She ran out and brought them back before he could stop her again.
'Who is this Mrs Raymond?' he then asked.
'Oh, she's a very nice woman—a widow. Really quite suitable in age to Lord Selsey. Not young. She's not a bit pretty and not in his set at all. He took the most violent fancy to her at first sight, it seems. She had vowed never to marry again, but he persuaded her.'
'Well,' said Bruce, striking a match, 'they didn't consult me! They must go their own way. I'm sorry for them, of course. Lord Selsey always seemed to me a very agreeable chap, so it seems rather a pity. At the same time, I suppose it's a bad thing—in the worldly sense—for Reeve, and that's satisfactory.'
'Oh! I think he's all right, said Edith, and she smiled thoughtfully.
'You're always smiling, Edith,' he complained. 'Particularly when I have something to annoy me.'
'Am I? I believe I read in the "Answers to Correspondents" in Home Chirps that a wife should always have a bright smile if her husband seemed depressed.'
'Good heavens! How awful! Why, it would be like living with a Cheshire cat!'
Edith warmly began to defend herself from the accusation, when Bruce stopped her by saying that his temperature had gone up, and asking her to fetch the clinical thermometer.
Having snatched it from her and tried it, he turned pale and said in a hollow voice—