"She was a good little woman, when we wanted her, and I'm sorry if she's ill. That's all," he said. "The Butts aren't very well off, and she doesn't get the comforts a woman wants in illness."
"I'll go and see after her to-morrow," Lucilla said.
It had become the custom of Everard Barett to go for a stroll the last thing at night, to get a "mouthful of air before turning in," as he said. When, later on this evening, he looked in upon his wife before starting for his walk, he found her standing by the hearth, gazing thoughtfully down into the fire.
"If you're thinking of dropping in at the Butts," she said, "you might take a few grapes to Vera. There are just a couple of bunches left. Shall I get them?"
He was putting himself into his topcoat, and he reddened a little with the exertion. "Oh, grapes?" he said; "I took them this afternoon. I saw them standing about, and----"
"Oh, that's all right," Lucilla said. "So long as she had them! And is that where the violets went? I wanted some in, to-day, and gardener said they had all been gathered out of the frame. Did you take the violets, too, to Vera?"
"I daresay I did," said Everard, turning his back.
"Well, I did, then. How should I know you wanted them, or that there was going to be a piece of work about a handful of violets?"
With that he went, and pulled the door to with a slightly unnecessary emphasis.
Everard Barett was the sleeping partner in a large manufacturing firm in that provincial town. He drew his comfortable income from this source, but had very little else to do with the business; and so it was that time hung heavily on his hands. Yet, every now and then, a business zeal would seize him, or a weariness of doing nothing, and he would have himself driven down to the great malodorous factory by the river, to put away a few hours. From thence he would return in a far more cheerful spirit than was his on his unoccupied days.
On the morrow of the above conversation he came back from such a dutiful visit, and going into the drawing-room in search of his wife, he found, lying on the sofa drawn up to the fire, not Lucilla, but the lady who of late had dwelt so dangerously in his thoughts--Vera Butt.
She had assumed a charming attitude, which she only changed to throw out a welcoming hand as he came forward. "Here I am," she said. "It's really me. Isn't Luce an angel?" She smiled at him, showing all her teeth, stretching back her head on the pillow to bring her full, round throat into prominence, shutting her eyes. "Oh, it is good to be here!" she said.