"I ought to have asked him about the other," she merely replied. "Then everything would have been quite all right."
"Yes," he assented, mocking; "then you'd have never had your book out, never had all this success. Everything would have been quite all right."
"Yes," she said, seriously.
After this there was no argument. He could not bring himself to stay. It was so asinine. People must go mad when once they married! Oh yes, he could stay no longer. Ask Hugh, indeed, when she had got the chance of her whole lifetime! He could guess what Hugh, dear Hugh, would say.
"Well," she said, "if you must really go so early?" She had no suspicion of his mental turmoil. "And I'll let you know to-morrow about the new book, when I've asked Hugh."
But he had clapped his green hat on impatiently and strode away. He knew she would not listen to anything against her husband; she had such young ideas about that sort of thing; but really!——
Helena, meanwhile, still innocent of the rage she had stirred up in him, spent the time till lunch in wondering how best to attack her not easy task. Before Hugh came in, she must have the book in its rough lines all in her head, so as to convince him that it was mere fiction and would make people believe at last the other had been meant for nothing more. Then he would surely not object, and be pleased; or if not—well, why worry about that? A row, she had decided, could not hurt like his cold silence. It would be human, anyhow. And what an outlet, what a boon for lonely evenings, the new book would be!
If war it must be, then let it be war; but she would do her best for peace.
When he duly entered, however, all her good natural openings and deprecating explanations were mere labour lost. He fired the first shot—and in quite a different campaign.
"Look here, Helena," he said, coming into the drawing-room and actually sitting down, though not, of course, near her, "all this Alison nonsense must cease." He clutched the chair-arm firmly.