“’Aven’t madam an independent life?”
“Havin’ an independent life don’t make it easier to stay where you’re not wanted.”
“Oh, if madam’s lookin’ first for what’s easy––”
“I’m not. I’m lookin’ first for what he’ll like.”
Hanging the hearth-brush in its place he took the tongs to adjust a smoking log. “I’ve been lookin’ for what ’e’d like ever since ’e was born; and now I see that gettin’ so much of what ’e liked ’asn’t been good for ’im. If madam’d strike out on ’er own line, whether ’e liked it or not, and keep at it till ’e ’ad to like it––”
“Oh, but when it’s—” she sought for the right word—“when it’s so humiliatin’––”
“Humiliatin’ things is not so ’ard to bear, once you’ve myde up your mind as they’re to be borne.” He put up the tongs, to busy himself with the poker. “Madam’ll find that humiliation is a good deal like that there quinine; bitter to the tyste, but strengthenin’. I’ve swallered lots of it; and look at me to-dye.”
“I know as well as he does that it’s all been a crazy mistake––”
“I was readin’ the other day—I’m fond of a good book, I am—occupies the mind like—but I was readin’ about a circus man in South Africa, what ’e myde a mistyke and took the wrong tryle—and just when ’e was a-givin’ ’imself up for lost among the tigers and 149 the colored savages ’e found ’e’d tumbled on a mine of diamonds. Big ’ouse in Park Lyne in London now, and ’is daughter married to a Lord.”
“Oh, I’ve tumbled into the mine of diamonds all right. The question is––”