Her mother, without replying, went out to the kitchen. Vera followed her. Frank, left alone with his father, moved uneasily, and bent his thin shoulders lower over his book. Siegmund remained with his arms on his knees, looking into the grate. From the kitchen came the c.h.i.n.king of crockery, and soon the smell of coffee. All the time Vera was heard chatting with affected brightness to her mother, addressing her in fond tones, using all her wits to recall bright little incidents to retail to her. Beatrice answered rarely, and then with utmost brevity.

Presently Vera came in with the tray. She put down a cup of coffee, a plate with boiled ham, pink and thin, such as is bought from a grocer, and some bread-and-b.u.t.ter. Then she sat down, noisily turning over the leaves of her magazine. Frank glanced at the table; it was laid solely for his father. He looked at the bread and the meat, but restrained himself, and went on reading, or pretended to do so. Beatrice came in with the small cruet; it was conspicuously bright.

Everything was correct: knife and fork, spoon, cruet, all perfectly clean, the crockery fine, the bread and b.u.t.ter thin--in fact, it was just as it would have been for a perfect stranger. This scrupulous neatness, in a household so slovenly and easy-going, where it was an established tradition that something should be forgotten or wrong, impressed Siegmund. Beatrice put the serving knife and fork by the little dish of ham, saw that all was proper, then went and sat down. Her face showed no emotion; it was calm and proud. She began to sew.

'What do you say, Mother?' said Vera, as if resuming a conversation.

'Shall it be Hampton Court or Richmond on Sunday?'

'I say, as I said before,' replied Beatrice: 'I cannot afford to go out.'

'But you must begin, my dear, and Sunday shall see the beginning. _Dites donc_!'

'There are other things to think of,' said Beatrice.

'Now, _maman, nous avons change tout cela_! We are going out--a jolly little razzle!' Vera, who was rather handsome, lifted up her face and smiled at her mother gaily.

'I am afraid there will be no _razzle_'--Beatrice accented the word, smiling slightly--'for me. You are slangy, Vera.'

'_Un doux argot, ma mere_. You look tired.'

Beatrice glanced at the clock.

'I will go to bed when I have cleared the table,' she said.

Siegmund winced. He was still sitting with his head bent down, looking in the grate. Vera went on to say something more. Presently Frank looked up at the table, and remarked in his grating voice:

'There's your supper, Father.'

The women stopped and looked round at this. Siegmund bent his head lower. Vera resumed her talk. It died out, and there was silence.

Siegmund was hungry.

'Oh, good Lord, good Lord! bread of humiliation tonight!' he said to himself before he could muster courage to rise and go to the table. He seemed to be shrinking inwards. The women glanced swiftly at him and away from him as his chair creaked and he got up. Frank was watching from under his eyebrows.

Siegmund went through the ordeal of eating and drinking in presence of his family. If he had not been hungry, he could not have done it, despite the fact that he was content to receive humiliation this night.

He swallowed the coffee with effort. When he had finished he sat irresolute for some time; then he arose and went to the door.

'Good night!' he said.

n.o.body made any reply. Frank merely stirred in his chair. Siegmund shut the door and went.

There was absolute silence in the room till they heard him turn on the tap in the bathroom; then Beatrice began to breathe spasmodically, catching her breath as if she would sob. But she restrained herself. The faces of the two children set hard with hate.

'He is not worth the flicking of your little finger, Mother,' said Vera.

Beatrice moved about with pitiful, groping hands, collecting her sewing and her cottons.

'At any rate, he's come back red enough,' said Frank, in his grating tone of contempt. 'He's like boiled salmon.'

Beatrice did not answer anything. Frank rose, and stood with his back to the grate, in his father's characteristic att.i.tude.

'He _would_ come slinking back in a funk!' he said, with a young man's sneer.

Stretching forward, he put a piece of ham between two pieces of bread, and began to eat the sandwich in large bites. Vera came to the table at this, and began to make herself a more dainty sandwich. Frank watched her with jealous eyes.

'There is a little more ham, if you'd like it,' said Beatrice to him. 'I kept you some.'

'All right, Ma,' he replied. Fetch it in.'

Beatrice went out to the kitchen.

'And bring the bread and b.u.t.ter, too, will you?' called Vera after her.

'The d.a.m.ned coward! Ain't he a rotten funker?' said Frank, _sotto voce_, while his mother was out of the room.

Vera did not reply, but she seemed tacitly to agree.

They petted their mother, while she waited on them. At length Frank yawned. He fidgeted a moment or two, then he went over to his mother, and, putting his hand on her arm--the feel of his mother's round arm under the black silk sleeve made his tears rise--he said, more gratingly than ever:

'Ne'er mind, Ma; we'll be all right to you.' Then he bent and kissed her. 'Good night, Mother,' he said awkwardly, and he went out of the room.

Beatrice was crying.

_Chapter 23_

'I shall never re-establish myself,' said Siegmund as he closed behind him the dining-room door and went upstairs in the dark. 'I am a family criminal. Beatrice might come round, but the children's insolent judgement is too much. And I am like a dog that creeps round the house from which it escaped with joy. I have nowhere else to go. Why did I come back? But I am sleepy. I will not bother tonight.'

He went into the bathroom and washed himself. Everything he did gave him a grateful sense of pleasure, notwithstanding the misery of his position. He dipped his arms deeper into the cold water, that he might feel the delight of it a little farther. His neck he swilled time after time, and it seemed to him he laughed with pleasure as the water caught him and fell away. The towel reminded him how sore were his forehead and his neck, blistered both to a state of rawness by the sun. He touched them very cautiously to dry them, wincing, and smiling at his own childish touch-and-shrink.

Though his bedroom was very dark, he did not light the gas. Instead, he stepped out into the small balcony. His shirt was open at the neck and wrists. He pulled it farther apart, baring his chest to the deliciously soft night. He stood looking out at the darkness for some time. The night was as yet moonless, but luminous with a certain atmosphere of light. The stars were small. Near at hand, large shapes of trees rose up. Farther, lamps like little mushroom groups shone amid an undergrowth of darkness. There was a vague hoa.r.s.e noise filling the sky, like the whispering in a sh.e.l.l, and this breathing of the summer night occasionally swelled into a restless sigh as a train roared across the distance.

'What a big night!' thought Siegmund. 'The night gathers everything into a oneness. I wonder what is in it.'

He leaned forward over the balcony, trying to catch something out of the night. He felt his soul like tendrils stretched out anxiously to grasp a hold. What could he hold to in this great, hoa.r.s.e breathing night? A star fell. It seemed to burst into sight just across his eyes with a yellow flash. He looked up, unable to make up his mind whether he had seen it or not. There was no gap in the sky.

'It is a good sign--a shooting star,' he said to himself. 'It is a good sign for me. I know I am right. That was my sign.'

Having a.s.sured himself, he stepped indoors, unpacked his bag, and was soon in bed.

'This is a good bed,' he said. 'And the sheets are very fresh.'

He lay for a little while with his head bending forwards, looking from his pillow out at the stars, then he went to sleep.

At half past six in the morning he suddenly opened his eyes.