untrimmed. A chair by the bed bore Lettice's
clothes, another at the foot awaited his own. By
his side a curtain hung out from the wall, forming
a wardrobe.

He vaguely made out the form of Lettice sitting
upright in the bed, her hands clasped about her
knees.

"Your brother-in-law," he observed, "is a powerful
spindling man." She made no rejoinder to
this, and, after a short pause, he further remarked,
"How he gets on sociable I don't see."

His wife's eyes were opened wide, gazing intently
into the greying room; not by a sound, a motion, did
she show any consciousness of his presence. He
was deliberate in his movements, very deliberate,
laboriously exact in his mental processes, but they
were ordered, logical. It began to annoy him that
his wife had made no reply to his pleasantries; it
was out of reason; he wasn't drunk like Rutherford
Berry.

"I said," he pronounced, "that Berry is a nubbin.
Didn't you hear me?, haven't you got an answer to
you?"

She sat gazing into nothingness, ignoring him
completely.

His resentment changed to anger; he moved to
the foot of the bed, where, in his shirt sleeves, he
harangued her:

[[231]]

p230 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p231w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p232

v?