Not a word had been said between the husband and wife as to the great question of residence till they had returned to the deanery after their walk. Then Lord George found himself unable to conceal from her the offer which the Dean had made. "Oh, George,—why don't you come?"
"It would not be—fitting."
"Fitting! Why not fitting? I think it would fit admirably. I know it would fit me." Then she leaned over him and took his hand and kissed it.
"It was very good of your father."
"I am sure he meant to be good."
"It was very good of your father," Lord George repeated,—"very good indeed; but it cannot be. A married woman should live in her husband's house and not in her father's."
Mary gazed into his face with a perplexed look, not quite understanding the whole question, but still with a clear idea as to a part of it. All that might be very true, but if a husband didn't happen to have a house then might not the wife's father's house be a convenience? They had indeed a house, provided no doubt with her money, but not the less now belonging to her husband, in which she would be very willing to live if he pleased it,—the house in Munster Court. It was her husband that made objection to their own house. It was her husband who wished to live near Manor Cross, not having a roof of his own under which to do so. Were not these circumstances which ought to have made the deanery a convenience to him? "Then what will you do?" she asked.
"I cannot say as yet." He had become again gloomy and black-browed.
"Wouldn't you come here—for a week?"
"I think not, my dear."