William returned to the lounge, but did not recline. Instead, he sat down and took his head in his hands. “I do wish you hadn’t talked about it,” he said gloomily.
Bella was sensitive; therefore she began to be angry. “Do you think it’s very intelligent,” she asked, “to imply that I don’t know enough not to make neighbourhood trouble? You may not recall that only last night you were sure that you were right and I was wrong about what sort of people these Sullenders are. Already, the very next day, you’ve had to confess that you were utterly mistaken and that your wife is wholly in the right. I suppose you may feel a little depressed about that and want to change the question to something else and claim I’m in the wrong about that. But don’t you think it’s a little bit childish of you, Will? Don’t you think that the way you’re taking your defeat is just a little bit—small?”
He was hurt, and looked up at her with an expression that showed the injury. “I’d hardly have expected you’d call me that,” he said. “At least, not quite so soon after our wedding-trip!”
“Well, I might have expected you wouldn’t be accusing me of gossiping harmfully,” she retorted. “Not quite so soon!”
Young Mr. Sperry rose again. “Do you think that’s as bad as using the epithet ‘small’ to your husband?”
“ ‘Epithet’?” she echoed. “You charge me with using ‘epithets’?”
“Well, but didn’t——”
“I think I’ll ask you to excuse me,” Bella said, with an aspect of nobility in suffering. Thereupon, proudly, she betook herself from the room.
It was a tiff. Next day they were as polite to each other as if they had just been introduced, and this ceremonial formality was maintained between them until the third evening after its installation, when a calamity caused them to abandon it. After a stately dinner in their hundred square feet of dining-room, Bella had gone out into the twilight to refresh her strips of iris with fair water from the garden hose, and William reclined upon his lounge, solitary with a gloomy pipe. Unexpectedly, he was summoned: Bella looked in upon him from the door and spoke hastily. “Uh—Mr. and Mrs. Sullender——” she said. “Uh——” And as hastily she withdrew.
Perturbed, he rose and went out to the little veranda, where, with a slightly nervous hospitality, Bella was now offering chairs to Mrs. George M. Sullender and her husband. Mrs. Sullender smilingly, and in her angelic voice, declined the offer.