Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett — Read

When Henry came home, limping, taciturn and absorbed, in the afternoon, Violet examined him carefully with her glance, and, asking no questions, gave him the written list of the day's transactions, which he always wanted, and which today was quite a good one. He, on his part, asked no questions either -- he said not an inquiring word even about the visit of Mr. Bauersch; the name and the sum noted on the list sufficed his curiosity for the moment. (Out of compassion for his fatigue, Violet said not a word about his trickery in the matter of the removal of Mr. Bauersch's books.) After a sale he would sit down to his desk and study the catalogue marked with his purchases, and he would transfer the details into a special book; he must do this before anything else. Violet went upstairs, leaving him alone in the office to guard the shop.

She went upstairs to the kitchen and to her conspiracies and to the secret half of her double life which had recently commenced. Although apparently she had accomplished little in the way of modifying the daily routine of the establishment and household, that little amounted spiritually to a great deal. And it had been done almost without increased expense -- save for gas. Her achievement generally was symbolized and figured in the abolition of the thermos flask from which Henry was used to take his tea, made many hours earlier when the gas was "going. " The abolition of the thermos flask had been an event in the domestic annals. (Henry afterwards sold the contrivance for half a crown.) Violet would have tea set on the table in the dining room; she would have fresh tea; she refused to drink thermos-preserved tea; she would have plates and bread and margarine on the table. And, considering that tea -- now served immediately on the closing of the shop -- was the last meal or snack of the day in that abode, none could fairly accuse her of innovating in an extravagant manner. Still, the disappearance of the thermos flask was regarded by everybody in the house as the crown of a sort of revolution. Such was the force of the individuality of Mr. Earlforward, who had scarcely complained, scarcely argued, scarcely protested! He had opposed simply his quiet blandness and had yielded -- and the revolutionary yet marvelled at her own courage and her success, and had a sensation akin to being out of breath.