Winnie, we’ve got to think of to-morrow. You’ll want all your wits
about you after I am taken away.”
He paused. Mrs Verloc’s breast heaved convulsively. This was not
reassuring to Mr Verloc, in whose view the newly created situation
required from the two people most concerned in it calmness,
decision, and other qualities incompatible with the mental disorder
of passionate sorrow. Mr Verloc was a humane man; he had come home
prepared to allow every latitude to his wife’s affection for her
brother.
Only he did not understand either the nature or the whole extent of
that sentiment. And in this he was excusable, since it was
impossible for him to understand it without ceasing to be himself.
He was startled and disappointed, and his speech conveyed it by a
certain roughness of tone.
“You might look at a fellow,” he observed after waiting a while.
As if forced through the hands covering Mrs Verloc’s face the
answer came, deadened, almost pitiful.
“I don’t want to look at you as long as I live.”
“Eh? What!” Mr Verloc was merely startled by the superficial and
literal meaning of this declaration. It was obviously
unreasonable, the mere cry of exaggerated grief. He threw over it
the mantle of his marital indulgence. The mind of Mr Verloc lacked
profundity. Under the mistaken impression that the value of
individuals consists in what they are in themselves, he could not
possibly comprehend the value of Stevie in the eyes of Mrs Verloc.
She was taking it confoundedly hard, he thought to himself. It was
all the fault of that damned Heat. What did he want to upset the
woman for? But she mustn’t be allowed, for her own good, to carry
on so till she got quite beside herself.
“Look here! You can’t sit like this in the shop,” he said with
affected severity, in which there was some real annoyance; for
urgent practical matters must be talked over if they had to sit up
all night. “Somebody might come in at any minute,” he added, and
waited again. No effect was produced, and the idea of the finality
of death occurred to Mr Verloc during the pause. He changed his
tone. “Come. This won’t bring him back,” he said gently, feeling
ready to take her in his arms and press her to his breast, where
impatience and compassion dwelt side by side. But except for a
short shudder Mrs Verloc remained apparently unaffected by the
force of that terrible truism. It was Mr Verloc himself who was
moved. He was moved in his simplicity to urge moderation by
asserting the claims of his own personality.
“Do be reasonable, Winnie. What would it have been if you had lost
me!”
He had vaguely expected to hear her cry out. But she did not
budge. She leaned back a little, quieted down to a complete
unreadable stillness. Mr Verloc’s heart began to beat faster with
exasperation and something resembling alarm. He laid his hand on
her shoulder, saying:
“Don’t be a fool, Winnie.”
She gave no sign. It was impossible to talk to any purpose with a
woman whose face one cannot see. Mr Verloc caught hold of his
wife’s wrists. But her hands seemed glued fast. She swayed
forward bodily to his tug, and nearly went off the chair. Startled
to feel her so helplessly limp, he was trying to put her back on
the chair when she stiffened suddenly all over, tore herself out of
his hands, ran out of the shop, across the parlour, and into the
kitchen. This was very swift. He had just a glimpse of her face
and that much of her eyes that he knew she had not looked at him.
It all had the appearance of a struggle for the possession of a
chair, because Mr Verloc instantly took his wife’s place in it. Mr
Verloc did not cover his face with his hands, but a sombre
thoughtfulness veiled his features. A term of imprisonment could
not be avoided. He did not wish now to avoid it. A prison was a
place as safe from certain unlawful vengeances as the grave, with
this advantage, that in a prison there is room for hope. What he