“Of course I will—instantly.”
I returned to the study, and asked Percivale if he would like to go with me. He looked, I thought, as if he would rather not. I saw that it was hardly kind to ask him.
“Well, perhaps it is better not,” I said; “for I do not know how long I may have to be with the poor woman. You had better wait here and take my place at the dinner-table. I promise not to depose you if I should return before the meal is over.”
He thanked me very heartily. I showed him into the drawing-room, told my wife where I was going, and not to wait dinner for me—I would take my chance—and joined Mr. Stokes.
“You have no idea, then,” I said, after we had gone about half-way, “what makes your wife so uneasy?”
“No, I haven’t,” he answered; “except it be,” he resumed, “that she was too hard, as I thought, upon our Mary, when she wanted to marry beneath her, as wife thought.”
“How beneath her? Who was it she wanted to marry?”
“She did marry him, sir. She has a bit of her mother’s temper, you see, and she would take her own way.”
“Ah, there’s a lesson to mothers, is it not? If they want to have their own way, they mustn’t give their own temper to their daughters.”
“But how are they to help it, sir?”