“That’s nothing to do with it - I only ask, What must people think, when I’m never seen with you? Other women go out with their husbands: but, as I’ve often said, I’m not like any other woman. What are you sneering at, Mr. Caudle?
“How do I know you’re sneering?
“Don’t tell me: I know well enough, by the movement of the pillow.
“No; you never take me out - and you know it. No; and it’s not my own fault. How can you lie there and say that? Oh, all a poor excuse! That’s what you always say. You’re tired of asking me, indeed, because I always start some objection? Of course I can’t go out a figure. And when you ask me to go, you know very well that my bonnet isn’t as it should be - or that my gown hasn’t come home - or that I can’t leave the children - or that something keeps me indoors. You know all this well enough before you ask me. And that’s your art. And when I do go out with you, I’m sure to suffer for it. Yes, you needn’t repeat my words. Suffer for it. But you suppose I have no feelings: oh no, nobody has feelings but yourself. Yes; I’d forgot: Miss Prettyman, perhaps - yes, she may have feelings, of course.
“And as I’ve said, I dare say a pretty dupe people think me. To be sure; a poor forlorn creature I must look in everybody’s eyes. But I knew you couldn’t be at Mr. Prettyman’s house night after night till eleven o’clock - and a great deal you thought of me sitting up for you - I knew you couldn’t be there without some cause. And now I’ve found it out! Oh, I don’t mind your swearing, Mr. Caudle! It’s I, if I wasn’t a woman, who ought to swear. But it’s like you men. Lords of the creation, as you call yourselves! Lords, indeed! And pretty slaves you make of the poor creatures who’re tied to you. But I’ll be separated, Caudle; I will; and then I’ll take care and let all the world know how you’ve used me. What do you say?
“I may say my worst?
“Ha! don’t you tempt any woman in that way - don’t, Caudle; for I wouldn’t answer for what I said.
“Miss Prettyman, indeed, and - oh yes! now I see! Now the whole light breaks in upon me! Now I know why you wished me to ask her with Mr. and Mrs. Prettyman to tea! And I, like a poor blind fool, was nearly doing it. But now, as I say, my eyes are open! And you’d have brought her under my own roof - now it’s no use your bouncing about in that fashion - you’d have brought her into the very house, where - ”
“Here,” says Caudle, “I could endure it no longer. So I jumped out of bed, and went and slept somehow with the children.”