`You know that poor fellow Malins?' he said quickly.
`Yes. What about him?'
`Well, poor fellow, be's a decent sort of chap, after all,' continued Gabriel in a false voice. `He gave me back that sovereign I lent him, and I didn't expect it, really. It's a pity he wouldn't keep away from that Browne, because he's not a bad fellow, really.'
He was trembling now with annoyance. Why did she seem so abstracted? He did not know how he could begin. Was she annoyed, too, about something? If she would only turn to him or come to him of her own accord! To take her as she was would be brutal. No, he must see some ardour in her eyes first. He longed to be master of her strange mood.
`When did you lend him the pound?' she asked, after a pause.
Gabriel strove to restrain himself from breaking out into brutal language about the sottish Malins and his pound. He longed to cry to her from his soul, to crush her body against his, to overmaster her. But he said:
`O, at Christmas, when he opened that little Christmas-card shop, in Henry Street.'
He was in such a fever of rage and desire that he did not hear her come from the window.