nowing just exactly what she was going to
meet. And she felt frozen with horror. The average man coming home drunk
is not a tragedy. He is merely amiably ridiculous. To Louis, after all
his fights and all his hopes, tragedy had certainly come, but he was too
drunk to know it yet. He began to bluff and lie just as usual.

"Ought be 'shamed, sending a chap thirty--thirty--thirty miles f'r lot
fem'--fem'--fripp--fripp--fripperies! Sick an' tired, stuck in with a
wom' day an' night f'r months. 'Nough make any man k-k-kick."

She did not speak, and he went on in the same old way, French words
peppering the halting English; she could have shut her eyes and fancied
she was back in the city again, or on the ship.

He muttered and shouted alternately all the way to the cottage; there
was a meal waiting but he could not eat; sitting on the edge of the
verandah, he ordered her to light him a cigarette. She knew there were
none in the house and felt in his coat pocket, guessing he had bought
some. She was not really unhappy. She was too sick, too frozen to feel
yet at all.

"Come out my pock'," he growled, hitting her arm away fiercely, his
teeth clenched. "Aft' my money, eh? Think you're winning, don't you? In
league with the Pater against me. Think you'll always have me under your
thumb, nev' giv' free hand. There's not a man on God's earth would stand
it, damned if there is--tied to wom' apron strings all the time!"

"Very well, get your own cigarette. I'm going to bed."

"Y-you w-w-would," he said, and laughed shrilly. "Think you've got me in
blasted bush, work like blast' galley slave while you skulk in bed."

"Oh don't be such an idiot, Louis. You'd better go to bed. I'm tired of
you," she said, going past him into the bedroom.

"Ta' my boots off," he grunted, trying to reach his feet and
overbalancing. "If you can't make yourself 'tractive to a man, you can
be useful. Nice damned freak you are f'r any man t' come home to! Nev'
trouble to dress please me--like Vi'let."

Marcella began to laugh hysterically. It was uncanny how his opinion of
her appearance coincided with her own.

"Wom' your condish' no damn goo' t' any man!" he mumbled. She went past
him, into the room and left him. It was the first time she had made no
attempt to soothe and sober him and bring him back. She felt impatient
with him, and horribly lonely and frightened of being with him, horribly
longing to run to someone and be comforted. But she was