Not an idea that even of Cyril Maxon the rude gods might make sport!
"Who knows what'll happen three years hence?" she asked in gay tones, sharply cut off by a gasp in the throat.
"You've a cold?" he asked solicitously. He was not lacking in kindly protective instincts. Yet even his solicitude was peremptory. "I can't have you taking any risks."
"It's nothing," she gasped, now almost sure that she could never go through with her task. Even in kindness he assumed a property so absolute.
The brougham drew up at their house. "Nine-fifteen sharp to-morrow," Cyril told the coachman. That was no less, and no more, certain than Palestine and Damascus. He went through the hall (enlivened with prints of Lord Chancellors surviving and defunct) into his study. She followed, breathing quickly.
"I asked the Chippinstalls to dine next Wednesday. Will you send her a reminder to-morrow morning?" He began to fill his pipe. She shut the door and sat down in a chair in front of the fireplace.
There had always seemed to her something crushing in this workshop of learning, logic, and ambition. To-night the atmosphere was overwhelming; she felt flattened, ground down; she caught for her breath. He had lit his pipe and now glanced at her, puzzled by her silence. "There's nothing else on on Wednesday, is there?"
"Cyril, we're not happy, are we?"
He appeared neither aggrieved nor surprised at her sudden plunge; to her he seemed aggressively patient of the irrational.
"We have our difficulties, like other married couples, I suppose. I hope they will grow less as time goes on."