"Well?" Mr. Langhope groaned, fortifying himself with a second cigarette.
"An occupation for that rudimentary little organ, the mention of which makes you jump."
"There you go again! Good heavens, Maria, do you want to encourage her to fall in love?"
"Not with a man, just at present, but with a hobby, an interest, by all means. If she doesn't, the man will take the place of the interest—there's a vacuum to be filled, and human nature abhors a vacuum."
Mr. Langhope shrugged his shoulders. "I don't follow you. She adored her husband."
His friend's fine smile was like a magnifying glass silently applied to the gross stupidity of his remark. "Oh, I don't say it was a great passion—but they got on perfectly," he corrected himself.
"So perfectly that you must expect her to want a little storm and stress for a change. The mere fact that you and Mr. Tredegar objected to her seeing Mr. Amherst last night has roused the spirit of opposition in her. A year ago she hadn't any spirit of opposition."
"There was nothing for her to oppose—poor Dick made her life so preposterously easy."
"My ingenuous friend! Do you still think that's any reason? The fact is, Bessy wasn't awake, she wasn't even born, then.... She is now, and you know the infant's first conscious joy is to smash things."
"It will be rather an expensive joy if the mills are the first thing she smashes."