Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies

The two friends talked of many things. And later on they spoke of sweethearts and of wives. Mate Damon’s experiences had apparently been wide and varied. They talked – or, rather, the mate talked, and Mr. Korner listened – of the olive-tinted beauties of the Spanish Main, of the dark-eyed passionate creoles, of the blond Junos of the Californian valleys. The mate had theories concerning the care and management of women: theories that, if the mate’s word could be relied upon, had stood the test of studied application. A new world opened out to Mr. Korner; a world where lovely women worshipped with doglike devotion men who, though loving them in return, knew how to be their masters. Mr. Korner, warmed gradually from cold disapproval to bubbling appreciation, sat entranced. Time alone set a limit to the recital of the mate’s adventures. At eleven o’clock the cook reminded them that the captain and the pilot might be aboard at any moment. Mr. Korner, surprised at the lateness of the hour, took a long and tender farewell of his cousin, and found St. Katherine’s Docks one of the most bewildering places out of which he had ever tried to escape. Under a lamp-post in the Minories, it suddenly occurred to Mr. Korner that he was an unappreciated man. Mrs. Korner never said and did the sort of things by means of which the beauties of the Southern Main endeavoured feebly to express their consuming passion for gentlemen superior in no way – as far as he could see – to Mr. Korner himself. Thinking over the sort of things Mrs. Korner did say and did do, tears sprung into Mr. Korner’s eyes. Noticing that a policeman was eyeing him with curiosity, he dashed them aside and hurried on. Pacing the platform of the Mansion House Station, where it is always draughty, the thought of his wrongs returned to him with renewed force. Why was there no trace of doglike devotion about Mrs. Korner? The fault – so he bitterly told himself – the fault was his. “A woman loves her master; it is her instinct,” mused Mr. Korner to himself. “Damme,” thought Mr. Korner, “I don’t believe that half her time she knows I am her master.”

“Go away,” said Mr. Korner to a youth of pasty appearance who, with open mouth, had stopped immediately in front of him.

“I’m fond o’ listening,” explained the pasty youth.

“Who’s talking?” demanded Mr. Korner.

“You are,” replied the pasty youth.

It is a long journey from the city to Ravenscourt Park, but the task of planning out the future life of Mrs. Korner and himself kept Mr. Korner wide awake and interested. When he got out of the train the thing chiefly troubling him was the three-quarters of a mile of muddy road stretching between him and his determination to make things clear to Mrs. Korner then and there.

The sight of Acacia Villa, suggesting that everybody was in bed and asleep, served to further irritate him. A dog-like wife would have been sitting up to see if there was anything he wanted. Mr. Korner, acting on the advice of his own brass plate, not only knocked but also rang. As the door did not immediately fly open, he continued to knock and ring. The window of the best bedroom on the first floor opened.

“Is that you?” said the voice of Mrs. Korner. There was, as it happened, a distinct suggestion of passion in Mrs. Korner’s voice, but not of the passion Mr. Korner was wishful to inspire. It made him a little more angry than he was before.

“Don’t you talk to me with your head out of the window as if this were a gallanty show. You come down and open the door,” commanded Mr. Korner.

“Haven’t you got your latchkey?” demanded Mrs. Korner.

For answer Mr. Korner attacked the door again. The window closed. The next moment but six or seven, the door was opened with such suddenness that Mr. Korner, still gripping the knocker, was borne inward in a flying attitude. Mrs. Korner had descended the stairs ready with a few remarks. She had not anticipated that Mr. Korner, usually slow of speech, could be even readier.

“Where’s my supper?” indignantly demanded Mr. Korner, still supported by the knocker.

Mrs. Korner, too astonished for words, simply stared.

“Where’s my supper?” repeated Mr. Korner, by this time worked up into genuine astonishment that it was not ready for him. “What’s everybody mean, going off to bed, when the masterororous hasn’t had his supper?”

“Is anything the matter, dear?” was heard the voice of Miss Greene, speaking from the neighbourhood of the first landing.

“Come in, Christopher,” pleaded Mrs. Korner, “please come in, and let me shut the door.”

Mrs. Korner was the type of young lady fond of domineering with a not un-graceful hauteur over those accustomed to yield readily to her; it is a type that is easily frightened.

“I wan’ grilled kinneys-on-toast,” explained Mr. Korner, exchanging the knocker for the hat-stand, and wishing the next moment that he had not. “Don’ let’s ‘avareytalk about it. Unnerstan’? I dowan’ any talk about it.”