The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
got up from his chair and stood with his back to the fire, looking down at them. Presently he spoke, referring, of course to the baby:
'He's very like you, isn't he?'
'Yes,' replied Ruth, 'everyone says he takes after me.'
Slyme moved a little closer, bending down to look at the slumbering infant.
'You know, at first I thought he was a girl,' he continued after a pause. 'He seems almost too pretty for a boy, doesn't he?'
Ruth smiled. 'People always take him for a girl at first,' she said. 'Yesterday I took him with me to the Monopole Stores to buy some things, and the manager would hardly believe it wasn't a girl.'
The man reached out his hand and stroked the baby's face.
Although Slyme's behaviour had hitherto always been very correct, yet there was occasionally an indefinable something in his manner when they were alone that made Ruth feel conscious and embarrassed. Now, as she glanced up at him and saw the expression on his face she crimsoned with confusion and hastily lowered her eyes without replying to his last remark. He did not speak again either, and they remained for several minutes in silence, as if spellbound, Ruth oppressed with instinctive dread, and Slyme scarcely less agitated, his face flushed and his heart beating wildly. He trembled as he stood over her, hesitating and afraid.
And then the silence was suddenly broken by the creaking and clanging of the front gate, heralding the tardy coming of Easton. Slyme went out into the scullery and taking down the blacking brushes from the shelf began cleaning his boots.
It was plain from Easton's appearance and manner that he had been drinking, but Ruth did not reproach him in any way; on the contrary she seemed almost feverishly anxious to attend to his comfort.
When Slyme finished cleaning his boots he went upstairs to his room, receiving a careless greeting from Easton as he passed through the kitchen. He felt nervous and apprehensive that Ruth might say something to Easton, and was not quite able to reassure himself with the reflection that after all, there was nothing to tell. As for Ruth, she had to postpone the execution of her hastily formed resolution to tell her husband of Slyme's strange behaviour, for Easton fell asleep in his chair before he had finished his dinner, and she had some
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