Christine made a heroic effort not to cry. She knew Paul was not speaking of herself. Never had she behaved like an empress, or wished to do so, and she did share the work loyally. Of course it wasn’t his fault if her share was composed of very monotonous, dusty, dull little tasks, and of course it wasn’t his fault that there was mighty little play to be shared.
He went on, in that severe tone, talking about women, and she was certainly one of them. Indeed, she had a guilty consciousness that she was more of a woman than Paul suspected. She tried to stifle her shameful, ignoble feelings, and when she couldn’t stifle them, she hid them. Never should Paul know how she felt about Miss Banks. He expected his wife to be a comrade, and a comrade she would be, at any cost.
Thus it was that a curious situation arose. Paul would denounce Miss Banks with great energy, while continuing to go and see her and to assist her; but Christine, who avoided the girl as far as possible, defended her chivalrously.
Miss Banks now had a telephone, and knew how to use it. Suddenly, in the middle of a calm, sensible evening, her voice would come over the wire, asking Paul to come and mend a leak, or kill a rat, or investigate a mysterious noise. Paul always said no, he wouldn’t go, but Christine always persuaded him to go—and generally cried after he had gone, because he so obviously wished to be persuaded.
He never suggested that Christine should accompany him. Neither did Miss Banks. Indeed, she said things about tame husbands that prevented Paul from even considering such an idea.
Why he liked to see the girl he couldn’t understand. She was as rude, as impertinent, as mocking, as she chose to be. She frankly admitted that she liked to “take him down a peg.” She made fun of him, she kept him busy at arduous and humiliating tasks. And all this, instead of crushing him, had the odd effect of making him—well, Christine’s private word for it was “bumptious.”
He really was bumptious. He was bumptious while he killed rats for Miss Banks, and still more bumptious when he got home and told Christine about it.
Generally, when he went down to the cottage, he stayed there a long time. After he had finished the work she set for him, Miss Banks would graciously let him sit before her fire, and smoke, and be baited. One night, however, he came home so promptly that he almost caught Christine in tears. Although he was so much upset, he probably would not have noticed.
“That girl’s a little too much!” he said. “Of course, I make allowances for her being so silly and spoiled, but—”
“Who spoils her?” inquired Christine unexpectedly.