Mrs Days Daughters | Page 8

staring at the bars.
"Is anything the matter, William?" his wife asked. "Aren't you going out again, this evening?"
Every night of his life, except the Sunday night, when on no account would he have missed going to church with his family, he went to a club in the town where whist and three-card loo were played--for higher stakes, it was whispered, than most of its members could spare.
"You have taken off your boots, William: aren't you going to your club?"
"No; I'm not going to my club."
"In heaven's name why?"
"Because my club's seen the last of me."
She looked at him aghast, hearing the news with real dismay. She never would have admitted, even to herself, being a kind woman and a dutiful wife, that she preferred her husband out of her presence rather than in it--her children would not have whispered such a disloyalty; yet if he was going to pass his evenings in the bosom of his family, for the future, each of them would know in his or her heart that the peacefullest and most enjoyable hours of the day would be spoilt.
"Have you had any unpleasantness over cards, William?"
He turned savagely upon her where she stood by the corner of the mantelpiece. "What the devil did you send me on that fool's errand to Francis Forcus for?" he asked.
"I send you, William?"
"I went because of the lying report you brought me."
"William, I--!"
"You led me to believe Bessie and young Forcus were engaged. Now did you or did you not lead me to believe it? Speak the truth if you can. Did you or did you not?"
"I only--"
"Did you lead me to believe it?"
"Yes, then; if you will have it so."
"And made me look a fool! I thought it was too good to be true--only you stuck to it. You were so d--d sure. You would have it so. Nothing would turn you."
"William, you must remember I advised you not to go."
"Did I ask your advice? Did I ever stoop to ask for it? I acted on information which you gave me. Went--and got kicked out."
"Kicked out? William!"
"Practically. I don't mean to say the man actually used his boot. If he had he couldn't have expressed plainer what he meant. Francis Forcus never had a civil word to fling at me in all his life. But for your infernal, silly cackle I'd as soon have gone to the devil as to him. If I'd only had myself and my own feeling to think about--Bessie or no Bessie--I'd have hanged myself sooner than have gone to him. But I'd got more than that."
His voice had fallen from its bullying key to a toneless melancholy. Mrs. Day, who had been standing hitherto, seated herself in the chair by the chimney corner, and looked at her husband's blunt profile as he sat before the fire with a sick feeling of impending disaster, and a dismayed inquiry in her dark eyes.
"I'd got you and the children to think about," the man added.
"What could Sir Francis have said to you, William?"
Her husband turned savagely upon her. "Say? He said there was no engagement between his brother--his 'young brother'--and my daughter. That such an engagement would never receive his sanction. That he was not aware his 'young brother'--he's always sticking the word down your throat; the sanctimonious prig--I longed to kick him!--was on terms of intimacy with any one in my family."
"William!" Mrs. Day, cut to the quick, called protestingly upon her husband's name. "I hope you answered him there. I hope you did!"
"I said the young beggar was always hanging about my house. That he had danced half the night with my daughter--and--and made love to her."
"And then? And then, William?"
"He said, 'I wish all acquaintanceship to cease. I beg you not to invite my young brother to your house again.'"
"He said that?"
"Damn him! Yes."
"But that was an insult!" The poor woman was pale with surprise and dismay. She stared breathlessly upon her husband. "Didn't you show him you felt it was an insult, William?"
William moved his huge shoulders. "What do you think?"
"Tell me what you said to him."
"I swore at him for ten minutes. He didn't know if he stood on his head or his heels when I'd done with him. Then I came away."
"I don't think that swearing would improve matters."
"Perhaps you'll tell me what would improve them? It's what I want to hear, and more than I know."
"Poor Bessie! Oh, poor, poor Bessie!"
"Ah!" poor Bessie's father said, and his short-necked head fell upon his breast, and he gazed drearily at the fire again.
Mrs. Day got up and stood, her white hand glittering with its rings laid upon the black marble of the mantelpiece, thinking of Bessie.
"I would go to the club, William," presently she advised. "It can't make matters any better to