"I brought him here, Courtney," he interrupted, magisterially. "And I repeat, I had the right to do so."
Like most people of sweet and even temperament, she lost all control of herself in this unprecedented rage, where those in the habit of raging learn a sort of etiquette of bad temper. "You had not the right!" she declared, her eyes blazing into his. "And if you ever do such a thing again, I'll make it impossible for him to remain here. Do you understand?"
"I do not quarrel," said Richard with gentle superiority, "especially not with women—with my wife."
"And why not? You call it chivalry. I call it contempt. And I detest it. If you could appreciate how absurd you are, with your antiquated notions of superior and inferior sex, of rights and duties, and all such nonsense!"
Richard was in full armor of masculine patience against feminine folly. "You are beside yourself, my dear. I'll leave you until you are calm and courteous." And he added, as if he were meting out severe but just punishment, "I shall occupy the spare room."
Courtney gave a strange laugh. He turned away, went into her bedroom. Presently he reappeared exclaiming: "Why, where are my pajamas? I told Lizzie to put them in there."
Courtney's smile was of the same quality of strangeness as her laugh of the moment before. "They are in the spare room," said she. "I put them there before I came in here."
He looked puzzled, vaguely discomfited. "Oh—very well." He glanced inquiringly at her, decided against the trivial question he had been about to ask. "Good night." He was again puzzled when what he heard about the location of the pajamas was recalled and made vivid by the sight of them on the turned-down bed in the spare room. But for an instant only. He dismissed the trifle and went to bed and to sleep. Husbands do not bother their heads about the petty feminine eccentricities of wives. The mystery of these transposed pajamas was too petty to detain a masculine mind.
VI
She did not go down to breakfast next morning until Richard and his guest would surely be gone. Her anger against the guest had evaporated because it was clearly unjust. Her anger against Richard was subsiding because it was clearly futile—and also because she hadn't it in her to foster harsh feeling. But there remained a dislike and dread of Gallatin because he had her secret. She could not think with composure of facing him, intolerably her partner in a secret she was ashamed of, was hiding from her husband, was trying to hide from herself. She would be unable to look at him, to remember his existence even, without at the same time having it thrust at her that her married life was a sham, a hypocrisy.