“Oh, good Lord, good Lord! bread of humiliation tonight!” he said to himself before he could muster courage to rise and go to the table. He seemed to be shrinking inwards. The women glanced swiftly at him and away from him as his chair creaked and he got up. Frank was watching from under his eyebrows. Siegmund went through the ordeal of eating and drinking in presence of his family. If he had not been hungry, he could not have done it, despite the fact that he was content to receive humiliation this night. He swallowed the coffee with effort. When he had finished he sat irresolute for some time; then he arose and went to the door. “Good night!” he said. Nobody made any reply. Frank merely stirred in his chair. Siegmund shut the door and went. There was absolute silence in the room till they heard him turn on the tap in the bathroom; then Beatrice began to breathe spasmodically, catching her breath as if she would sob. But she restrained herself. The faces of the two children set hard with hate. “He is not worth the flicking of your little finger, Mother,” said Vera. Beatrice moved about with pitiful, groping hands, collecting her sewing and her cottons. “At any rate, he’s come back red enough,” said Frank, in his grating tone of contempt. “He’s like boiled salmon.” Beatrice did not answer anything. Frank rose, and stood with his back to the grate, in his father’s characteristic attitude. “He _would_ come slinking back in a funk!” he said, with a young man’s sneer. Stretching forward, he put a piece of ham between two pieces of bread, and began to eat the sandwich in large bites. Vera came to the table at this, and began to make herself a more dainty sandwich. Frank watched her with jealous eyes. “There is a little more ham, if you’d like it,” said Beatrice to him. “I kept you some.” “All right, Ma,” he replied. Fetch it in.” Beatrice went out to the kitchen. “And bring the bread and butter, too, will you?” called Vera after her. “The damned coward! Ain’t he a rotten funker?” said Frank, _sotto voce_, while his mother was out of the room. Vera did not reply, but she seemed tacitly to agree. They petted their mother, while she waited on them. At length Frank yawned. He fidgeted a moment or two, then he went over to his mother, and, putting his hand on her arm—the feel of his mother’s round arm under the black silk sleeve made his tears rise—he said, more gratingly than ever: “Ne’er mind, Ma; we’ll be all right to you.” Then he bent and kissed her. “Good night, Mother,” he said awkwardly, and he went out of the room. Beatrice was crying. XXIII