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Mr. Pinner was a God-fearing man, who was afraid of everything except respectability. He married Mrs. Pinner when they were both twenty, and by the time they were both thirty if he had had to do it again he wouldn’t have. For Mrs. Pinner had several drawbacks. One was, she quarrelled; and Mr. Pinner, who prized peace, was obliged to quarrel too. Another was, she appeared to be unable to have children; and Mr. Pinner, who was fond of children, accordingly couldn’t have them either. And another, which while it lasted was in some ways the worst, was that she was excessively pretty.
This was most awkward in a shop. It continually put Mr. Pinner in false positions. And it seemed to go on so long. There seemed to be no end to the years of Mrs. Pinner’s prettiness. They did end, however; and when she was about thirty-five, worn out by her own unquiet spirit and the work of helping Mr. Pinner in the shop, as well as keeping house for him, which included doing everything single-handed, by God’s mercy she at last began to fade.
Mr. Pinner was pleased. For though her behaviour had been beyond criticism, and she had invariably, by a system of bridling and head-tossing, kept off familiarity on the part of male customers, still those customers had undoubtedly been more numerous than the others, and Mr. Pinner hadn’t liked it. It was highly unnatural, he knew, for gentlemen on their way home from their offices to wish to buy rice, for instance, when it had been bought earlier in the day by their wives or mothers. There was something underhand about it; and he, who being timid was also honest, found himself not able to be happy if there were a shadow of doubt in his mind as to the honourableness of any of his transactions. He never got used to these purchases, and was glad when the gradual disappearance of his wife’s beauty caused the gradual disappearance of the customers who made them. Money, it was true, was lost, but he preferred to lose it than to make it by means that verged in his opinion on shady.
