“As you please,” said I, too wary to be drawn into that discussion. I realized I had said entirely too much. Relying upon her intense vanity, her profound belief in her power over me, I had gone too far. “My business takes me to London to-night. I’ll probably be there until Norman arrives. Then we’ll come over.”
“Don’t you want us in London with you?” said Edna.
“You are comfortably settled here,” replied I. “Why disturb yourselves?”
She knew how to read me. She saw I was not in a dangerous mood, as she had begun to fear. She said: “We did intend to stay in Paris a month or six weeks. We have a charming circle of friends among the old families here. I wish you’d stop on, Godfrey. The people are attractive, and the social life is most interesting.”
“Not to me,” said I. “You forget I’m a Hooligan. Besides, you don’t need me. There’s your advantage through being young and lovely and rich. You can get plenty of men to escort you about. It’s only the old and ugly married women who really need their husbands. Well—I’ll be ready when you are forced to fall back on me. Nothing like having in reserve a faithful Dobbin.”
She looked hurt. “How can you joke about sacred things,” she reproached.
I laughed her seriousness aside. “Yes, I’ll be waiting, ready to be your companion, the confidant of your rheumatism and gout, when all the others have fled. Meanwhile, my dear, I’ll have my frisk.”
“Godfrey!”
It amused me to see how bitter to her was the taste of the medicine she had been forcing upon me so self-complacently. It amused me to watch the confusion into which these new and unsuspected aspects of myself was throwing her.
Said I: “I’m glad you’re as generous toward me as I’ve been toward you. That’s why we’ve avoided the Armitage sort of smash-up.”