One thing I do know is that we shall starve and I
suppose I shall have to go about and beg. I haven't even another
pair of shoes or stockings to my feet."
Zachariah pondered for a moment. His first impulse was something
very different; but at last he rose, went up to his wife, kissed her
softly on the forehead, and said:
"Never mind, my dear; courage, you will have your clothes next week.
Come with me and look out for a lodging."
Mrs. Zachariah, however, shook herself free--not violently, but still
decidedly--from his caresses.
"Most likely seized by the Government. Look for a lodging! That's
just like you! How can I go out in this pouring rain?"
Zachariah lately, at any rate, had ceased to expect much affection in
his wife for him; but he thought she was sensible, and equal to any
complexity of circumstances, or even to disaster. He thought this,
not on any positive evidence; but he concluded, somewhat absurdly,
that her coldness meant common sense and capacity for facing trouble
courageously and with deliberation. He had now to find out his
mistake, and to learn that the absence of emotion neither proves, nor
is even a ground for suspecting, any good whatever of a person; that,
on the contrary, it is a ground for suspecting weakness, and possibly
imbecility.
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