‘I dislike her because her words sting even when they sound softest, because she will never look at one straight. I dislike her,’ said Dinah, feeling her cheeks burn with shame and indignation, ‘because she calls you “Gaston” when she speaks of you.’
At this terrible climax Mr. Arbuthnot laughed, so heartily that the quiet undulating sandhills echoed again. Far ahead Mrs. Linda might perhaps have caught the ring of his voice, have marvelled what subject people who had been married four mortal years could find to laugh about.
‘This is a black accusation. Happily, whatever her sins in my absence, Mrs. Thorne does not call me “Gaston” to my face.’
Dinah was silent. Gaston’s assurances had never carried the same weight with her since Saturday’s rose-show, the occasion when she learned of midnight adjournments to Dr. Thorne’s house, and of the singing of French songs after a certain mess dinner. Her own conscience was rigid. To suppress a truth was, according to Dinah’s code, precisely the same as to utter an untruth. She allowed no margin for her husband’s offhand histories—as a woman of larger mind would possibly have done. She could not see that carelessness, a quick imagination, and an intense love of peace, were factors sufficiently strong to account for any little inconsistencies that might now and again creep into Gaston Arbuthnot’s domestic confidences.
‘Of that I cannot judge. I suppose I ought not to care what Mrs. Thorne does or says in my absence.’
‘Of course you ought not. The speech is worthy of your thorough common-sense, Dinah.’
‘But Mrs. Thorne calls you “Gaston” to me, and I think it a very wretched, unkind thing to do. I think it mean.’
‘You ought not to think of it at all. Artist people are called by the first name that comes to hand.’
‘Mrs. Thorne is not an artist.’
‘She remembers me, in the old days when I knew Camors, as a budding one.’