pg5247 [77]
"Ay!" said James Boon, calmly.
"I'll tell him you're here," said Constance. "But I don't know if he's at liberty. He seldom is at this time of day. Maggie, you'd better come in."
She went slowly to the shop, full of fear for the future.
"Sam," she whispered to her husband, who was writing at his desk, "here's a man come to see you about a dog."
Assuredly he was taken aback. Still, he behaved with much presence of mind.
"Oh, about a dog! Who is it?"
"It's that Jim Boon. He says he's heard you want one."
The renowned name of Jim Boon gave him pause; but he had to go through with the affair, and he went through with it, though nervously. Constance followed his agitated footsteps to the side-door.
"Morning, Boon."
"Morning, master."
They began to talk dogs, Mr. Povey, for his part, with due caution.
"Now, there's a dog!" said Boon, pointing to one of the bull-dogs, a miracle of splendid ugliness.
"Yes," responded Mr. Povey, insincerely. "He is a beauty. What's it worth now, at a venture?"
"I'll tak' a hundred and twenty sovereigns for her," said Boon. "Th' other's a bit cheaper—a hundred."
"Oh, Sam!" gasped Constance.
And even Mr. Povey nearly lost his nerve. "That's more than I want to give," said he timidly.
"But look at her!" Boon persisted, roughly snatching up the more expensive animal, and displaying her cannibal teeth.
Mr. Povey shook his head. Constance glanced away.
"That's not quite the sort of dog I want," said Mr. Povey.
"Fox-terrier?"
"Yes, that's more like," Mr. Povey agreed eagerly.
"What'll ye run to?"
"Oh," said Mr. Povey, largely, "I don't know."
"Will ye run to a tenner?"
"I thought of something cheaper."
"Well, hoo much? Out wi' it, mester."
"Not more than two pounds," said Mr. Povey. He would have said one pound had he dared. The prices of dogs amazed him.
"I thowt it was a dog as ye wanted!" said Boon. "Look 'ere, mester.
Come up to my yard and see what I've got."
"I will," said Mr. Povey.
"And bring missis along too. Now, what about a cat for th' missis? Or a gold-fish?"
The end of the episode was that a young lady aged some twelve months entered the Povey household on trial. Her exiguous legs twinkled all over the parlour, and she had the oddest appearance in the parlour. But she was so confiding, so affectionate, so timorous, and her black nose was so icy in that hot weather, that Constance loved her violently within an hour. Mr. Povey made rules for her. He explained to her that she must never, never go into the shop. But she went, and he whipped her to the squealing point, and Constance cried an instant, while admiring her husband's firmness.
The dog was not all.
On another day Constance, prying into the least details of the parlour, discovered a box of cigars inside the lid of the harmonium, on the keyboard. She was so unaccustomed to cigars that at first she did not realize what the object was. Her father had never smoked, nor drunk intoxicants; nor had Mr. Critchlow. Nobody had ever smoked in that house, where tobacco had always been regarded as equally licentious with cards, 'the devil's playthings.' Certainly Samuel had never smoked in the house, though the sight of the cigar-box reminded Constance of an occasion when her mother had announced an incredulous suspicion that Mr. Povey, fresh from an excursion into the world on a Thursday evening, 'smelt of smoke.'
She closed the harmonium and kept silence.
That very night, coming suddenly into the parlour, she caught Samuel at the harmonium. The lid went down with a resonant bang that awoke sympathetic vibrations in every corner of the room.
"What is it?" Constance inquired, jumping.
"Oh, nothing!" replied Mr. Povey, carelessly. Each was deceiving the other: Mr. Povey hid his crime, and Constance hid her knowledge of his crime. False, false! But this is what marriage is.
And the next day Constance had a visit in the shop from a possible new servant, recommended to her by Mr. Holl, the grocer.
"Will you please step this way?" said Constance, with affable primness, steeped in the novel sense of what it is