"I got Sir Marmaduke's sanction the day before I left."
"Then you got the sanction of an illiterate, ignorant, self-sufficient, and most contemptible old man; and much good may it do you."
"Let him be what he may, I was glad to have it. Most probably I shall never see him again. He sails from Southampton for the Mandarins on this day week."
"He does,—does he? May the devil sail along with him!—that is all I say. And does my much-respected and ever-to-be-beloved mother-in-law sail with him?"
"They all return together,—except Nora."
"Who remains to comfort you? I hope you may be comforted;—that is all. Don't be too particular. Let her choose her own friends, and go her own gait, and have her own way, and do you be blind and deaf and dumb and properly submissive; and it may be that she'll give you your breakfast and dinner in your own house,—so long as your hours don't interfere with her pleasures. If she should even urge you beside yourself by her vanity, folly, and disobedience,—so that at last you are driven to express your feeling,—no doubt she will come to you after a while and tell you with the sweetest condescension that she forgives you. When she has been out of your house for a twelvemonth or more, she will offer to come back to you, and to forget everything,—on condition that you will do exactly as she bids you for the future."
This attempt at satire, so fatuous, so plain, so false, together with the would-be jaunty manner of the speaker, who, however, failed repeatedly in his utterances from sheer physical exhaustion, was excessively painful to Stanbury. What can one do at any time with a madman? "I mentioned my marriage," said he, "to prove my right to have an additional interest in your wife's happiness."
"You are quite welcome, whether you marry the other one or not;—welcome to take any interest you please. I have got beyond all that, Stanbury;—yes, by Jove, a long way beyond all that."
"You have not got beyond loving your wife, and your child, Trevelyan?"
"Upon my word, yes;—I think I have. There may be a grain of weakness left, you know. But what have you to do with my love for my wife?"