Читать книгу Self Condemned онлайн

60 страница из 92

He stared with stony hatred at the picture which he knew so well. It was quite impossible to make anyone understand, except a very few like Rotter, the significance of the events about to occur, the international pressures which made it impossible to avoid them, the mountain of debt which would be standing there at the end of the chapter and what part this mountain played in the transaction. It made him feel a little sick as he read a few paragraphs of the bland automatic discussion regarding preparations for war, as if it were an international football match which was being staged in an unusually elaborate manner. But he closed the newspapers, and turned to his more obviously personal affairs.

It was nearly an hour later when he heard Mrs. Harradson make her exit from their flat, and convulsively descend to her own quarters. He had been writing, but he now put down his pen, stood up, and made his way across the landing.

Hester had not left, or he certainly would have heard her. He found her, as he had expected, in their miniature sitting-room. She was writing a letter. As he entered the room she rose from her seat. They faced one another rather starkly, for the space for manœuvre being so limited there was nothing else to do. With the best will in the world, he could not refrain from noting the ludicrousness of her expression. She stood lady-likely at bay, exposing reproachfully her 'eyeballs' and holding her 'big silly mouth' ostentatiously sealed; to laugh was the only rational action, and he came very near to surrendering to the dictates of common sense.