“A feather bed allus fetches money.”
“There’s folk—gentry—as likes this oak.”
“It’s a good goer, an’ I’ve allus liked a chain better’n a cord.”
“Let’s take the 2.45, old man,” said Jimmy. “I’d like to look in at the Royal in the evening. They’ve got that big girl there—Lilian—what’s her name? The girl who sings Irish song’s so well.”
The fierce summer sun had gone to bed. All the night sounds were beginning—beetles, frogs, birds. The nightingale that Jimmy so hated was tuning up on a hedge near.
“Shan’t get a wink of sleep to-night,” he said dolefully, with his hard, painful cough. “Give me the cabs for a lullaby.”
Jib and Zak were coming slowly downstairs. I heard them shut her door. I could imagine her: the sheet over her hard face, the clock, to whose regularity she had given her last breath, keeping her sedate company.
[AN INTERLUDE.]
IT was only Mrs. Conifer. Thought the woman would never go! Poor soul! What a curse a conscience is. She was a fool to come back! Said she couldn’t help it! She loathes the very memory of Kinsman—she adores her husband—and yet she comes back to-night. That is so deliciously like a woman—to come back. To come creeping through the gate, dodging the porter, like she used to do, just to get the flavor of those old, distasteful days on her tongue again.