“Well, I like that!” burst out Harry, his face twitching with passion. “Don’t I manage my own wife—doesn’t she obey me, and quickly, too? Do you ever hear her contradict me or differ from my opinion? Answer me, or, by Jove, I’ll make you!”
“Your wife doesn’t think your opinion worth differing from, and she obeys you as the shortest way of getting rid of your presence. Everybody knows that.”
“I say, George, do shut up!” broke in Wilfred. “Can’t you see you are only irritating him against his poor little wife, who has quite enough to put up with from him already? What on earth are you driving at? Can’t make you out lately!”
“Don’t interfere with your infernal preaching!” shouted Harry. “So my wife has enough to put up with from me already! Very well, she’ll have more than enough, then, before long, if she doesn’t get rid of her confoundedly cold tragedy-queen airs, I can tell her! I’ll show her and you too if I’m not master of my own wife!” And Harry flung away the cigar-end he had been biting, and swung himself out of the yard, unable to control himself any longer.
Wilfred turned to his brother.
“Why the dickens did you badger the boy like that? He’ll only go and let off his ill-temper on poor little Annie, and perhaps take to proving his authority with his fists or his boots, the hulking bully!”
“Well, the sooner he does, and disgusts her thoroughly, and makes her throw him over altogether, the better for her.”
Wilfred looked at his brother keenly.
“I say, George, you’re not playing square.”
“Yes, I am; you don’t know the game;” and the baronet lounged out of the stable-yard with his hands in his pockets, but with teeth so firmly set that he bit his cigar in two.