"And the whole truth."
"Yes; the whole truth."
"Should it be so I will never see her again,—never. And as for him;—but never mind." Then there was another short period of silence, during which Stanbury smoked his pipe and sipped his whisky toddy. "You must see," continued Trevelyan, "that it is absolutely necessary that I should do something. It is all very well for you to say that you do not like detectives. Neither do I like them. But what was I to do? When you condemn me you hardly realise the difficulties of my position."
"It is the deuce of a nuisance certainly," said Stanbury, through the cloud of smoke,—thinking now not at all of Mrs. Trevelyan, but of Mrs. Trevelyan's sister.
"It makes a man almost feel that he had better not marry at all," said Trevelyan.
"I don't see that. Of course there may come troubles. The tiles may fall on your head, you know, as you walk through the streets. As far as I can see, women go straight enough nineteen times out of twenty. But they don't like being,—what I call looked after."
"And did I look after my wife more than I ought?"
"I don't mean that; but if I were married,—which I never shall be, for I shall never attain to the respectability of a fixed income,—I fancy I shouldn't look after my wife at all. It seems to me that women hate to be told about their duties."
"But if you saw your wife, quite innocently, falling into an improper intimacy,—taking up with people she ought not to know,—doing that in ignorance, which could not but compromise yourself;—wouldn't you speak a word then?"
"Oh! I might just say, in an off-hand way, that Jones was a rascal, or a liar, or a fool, or anything of that sort. But I would never caution her against Jones. By George, I believe a woman can stand anything better than that."