Hubert wished he hadn’t seen the door close. If he had taken that walk home, he would have been very late, and he wouldn’t have seen the door close. But when had he ever walked home from work? Never. Rose had closed the door at the exact moment when she had every right to expect him home, and something in her attitude as she closed the door told him that she had seen him letting himself into the house. The more he thought back, the more he was sure he was right. In the glimpse he had had of her, there had been something hasty, he would even say furtive. Unless he was imagining things. But he knew he wasn’t imagining anything. She was down there now, wondering if he had seen the kitchen door close, and she was frightened, and he wondered what she was thinking about him. She had no right to behave like this. It was intolerable. The whole thing was intolerable.

Then he heard the kitchen door open and footsteps on the stairs. When Rose appeared in the doorway, Hubert felt such dislike that he smiled. He saw the confusion caused by the smile, and he saw her hand fasten on the doorknob as her hand always fastened on something — the back of a chair or her other hand — before she spoke.

“The tea is ready,” she said.

“I don’t want any tea,” Hubert said.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Why don’t you want your tea?”

She was standing stiffly and her face was pink. It was clear that she knew she was in the wrong.

“I don’t want any tea,” Hubert said. “That’s simple enough, isn’t it? And I can guarantee you this — the next time you shut a door in my face like that I’m going to walk out of this house and I won’t come back. I mean what I say.”

“Hubert, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

Hubert said nothing.

“Will you let me bring you up a tray?” she asked.

“Never mind about the tray,” Hubert said. “I don’t want your tray. If you’d only get out of here and leave me alone.”

Hubert watched until the door was shut, and then he leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees and began to study the red hearthrug. He began to hum softly:

“She is far from the land where her

young hero sleeps,

And lovers around her are sighing,

But —”