“I can imagine it may not be all that one would desire; but still—”
“It comes well from you to talk of submitting and yielding,” burst out Lady Lendrick. “I certainly have not yet detected these traits in your character; and I tell you frankly, you and Sir William could not live a week under the same roof together. Don't you agree with me, Lucy?”
“What should she know about it?” said he, fiercely; and before she could reply, “I don't suspect she knows a great deal about me,—she knows nothing at all about him.”
“Well, would you like to live with him yourself, Lucy?” asked Lady Lendrick.
“I don't say I 'd like it, but I think it might be done,” said she, faintly, and scarcely raising her eyes as she spoke.
“Of course, then, my intractable temper is the cause of all our incompatibility; my only consolation is that I have a son and a daughter-in-law so charmingly endowed that their virtues are more than enough to outweigh my faults.”
“What I say is this,” said the Colonel, sternly,—“I think the man is a bore or a bully, but that he need n't be both if one does n't like it. Now I 'd consent to be bored, to escape being bullied, which is precisely the reverse of what you appear to have done.”
“I am charmed with the perspicuity you display. I hope, Lucy, that it tends to the happiness of your married life to have a husband so well able to read character.”
Apparently this was a double-headed shot, for neither spoke for several minutes.
“I declare I almost wish he would put you to the test,” said Lady Lendrick. “I mean, I wish he'd ask you to the Priory.”