"Do you?" demands Tita, turning upon her with eyes ablaze with miserable anger.
"I?" haughtily. "What do you mean?"
Tita lifts her eyes to Rylton—such eyes.
"He will tell you," says she, and with a little scornful lifting of her chin she turns away.
"Now for your story, Tom," cries she gaily, merrily.
"You take me very short," says Hescott, who seems, in his present mood, which is of the darkest, to be the last man in Europe to tell an amusing tale. "But one occurs to me, and, of course," looking round him, "you all know it. Everyone nowadays knows every story that has and has not been told since the world began. Well, any way, I heard of a man the other day who—it is a most extraordinary thing—but he hated his wife!"
"For goodness' sake tell us something new," says Mrs. Chichester, with open disgust.
"Isn't that new? Well, this man was at a prayer-meeting of some sort. There is a sort of bad man that hankers after prayer-meetings, and, of course, this was a bad man because he hated his wife. It was at the East End, and Job was the subject. Job is good for an East-End meeting, because patience is the sort of thing you must preach there nowadays if you wish to keep your houses from being set on fire; and he heard of all the troubles of Job, and how he was cursed—and how his children and cattle and goods had been taken from him—and only his wife left! That struck him—about the wife! 'Hang it! That was a big curse!' said he. 'Fancy leaving the wife!' And the odd part of it was," says Hescott, lifting his eyes and looking deliberately at Rylton, "that his wife was an angel, whereas he—well, she was the Job of his life. She had to endure all things at his hands."
Rylton looks back at him, and feels his brow grow black with rage.
He would have liked to take him and choke the life out of him.
"A delightful story," says he, with a sneer. "So fresh, so original!"