第5章

It must be that Mr Verloc was susceptible to these fascinations.Mr Verloc was an intermittent patron.He came and went without any very apparent reason.He generally arrived in London (like the influenza) from the Continent, only he arrived unheralded by the press; and his visitations set in with great severity.He breakfasted in bed, and remained wallowing there with an air of quiet enjoyment till noon every day - and sometimes even to a later hour.But when he went out he seemed to experience a great difficulty in finding his way back to his temporary home in the Belgravian square.

He left it late, and returned to it early - as early as three or four in the morning; and on waking up at ten addressed Winnie, bringing in the breakfast tray, with jocular, exhausted civility, in the hoarse, failing tones of a man who had been talking vehemently for many hours together.

His prominent, heavy-lidded eyes rolled sideways amorously and languidly, the bedclothes were pulled up to his chin, and his dark smooth moustache covered his thick lips capable of much honeyed banter.

In Winnie's mother's opinion Mr Verloc was a very nice gentleman.From her life's experience gathered in various `business houses' the good woman had taken into her retirement an ideal of gentlemanliness as exhibited by the patrons of private-saloon bars.Mr Verloc approached that ideal;he attained it, in fact.

`Of course, we'll take over your furniture, mother,' Winnie had remarked.

The lodging-house was to be given up.It seems it would not answer to carry it on.It would have been too much trouble for Mr Verloc.It would not have been convenient for his other business.What his business was he did not say; but after his engagement to Winnie he took the trouble to get up before noon, and descending the basement stairs, make himself pleasant to Winnie's mother in the breakfast-room downstairs where she had her motionless being.He stroked the cat, poked the fire, had his lunch served to him there.He left its slightly stuffy cosiness with evident reluctance, but, all the same, remained out till the night was far advanced.

He never offered to take Winnie to theatres, as such a nice gentleman ought to have done.His evenings were occupied.His work was in a way political, he told Winnie once.She would have, he warned her, to be very nice to his political friends.And with her straight, unfathomable glance she answered that she would be so, of course.

How much more he told her as to his occupation it was impossible for Winnie's mother to discover.The married couple took her over with the furniture.The mean aspect of the shop surprised her.The change from the Belgravian square to the narrow street in Soho affected her legs adversely.

They became of an enormous size.On the other hand, she experienced a complete relief from material cares.Her son-in-law's heavy good nature inspired her with a sense of absolute safety.Her daughter's future was obviously assured, and even as to her son Stevie she need have no anxiety.She had not been able to conceal from herself that he was a terrible encumbrance, that poor Stevie.But in view of Winnie's fondness for her delicate brother, and of Mr Verloc's kind and generous disposition, she felt that the poor boy was pretty safe in this rough world.And in her heart of hearts she was not perhaps displeased that the Verlocs had no children.As that circumstance seemed perfectly indifferent to Mr Verloc, and as Winnie found an object of quasi-maternal affection in her brother, perhaps this was just as well for poor Stevie.