Mr. Marrapit indicated the smouldering wedge.
George bent forward. “Tobacco,” he announced.
“My nose informed me. My eyes affirm. Yours?”
“My simple rule. In the vegetable garden you may smoke; here you may not. Is it so hard to observe?”
Mr. Marrapit cried: “Adjust that impression. You forgot me. Consistently you forget me. My desires, my interests are nothing to you.”
“It's a rotten thing to make a fuss about.”
“That is why I make a fuss. It _is_ a rotten thing. A disgusting and a noisome thing. Bury it.”
Into a bed of soft mould George struck a sullen heel; kicked the tobacco towards the pit. Mr. Marrapit chanted over the obsequies: “I provide you with the enormous expanse of my vegetable garden in which to smoke. Yet upon my little acre you intrude. I am Naboth.”
Ahab straightened his back; sighed heavily. Naboth started against the prick of a sudden recollection:
George half turned away. The bitterest moment of a sad day was come. He growled:
Mr. Marrapit put his hands to his head: “I shall go mad. My brain reels beneath these conundrums. I implore English.”
The confession of defeat is a thousandfold more bitter when made to unkind ears. George paled a little; spoke very clearly: “I failed. I was referred for three months.”
“I am Job,” groaned Mr. Marrapit. “I expected this. The strain is unendurable. It is unnatural. The next chance shall be your last. What is the fee for re-examination?”
Gloom brooded over Herons' Holt that evening. Gloom hung thickly about the rooms: blanketed conversation; veiled eyes that might have sparkled; choked appetites.
Nevertheless this was an atmosphere in which one member of the household felt most comfortable.
Margaret, Mr. Marrapit's only child, was nineteen; of sallow complexion, petite, pretty; with large brown eyes in which sat always a constant quest--an entreaty, a wistful yearning.
Hers was a clinging nature, readily responsive to the attraction of any stouter mind. Enthusiasm was in this girl, but it lay well-like--not as a spring. To stir it the influence of another was wanted; of itself, spontaneous, it could not leap. Aroused, there was no rush and surge of emotion--it welled, rose deeply; thickly, without ripple; crestless, flinging no intoxicating spume. Waves rush triumphant, hurtling forward the stick they support: the pool swells, leaving the stick quiescent, floating.