Page:The Country-House Party.djvu/48

40 He has gone on a long journey," I said softly, putting a fill of tobacco into my pipe, and pretending to smoke, for I was uneasy how to get her to understand. "I'm thinking"—but the words were not out of my mouth before she commenced again, too full of her own grievances to see that I was trying to tell her something. Her face was red with temper, and she kept cleaning all the plates and pans she had already done hours before, and which were so clean and shining I could see her angry face in them as she took them up one by one.

So he's gone off with himself," she cried, "without a good-bye to me, and I getting the dinner for him: the grandeur of him, walking in and out without a word to throw to a dog." And when she said that the old Irish terrier looked up from his seat by the fire for sympathy at her; "never a word to throw to a dog," says she. "I suppose the police or the soldiers are after him. I expect he has been poaching again, stealing honest men's rabbits, the thief! He'll get strung up for it one of these fine days. Mark my words."

'I saw there was no use in trying to hint to the woman any longer. I put no hold on women's