My feet were on the sofa. The gin bottle and a jug of beer stood on Lucinda’s pet polished table. Arnold was gently scraping his boots on the copper scuttle, and Smithers had his head well into the white curtains. The rugs were kicked up; there were spent matches all over the floor. It was an education to see how by a few well-thought-out touches we had wrecked the room. Lucinda was pretty punctual. She stood on the threshold for one second before she fled. I looked round. There was blank tragedy on her face. Gully got up, appearing a little guilty. He went out to her. Judging by the direction of their voices he found her in the lobby, with her face buried in his overcoat. She was crying. We three in the untidy room, thick with smoke and stale with spirit, heard her say in a muffled way: “This is too much. You’ve taken away the--s--silver--all the decencies of life. You talk to me of a cheap boarding house. I’ll never consent to it; I’d rather die or go back to papa. And you’ve brought those wretches into my drawing room.” “But we agreed, darling, that it wasn’t to be a drawing room any longer. We said that we’d devote it to the people. Your own idea was a laundresses’ weekly tea, and----” “You look disreputable. You look like--a--brigand. No collar--that tie. I never was so miserable. I never would have married you if----” “My dearest, you wouldn’t have me wound the susceptibilities of those worthy fellows----” “And one with his hateful great feet on the embroidered cushion my cousin Ethel sent from India, and another----” “Lucinda, you surprise me. I thought you’d be so pleased. I arranged it as a delicate attention--a pleasant surprise party. Sons of toil, dear, all of them, and----” “Dirty brutes! I hate the whole thing. I’m tired to death.” We heard her stamp her feet viciously on the oil-cloth. “The election is all going to pieces. Let it! _I_ don’t care. Just look at my new skirt--all mud and torn to ribbons. You never saw such a filthy place, such a set of roughs! I couldn’t even get a decent cup of tea. And--and--I went into the wrong committee room, and the man--the other man--laughed, the idiot! I wish I’d---- Oh, Tom! I never thought you could be so cruel, so unmanly. Do be yourself again. I can’t think what has come over you. It has worried me dreadfully. Let us be comfortable again. Send those monsters away.” Gully said impressively: “Will you go to the Wigans’ ball? I’ve got my way to make in the world. Wigan’s wife is--well, you know her. Decent old charwoman; got sense enough to hold her tongue. Wigan is sensitive on that point. If we snub his wife it may be bad for me.” “Will I go? What a question! Of course I will.” “And committee rooms and mass-meetings and particularly that Socialist cad----” “Don’t mention him. I’m sick, I tell you--sick, sick. He hardly spoke a civil word to me--after the way I’ve slaved. Go and send those men away, if you love me.” “You don’t think a little friendly supper----”