These Twain Part 23

The unconcealable thought in both their minds was--and each could divine the other's thought and almost hear its vibration:

"We might end in the divorce court, too."

Hence their self-consciousness.

The thought was absurd, irrational, indefensible, shocking, it had no father and no mother, it sprang out of naught; but it existed, and it had force enough to make them uncomfortable.

The Etches couple, belonging to the great, numerous, wealthy, and respectable family of Etches, had been married barely a year.

Edwin rose and glanced at his well-tended fingernails. The pleasant animation of his skin caused by the bath was still perceptible. He could feel it in his back, and it helped his conviction of virtue. He chose a cigarette out of his silver case,--a good cigarette, a good case--and lit it, and waved the match into extinction, and puffed out much smoke, and regarded the correctness of the crease in his trousers (the vertical trouser-crease having recently been introduced into the district and insisted on by that tailor and artist and seeker after perfection, s.h.i.+llitoe), and walked firmly to the door. But the self-consciousness remained.

Just as he reached the door, his wife, gazing at the newspaper, stopped him:

"Edwin."

"What's up?"

He did not move from the door, and she did not look up from the newspaper.

"Seen your friend Big James this morning?"

Edwin usually went down to business before breakfast, so that his conscience might be free for a leisurely meal at nine o'clock. Big James was the oldest employee in the business. Originally he had been foreman compositor, and was still technically so described, but in fact he was general manager and Edwin's majestic vicegerent in all the printing-shops. "Ask Big James," was the watchword of the whole organism.

"No," said Edwin. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing! It doesn't matter."

Edwin had made certain resolutions about his temper, but it seemed to him that such a reply justified annoyance, and he therefore permitted himself to be annoyed, failing to see that serenity is a positive virtue only when there is justification for annoyance. The nincomp.o.o.p had not even begun to perceive that what is called "right-living" means the acceptance of injustice and the excusing of the inexcusable.

"Now then," he said, brusquely. "Out with it." But there was still a trace of rough tolerance in his voice.

"No. It's all right. I was wrong to mention it."

Her admission of sin did not in the least placate him.

He advanced towards the table.

"You haven't mentioned it," he said stiffly.

Their eyes met, as Hilda's quitted the newspaper. He could not read hers. She seemed very calm. He thought as he looked at her: "How strange it is that I should be living with this woman! What is she to me? What do I know of her?"

She said with tranquillity:

"If you do see Big James you might tell him not to trouble himself about that programme."

"Programme? What programme?" he asked, startled.

"Oh! Edwin!" She gave a little laugh. "The musical evening programme, of course. Aren't we having a musical evening to-morrow night?"

More justification for annoyance! Why should she confuse the situation by pretending that he had forgotten the musical evening? The pretence was idiotic, deceiving no one. The musical evening was constantly being mentioned.

Reports of a.s.siduous practising had reached them; and on the previous night they had had quite a subdued altercation over a proposal of Hilda's for altering the furniture in the drawing-room.

"This is the first I've heard of any programme," said Edwin. "Do you mean a printed programme?"

Of course she could mean nothing else. He was absolutely staggered at the idea that she had been down to his works, without a word to him, and given orders to Big James, or even talked to Big James, about a programme. She had no remorse. She had no sense of danger. Had she the slightest conception of what business was? Imagine Maggie attempting such a thing! It was simply not conceivable. A wife going to her husband's works, and behind his back giving orders----! It was as though a natural law had suspended its force.

"Why, Edwin," she said in extremely clear, somewhat surprised, and gently benevolent accents. "What ever's the matter with you? There _is_ a programme of music, I suppose?" (There she was, ridiculously changing the meaning of the word programme! What infantile tactics!) "It occurred to me all of a sudden yesterday afternoon how nice it would be to have it printed on gilt-edged cards, so I ran down to the shop, but you weren't there. So I saw Big James."

"You never said anything to me about it last night. Nor this morning."

"Didn't I? ... Well, I forgot."

Grotesque creature!

"Well, what did Big James say?"

"Oh! Don't ask me. But if he treats all your customers as he treated me ... However, it doesn't matter now. I shall write the programme out myself."

"What did he say?"

"It wasn't what he said.... But he's very rude, you know. Other people think so too."

"What other people?"

"Oh! Never mind who! Of course, _I_ know how to take it. And I know you believe in him blindly. But his airs are preposterous. And he's a dirty old man. And I say, Edwin, seeing how very particular you are about things at home, you really ought to see that the front shop is kept cleaner. It's no affair of mine, and I never interfere,--but really...!"

Not a phrase of this speech but what was highly and deliberately provocative. a.s.suredly no other person had ever said that Big James was rude. (But _had_ someone else said so, after all? Suppose, challenged, she gave a name!) Big James's airs were not preposterous; he was merely old and dignified. His ap.r.o.n and hands were dirty, naturally.... And then the implication that Big James was a fraud, and that he, Edwin, was simpleton enough to be victimised by the fraud, while the great all-seeing Hilda exposed it at a single glance! And the implication that he, Edwin, was fussy at home, and negligent at the shop! And the astounding a.s.sertion that she never interfered!

He smothered up all his feelings, with difficulty, as a sailor smothers up a lowered sail in a high wind, and merely demanded, for the third time:

"What did Big James say?"

"I was given to understand," said Hilda roguishly, "that it was quite, quite, quite impossible. But his majesty would see! ... Well, he needn't 'see.' I see how wrong I was to suggest it at all."

Edwin moved away in silence.

"Are you going, Edwin?" she asked innocently.

"Yes," glumly.

"You haven't kissed me."

She did not put him to the shame of returning to her. No, she jumped up blithely, radiant. Her make-believe that nothing had happened was maddening. She kissed him lovingly, with a smile, more than once. He did not kiss; he was kissed. Nevertheless somehow the kissing modified his mental position and he felt better after it.

"Don't work yourself up, darling," she counselled him, with kindness and concern, as he went out of the room. "You know how sensitive you are."

It was a calculated insult, but an insult which had to be ignored. To notice it would have been a grave tactical error.