“Heaps,” replied Mrs. Korner, who was sucking marmalade off her fingers.
By which Mrs. Korner meant that some half a dozen times in her life she had visited the play, choosing by preference the lighter form of British drama. The first time she witnessed the real thing, which happened just precisely a month later, long after the conversation here recorded had been forgotten by the parties most concerned, no one could have been more utterly astonished than was Mrs. Korner.
How it came about Mr. Korner was never able to fully satisfy himself. Mr. Korner was not the type that serves the purpose of the temperance lecturer. His “first glass” he had drunk more years ago than he could recollect, and since had tasted the varied contents of many others. But never before had Mr. Korner exceeded, nor been tempted to exceed, the limits of his favourite virtue, moderation.
“We had one bottle of claret between us,” Mr. Korner would often recall to his mind, “of which he drank the greater part. And then he brought out the little green flask. He said it was made from pears—that in Peru they kept it specially for Children's parties. Of course, that may have been his joke; but in any case I cannot see how just one glass—I wonder could I have taken more than one glass while he was talking.” It was a point that worried Mr. Korner.
The “he” who had talked, possibly, to such bad effect was a distant cousin of Mr. Korner's, one Bill Damon, chief mate of the steamship La Fortuna. Until their chance meeting that afternoon in Leadenhall Street, they had not seen each other since they were boys together. The Fortuna was leaving St. Katherine's Docks early the next morning bound for South America, and it might be years before they met again. As Mr. Damon pointed out, Fate, by thus throwing them into each other's arms, clearly intended they should have a cosy dinner together that very evening in the captain's cabin of the Fortuna.
Mr. Korner, returning to the office, despatched to Ravenscourt Park an express letter, announcing the strange news that he might not be home that evening much before ten, and at half-past six, for the first time since his marriage, directed his steps away from home and Mrs. Korner.
The two friends talked of many things. And later on they spoke of sweethearts and of wives. Mate Damon's experiences had apparently been wide and varied. They talked—or, rather, the mate talked, and Mr. Korner listened—of the olive-tinted beauties of the Spanish Main, of the dark-eyed passionate creoles, of the blond Junos of the Californian valleys. The mate had theories concerning the care and management of women: theories that, if the mate's word could be relied upon, had stood the test of studied application. A new world opened out to Mr. Korner; a world where lovely women worshipped with doglike devotion men who, though loving them in return, knew how to be their masters. Mr. Korner, warmed gradually from cold disapproval to bubbling appreciation, sat entranced. Time alone set a limit to the recital of the mate's adventures. At eleven o'clock the cook reminded them that the captain and the pilot might be aboard at any moment. Mr. Korner, surprised at the lateness of the hour, took a long and tender farewell of his cousin, and found St. Katherine's Docks one of the most bewildering places out of which he had ever tried to escape. Under a lamp-post in the Minories, it suddenly occurred to Mr. Korner that he was an unappreciated man. Mrs. Korner never said and did the sort of things by means of which the beauties of the Southern Main endeavoured feebly to express their consuming passion for gentlemen superior in no way—as far as he could see—to Mr. Korner himself. Thinking over the sort of things Mrs. Korner did say and did do, tears sprung into Mr. Korner's eyes. Noticing that a policeman was eyeing him with curiosity, he dashed them aside and hurried on. Pacing the platform of the Mansion House Station, where it is always draughty, the thought of his wrongs returned to him with renewed force. Why was there no trace of doglike devotion about Mrs. Korner? The fault—so he bitterly told himself—the fault was his. “A woman loves her master; it is her instinct,” mused Mr. Korner to himself. “Damme,” thought Mr. Korner, “I don't believe that half her time she knows I am her master.”
“Go away,” said Mr. Korner to a youth of pasty appearance who, with open mouth, had stopped immediately in front of him.
“I'm fond o' listening,” explained the pasty youth.
“Who's talking?” demanded Mr. Korner.
“You are,” replied the pasty youth.
It is a long journey from the city to Ravenscourt Park, but the task of planning out the future life of Mrs. Korner and himself kept Mr. Korner wide awake and interested. When he got out of the train the thing chiefly troubling him was the three-quarters of a mile of muddy road stretching between him and his determination to make things clear to Mrs. Korner then and there.
The sight of Acacia Villa, suggesting that everybody was in bed and asleep, served to further irritate him. A dog-like wife would have been sitting up to see if there was anything he wanted. Mr. Korner, acting on the advice of his own brass plate, not only knocked but also rang. As the door did not immediately fly open, he continued to knock and ring. The window of the best bedroom on the first floor opened.
“Is that you?” said the voice of Mrs. Korner. There was, as it happened, a distinct suggestion of passion in Mrs. Korner's voice, but not of the passion Mr. Korner was wishful to inspire. It made him a little more angry than he was before.
“Don't you talk to me with your head out of the window as if this were a gallanty show. You come down and open the door,” commanded Mr. Korner.
“Haven't you got your latchkey?” demanded Mrs. Korner.
For answer Mr. Korner attacked the door again. The window closed. The next moment but six or seven, the door was opened with such suddenness that Mr. Korner, still gripping the knocker, was borne inward in a flying attitude. Mrs. Korner had descended the stairs ready with a few remarks. She had not anticipated that Mr. Korner, usually slow of speech, could be even readier.
“Where's my supper?” indignantly demanded Mr. Korner, still supported by the knocker.
Mrs. Korner, too astonished for words, simply stared.
“Where's my supper?” repeated Mr. Korner, by this time worked up into genuine astonishment that it was not ready for him. “What's everybody mean, going off to bed, when the masterororous hasn't had his supper?”
“Is anything the matter, dear?” was heard the voice of Miss Greene, speaking from the neighbourhood of the first landing.
“Come in, Christopher,” pleaded Mrs. Korner, “please come in, and let me shut the door.”
Mrs. Korner was the type of young lady fond of domineering with a not un-graceful hauteur over those accustomed to yield readily to her; it is a type that is easily frightened.
“I wan' grilled kinneys-on-toast,” explained Mr. Korner, exchanging the knocker for the hat-stand, and wishing the next moment that he had not. “Don' let's 'avareytalk about it. Unnerstan'? I dowan' any talk about it.”
“What on earth am I to do?” whispered the terrified Mrs. Korner to her bosom friend, “there isn't a kidney in the house.”
“I should poach him a couple of eggs,” suggested the helpful bosom friend; “put plenty of Cayenne pepper on them. Very likely he won't remember.”
Mr. Korner allowed himself to be persuaded into the dining-room, which was also the breakfast parlour and the library. The two ladies, joined by the hastily clad staff, whose chronic indignation seemed to have vanished in face of the first excuse for it that Acacia Villa had afforded her, made haste to light the kitchen fire.
“I should never have believed it,” whispered the white-faced Mrs. Korner, “never.”
“Makes yer know there's a man about the 'ouse, don't it?” chirped the delighted staff. Mrs. Korner, for answer, boxed the girl's ears; it relieved her feelings to a slight extent.