THEY GO HOME 59*

what had once been a very generous slice of sandwich
cake. Then a piece of broken glass, a jagged fragment of
tumbler, cut his hand. He felt ill. It would not have
been very difficult for him to have been sick on the spot.
The sound of the voices outside did not abate for several
minutes, but he stayed where he was. They could argue
it out between them, could say and do what they liked;
he didn't care.

The door had been left open, and he heard the Mitty
family go, and then he heard George say something to

Mrs. Smeeth and Edna. The three of them went into
the dining-room and closed the door behind them, but

the sound of their voices, raised in heated discussion,
came to him in his armchair. He had groped about a
little with the hand that was not cut, but all he had
tound were two biscuits and these he had eaten in that
mechanical fashion in which biscuits are nearly always
eaten. The voices were lower now and suggested that
their owners were no longer merely shouting at one
another, but were really talking. More minutes passed,
and then he heard Edna go upstairs to bed. Then, after
a short interval, during which he listened intently,
shakily, to every sound, his wife came into the room. She
did not burst in, as he had expected her to do; she came
in quietly and shut the door after her. But this did not
necessarily mean that there would not be a storm, and
he braced himself to meet it.

There was no storm, however. Mrs. Smeeth's first
fury had passed, though she was still very agitated. "If
it hadn't been for George, I was going to say something
to you, Herbert, you wouldn't forget for a long, long
time. But he says you're very upset about your work."

"I am," said Mr. Smeeth in a very low voice.