"Winifred," he began with much hesitation, and speaking with grave deliberation, "are you aware that Lord Yester's attentions to Edith are beginning to create talk?"
"Beginning?" laughed his wife. "Why, Gordon, that is so old that people have ceased to talk about it."
"Is it really?" he ejaculated in hopeless confusion. "Well, Hal must put his foot down at once, at once," he repeated with feeble over-emphasis.
"My dear, the foot and the hand go together. They are both archaic. Since it is no longer good form to beat one's wife, the putting of the foot down or up is of no importance. Women only respected their husbands when they had to."
One of Gordon's qualifications as a fighter and a husband was that he could take punishment. It is a useful accomplishment, and as rare as it is beautiful. It would have been impossible for Lady Winnifred to live with a man who was over-sensitive. As she explained the situation herself: "Some amiability is essential to contiguity. The bearings must have oil. Well, you mustn't expect it of me or of the cook. One doesn't look for it in one's friends. Well, there you are!"
"I have no doubt something of this has come to Hal's ears," said her husband, "and he has returned to put his house in order, and quite time indeed."
"Well," she answered, "from the woman's point of view the civilized man is a glaring failure. Perhaps the half-savage may succeed."
"Fancy, Rundall, fancy my wife suspecting the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race!"
This remark was addressed to a polished, imposing person who was descending the stairs, and in the act of returning a thermometer to the pocket of his evening coat. Sir George Rundall had the right but not the time to add a long string of letters to his name. He was a self-made man and was a credit to himself. He had the figure of one who has been an athlete, the head of a scholar who was also a man of the world, a clean-shaven, florid face and perfectly white hair, what there was of it. The doctor was a man of learning, was an authority on all sorts of unpleasant things, and had a prodigious memory. Here was a man who could put Winifred in her proper place, if any one could.
Sir Gordon had ripped out "the Anglo-Saxon race" with something of its sonorous after-dinner effect.