Mrs. Jericho did not affect cordiality. She made no attempt to excuse her absence—her neglect of old acquaintance. Mrs. Jericho was too wise a woman; knew too well the person with whom she had to confer. No: she would not attempt to shirk her ingratitude; but—if we may say as much—at once took the scorpion by the tail.
“Mrs. Carraways, you will probably understand why we have not met since our mutual circumstances have so completely changed?” Thus, with hardest smile, spoke Mrs. Jericho.
“I would I could understand all things quite as well,” said Mrs. Carraways, with cold and steady look.
“It would have been painful to you, painful to myself,” said Mrs. Jericho.
“And you were quite right,” answered the broken lady, “to spare at least one of us.”
Mrs. Jericho waived her head and arm, as much as to intimate that all needful preface being done, she might at once begin the subject-matter. “Do you know what brings me here, Mrs. Carraways?”
“I think, madam, I can guess,” was the ready answer.
“It is this, madam,” said Mrs. Jericho, with her best thunder, raising the white satin. “This!”
Mrs. Carraways did not for one moment affect surprise. No: to the astonishment of the sonorous Mrs. Jericho, she calmly replied—“I thought so.”
Mrs. Jericho immediately disposed her soul for self-enjoyment. The said soul felt a yearning for lofty exercise; and with good reason; it had so long obeyed the soul of Jericho—aggrandised, sublimated by money—that it longed to assert its natural importance; an importance that, at the commencement of this history—if the reader recollects as much—was made sufficiently evident. Mrs. Jericho’s majesty had been confined, doubled up, like a snake in a box; and it was not to be wondered at that, the occasion offering, it should desire to come out and air itself, showing its fine proportions. The husband Jericho had somehow been the snake-charmer; now Mrs. Carraways was weak and ignorant as babyhood.