"That is between you and your mother. All I would like to know is that you will not swear at me in future and will treat me with more civility."
I felt I could not continue the subject of his "friendship" with Lady
Grenellen. The whole matter seemed so low.
"Well, you are a brick, after all, not to kick up a row," Augustus said. "So let us kiss and be friends again, and I am sorry if I was nasty this morning. There! little woman, you need not be jealous," and he patted my hand, and then began twisting the long waves of my hair in and out of his thick fingers.
"What is a fellow to do when a woman falls in love with him?" he continued, with self-conscious complacency. "He can't be a bear to her, even though he is married, eh?"
"No, it is only to his wife he can be the bear," I said.
Of course, I ought to have been very jealous and angry, I am sure, but I could not feel the least emotion. I only longed to wrench my hair out of his hands, and to tell him that he might speak to and make love to whom he pleased so long as he left me alone and in peace.
He then became more affectionate, telling me I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and that I had "stunning hair" and various other charms, and if only I would not be a lump of ice he would never leave me!
I could not say, as I felt, "But that is the one thing I should like you to do," so I said nothing, and, as soon as I could get near the bell unperceived, rang for McGreggor again, and put an end to the scene.
VI
Next morning at breakfast Augustus said: "As Farrington has refused for the 15th, you had better write and ask that fellow Thornhirst—your cousin. They tell me he is a capital shot, and I want my birds killed this year."