Chapter Six: MR. SMEETH GETS HIS RISE (continued 2)

“Well, I hope you told them I wasn’t going.”

“Of course I didn’t, Dad. The very idea!”

“Well, I’m not going.”

“Why, what for?”

“Because I’m not. If you want to know,” Mr. Smeeth added, his voice trembling, “I’ve had quite enough of ’em here to-night, without going to look for some more.”

His wife looked at him indignantly and sat up straight. “That’s a nice way to talk, isn’t it? What harm have they done you? It’s not Fred’s fault—or his wife’s fault—if you didn’t enjoy yourself to-night.”

“It is. If it’s not their fault, whose fault is it?” Mr. Smeeth retorted. “I can’t stand him—and I can’t stand his wife—and I can’t stand that jazzing girl of theirs either. And the less Edna, or George, for that matter, sees of that little⁠——”

“Now just you be careful what you’re saying,” cried Mrs. Smeeth. “You’ll be saying something in a minute you’ll be sorry for afterwards. Now, Dad, you’re tired to-night, and I expect they were a bit too noisy for you. Fred does get noisy when he gets going, I’ll admit. But you’ll feel different about it in the morning. Let’s go to bed.”

“All right. I’m ready. But understand this, Edie. I’m not going down to Fred Mitty’s this next week or any other week. If you want to go, I can’t stop you, and if you want to ask them here again, I suppose I can’t stop you—though if he starts coming here regularly, drinking the amount of whisky he drank to-night, I’m going to have something to say. But he doesn’t see me again for a long time, I can tell you that.”

“The way you talk!” said Mrs. Smeeth on her way to the door. “But I’m not going to argue with you to-night. I’m tired myself and I’m sure you’re so tired you don’t know what you are saying. I’ll leave you to lock up, Dad.”

No doubt he was tired. He was still trembling a little as he went round, turning off the lights and seeing that both outside doors were locked and bolted; but his mind was made up on the Mitty question. There is a certain pleasure in making up your mind, putting your foot down, taking a firm stand, especially if, like Mr. Smeeth, you do it very rarely, not being a wilful or autocratic man; and as he walked along the dark little hall and climbed the stairs, Mr. Smeeth experienced that pleasure, and the hand that he placed on the banisters was that of a strong determined man, the natural head of a house. Yet even before he had reached the bedroom door there was mixed with that pleasure, absorbing it gradually, an uneasiness, a faint foreboding, a sense of worse things to come.