“I’ve finished with those crow’s clothes,” she said, slipping her hand through his arm, and looking down at herself approvingly. “Parker nearly did a faint when he saw me, but who cares? I didn’t allow Slinker to be a bore to me when he was alive, and I certainly won’t have him a nuisance now he is dead. I’m only his widow by accident, so to speak, and I don’t see why I should go about making an object of myself on his account. What’s the matter, Youngest One? You seem a bit down in the mouth. Worrying about that turn-up, this morning?”
“Looking back, it seems such a rotten thing to have done!” Christian replied. “You see, I never gave her time to think, just fell upon her out of the sky and sprang the thing at her. I should have prepared her, broken it gently——”
Slinker’s wife laughed humorously.
“I do need some gentle preparation, don’t I? Oh, you needn’t apologise! And of course public opinion expects us to glare defiance at each other, as if we each had a claw upon Slinker’s dead body. It’s only natural she should hate me. But that girl’s got grit, Laker—the sort of grit you don’t meet with every day in the week. Most females left in a similar lurch would have had nervous prostration and a prolonged visit on the Continent or at the nearest rest-cure. But she goes to market slick in the chattering teeth of the whole County—snaps her fingers in their pained faces, and lets them see she isn’t ashamed of anything she’s done. Why should she be ashamed, either, I’d like to know? If Slinker asked her to marry him, she’d every right to say yes.”
Christian shook his head.
“That’s what’s wrong. And that’s what she is ashamed of, no matter how splendidly she tries to hide it. She can’t really have been able to stand Slinker. No decent girl could. And to marry him for his position—— I say, Nettie dear, I’m horribly sorry!”
Mrs. Slinker smiled with something of an effort.
“Don’t judge our rotten sex too hardly, Laker. It isn’t always sheer sordidness, even when we do marry for position; there’s a glamour it gives the man, no matter what he may be himself. He’s got all his fathers and grandfathers standing bail for him. You kind of catch your breath at all he represents, and shut your eyes to the miserable, moth-eaten bagman you might possibly find him if you weren’t blinkered by his grandeur.”
“The glamour couldn’t have lasted long; and after that had vanished, I don’t see how she could ever have dreamed of going through with it. A nice girl like that, with nice ideas, and—and—isn’t that moss a ripping colour?”
She pressed his arm affectionately.