Mr. Haim was visible just within the doorway of the sitting-room, and behind him the table with the tea-things still on it.  George had felt considerably self-conscious in Mr. Haim’s presence at the office; and he was so preoccupied by his own secret mighty affair that his first suspicion connected the strange apparition of a new Mrs. Lobley and the peculiar look on Mr. Haim’s face with some disagreeable premature and dramatic explosion of the secret mighty affair.  His thoughts, though absurd, ran thus because they could not run in any other way.

“Ah, Mr. Cannon!” said Mr. Haim queerly.  “You’re in early to-night.”

“A bit earlier,” George admitted, with caution.  “Have to read, you know.”  He was using the word ‘read’ in the examination sense.

“If you could spare me a minute,” smiled Mr. Haim

“Certainly.”

“Have a cigarette,” said Mr. Haim, as soon as George had deposited his hat and come into the room.  This quite unprecedented offer reassured George, who in spite of reason had continued to fear that the landlord had something on his mind about his daughter and his lodger.  Mr. Haim presented his well-known worn cigarette-case, and then with precise and calm gestures carefully shut the door.

“The fact is,” said he, “I wanted to tell you something.  I told Mr. Enwright this afternoon, as I thought was proper, and it seems to me that you are the next person who ought to be informed.”

“Oh yes?”

“I am going to be married.”

“The deuce you are!”

The light words had scarcely escaped from young George before he perceived that his tone was a mistake, and that Mr. Haim was in a state of considerable emotion, which would have to be treated very carefully.  And George too now suddenly partook of the emotion.  He felt himself to be astonished and even shaken by Mr. Haim’s news.  The atmosphere of the interview changed in an instant.  Mr. Haim moved silently on slippered feet to the mantelpiece, out of the circle of lamplight, and dropped some ash into the empty fire-place.

“I congratulate you,” said George.

“Thank you!” said Mr. Haim brightly, seizing gratefully on the fustian phrase, eager to hall-mark it as genuine and put it among his treasures.  Without doubt he was flattered.  “Yes,” he proceeded, as it were reflectively, “I have asked Mrs. Lobley to be my wife, and she has done me the honour to consent.”  He had the air of having invented the words specially to indicate that Mrs. Lobley was descending from a throne in order to espouse him.  It could not have occurred to him that they had ever been used before and that the formula was classic.  He smiled again, and went on:  “Of course I’ve known and admired Mrs. Lobley for a long time.  What we should have done without her valuable help in this house I don’t like to think.  I really don’t.”

“‘Her help in this house,’” thought the ruthless George, behind cigarette smoke.  “Why doesn’t he say right out she’s the charwoman?  If I was marrying a charwoman, I should say I was marrying a charwoman.”  And then he had a misgiving:  “Should I?  I wonder whether I should.”  And he remembered that ultimately the charwoman was going to be his own mother-in-law.  He was aware of a serious qualm.