“She is very wonderful,” said Jellaby.
“Yes,” I silently agreed, “most.”
“She is an angel,” said her (I suppose naturally) partial sister, whose sentiments were besides, no doubt, at that moment coloured by the surroundings in which she found herself. But I could not help being entertained by this example of lovable blindness.
“It is so sweetly good of her to keep him off us,” continued Frau von Eckthum. “She does it so kindly. So unselfishly. What can it be like to have such a husband?”
“Ah,” thought I, a light illuminating my mind, “they are talking of our friend John. Naturally his charming sister-in-law cannot bear him. Nor should she be called upon to do so. To bear her husband is solely a wife’s affair.”
“What can it be like?” repeated Frau von Eckthum, in the voice of one vainly trying to realize something beyond words bad.
“I can’t think,” said Jellaby, basely, I thought, for he professed much outward friendship for John.
“Of course she is amused—in a way,” continued Frau von Eckthum, “but that sort of amusement soon palls, doesn’t it?”
“Extraordinarily soon,” said Jellaby.
“Before it has so much as begun,” thought I, recollecting the man’s sallow, solemn visage. But then it is no part of a wife’s functions to be amused.