Three weeks! I groaned in my spirit; and we are to endure six months of the company of this lady who is called Lionne, in compliment to the amiability of her disposition, and bites and scratches like a cat whenever she is offended. I began to think of clothing myself and my wife in mail armour during the period of her stay, so that we might be invulnerable to her attacks; but a remark to that effect to Janie seemed greatly to discompose her.
‘It is not fair of you, Robert dear,’ she said, with knitted brows, ‘to take my confidence in such a spirit. It is all nonsense to suppose that Margaret will be like that now; she is a charming girl, who is universally admired.’
‘I am delighted to hear it,’ I replied sarcastically. ‘I hope, however, that she won’t take a liking to me; or that, if she does, she will keep her charming teeth to herself.’
‘I daresay you won’t be troubled with her long,’ exclaimed Janie, with a degree of excitement which I foresaw would end in tears. ‘Margaret attracts lovers wherever she goes, and we shall have her engaged and married most likely before she has been many weeks in Mushin-Bunda.’
‘Worse and worse,’ I inadvertently replied. ‘If I thought that was to be the end of it, Janie, I should cut and run at once.’
Visions of my brother officers lounging about the drawing-room all day, and snarling at each other like rival curs—of a wedding, and all the paraphernalia and fuss attendant on it—made me give vent to the horror which I felt in the anticipation.
‘Ah! you didn’t think it all so horrid a year ago!’ said my wife, melting into the promised tears; ‘but I suppose you have forgotten that by this time, or wish, perhaps, that it had never been.’
The conclusion struck me as unreasonable; but when women arrive at that stage they are not in a fit state to be argued with, and are best left alone.
‘It’s very different when one plays first fiddle in the case, dear child,’ I answered soothingly; but Janie was no longer in a humour to be soothed.
‘I don’t believe you think so, Robert,’ she said; ‘and as for poor Lionne, I’m sure—’