“Now you’ve been to Creux—” she began. “You’ve been there twice, and you’ve seen your uncle, have you not?”
“Yes.”
“Well, do you think he is the sort of man to make a young wife happy?”
“Emphatically no,” admitted Bayre, promptly. “But surely you could see that before you married him?”
The poor lady clasped her hands and looked at him rather dismally.
“Do you know,” she asked earnestly, “the sort of life a girl leads among poor and proud relations who don’t always take the trouble to hide that she’s a burden upon them, even though they won’t consent to her trying to earn her own living? Well, if you can imagine that, you know the position I was in when I met your uncle and when he asked me to be his wife. There wasn’t even a question of my refusing: it was taken for granted by everybody that it was a splendid thing for me, and when I ventured to suggest that, being thirty or forty years older than I, he was rather old for me, I was looked upon as a monster of ingratitude for finding any fault. So we were married, and until we got to Creux it was bearable enough. I was a new toy, and he was kind to me. I was grateful too, really,” she insisted with pathetic earnestness.
“Of course, of course, I’m quite sure you were,” said Bayre, gently.
The lady went on,—
“But when we once got back to Creux life became almost intolerable at once, and all from the same cause—his cousin, Miss Ford.”
“Of course she wouldn’t approve of his marriage,” said Bayre.