‘My dear,’ urged Mr. Craggs, ‘your good opinion is invaluable, but I never avowed that the office was the enemy of your peace.’
‘No,’ said Mrs. Craggs, ringing a perfect peal upon the little bells. ‘Not you, indeed. You wouldn’t be worthy of the office, if you had the candour to.’
‘As to my having been away to-night, my dear,’ said Mr. Snitchey, giving her his arm, ‘the deprivation has been mine, I’m sure; but, as Mr. Craggs knows—’
Mrs. Snitchey cut this reference very short by hitching her husband to a distance, and asking him to look at that man. To do her the favour to look at him!
‘At which man, my dear?’ said Mr. Snitchey.
‘Your chosen companion; I’m no companion to you, Mr. Snitchey.’
‘Yes, yes, you are, my dear,’ he interposed.
‘No, no, I’m not,’ said Mrs. Snitchey with a majestic smile. ‘I know my station. Will you look at your chosen companion, Mr. Snitchey; at your referee, at the keeper of your secrets, at the man you trust; at your other self, in short?’
The habitual association of Self with Craggs, occasioned Mr. Snitchey to look in that direction.
‘If you can look that man in the eye this night,’ said Mrs. Snitchey, ‘and not know that you are deluded, practised upon, made the victim of his arts, and bent down prostrate to his will by some unaccountable fascination which it is impossible to explain and against which no warning of mine is of the least avail, all I can say is—I pity you!’