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It seemed to Philip that he could never say anything
without an oratorical flourish.
‘Then I’ll lay for her,’ said Sally.
She came back again in a moment with a tray on which
were a cottage loaf, a slab of butter, and a jar of strawber-
ry jam. While she placed the things on the table her father
chaffed her. He said it was quite time she was walking out;
he told Philip that she was very proud, and would have
nothing to do with aspirants to that honour who lined up at
the door, two by two, outside the Sunday school and craved
the honour of escorting her home.
‘You do talk, father,’ said Sally, with her slow, good-na-
tured smile.
‘You wouldn’t think to look at her that a tailor’s assis-
tant has enlisted in the army because she would not say how
d’you do to him and an electrical engineer, an electrical en-
gineer, mind you, has taken to drink because she refused
to share her hymn-book with him in church. I shudder to
think what will happen when she puts her hair up.’
‘Mother’ll bring the tea along herself,’ said Sally.
‘Sally never pays any attention to me,’ laughed Athelny,
looking at her with fond, proud eyes. ‘She goes about her
business indifferent to wars, revolutions, and cataclysms.
What a wife she’ll make to an honest man!’
Mrs. Athelny brought in the tea. She sat down and pro-
ceeded to cut bread and butter. It amused Philip to see that
she treated her husband as though he were a child. She
spread jam for him and cut up the bread and butter into
convenient slices for him to eat. She had taken off her hat;

0 Of Human Bondage