Page 201 - of-human-bondage-

the Dutch spinster—‘if Fraulein Forster knew she would
leave at once. And if they all go we must close the house. I
cannot afford to keep it.’
‘Of course I won’t say anything.’
‘If she stays, I will not speak to her,’ said Anna.
That evening at supper Fraulein Cacilie, redder than
usual, with a look of obstinacy on her face, took her place
punctually; but Herr Sung did not appear, and for a while
Philip thought he was going to shirk the ordeal. At last he
came, very smiling, his little eyes dancing with the apol-
ogies he made for his late arrival. He insisted as usual on
pouring out the Frau Professor a glass of his Moselle, and
he offered a glass to Fraulein Forster. The room was very
hot, for the stove had been alight all day and the windows
were seldom opened. Emil blundered about, but succeeded
somehow in serving everyone quickly and with order. The
three old ladies sat in silence, visibly disapproving: the Frau
Professor had scarcely recovered from her tears; her hus-
band was silent and oppressed. Conversation languished. It
seemed to Philip that there was something dreadful in that
gathering which he had sat with so often; they looked dif-
ferent under the light of the two hanging lamps from what
they had ever looked before; he was vaguely uneasy. Once
he caught Cacilie’s eye, and he thought she looked at him
with hatred and contempt. The room was stifling. It was as
though the beastly passion of that pair troubled them all;
there was a feeling of Oriental depravity; a faint savour of
joss-sticks, a mystery of hidden vices, seemed to make their
breath heavy. Philip could feel the beating of the arteries in

00 Of Human Bondage