“But, my dear!” said her father. “When in Rome—you know! If I were you, I should avoid conflicts. There’s no use exasperating your mother-in-law. The wisest course is to conciliate.”
She had gone to her mother, to pour out all her misery at living under the domination of a strange woman, at not being mistress in her husband’s house. But her mother had no comfort to give.
“I don’t see what’s to be done, chickabiddy,” she said. “You can’t expect Gilbert to leave his mother alone at her age. It can’t be cured, so it must be endured.”
Gilbert was still more hopeless. When he saw her dejected, weary, full of nervous excitement and irritability after her long day of emptiness, his remedy was the theatre; and when even that didn’t enliven her, he too became irritable. He was beginning to lose patience with her, he was willing now to admit that she was peculiar. And he felt that he was justified....
Justified in doing things which she never mentioned to anyone. They had had quarrels, the very memory of which appalled her. She remembered coarse words he had used, brutal expressions, sneers, gibes. He was always very sorry, always apologized, he said he had the devil’s own temper; but Claudine could not forget them. She was neither quick to anger nor quick to forgive. When her temper was aroused, she was cold and contemptuous and often childishly indignant, but she was never fierce, never cruel. She could not understand or forgive his absolute loss of dignity.
And she could not understand what he called his weakness! She remembered the first time he had revealed it as one remembers a nightmare, the very thought of it brought back the incredulous horror she had felt. He hadn’t come home to dinner that night, he had sent a telegram, “Detained on business. Will not be home till late,” and Claudine and the old lady had sat down at the table alone, in that sort of hostile intimacy which had grown upon them. After dinner they had gone up to sit in the old lady’s room where it would be cosier for two lone women, the old lady with a book and Claudine with the fancy-work she had taken to in desperation.
Just before bed-time Gilbert came in, flushed, jolly, anxious to talk. He had sat down and entertained them with a long account of the dinner he had attended, and the speeches he had heard.
“Best thing for business,” he said. “You get to know just the men you need to know. It was an impromptu thing, but wonderfully well done.”
And he told them everything he had had to eat.
“And by the way,” he said, “They had some oyster pâtés that were the best things of their kind I’ve ever eaten, bar none. I spoke to the waiter, and he packed me a couple in a box and I brought them home. They’re downstairs with my overcoat. Will you get them, Claudine?”