Payment Deferred by C.S. Forester — Read

When Annie Marble woke in the early morning she was oppressed with a headache -- a real headache, this time. She had had a restless night, although, true to his word, astonishingly enough, her husband had not disturbed her when he came up. At this very moment he was sleeping heavily at her side. She turned in the bed and looked at him in the half light that was straying through the untidy blinds. He lay on his back, his sparse hair standing on end, his eyes closed and his mouth open, his bristling red moustaches reinforced now by a coarse but scanty growth of beard. His hands clutched the sheets, and his breath passed in and out of his mouth with a stertorous sound. To most people he would have been an unpleasing picture, but Annie Marble did not think so. She was used to it in any case, and his present helpless attitude and appearance always roused the mother spirit within her which was almost her sole ordinary characteristic now. She would have liked to have taken him into her arms and hugged him a little, but she would not do so for fear of disturbing him.

Instead, she began to wonder whether he had been successful in his management of his interview with the strange nephew last night. She hoped so. She knew he had been worried about money lately; he had told her so on occasions. And he had cut down the money he was accustomed to give her. That didn't matter much, as Mr. Evans and the milkman and the others were all so obliging. But he had been bothered about it, she knew. So she hoped the nephew -- she was sure she would never learn to call such a splendid young man plain "Jim" -- had done something for them. He ought to have done, for he had stayed long enough. She had heard them talking long after she had settled herself to sleep. The remembrance brought a new rush of dim recollections to her mind. Will had come upstairs then, just when she was nearly asleep. She remembered wondering what he came for. He had gone into the bathroom; she had heard his keys rattle as he unlocked, she supposed, his photographic cupboard. It was probably to get something he wanted to show Jim. There, she had got it quite natural that time. Jim must be interested in photography too.