Charity understood what associations the
name must have called up, and felt the uselessness of struggling against
the unseen influences in Harney's life.
When she came down from her room for supper he was not there; and while
she waited in the porch she recalled the tone in which Mr. Royall had
commented the day before on their early start. Mr. Royall sat at her
side, his chair tilted back, his broad black boots with side-elastics
resting against the lower bar of the railings. His rumpled grey hair
stood up above his forehead like the crest of an angry bird, and the
leather-brown of his veined cheeks was blotched with red. Charity knew
that those red spots were the signs of a coming explosion.
Suddenly he said: "Where's supper? Has Verena Marsh slipped up again on
her soda-biscuits?"
Charity threw a startled glance at him. "I presume she's waiting for Mr.
Harney."
"Mr. Harney, is she? She'd better dish up, then. He ain't coming." He
stood up, walked to the door, and called out, in the pitch necessary to
penetrate the old woman's tympanum: "Get along with the supper, Verena.
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