For Better or Worse Page 3

return.Shall I tell her you called?"

  "Tell her I----certainly," said Mr. Davis, with great vehemence. "I'llcome in a week's time and see if she's back."

  "She might be away for months," said the old lady, moving slowly to thepassage and opening the street door. "Good-afternoon."

  She closed the door behind them and stood watching them through the glassas they passed disconsolately into the street. Then she went back intothe parlour, and standing before the mantelpiece, looked long andearnestly into the mirror.

  Mr. Davis returned a week later--alone, and, pausing at the gate, glancedin dismay at a bill in the window announcing that the house was to besold. He walked up the path still looking at it, and being admitted bythe trim servant was shown into the parlour, and stood in a dispiritedfashion before Mrs. Smith.

  "Not back yet?" he inquired, gruffly.

  The old lady shook her head.

  "What--what--is that bill for?" demanded Mr. Davis, jerking his thumbtowards it.

  "She is thinking of selling the house," said Mrs. Smith. "I let her knowyou had been, and that is, the result. She won't comeback. You won'tsee her again."

  "Where is she?" inquired Mr. Davis, frowning.

  Mrs. Smith shook her head again. "And it would be no use my tellingyou," she said. "What she has got is her own, and the law won't let youtouch a penny of it without her consent. You must have treated herbadly; why did you leave her?"

  "Why?" repeated Mr. Davis. "Why? Why, because she hit me over the 'eadwith a broom-handle."

  Mrs. Smith tossed her head.

  "Fancy you remembering that for thirty-five years!" she said.

  "Fancy forgetting it!" retorted Mr. Davis.

  "I suppose she had a hot temper," said the old lady.

  "'Ot temper?" said the other. "Yes." He leaned forward, and holdinghis chilled hands over the fire stood for some time deep in thought.

  "I don't know what it is," he said at last, "but there's a somethingabout you that reminds me of her. It ain't your voice, 'cos she had avery nice voice--when she wasn't in a temper--and it ain't your face,because--"

  "Yes?" said Mrs. Smith, sharply. "Because it don't remind me of her."

  "And yet the other day you said you recognized me at once," said the oldlady.

  "I thought I did," said Mr. Davis. "One thing is, I was expecting to seeher, I s'pose."

  There was a long silence.

  "Well, I won't keep you," said Mrs. Smith at last, "and it's no good foryou to keep coming here to see her. She will never come here again.I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you don't look over and aboverespectable. Your coat is torn, your trousers are patched in a dozenplaces, and your boots are half off your feet--I don't know what theservant must think."

  "I--I only came to look for my wife," said Mr. Davis, in a startledvoice. "I won't come again."

  "That's right," said the old lady. "That'll please her, I know. And ifshe should happen to ask what sort of a living you are making, what shallI tell her?"

  "Tell her what you said about my clothes, ma'am," said Mr. Davis, withhis hand on the door-knob. "She'll understand then. She's known wot itis to be poor herself. She'd got a bad temper, but she'd have cut hertongue out afore she'd 'ave thrown a poor devil's rags in his face.Good-afternoon."

  "Good-afternoon, Ben," said the old woman, in a changed voice.

  Mr. Davis, half-way through the door, started as though he had been shot,and, facing about, stood eyeing her in dumb bewilderment.

  "If I take you back again," repeated his wife, "are you going to behaveyourself?"

  "It isn't the same voice and it isn't the same face," said the old woman;"but if I'd only got a broomhandle handy----"

  Mr. Davis made an odd noise in his throat.

  "If you hadn't been so down on your luck," said his wife, blinking hereyes rapidly, "I'd have let you go. If you hadn't looked 'so miserable Icould have stood it. If I take you back, are you going to behaveyourself?"

  Mr. Davis stood gaping at her.

  "If I take you back again," repeated his wife, speaking very slowly, "areyou going to behave yourself?"

  "Yes," said Mr. Davis, finding his voice at last. "Yes, if you are."