Mrs. Maldon had risen to welcome him with the punctilious warmth due to an old gentleman, a trustee, and a notability.  She told him as to her own health and inquired about his.  But he ignored her smooth utterances, in the ardour of following his nose.

“Sings worse than ever!  Very unhealthy too!  Haven’t I told ye and told ye?  You ought to let me put electricity in for you.  It isn’t as if it wasn’t your own house....  Pay ye!  Pay ye over and over again!”

He sat down in a chair by the table, drew off his loose black gloves, and after letting them hover irresolutely over the encumbered table, deposited them for safety in the china slop-basin.

“I dare say you’re quite right,” said Mrs. Maldon with grave urbanity.  “But really gas suits me very well.  And you know the gas-manager complains so much about the competition of electricity.  Truly it does seem unfair, doesn’t it, as they both belong to the town!  If I gave up gas for electricity I don’t think I could look the poor man in the face at church.  And all these changes cost money!  How is dear Enid?”

Mr. Batchgrew had now stretched out his legs and crossed one over the other; and he was twisting his thumbs on his diaphragm.

“Enid?  Oh!  Enid!  Well, I did hear she’s able to nurse the child at last.”  He spoke of his grand-daughter-in-law as of one among a multiplicity of women about whose condition vague rumours reached him at intervals.

Mrs. Maldon breathed fervently—­“I’m so thankful!  What a blessing that is, isn’t it?”

“As for costing money, Elizabeth,” Mr. Batchgrew proceeded, “you’ll be all right now for money.”  He paused, sat up straight with puffings, and leaned sideways against the table.  Then he said, half fiercely—­ “I’ve settled up th’ Brougham Street mortgage.”

“You don’t say so!” Mrs. Maldon was startled.

“I do!”

“When?”

“To-day.”

“Well—­”

“That’s what I stepped in for.”

Mrs. Maldon feebly murmured, with obvious emotion—­

“You can’t imagine what a relief it is to me!” Tears shone in her dark, mild eyes.

“Look ye!” exclaimed the trustee curtly.

He drew from his breast pocket a bank envelope of linen, and then, glancing at the table, pushed cups and saucers abruptly away to make a clear space on the white cloth.  The newspaper slipped rustling to the floor on the side near the window.  Already his gloves were abominable in the slop-basin, and now with a single gesture he had destroyed the symmetry of the set table.  Mrs. Maldon with surpassing patience smiled sweetly, and assured herself that Mr. Batchgrew could not help it.  He was a coarse male creature at large in a room highly feminized.  It was his habit thus to pass through orderly interiors, distributing havoc, like a rough soldier.  You might almost hear a sword clanking in the scabbard.