this feeling was correct, its mental form took an unrefined shape
corresponding to her origin and station. “I would rather walk the
streets all the days of my life,” she thought. But this creature,
whose moral nature had been subjected to a shock of which, in the
physical order, the most violent earthquake of history could only
be a faint and languid rendering, was at the mercy of mere trifles,
of casual contacts. She sat down. With her hat and veil she had
the air of a visitor, of having looked in on Mr Verloc for a
moment. Her instant docility encouraged him, whilst her aspect of
only temporary and silent acquiescence provoked him a little.
“Let me tell you, Winnie,” he said with authority, “that your place
is here this evening. Hang it all! you brought the damned police
high and low about my ears. I don’t blame you – but it’s your
doing all the same. You’d better take this confounded hat off. I
can’t let you go out, old girl,” he added in a softened voice.
Mrs Verloc’s mind got hold of that declaration with morbid
tenacity. The man who had taken Stevie out from under her very
eyes to murder him in a locality whose name was at the moment not
present to her memory would not allow her go out. Of course he
wouldn’t.
Now he had murdered Stevie he would never let her go. He would
want to keep her for nothing. And on this characteristic
reasoning, having all the force of insane logic, Mrs Verloc’s
disconnected wits went to work practically. She could slip by him,
open the door, run out. But he would dash out after her, seize her
round the body, drag her back into the shop. She could scratch,
kick, and bite – and stab too; but for stabbing she wanted a knife.
Mrs Verloc sat still under her black veil, in her own house, like a
masked and mysterious visitor of impenetrable intentions.
Mr Verloc’s magnanimity was not more than human. She had
exasperated him at last.
“Can’t you say something? You have your own dodges for vexing a
man. Oh yes! I know your deaf-and-dumb trick. I’ve seen you at
it before to-day. But just now it won’t do. And to begin with,
take this damned thing off. One can’t tell whether one is talking
to a dummy or to a live woman.”
He advanced, and stretching out his hand, dragged the veil off,
unmasking a still, unreadable face, against which his nervous
exasperation was shattered like a glass bubble flung against a
rock. “That’s better,” he said, to cover his momentary uneasiness,
and retreated back to his old station by the mantelpiece. It never
entered his head that his wife could give him up. He felt a little
ashamed of himself, for he was fond and generous. What could he
do? Everything had been said already. He protested vehemently.
“By heavens! You know that I hunted high and low. I ran the risk
of giving myself away to find somebody for that accursed job. And
I tell you again I couldn’t find anyone crazy enough or hungry
enough. What do you take me for – a murderer, or what? The boy is
gone. Do you think I wanted him to blow himself up? He’s gone.
His troubles are over. Ours are just going to begin, I tell you,
precisely because he did blow himself. I don’t blame you. But
just try to understand that it was a pure accident; as much an
accident as if he had been run over by a `bus while crossing the
street.”
His generosity was not infinite, because he was a human being – and
not a monster, as Mrs Verloc believed him to be. He paused, and a
snarl lifting his moustaches above a gleam of white teeth gave him
the expression of a reflective beast, not very dangerous – a slow
beast with a sleek head, gloomier than a seal, and with a husky
voice.
“And when it comes to that, it’s as much your doing as mine.
That’s so. You may glare as much as you like. I know what you can