No such event
occurred. They conversed with the same false cordiality as had marked
their relations since the evening of the dog-bite. On that evening
Nellie had suddenly transformed herself into a distressingly perfect
angel, and not once had she descended from her high estate. At least
daily she had kissed him--what kisses! Kisses that were not kisses!
Tasteless mockeries, like non-alcoholic ale! He could have killed
her, but he could not put a finger on a fault in her marvellous wifely
behaviour; she would have died victorious.
So that his freakish excursion was not starting very auspiciously.
And, waiting with her for the train on the platform at Knype, he felt
this more and more. His old clerk, Penkethman, was there to receive
certain final instructions on Thrift Club matters, and the sweetness
of Nellie's attitude towards the ancient man, and the ancient man's
naive pleasure therein, positively maddened Edward Henry. To such an
extent that he began to think: "Is she going to spoil my trip for me?"
Then Brindley came up. Brindley, too, was going to London. And
Nellie's saccharine assurances to Brindley that Edward Henry really
needed a change just about completed Edward Henry's desperation. Not
even the uproarious advent of two jolly wholesale grocers, Messieurs
Garvin & Quorrall, also going to London, could effectually lighten his
pessimism.
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