felt that something was about to happen; and when the match was pitched
into the fire, he leaned forward in his seat. The husband poured more
whisky out, drank it at a draught, and walked towards the door; then,
turning to the audience as if to admit them to the secret of some
tremendous resolution, he puffed at them a puff of smoke. He left the
room, returned, and once more filled his glass. A lady now entered, pale
of face and dark of eye--his wife. The husband crossed the stage, and
stood before the fire, his legs astride, in the attitude which somehow
Shelton had felt sure he would assume. He spoke:

"Come in, and shut the door."

Shelton suddenly perceived that he was face to face with one of
those dumb moments in which two people declare their inextinguishable
hatred--the hatred underlying the sexual intimacy of two ill-assorted
creatures--and he was suddenly reminded of a scene he had once witnessed
in a restaurant. He remembered with extreme minuteness how the woman
and the man had sat facing each other across the narrow patch of white,
emblazoned by a candle with cheap shades and a thin green vase with
yellow flowers. He remembered the curious scornful anger of their
voices, subdued so that only a few words reached him. He remembered
the cold loathing in their eyes. And, above all, he remembered his
impression that this sort of scene happened between them every other
day, and would continue so to happen; and as he put on his overcoat and
paid his bill he had asked himself, "Why in the name of decency do they
go on living together?" And now he thought, as he listened to the two
players wrangling on the stage: "What 's the good of all this talk?
There's something here past words."

The curtain came down upon the act, and he looked at the lady next him.