“Presume, madam, presume—in my own house!”
She jumped up, and came at him with such a whisk of skirts that involuntarily he retreated a step before her.
“You dare!” she said: “when the very first time we met you had the brazen impudence to kiss me. Presume, indeed—and in your own house! A nice house, this, to pretend to any airs of propriety.”
“There are distinctions to be made, madam, which perhaps you can hardly be expected to appreciate.”
“Between me and another? Why, deuce take you!” cried the lady. “Are you telling me I’m not respectable?”
She quivered on the verge of an explosion. He was a little alarmed. It had been foolish of him to lay aside, just because his wife was not by, the part he was affecting to play. He had forgotten, in his peevishness, that it was as necessary to mislead the visitor as to his sentiments as it was her ladyship. Yet he could not command his temper all in a moment.
“Are you telling me,” he said, “that my house is not?”
Her eyes sparkled at him.
“I can’t appreciate distinctions, you know,” she said, “or I might understand why my lady may do just what I do, and be respected for it, while I for my part have to suffer all manner of sauce and impudence. One of these days I shall be taking two of those precious grooms of yours and knocking their heads together.”
He frowned, setting his lips.