The kindly darkness was hiding the tawdriness of the place when a little door at the end of the garden opened, and a little man came in. A man shabby like all the place; with an old frock-coat much too large for him hanging in scarecrow fashion from his thin shoulders, with trousers much too long for him lapping over carpet slippers frayed and worn, and with an old velvet smoking-cap, with three strands of frayed silk to represent a tassel, stuck on one side of his head. A melancholy-looking little man, with a certain fierce sullenness upon him, as though he quarrelled perpetually with the world at large. He slammed the gate, and advanced into that sorry garden; made as if to kick the unwieldy cracked flower-pot, but thought better of it; and went shambling towards the table set upon the ragged carpet.
The fact that he caught his foot in a hole in the carpet, and almost precipitated himself over the table, did not improve his temper. He glared savagely about him, and gave his head a fierce rub with his cap before seating himself gingerly on one of the chairs. Having done so, he pulled his frock-coat closer about him, and shivered in the warm and stifling air.
"It's a conspiracy—that's what it is!" exclaimed the little man. "It's an infernal conspiracy against me from first to last!"
The shadows were lengthening in the garden, and the little man was rather a pathetic figure as he sat there, solemnly shaking his head and muttering to himself. Someone who had come to the back door of the house, and looked out upon him, hesitated for a moment, and then stepped quickly out towards him. A young girl with a bright, eager, thin face; the girl who had looked through the window at Mr. Jordan Tant. She came quickly towards the man, and dropped her arm round his shoulders, and whispered to him.
"Father—you're home quite early," she said. "Will you have your coffee out here?"
He shook himself peevishly away from her embrace. "Coffee?" he exclaimed. "Who the devil wants coffee, Bessie? A man wants something stronger than coffee. Besides—what's the good of making a fuss about my being home as early as this? You don't suppose I should have come home but for a very good reason—do you?"
The girl winced a little, and drew away from him. "I thought perhaps for once you were glad to come home, father," she said timidly. "And you know I always like to think of us sitting out in the garden—under the stars—and drinking our coffee. The best people do that every night of their lives—after dinner."
"After dinner!" he reminded her, raising a finger, and shaking it at her. "That makes all the difference in the world; I dare say anyone might drink the stuff after a good dinner—just to oblige a friend. But what is anyone to do—in what condition of mind do you imagine a man to be—when his dinner has been a thing not of the stalled ox order—but of herbs? Besides—I'm upset—annoyed."
"I'm sorry, father," said the girl softly. She tiptoed into the house, and softly called to someone within; came out again, and sat down at the further side of the table, folding her hands upon it, and looking at the shabby figure of the man on the other side of it.