Mrs. Owen wrinkled up her eyes with her bewitching smile, and clapped her hands.
“Oh, how naughty of you!” she cried. “But how delicious!”
Hugh sped the parting guest to the door and came back again, rather lingering on his way, into the garden because he felt slightly guilty, and slightly ashamed of himself. And though, when he thought of Canon Alington’s exasperating upper-lip, he steeled himself again into anger, he felt sure that somehow or other there was a process of climbing down, and perhaps an expression of regret in front of him. For there was Edith again, as he had said once before, shining above him, and he had to get there. He would have to give up his anger before he could join her. And join her he must. Even in what he had called the storm in the scullery they must be together.
Edith welcomed him back with her serene and quiet smile.
“Sit down, Hughie,” she said, “because we have got to have quite a talk. Oh! but one thing, dear, before I begin. Do you know, you were rather rude to Mrs. Owen, and it is a dreadful pity to be rude to people. She was our guest, you see, and though perhaps neither of us like her very much, you must be polite. You rather snapped at her. You snapped ‘hollyhocks’ when she admired roses, and you snapped ‘coreopsis’ when she asked if they were sunflowers.”
“But what a fool!” cried Hugh. “And she called me naughty again at the door. Naughty!” he shouted. “And she asked herself to come and meet Peggy. I forgive her that, though, as it was so unsuccessful.”
Then he sat down by his wife’s chair.
“Yes, I was rude,” he said suddenly. “I am sorry. But I was so angry when I came in. Oh, Lord, didn’t I give it him!”
Hugh flared up again at the thought.
“And if it’s that you want to talk about,” he said, “I don’t see that it’s any use. I feel I was perfectly right. It was only ludicrous when he came and told me that ‘Tristan’ was not a fit opera to put on the stage, and that I was devoting my voice—a God-sent gift, he called it, in his horrid, canting way, because my toenails are just as God sent—to evil ends; but his telling me that your paper wasn’t fit to be read and discussed at their holy and sacred Literific was not ludicrous. It didn’t amuse me. And I didn’t amuse him.”