"The letter will be shown to all sorts of people. Your aunt will see it, of course. You are ingenious in revenging yourself."
Cecily bent her head, and could not trust herself to speak. All day she had been thinking of this, and had repented of her foolish haste. Yet confession of error was impossible in her present mood.
"As you make such a parade of obedience," he continued, with increasing anger, "I should think it would be better to obey honestly. I never said that I wished you to break with her in this fashion."
"Anything else would be contemptible. I can't subdue myself to that."
"Very well; then to be logical you must give up society altogether. It demands no end of contemptible things."
"Will you explain to me why you think that letter will make you ridiculous?"
Reuben hesitated.
"Is it ridiculous," she added, "for a man to forbid his wife to associate with a woman of doubtful character?"
"I told you distinctly that I had no definite charge to bring against her. Caution would have been reasonable enough, but to act as you have represented me is sheer Philistinism."
"Precisely. And it was Philistinism in you to take the matter as you did. Be frank with me. Why should you wish to have a name for liberal thinking among your acquaintances, and yet behave in private like the most narrow of men?"