That winter he became extremely irregular about coming to dinner, and as the days lengthened with the spring he often worked on through supper time also. In late May or early June he began to note that when he did come up to the house for supper, his wife was sometimes there and sometimes not. Gradually her absence made an impression on him, and her always answering his inquiry with, "I was over at the club." As that meant the Outing Club, established and supported and frequented by the young people of Wenona and its suburbs, he was entirely satisfied. This, until about midsummer. One evening, when she returned in the dusk from supper at the club, she found him seated on the bench at the landing stage, smoking moodily. He was scantily civil to Shirley Drummond, who had brought her in the club launch. When Shirley was well on the way back to the north shore, Courtney, who had seated herself beside her husband, spoke of the heat and unwound the chiffon scarf about her bare neck and shoulders. Dick glanced round. In some moods he would not have seen at all. In other moods those slender shoulders, that graceful throat, and the small head with its lightly borne masses of auburn hair would have appealed to his pride and joy of possession. But things had gone wrong at "the shop," and he was in the mood that could readily either turn him to her for the consolation of a "lighter hour" or set him off in a rage. He frowned upon the exposed shoulders.
"Where did you get that dress?" he demanded.
She heard simply the question. Her thoughts were on the events of the evening at the club. "Had it made here," said she, unconscious of his mood. "It's something like one I saw in a fashion picture from Paris. Like it?"
To her amazement he replied angrily: "I do not. I've never seen a dress I disapproved of so thoroughly. Don't wear it again, and please be careful how you adopt a fashion you get that way. French fashions are set by a class of women I couldn't speak to you about. Respectable women have to alter them greatly."
"Why, what's the matter with the dress?" exclaimed she. "Everyone admired it at the club."
"It isn't decent," replied he. "I know you are so innocent that you don't think of those things. But it's my duty to protect you. I won't have men commenting on my wife's person."
"But, Dick," protested she, "this isn't a low-cut dress. It's higher than those I usually wear. It has bands across the shoulders and a real back——"
"Then change all your dresses. You must not make yourself conspicuous."
"Conspicuous! The other women wear much lower-cut dresses than I do."
"I know about such things," said he peremptorily. "I don't believe in low-neck dresses anyhow. What business has a good woman flaunting her charms—rousing in other men thoughts she ought to rouse in her husband only?"