Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/72

 upon Mr. Snowdon was perhaps more flattering than any other look.

“What’s up, Clem?” he inquired, on one of these occasions. “Are you wondering whether I shall cut and leave you when we’ve had time to get tired of each other?”

Her face was transformed; she looked at him for an instant with fierce suspicion, then laughed disagreeably.

“We’ll see about that,” was her answer, with a movement of the head and shoulders strongly reminding one of a lithe beast about to spring.

The necessary delay passed without accident. As the morning of the marriage approached there was, however, a perceptible increase of nervous restlessness in Clem. She had given up her work at Whitehead’s, and contrived to keep her future husband within sight nearly all day long. Joseph James found nothing particularly irksome in this, for beer and tobacco were supplied him ad libitum, and a succession of appetising