It was mid-day when Mrs. Jericho next entered her bed-room. She came in, humming a little piece of a song. Whereupon, the culprit between the sheets took courage to observe—“I don’t think I ever passed so wretched a night.”
“Considering the night was over when you came home, Mr. Jericho, you of course are the best judge. How should I know anything about it?” Such was the home-thrust relentlessly given by Mrs. Jericho. She would not be mollified.
“I went, my dear,”—began Jericho.
The outraged wife would not be insulted. Suddenly twisting round, as though stung by the hypocritic tenderness, Mrs. Jericho desired the man to keep his fine words for people out of doors. Her eyes were at length opened; she had a long time—too long—been fondly blind; but at last she knew all; she was satisfied, and—she again repeated it—she would not be insulted.
Jericho was not to be diverted into a quarrel. Pacific man! He would struggle to keep the peace. Hence, in tones, feloniously intended to soften and cajole, he returned to what he called the terrors of the past night.
“If I were to live a thousand years, my love”—
“Love!” exclaimed Mrs. Jericho, and this time she turned full upon the offender. For a minute, she stood withering him from between the bed-curtains. And Jericho, not wholly lost to shame, dragged his night-cap over his brow, and shrinking, rolled himself upon the other side. With his heavy eye upon the parrots and parroquets perched and flying upon the bed-room paper that adorned the wall—for Mrs. Jericho, as she told her bosom friends, would have that paper at any price; the birds, and the palms, and the savannahs, as she said, so reminding her of past happiness with Pennibacker,—Jericho manfully continued:
“Yes, a thousand years, I shouldn’t forget last night.”
“Very likely not,” said Mrs. Jericho. “I’ve no doubt you deserve to remember it. I shouldn’t wonder.”
“You don’t know, my dear Sabilla”—Mrs. Jericho trod the room anew, impatient of such daring familiarity—“you don’t know what I’ve suffered. Such an extraordinary dream! I feel it now. It has almost killed me with bile. But it’s the usual case with me. An uncomfortable dream always does. Killed with bile.”