Mrs Korner Sins Her Mercies | Page 5

It will
be just as well for you to be out of the way."
And Mrs. Korner, only too thankful for some one to tell her what to do,
obeyed in all things.
Toward seven o'clock the sunlight streaming into the room caused Mr.
Korner first to blink, then yawn, then open half an eye.
"Greet the day with a smile," murmured Mr. Korner, sleepily, "and it
will--"
Mr. Korner sat up suddenly and looked about him. This was not bed.
The fragments of a jug and glass lay scattered round his feet. To the
tablecloth an overturned cruet-stand mingled with egg gave colour. A

tingling sensation about his head called for investigation. Mr. Korner
was forced to the conclusion that somebody had been trying to make a
salad of him--somebody with an exceptionally heavy hand for mustard.
A sound directed Mr. Korner's attention to the door.
The face of Miss Greene, portentously grave, was peeping through the
jar.
Mr. Korner rose. Miss Greene entered stealthily, and, closing the door,
stood with her back against it.
"I suppose you know what--what you've done?" suggested Miss
Greene,
She spoke in a sepulchral tone; it chilled poor Mr. Korner to the bone.
"It is beginning to come back to me, but not--not very clearly,"
admitted Mr. Korner.
"You came home drunk--very drunk," Miss Greene informed him, "at
two o'clock in the morning. The noise you made must have awakened
half the street."
A groan escaped from his parched lips.
"You insisted upon Aimee cooking you a hot supper."
"I insisted!" Mr. Korner glanced down upon the table. "And--and she
did it!"
"You were very violent," explained Miss Greene; "we were terrified at
you, all three of us." Regarding the pathetic object in front of her, Miss
Greene found it difficult to recollect that a few hours before she really
had been frightened of it. Sense of duty alone restrained her present
inclination to laugh.
"While you sat there, eating your supper," continued Miss Greene
remorselessly, "you made her bring you her books."

Mr. Korner had passed the stage when anything could astonish him.
"You lectured her about her housekeeping." There was a twinkle in the
eye of Mrs. Korner's bosom friend. But lightning could have flashed
before Mr. Korner's eyes without his noticing it just then.
"You told her that she could not add, and you made her say her tables."
"I made her--" Mr. Korner spoke in the emotionless tones of one
merely desiring information. "I made Aimee say her tables?"
"Her nine times," nodded Miss Greene.
Mr. Korner sat down upon his chair and stared with stony eyes into the
future.
"What's to be done?" said Mr. Korner, "she'll never forgive me; I know
her. You are not chaffing me?" he cried with a momentary gleam of
hope. "I really did it?"
"You sat in that very chair where you are sitting now and ate poached
eggs, while she stood opposite to you and said her nine times table. At
the end of it, seeing you had gone to sleep yourself, I persuaded her to
go to bed. It was three o'clock, and we thought you would not mind."
Miss Greene drew up a chair, and, with her elbows on the table, looked
across at Mr. Korner. Decidedly there was a twinkle in the eyes of Mrs.
Korner's bosom friend.
"You'll never do it again," suggested Miss Greene.
"Do you think it possible," cried Mr. Korner, "that she may forgive
me?"
"No, I don't," replied Miss Greene. At which Mr. Korner's face fell
back to zero. "I think the best way out will be for you to forgive her."
The idea did not even amuse him. Miss Greene glanced round to satisfy
herself that the door was still closed, and listened a moment to assure
herself of the silence.

"Don't you remember," Miss Greene took the extra precaution to
whisper it, "the talk we had at breakfast-time the first morning of my
visit, when Aimee said you would be all the better for 'going it'
occasionally?"
Yes, slowly it came back to Mr. Korner. But she only said "going it,"
Mr. Korner recollected to his dismay.
"Well, you've been 'going it,'" persisted Miss Greene. "Besides, she did
not mean 'going it.' She meant the real thing, only she did not like to
say the word. We talked about it after you had gone. She said she
would give anything to see you more like the ordinary man. And that is
her idea of the ordinary man."
Mr. Korner's sluggishness of comprehension irritated Miss Greene. She
leaned across the table and shook him. "Don't you understand? You
have done it on purpose to teach her a lesson. It is she who has got to
ask you to forgive her."
"You think--?"
"I think, if