"Well, I think you might—well—er—express some regret that—that things haven't gone more harmoniously at home. You might hold out an olive branch, you know."
"Express regret?"
"Don't stand on a point of pride now. Haven't you sometimes been—well, a little exacting—a little quick-tempered?"
"Oh, you're in that old story, are you? Quick-tempered? Suppose I am! Haven't I enough to make me quick-tempered?"
"Yes, now you have. But what about the beginning?"
"Do you mean it was my fault in the beginning?"
"Don't you think so yourself? Partly, at all events?"
Lady Harriet took up a tortoiseshell paper-knife and played with it. Her eyes were set hard on John, who did not like the expression in them. He became less glad that he had undertaken the embassy.
"May a man desert and deceive his wife because she's a little quick-tempered?"
"No, no, of course not; that's absurd."