And outside the crowd was listening, eager to find fault, eager for a tragedy to tell in the bazaars.
[CHAPTER XIX]
ON THE BED ROCK
'My dear Chris, if you insist on going to see your mother in that horrid filthy city where, every one knows, the plague has regularly begun,' said Mrs. Chris Davenant to her husband, 'I won't stop in your house. That's an end of it. I don't see why I should. Of course, if it was your duty to inspect, and that sort of thing, I'd have to grin and bear it. But it isn't; so you can't expect me to run the risk.'
'It is my duty to see my mother,' replied Chris, with that faint pomp which is inseparable in the native from a virtuous sentiment, be it ever so trite.
She laughed, quite good-naturedly. 'The fact is, Chris, you've an awkward team of duties to drive; but a man's got to leave his father and mother, you know. Not that I want you to leave yours. Go to her, by all means, if you want to, but in that case I shall go where I want.'
'And where is that?' he asked almost fiercely.
She laughed again. 'To the hotel, of course. My dear Chris, I am not a fool. Not as a rule, I mean, though I was one, of course, when I married you. But you were a greater fool in marrying me; for you knew you were a bit of a prig, and I didn't! However, let's drop that, though, as I've told you before, the best thing for you to do would be to let me slide and marry your cousin----'
'Will you hold your tongue,' he burst out, almost as an Englishman might have done, and she raised her eyebrows and nodded approvingly.
'Bravo, Chris! that was very nearly right--but as you don't favour that easy solution, you must stick to me. You can't eat your cake and have it, my dear boy. If you marry a civilised woman, you must behave as sich. And civilised people don't run the risk of infection needlessly. They don't go and see their relations if though of course no civilised person's mother would live in a dirty plague-stricken town by choice, would she?'