They heard a chair creak under him

Their conversation hung comatose in the air, switched up by Bechamel. They listened together. His feet stopped. Turned. Went out of the diningroom. Down the passage to the bedroom. Stopped again. "Poor chap!" said the barmaid. "She's a wicked woman!" "Sssh!" said Stephen. After a pause Bechamel went back to the dining-room. They heard a chair creak under him. Interlude of conversational eyebrows. "I'm going up," said Stephen, "to break the melancholy news to him." Bechamel looked up from a week-old newspaper as, without knocking, Stephen entered. Bechamel's face suggested a different expectation. "Beg pardon, sir," said Stephen, with a diplomatic cough. "Well?" said Bechamel, wondering suddenly if Jessie had kept some of her threats. If so, he was in for an explanation. But he had it ready. She was a monomaniac. "Leave me alone with her," he would say; "I know how to calm her." "Mrs. Beaumont," said Stephen. "WELL?" "Has gone." He rose with a fine surprise. "Gone!" he said with a half laugh. "Gone, sir. On her bicycle." "On her bicycle! Why?" "She went, sir, with Another Gentleman." This time Bechamel was really startled. "An--other Gentlemen! WHO?" "Another gentleman in brown, sir. Went into the yard, sir, got out the two bicycles, sir, and went off, sir--about twenty minutes ago." Bechamel stood with his eyes round and his knuckle on his hips. Stephen, watching him with immense enjoyment, speculated whether this abandoned husband would weep or curse, or rush off at once in furious pursuit. But as yet he seemed merely stunned. "Brown clothes?" he said. "And fairish?"