"No. I don't quite know where she is. She has got a wandering fit on. Come and have some lunch with me, and I'll tell you all the news."
They turned into a restaurant, and had a meal which took a long time to get through. In the middle of the afternoon they parted, on the understanding that he would dine with her later in her own house. At the end of the few days that were virtually filled with him, Mrs Ewing sat down in her fine boudoir to weep over her hard fate.
"Oh, why wasn't HE the one to have the money! Oh, why do we meet again, now that it is too late!"
At the end of a few more days she went to her old husband to ask him how he was. He said he was a bit troubled with his lumbago, but otherwise fairly well.
"What you want," said she, "is a sea-voyage."
He thought not. He had never found the sea suit him. And travelling was a great fatigue. And it was the wrong time of year for it, anyhow. They had a good home, and it was the best place.
But she knew better. She had made up her mind, and it was useless for him to rebel. The sea-voyage was decided on—not so much because it would benefit his health as because his young wife had not seen England and Europe, and was dying to do so.
Then they discussed routes.
"The thing to do," said Mrs Ewing, "is not to crowd up with that lot in the mail steamers, where you can't do as you like, or have any special attentions, but to go in a smaller vessel, where you would be of some importance, and have your liberty, and plenty of space, and no tiresome rules and restrictions—"
"My dear child, you don't know those second-rate lines. I do. I assure you you'd be very sorry for yourself if I let you travel by them. They are not YOUR style at all."