he
had brought her home as a present one Saturday. It had cost him ten and
elevenpence; but what an agony of nervousness it had cost him! How
he had suffered that day, waiting at the shop door until the shop was
empty, standing at the counter and trying to appear at his ease while
the girl piled ladies' blouses before him, paying at the desk and
forgetting to take up the odd penny of his change, being called back by
the cashier, and finally, striving to hide his blushes as he left the
shop by examining the parcel to see if it was securely tied. When he
brought the blouse home Annie kissed him and said it was very pretty and
stylish; but when she heard the price she threw the blouse on the table
and said it was a regular swindle to charge ten and elevenpence for it.
At first she wanted to take it back but when she tried it on she was
delighted with it, especially with the make of the sleeves, and kissed
him and said he was very good to think of her.

Hm!...

He looked coldly into the eyes of the photograph and they answered
coldly. Certainly they were pretty and the face itself was pretty. But
he found something mean in it. Why was it so unconscious and ladylike?
The composure of the eyes irritated him. They repelled him and defied
him: there was no passion in them, no rapture. He thought of what
Gallaher had said about rich Jewesses. Those dark Oriental eyes, he
thought, how full they are of passion, of voluptuous longing!... Why had
he married the eyes in the photograph?

He caught himself up at the question and glanced nervously round the
room. He found something mean in the pretty furniture which he had
bought for his house on the hire system. Annie had chosen it herself
and it reminded hi of her. It too was prim and pretty. A dull resentment
against his life awoke within him. Could he not escape from his little
house? Was it too late for him to try to live bravely like Gallaher?
Could he go to London? There was the furniture still to be paid for. If
he could only write a book and get it published, that might open the way
for him.

A volume of Byron's poems lay before him on the table. He opened it
cautiously with his left hand lest he should waken the child and began
to read the first poem in the book:

Hushed are the winds and still the evening gloom,
Not e'en a Zephyr wanders through the grove,
Whilst I return to view my Margaret's tomb
And scatter flowers on the dust I love.

He pause