So at last Rosa complained to Lady Cicely Treherne, and made her the judge between her husband and herself. Lady Cicely drawled out a prompt but polite refusal to play that part. All that could be elicited from her, and that with difficulty, was, “Why quall with your husband about a cawwige; he is your best fwiend.”
“Ah, that he is,” said Rosa; “but Miss Lucas is a good friend, and she knows the world. We don't; neither Christopher nor I.”
So she continued to nag at her husband about it, and to say that he was throwing his only chance away.
Galled as he was by neglect, this was irritating, and at last he could not help telling her she was unreasonable. “You live a gay life, and I a sad one. I consent to this, and let you go about with these Lucases, because you were so dull; but you should not consult them in our private affairs. Their interference is indelicate and improper. I will not set up a carriage till I have patients to visit. I am sick of seeing our capital dwindle, and no income created. I will never set up a carriage till I have taken a hundred-guinea fee.”
“Oh! Then we shall go splashing through the mud all our days.”
“Or ride in a cab,” said Christopher, with a quiet doggedness that left no hope of his yielding.
One afternoon Miss Lucas called for Mrs. Staines to drive in the Park, but did not come up-stairs; it was an engagement, and she knew Mrs. Staines would be ready, or nearly. Mrs. Staines, not to keep her waiting, came down rather hastily, and in the very passage whipped out of her pocket a little glass, and a little powder puff, and puffed her face all over in a trice. She was then going out; but her husband called her into the study. “Rosa, my dear,” said he, “you were going out with a dirty face.”
“Oh!” cried she, “give me a glass.”
“There is no need of that. All you want is a basin and some nice rain-water. I keep a little reservoir of it.”
He then handed her the same with great politeness. She looked in his eye, and saw he was not to be trifled with. She complied like a lamb, and the heavenly color and velvet gloss that resulted were admirable.