He was a fair-haired fellow of thirty-two, with a fair moustache. He was
broad in his speech, and looked like a foundry-hand, which he was. But
women always liked him. There was something of a mother's lad about
him--something warm and playful and really sensitive.
He had his attractions even for Fanny. What she rebelled against so
bitterly was that he had no sort of ambition. He was a moulder, but of
very commonplace skill. He was thirty-two years old, and hadn't saved
twenty pounds. She would have to provide the money for the home. He
didn't care. He just didn't care. He had no initiative at all. He had no
vices--no obvious ones. But he was just indifferent, spending as he went,
and not caring. Yet he did not look happy. She remembered his face in the
fire-glow: something haunted, abstracted about it. As he sat there eating
his pork pie, bulging his cheek out, she felt he was like a doom to her.
And she raged against the doom of him. It wasn't that he was gross. His
way was common, almost on purpose. But he himself wasn't really common.
For instance, his food was not particularly important to him, he was not
greedy. He had a charm, too, particularly for women, with his blondness
and his sensitiveness and his way of making a woman feel that she was a
higher being. But Fanny knew him, knew the peculiar obstinate limitedness
of him, that would nearly send her mad.
He stayed till about half past nine.
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