Part 42 (1/2)

Said the voice of one of the figures:

”Can you tell in of the decay of realis silence, there was a click, and a tiny electric lamp shot its beam The hand which held the lamp was the hand of Carlo Trent He flashed it and flashed the tre ray in the inquirer's face Edward Henry recalled Carlo's objection to excessive electricity in the private drawing-room at Wilkins's

”Why do you ask such a question?” Carlo Trent challenged the inquirer, brandishi+ng the lamp ”I ask you why do you ask it?”

The other also drew forth a lamp and, as it were, cocked it and let it off at the features of Carlo Trent And thus the two stood, statuesque and lit, surrounded by shadoitnessers of the discussion

The door creaked, and yet another figure, silhouetted for an instant against the illue, descended into the discussion chamber

Carlo Trent tripped towards the new-comer, bent with his lamp, lifted delicately the heazed at the colour of his sock, which was blue

”All right!” said he

”The chane and sandwiches are served,” said the new-comer

”You've not answered me, sir,” Carlo Trent faced once more his opponent in the discussion ”You've not answered uished, they all filed forth, the door swung to of its own accord, shutting out the sound of babble froe, and Edward Henry and Elsie April were left silent and solitary to the sole ray of the street-lamp

All the Five Towns' shrewdness in Edward Henry's character, all the husband in him, all the father in him, all the son in him, leapt to his lips, and tried to say to Elsie:

”Shall _we_ go and inspect the chane and sandwiches, too?”

And failed to say these incantatory words of salvation!

And the romantic, adventurous fool in him rejoiced at their failure

For he was adventurously happy in his propinquity to that simple and sincere creature He was so happy, and his heart was so active, that he even ular behaviour of the beings who had just abandoned them to their loneliness He was also proud because he was sitting alone nearly in the dark with a piquant and wealthy, albeit amateur actress, who had just participated in a triumph at which the spiritual aristocracy of London had assisted

VI

Two thoughts ran through his head, shooting in and out and to and fro a his complex sensations of pleasure The first was that he had never been in such a fix before, despite his enterprising habits And the second was that neither Elsie April nor anybody else connected with his affairs in London had ever asked him whether he was married, or assumed by any detail of behaviour towards hi ht, had he chosen, have informed a few of them that a wife and children possessed him, but then really would not that have been equivalent to attaching a label to himself: ”Married”? a procedure which had to hi And as she said nothing he was obliged to say so, if only to prove to both of theue-tied provincial He said:

”You know I feel awfully out of it here in this Society of yours!”

”Out of it?” she exclaimed, and her voice thrilled as she resented his self-depreciation

”It's over ht over it!”

”Now, Mr Machin,” she said, dropping somewhat that rich low voice, ”I quite understand that there are sos about the Society you don't like, trifles that you're inclined to laugh at _I_ know that

Many of us know it But it can't be helped in an organization like ours It's even essential Don't be too hard on us Don't be sarcastic”

”But I'm not sarcastic!” he protested

”Honest?” She turned to hiloom, and the forward bend of her shoulders, and the backward sweep of her aryptian shawl from her inclined body