"Now then, you callous brute," said Ingpen to Edwin. "What do you say?"
And Hilda cried with swift, complaining sincerity:
"Oh! Edwin never praises me!"
Her sincerity convinced by its very artlessness. The complaint had come unsought from her heart. And it was so spontaneous and forcible that Tertius Ingpen, as a tactful guest, saw the advisability of easing the situation by laughter.
"Yes, I do!" Edwin protested, and though he was shocked, he laughed, in obedience to Ingpen's cue. It was true; he did praise her; but not frequently, and almost always in order to flatter her rather than to express his own emotion. Edwin did not care for praising people; he would enthusiastically praise a book, but not a human being. His way was to take efficiency for granted. "Not so bad," was a superlative of laudation with him. He was now shocked as much by the girl's outrageous candour as by the indisputable revelation that she went hungry for praise. Even to a close friend such as Ingpen, surely a wife had not the right to be quite so desperately sincere. Edwin considered that in the presence of a third person husband and wife should always at any cost maintain the convention of perfect conjugal amenity. He knew couples who achieved the feat,--Albert and Clara, for example. But Hilda, he surmised, had other ideas, if indeed she had ever consciously reflected upon this branch of social demeanour. Certainly she seemed at moments to lose all regard for appearances.
Moreover, she was polluting by acerbity the pure friendliness of the atmosphere, and endangering cheer.
"He's too wrapped up in the works to think about praising his wife," Hilda continued, still in the disconcerting vein of sincerity, but with less violence and a more philosophical air. The fact was that, although she had not regained the zest of the mood so rudely dissipated by the scene with Ada, she was kept cheerful by the mere successful exercise of her own energy in proving to these two men that servants were not in the least essential to the continuance of plenary comfort in her house; and she somewhat condescended towards Edwin.
"By the way, Teddie," said Ingpen, pulling lightly at his short beard, "I heard a rumour that you were going to stand for the Town Council in the South ward. Why didn't you?"
Edwin looked a little confused.
"Who told you that tale?"