Hubbard straightened his shoulders. His expression had grown quite superior during my tirade, and when it was over, it was plain that he looked down on me from the heights of a philosophic Aconcagua.
"I would not advertise those opinions if I were you," he observed with a slight sneer. "They have a grain of truth in them, but not enough to conceal the brand of special advocate. I suppose you do not wish to be regarded as a social reformer?"
"I shall be content to reform one woman—if ever I marry," I answered, with a straight face, though it was hard to keep it straight.
"She has my unmeasured sympathy," said Hubbard. "Once upon a time I was a woman-hater—but in my most uncharitable moments I was never such a fool as you. You will forgive my plain speaking?"
"Certainly, Hubbard, certainly. You are not responsible. It is plain to me that Lady Helen has bewitched you. One of these days you'll be lauding her as a creature of incomparable excellences—a very paragon of merit and a pattern of the virtues. I can see it coming. I am sorry, for, of course, I know what she is."
Hubbard turned crimson. He snapped his teeth together and rapped out: "See here, Pinsent, we are very old friends, but I'll be damned if I allow you to disparage my wife. Is that plain?"
I took out my cigarette case. "Perfectly," I murmured.
He glared at me for a moment, then scowled still more blackly and growled deep in throat: "I can't think what has come over you. You haven't the least right or cause to hate her. It's positively unmanly. Especially as she thinks of you far more highly than you deserve. She feels it, too. You must have shown her how you regard her. She made me feel a brute."
"Look here, Hubbard," I cried, with a nicely assumed show of indignation, "I want to oblige you and I want to keep the peace between us, but I shan't be able to if you keep on defending her when you know as well as I——"
"What?" he thundered.