will want it all now."

As he spoke those words he thought he was a fine fellow. Nothing new
that. Still, he surpassed there his own expectations. Hang it all, there
are sacred things in life, after all. The marriage tie was one of them,
and he was not the man to break it. The solidity of his principles
caused him great satisfaction, but he did not care to look at his wife,
for all that. He waited for her to speak. Then he would have to console
her; tell her not to be a crying fool; to get ready to go. Go where?
How? When? He shook his head. They must leave at once; that was the
principal thing. He felt a sudden need to hurry up his departure.

"Well, Joanna," he said, a little impatiently---"don't stand there in a
trance. Do you hear? We must. . . ."

He looked up at his wife, and whatever he was going to add remained
unspoken. She was staring at him with her big, slanting eyes, that
seemed to him twice their natural size. The child, its dirty little
face pressed to its mother's shoulder, was sleeping peacefully. The deep
silence of the house was not broken, but rather accentuated, by the
low mutter of the cockatoo, now very still on its perch. As Willems was
looking at Joanna her upper lip was drawn up on one side, giving to her
melancholy face a vicious expression altogether new to his experience.
He stepped back in his surprise.

"Oh! You great man!" she said distinctly, but in a voice that was hardly
above a whisper.

Those words, and still more her tone, stunned him as if somebody had
fired a gun close to his ear. He stared back at her stupidly.