Title | The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists |
Page | 515 |
Chapter | -- |
Text |
The baby was asleep in the cradle. Slyme had gone up to his own room, and Ruth was sitting sewing by the fireside. The table was still set for two persons, for she had not yet taken her tea. Easton lurched in noisily. `'Ello, old girl!' he cried, throwing his dinner basket carelessly on the floor with an affectation of joviality and resting his hands on the table to support himself. `I've come at last, you see.' Ruth left off sewing, and, letting her hands fall into her lap, sat looking at him. She had never seen him like this before. His face was ghastly pale, the eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed, the lips tremulous and moist, and the ends of the hair of his fair moustache, stuck together with saliva and stained with beer, hung untidily round his mouth in damp clusters. |