He was tottering, and his forehead was wet with weakness and passion. He would not take George’s help, but staggered along by the wall to the door. There the housekeeper met him, and Annie, standing still in the middle of the picture-gallery, heard him say:
“Brandy, for Heaven’s sake, brandy, whether it is poison to me or not!”
CHAPTER XVII.
Annie turned with a piteous expression of face to George when her angry husband had left them.
“What can one do with a man like that?” she said. “It is impossible to reason with him, impossible to understand him. He is like an overgrown child.”
“I don’t know about that,” answered George, quietly. “I think I can understand this last outbreak pretty well.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, when you left him, you were a little timid lily, whose charm was quite lost upon a great senseless brute like that,” said George, with sentiment; “now you have come back a——”
“A great flaunting dahlia, whose charm must be apparent to the meanest observation, and particularly to a person of my husband’s tastes!” finished Annie, looking up at him very gravely.
His sentiment was dispelled; he was obliged to burst out laughing.