‘I thought as much, Did she give you anything?’ He made this inquiry in rather a shamefaced way. ‘No, she didn’t.’ ‘Well, I tell you what it is. I’m not going to have her coming about the place, so understand that. When she comes next, you’ll just tell her she needn’t come again.’ Pennyloaf looked at him with dismay. For the delivery of this command Bob had seated himself on the corner of the table and crossed his arms. But for the touch of black-guardism in his appearance, Bob would have been a very good-looking fellow; his face was healthy, by no means commonplace in its mould, and had the peculiar vividness which indicates ability—so impressive, because so rarely seen, in men of his level. Unfortunately his hair was cropped all but to the scalp, in the fashionable manner; it was greased, too, and curled up on one side of his forehead with a peculiarly offensive perkishness. Poor Pennyloaf was in a great degree responsible for the ills of her married life; not only did she believe Bob to be the handsomest man who walked the earth but in her weakness she could not refrain from telling him as much. At the present moment he was intensely self-conscious; with Pennyloaf’s eye upon him, he posed for effect. The idea of forbidding future intercourse with Jane had come to him quite suddenly; it was by no means his intention to make his order permanent, for Jane had now and then brought little presents which were useful, but just now he felt a satisfaction in asserting authority. Jane should understand that he regarded her censure of him with high displeasure. ‘You don’t mean that, Bob?’ murmured Pennyloaf. ‘Of course I do. And let me catch you disobeying me! I should think you might find better friends than a girl as used to be the Peckovers’ dirty little servant.’ Bob turned up his nose and sniffed the air. And Pennyloaf, in spite of the keenest distress, actually felt that there was something in the objection, thus framed! She herself had never been a servant—never; she had never sunk below working with the needle for sixteen hours a day for a payment of ninepence. The work-girl regards a domestic slave as very distinctly her inferior. ‘But that’s a long while ago,’ she ventured to urge, after reflection. ‘That makes no difference. Do as I tell you, and don’t argue.’