This detachment from the material world was so complete that, though the mortal envelope of Mr Verloc had not hastened unduly along the streets, that part of him to which it would be unwarrantably rude to refuse immortality, found itself at the shop door all at once, as if borne from west to east on the wings of a great wind.
He walked straight behind the counter, and sat down on a wooden chair that stood there.

No one appeared to disturb his solitude.

Stevie, put into a green baize apron, was now sweeping and dusting upstairs, intent and conscientious, as though he were playing at it; and Mrs Verloc, warned in the kitchen by the clatter of the cracked bell, had merely come to the glazed door of the parlour, and putting the curtain aside a little, had peered into the dim shop.

Seeing her husband sitting there shadowy and bulky, with his hat tilted far back on his head, she had at once returned to her stove.

An hour or more later she took the green baize apron off her brother Stevie, and instructed him to wash his hands and face in the peremptory tone she had used in that connection for fifteen years or so--ever since she had, in fact, ceased to attend to the boy's hands and face herself.