Page 709 - of-human-bondage-

LXXXVIII

here was a knock at the door and a troop of children
Tcame in. They were clean and tidy, now. their faces
shone with soap, and their hair was plastered down; they
were going to Sunday school under Sally’s charge. Athelny
joked with them in his dramatic, exuberant fashion, and
you could see that he was devoted to them all. His pride in
their good health and their good looks was touching. Philip
felt that they were a little shy in his presence, and when their
father sent them off they fled from the room in evident re-
lief. In a few minutes Mrs. Athelny appeared. She had taken
her hair out of the curling pins and now wore an elaborate
fringe. She had on a plain black dress, a hat with cheap flow-
ers, and was forcing her hands, red and coarse from much
work, into black kid gloves.
‘I’m going to church, Athelny,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing
you’ll be wanting, is there?’
‘Only your prayers, my Betty.’
‘They won’t do you much good, you’re too far gone for
that,’ she smiled. Then, turning to Philip, she drawled: ‘I
can’t get him to go to church. He’s no better than an athe-
ist.’
‘Doesn’t she look like Rubens’ second wife?’ cried Athelny.
‘Wouldn’t she look splendid in a seventeenth-century cos-
tume? That’s the sort of wife to marry, my boy. Look at her.’

0 Of Human Bondage