Easton lurched in noisily. “’Ello, old girl!” he cried, throwing his dinner basket carelessly on the floor with an affectation of joviality and resting his hands on the table to support himself. “I’ve come at last, you see.”
Ruth left off sewing, and, letting her hands fall into her lap, sat looking at him. She had never seen him like this before. His face was ghastly pale, the eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed, the lips tremulous and moist, and the ends of the hair of his fair moustache, stuck together with saliva and stained with beer, hung untidily round his mouth in damp clusters.
Perceiving that she did not speak or smile, Easton concluded that she was angry and became grave himself.
“I’ve come at last, you see, my dear; better late than never.”
He found it very difficult to speak plainly, for his lips trembled and refused to form the words.
“I don’t know so much about that,” said Ruth, inclined to cry and trying not to let him see the pity she could not help feeling for him. “A nice state you’re in. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
Easton shook his head and laughed foolishly. “Don’t be angry, Ruth. It’s no good, you know.”
He walked clumsily towards her, still leaning on the table to steady himself.
“Don’t be angry,” he mumbled as he stooped over her, putting his arm round her neck and his face close to hers. “It’s no good being angry, you know, dear.”
She shrank away, shuddering with involuntary disgust as he pressed his wet lips and filthy moustache upon her mouth. His fetid breath, foul with the smell of tobacco and beer, and the odour of the stale tobacco smoke that exuded from his clothes filled her with loathing. He kissed her repeatedly and when at last he released her she hastily wiped her face with her handkerchief and shivered.