and she noticed with a pang the white hair on his
temples, the white hairs in his beard ... he would
soon be quite white ... an old man . . . but she
must have that money for the chemist. Had he got
it? Oh, that cold weight of fear on her heart; and
the question which she had not the courage to ask:
'Jouse, is it Kahn who is making us so poor?' If only
she dared . . . but she lacked the courage.
He was changing, her man, he was growing more
silent, he no longer shouted his jokes to their neigh-
bours as he worked half in and half out of his shop.
Even Anfos felt the change in his master and would
come to her whimpering like a small child who was
scared and in need of consolation. Then the days,
growing always more frequent of late, when Jouse's
diligent hands would be idle, when he would wander
about the house, or rummage among his old bits
of carving, or pretend to repair the fence of the
yard that so obviously did not need repairing:
clt is good that I have a free hour, Marioun, this
fence would have blown away in a mistral . . .'
and sometimes he would whistle when engaged on
such tasks, or hum to himself if he thought she was
listening. What was wrong? He was still an excellent
craftsman, a most honest, careful and capable worker,
yet just lately so few people needed his work when it
came to the matter of cabinet-making — oh, yes, they
would call on him for odd jobs, repairs to a door
or a rat-eaten skirting, but not for the things in which
he excelled. Was he wilfully blind to what was hap-
pening? Was Jouse wilfully shutting his eyes to the
fact that his business was steadily declining? Yet
surely with so many unpaid bills . . . with so much
expense and so little money . . .
Anatole Kahn ... the Galeries Kahn . . . just
under a year since the shop had been opened. No,
it could not be that . . . the time was too short . . .
264