Juliet Tresham is waiting to receive him, with a deep frown upon her brow. Any unprejudiced observer would see at a glance that she is a lovely woman, but it is the loveliness of beauty unadorned. Her luxuriant golden hair is all pushed off her face, and strained into a tight knot at the back of her head. Her large blue eyes are dull and languid; her lips are colourless, and her ill-fitting, home-made dress hangs awkwardly upon her figure. In her husband’s eyes, all her beauty and her grace have faded long ago. He associates her with nothing now, but weak lungs and spirits, squalling children, badly-cooked dinners, and an untidy home. It is scarcely to be wondered at that she does not smile him a welcome home. ‘You might inquire whether the children are in the right or wrong, before you hit them,’ she says sharply. ‘I told them they might play in the front garden.’ ‘Then they must suffer for your folly, for I won’t have them hanging about the place like a set of beggars’ brats.’ ‘It’s all very fine for you to talk, but what am I to do with them cooped up in the house, on a day like this? If you had the charge of them, you’d turn them out anywhere, just to get rid of them.’ ‘Why don’t you let the girl look after them?’ ‘“_The girl!_” That’s just how you men talk! As if one wretched girl of fourteen had not enough to do to keep the house clean, and cook the dinner, without taking charge of half-a-dozen children!’ ‘Oh! well, don’t bother me about it. Am I to have any dinner to-day or not?’ ‘I suppose Ann will bring it up when it is ready,’ says his wife indifferently; ‘you can’t expect to be waited on as if you were the owner of Tresham Court.’ ‘D—n you! I wish you’d hold your tongue!’ he answers angrily. He calls it his dinner, for the good reason that it is the only dinner he ever gets, but it is a wretched mockery of the meal. ‘What do you call this?’ he says, as he examines the untempting-looking viands, and views with disgust the evident traces of black fingers on the edge of the dish. ‘Take it away, and serve it me on a clean plate. I may be obliged to swallow any dog’s meat you chose to put before me, but I’ll be hanged if I’ll eat the smuts off your servant’s hands as well.’ Mrs Tresham, who is occupied at the other end of the table in cutting slices of bread and salt butter for the tribe of little cormorants by which she is surrounded, just turns her head and calls through the open door to the maid-of-all-work in the kitchen. ‘Ann, come and fetch away this dish; your master says it is dirty.’ ‘Do it yourself!’ roars her exasperated husband. ‘It is quite bad enough that you are so lazy, you won’t look after any of my comforts in my absence, without your refusing to set matters right now.’