'Thank you,' replied the child, turning away.
Siegmund sighed with relief when he was again left alone. He twisted in
his chair, and sighed again, trying to drive out the intolerable clawing
irritability from his belly.
'Ah, this is horrible!' he said.
He stiffened his muscles to quieten them.
'I've never been like this before. What is the matter?' he asked
himself.
But the question died out immediately. It seemed useless and sickening
to try and answer it. He began to cast about for an alleviation. If he
could only do something, or have something he wanted, it would
be better.
'What do I want?' he asked himself, and he anxiously strove to find this
out.
Everything he suggested to himself made him sicken with weariness or
distaste: the seaside, a foreign land, a fresh life that he had often
dreamed of, farming in Canada.
'I should be just the same there,' he answered himself. 'Just the same
sickening feeling there that I want nothing.' 'Helena!' he suggested to himself, trembling.
But he only felt a deeper horror. The thought of her made him shrink
convulsively.
'I can't endure this,' he said. If this is the case, I had better be
dead. To have no want, no desire--that is death, to begin with.' He rested awhile after this. The idea of death alone seemed
entertaining. Then, 'Is there really nothing I could turn to?' he
asked himself.
To him, in that state of soul, it seemed there was not.
'Helena!' he suggested again, appealingly testing himself. 'Ah, no!' he
cried, drawing sharply back, as from an approaching touch upon a
raw place.
He groaned slightly as he breathed, with a horrid weight of nausea.
There was a fumbling upon the door-knob. Siegmund did not start. He
merely pulled himself together. Gwen pushed open the door, and stood
holding on to the door-knob looking at him.
'Dad, Mam says dinner's ready,' she announced.
Siegmund did not reply. The child waited, at a loss for some moments,
before she repeated, in a hesitating tone: 'Dinner's ready.' 'All right,' said Siegmund. 'Go away.' The little girl returned to the kitchen with tears in her eyes, very
crestfallen.
'What did he say?' asked Beatrice.
'He shouted at me,' replied the little one, breaking into tears.
Beatrice flushed. Tears came into her own eyes. She took the child in
her arms and pressed her to her, kissing her forehead.
'Did he?' she said very tenderly. 'Never mind, then, dearie--never
mind.' The tears in her mother's voice made the child sob bitterly. Vera and
Marjory sat silent at table. The steak and mashed potatoes steamed and
grew cold.