His wife was
standing precisely as he had imagined her, in a pale blue frock open at
the neck, with a narrow black band round the waist, and little accordion
pleats below. She looked her coolest. Her smile, when she turned her
head, hardly seemed to take Mr. Bosengate seriously enough. He placed
his lips below one of her half-drooped eyelids. She even smelled
of roses. His children began to dance round their mother, and Mr.
Bosengate,--firmly held between them, was also compelled to do this,
until she said:
"When you've quite done, let's have tea!"
It was not the greeting he had imagined coming along in the car. Earwigs
were plentiful in the summer-house--used perhaps twice a year, but
indispensable to every country residence--and Mr. Bosengate was not
sorry for the excuse to get out again. Though all was so pleasant, he
felt oddly restless, rather suffocated; and lighting his pipe, began to
move about among the roses, blowing tobacco at the greenfly; in war-time
one was never quite idle! And suddenly he said:
"We're trying a wretched Tommy at the assizes."
His wife looked up from a rose.
"What for?"
"Attempted suicide."
"Why did he?"
"Can't stand the separation from his wife.
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