"I haven't read the book," she said, "our village library does not believe in modern fiction, but—well, what I don't understand is this. You say she swears the husband wasn't meant for you. Well, then, from what you tell me of his character in the book—weak, selfish, bloated with conceit, a little man who thinks he's great, full of absurd cranks about 'atmosphere' and so on, cruel to his wife—I wonder you can ever pretend, or care to pretend to think that it was meant for you! You surely don't think three years have made you like that?" and she gave a laugh as at some absolute absurdity, confident in her own knowledge of how splendid a man he had always been.
He looked up swiftly. He suspected her. But she did not flinch, for this was a new Ruth indeed. She looked straight at him—puzzled innocent surprise—and it was his gaze that fell after all. He knew what she meant—and she knew also that he knew.
The woman's tact had conquered in a sentence.
"Anyhow," he answered sulkily, acknowledging defeat in that one word, "you must see she is in the wrong? I know you women always hold together, but you must see that it's not—well, not exactly pleasant for me to be paragraphed in every rag as the selfish author-husband, whether I was meant or not. She had no right to publish it without my knowing."
"Oh yes," assented Ruth, "I see that, quite. She has been very silly, but I'm sure she meant nothing and perhaps——" Then she stopped abruptly and repeated; "But she has certainly been silly."
Hubert, oddly full of guilt and humiliation, was glad to leave this interview at such an end. He had planned it in a way very different.
"Well," he said decisively, as he got up, "I can do nothing with her. She persists that she will bring another book out now, and so revive the whole unpleasant business! Tea will be ready and you must want it, but afterwards" (he touched her lovingly upon the arm), "I know you'll want to help me, dear old girl. You'll go and talk to her quite firmly, won't you?"
"I'll go and talk to her, yes," said Ruth, pressing his arm no less fondly.
He did not notice that she dropped the adverbs.