“Why didn’t she wake a fellow and take it off again?”
“Ah!”
“She can’t have cared very much for a man’s comfort, when she went away and left him like that.”
“Ah! there was the difficulty, Mr. Jones.”
“Difficulty! Who was it that had done it? To come to me in my bedroom in the middle of the night and put that thing on me, and then leave it there and say nothing about it! It seems to me deuced like a practical joke.”
“No, Mr. Jones.”
“That’s the way I look at it,” said Mr. Jones, plucking up his courage.
“There isn’t a woman in all England or in all France less likely to do such a thing than my wife. She’s as steady as a rock, Mr. Jones, and would no more go into another gentleman’s bedroom in joke than—Oh dear no! You’re going to be a married man yourself.”
“Unless all this makes a difference,” said Mr. Jones, almost in tears. “I had sworn that I would be with her this Christmas-eve.”
“O Mr. Jones, I cannot believe that will interfere with your happiness. How could you think that your wife, as is to be, would do such a thing as that in joke?”