"Keep your feet quiet, dear," said Mrs Verloc, with authority and
tenderness; then turning towards her husband in an indifferent voice, the
masterly achievement of instinctive tact: "Are you going out to-night?"
she asked.
The mere suggestion seemed repugnant to Mr Verloc. He shook his head
moodily, and then sat still with downcast eyes, looking at the piece of
cheese on his plate for a whole minute. At the end of that time he got
up, and went out--went right out in the clatter of the shop-door bell. He
acted thus inconsistently, not from any desire to make himself
unpleasant, but because of an unconquerable restlessness. It was no
earthly good going out. He could not find anywhere in London what he
wanted. But he went out. He led a cortege of dismal thoughts along dark
streets, through lighted streets, in and out of two flash bars, as if in
a half-hearted attempt to make a night of it, and finally back again to
his menaced home, where he sat down fatigued behind the counter, and they
crowded urgently round him, like a pack of hungry black hounds. After
locking up the house and putting out the gas he took them upstairs with
him--a dreadful escort for a man going to bed. His wife had preceded him
some time before, and with her ample form defined vaguely under the
counterpane, her head on the pillow, and a hand under the cheek offered
to his distraction the view of early drowsiness arguing the possession of
an equable soul. Her big eyes stared wide open, inert and dark against
the snowy whiteness of the linen. She did not move.
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