The room was full of smoke, which came in heavy puffs from Fred's pipe.
He himself lay stretched on the little sofa; Nettie's sofa--Nettie's
room--the place sacred in the doctor's heart to that bright little
figure, the one redeeming presence in this dismal household. Mrs Fred
sat dawdling opposite her husband over some wretched fancy-work. Eyes
less prejudiced than those of Edward Rider might have imagined this a
scene of coarse but not unpleasant domestic comfort. To him it was a
disgusting picture of self-indulgence and selfish miserable enjoyment,
almost vice. The very tobacco which polluted the atmosphere of her room
was bought with Nettie's money. Pah! the doctor came in with a silent
pale concentration of fury and disgust, scarcely able to compel himself
to utter ordinary words of civility. His presence disturbed the pair in
their stolen pleasure. Fred involuntarily put aside his pipe, and Mrs
Fred made a little movement to remove from the table the glass from
which her husband had been drinking; but both recollected themselves
after a moment. The wife set down the glass with a little spiteful toss
of her head; the husband, with that heated sullen flush upon his face,
relighted his half-extinguished pipe, and put up again on the sofa
the slovenly-slippered feet which at Edward's first appearance he had
withdrawn from it. A sullen "How d'ye do?" was all the salutation that
passed between them. _They_ felt themselves found out; the visitor felt
with rage and indignation that he had found them out. Defiant shame and
resentment, spiteful passion and folly, on one side, encountered the
gaze of a spectator outside whose opinion could not be mistaken, a known
critic and possible spy. Little comfort could come from this strange
reunion. They sat in uneasy silence for a few minutes, mutually ready
to fly at each other. Mrs Fred, in her double capacity as a woman and a
fool, was naturally the first to speak.

"Nettie's gone out to tea," said that good wife. "I daresay, Mr Edward,
we should not have had the pleasure of seeing you here had you known
that only Fred and I were at home. It is very seldom we have an evening
to ourselves. It was too great a pleasure, I suppose, not to be
disturbed."

"Susan, hold your confounded tongue," said the ungrateful Fred.

"I am sorry to disturb Mrs Rider," said Edward, with deadly civility.
"I was not aware, indeed, of the domestic enjoyment I was likely to
interrupt. But if you don'