THEY GO HOME 585

hustled her husband and herself out of the room. There
was no fire in the drawing-room below, but there was
the whitening ruin of one in the dining-room, and im-
mediately he stumped in there in a heavy sort of way
and sat down. She walked in after him, but did not sit
down.

"I'm going to bed," she announced coldly.

"Just a minute," he said, in a muffled voice.

"I prefer to go to bed. I'm tired, even if you're not/'
And she turned away,

"No, don't go," he cried, quite sharply now, with
hardly anything of that thickness in his voice that had
been there before. "You mustn't, Pongo. I've got some-
thing to tell you."

She closed the door and came back. "Pongo" was his
old special silly delightful name for her, and even now,
when she was annoyed with him, when he was a large,
pink, sagging creature, whose every stupidity she knew
by heart, when he was sitting there, flushed and thick
with whisky, not at all the sort of man she ever imagined
she was marrying, a hundred times less attentive and
considerate and clever and courageous, even now, the
sound of that "Pongo" gave her a little thrill. She was
annoyed with herself for feeling it. If he imagined he
was going to be forgiven at once, simply because he had
called her by that name, he was sadly mistaken.

She took up a position on the other side of the hearth,
and stood looking down on him. "I should think you
have something to say! Have you been to the club?"

He nodded and waved an impatient hand. "That was
nothing/' he muttered.

"No, but if you must pretend you have to work late
and then you go on to the club and fuddle yourself with

u*