, they are pretty bad—but I guess I’d better wear them to-morrow while you fix up these.”
“Francis, if you’re going to see Mr. Effingham you’ll just have to buy a pair of trousers.”
He turned on her sternly as he said: “Didn’t I tell you not to speak of it?”
“Yes, but I will speak of it!” Mrs. Townsend hurled herself into the fray. “Francis, I can’t help it! When I think of all you’ve suffered, and all you’ve done, and how much depends now on—oh, my dearest!” she tried to put her head on an eluding shoulder as she followed him around the room, flushed with her eloquence—“please take this money. If you knew how happy I’d been all the time to think that I was working for you, and how I had set my heart on it, you wouldn’t be so unkind. I know I told you my shoes were bad, but they do quite well as they are, and the children do not need warm underwear yet. It was very stupid of me to talk of it, and it will make all the difference how you are dressed when you go to see Mr. Effingham. You’ve often said what a difference a person’s appearance made—and it’s so unlike you to look shabby! You ought to do everything to try and get that position; you can’t afford to lose the ghost of a chance. You are so foolish, you won’t listen to reason! Oh, Francis, won’t you stand still and answer me?”
“Yes, I’ll answer you,” said Mr. Townsend deliberately. “You can ‘reason,’ as you call it, until you’re blind. Once for all, I will never take that money.”
“You will.”
“I will not. Now, Polly not another word; do you hear? Not another word!”
“Very well,” said Mrs. Townsend, as before with conventional obedience, and followed the words with a reckless flash of her grey eyes as she left the room, murmuring with quick breath: “But I give you fair warning, I’ll make you take that money yet; I don’t care whether you’re angry or not. You’ll see, you’ll see!”
If the subject was dropped from speech afterwards it was nevertheless present in thought. Mr. Townsend rose late in the morning, as is the habit of the man “out of a position,” who has no place on the early trains into town with his customary confrères, the workers, or in their busy offices. The heads of departments whom he goes in to see are only accessible in the later hours, and a delayed breakfast obviates the necessity for luncheon. When husband and wife parted, he in the trousers that were a good deal too short and a good deal too worn, she, indeed, broke through the ice with temerity to adjure him for goodness sake not to let any one see him to-day with those on, and he had retorted grimly that he would endeavour to keep his hundred and eighty pounds entirely invisible to oblige her.