Part 3

“I feel sure she will pick up.”

“Yes, sir?”

It must have been the wine I had drunk that made me tell him:

“I was once married, William. My wife--it was just such a case as yours.”

“She did not get better sir?”

“No.”

After a pause he said, “Thank you, sir,” meaning for the sympathy that made me tell him that. But it must have been the wine.

“That little girl comes here with a message from your wife?”

“Yes; if she nods three times it means my wife is a little better.”

“She nodded thrice to-day.”

“But she is told to do that to relieve me, and maybe those nods don’t tell the truth.”

“Is she your girl?”

“No; we have none but the baby. She is a neighbour’s; she comes twice a day.”

“It is heartless of her parents not to send her every hour.”

“But she is six years old,” he said, “and has a house and two sisters to look after in the daytime, and a dinner to cook. Gentlefolk don’t understand.”

“I suppose you live in some low part, William.”

“Off Drury Lane,” he answered, flushing; “but--but it isn’t low. You see, we were never used to anything better, and I mind when I let her see the house before we were married, she--she a sort of cried because she was so proud of it. That was eight years ago, and now--she’s afeard she’ll die when I’m away at my work.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Never; she always says she is feeling a little stronger.”

“Then how can you know she is afraid of that?”

“I don’t know how I know, sir; but when I am leaving the house in the morning I look at her from the door, and she looks at me, and then I--I know.”

“A green chartreuse, William!”

I tried to forget William’s vulgar story in billiards, but he had spoiled my game. My opponent, to whom I can give twenty, ran out when I was sixty-seven, and I put aside my cue pettishly. That in itself was bad form, but what would they have thought had they known that a waiter’s impertinence caused it! I grew angrier with William as the night wore on, and next day I punished him by giving my orders through another waiter.

As I had my window-seat, I could not but see that the girl was late again. Somehow I dawdled over my coffee. I had an evening paper before me, but there was so little in it that my eyes found more of interest in the street. It did not matter to me whether William’s wife died, but when that girl had promised to come, why did she not come? These lower classes only give their word to break it. The coffee was undrinkable.

At last I saw her. William was at another window, pretending to do something with the curtains. I stood up, pressing closer to the window. The coffee had been so bad that I felt shaky. She nodded three times, and smiled.

“She is a little better,” William whispered to me, almost gaily.

“Whom are you speaking of?” I asked, coldly, and immediately retired to the billiard-room, where I played a capital game. The coffee was much better there than in the dining-room.

Several days passed, and I took care to show William that I had forgotten his maunderings. I chanced to see the little girl (though I never looked for her) every evening, and she always nodded three times, save once, when she shook her head, and then William’s face grew white as a napkin. I remember this incident because that night I could not get into a pocket. So badly did I play that the thought of it kept me awake in bed, and that, again, made me wonder how William’s wife was. Next day I went to the club early (which was not my custom) to see the new books. Being in the club at any rate, I looked into the dining-room to ask William if I had left my gloves there, and the sight of him reminded me of his wife; so I asked for her. He shook his head mournfully, and I went off in a rage.