The dinner was elaborate and expensive as usual. Bede ate nothing. He sat opposite to his wife and talked with the company, and took viand after viand on his plate when handed to him; but only to toy with the morsel for a few moments, and send it away all but untasted. Why did his wife gather around her this continual whirl of gaiety?--he nearly asked it aloud with a groan. Did she want to get rid of care? as, heaven knew, he did. A looker-on, able to dive into Bede's heart, might rather have asked, "Nay, why did he suffer her to gather it?"
The heat of the room oppressed him; the courses were long, but he sat on--on, until quiescence became intolerable. When lights came in he rose abruptly, went to the furthermost window, and threw it wide open. Twilight encompassed the earth with her soft folds; the day's bold garishness was over for at least some welcome hours. A woman was singing in the street below, her barefooted children standing round her with that shrinking air peculiar to such a group, and she turned up a miserable, sickly, famine-stricken face to Bede, in piteous, mute appeal. It was not ineffectual. Whatever his own cares and illness might be, he at least could feel for others. Just as he flung the woman a shilling, his wife came to him in a whisper, whose tone had an unpleasant ring of taunt in it.
"Have you, as usual, the headache, tonight?"
"Headache and heartache, both, Louisa."
"I should suppose so, by your quitting the table. You might have apologized."
"And you might give the house a little rest. How far I am from wishing to complain or interfere unnecessarily, you must know, Louisa; but I declare that this incessant strain of entertaining people will drive me crazy. It is telling upon my nerves. It is telling in a different way upon my father."
"I shall entertain people every day, when I am not engaged out myself," said Mrs. Bede Greatorex. "Take a house for me away, in Hyde Park, or Belgravia; or I'd not mind Portland Place; and then we should not annoy Mr. Greatorex. As long as you are obstinate about the one, I shall be about the other."
Bede seized her hand; partly in anger, partly--as it seemed--in tenderness: and drew her nearer, that she might hear his impressive whisper.
"I am not sure but your wish, that we should quit the house, will be gratified--though not as you expect. My father's patience is being tried. He is the real owner of the house; and at any moment he may say to us, Go out of it. Louisa, I. have thought of mentioning this to you for some little time; but the subject is not a pleasant one."
"I wish he would say it."