He stopped before the gate of his own
little dwelling. There were yellow curtains in the window, tied back
with red velvet. Even with the latch of the gate in his hand, he
hesitated. A child in a spotted velveteen suit and a soiled lace
collar, who had been playing in the street, greeted him with an amazed
shout and then ran on ahead.
"Mummy, come and look at Daddy!" the boy shrieked. "He's cut off all
the hair from his lip and he's got such funny clothes on! Do come and
look at his hat!"
The child was puny, unprepossessing, and dirty. Worse tragedy than
this, Burton knew it. The woman who presently appeared to gaze at him
with open-mouthed wonder, was pretentiously and untidily dressed, with
some measure of good looks woefully obscured by a hard and unsympathetic
expression. Burton knew these things also. It flashed into his mind as
he stood there that her first attraction to him had been because she
resembled his ill-conceived idea of an actress. As a matter of fact,
she resembled much more closely her cousin, who was a barmaid. Burton
looked into the tragedy of his life and shivered.
"What in the name of wonder's the meaning of this, Alfred?" his better
half demanded. "What are you standing there for, looking all struck of
a heap?"
He made no reply.
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