The Viscount halted and stared at her suspiciously. “I said that? I’ll swear I never in my life said anything so damned silly!”
“Yes, you did! You said I should not find you the sort of husband for ever kicking up a dust over trifles! You said that as long as I was discreet — ”
“Well, you ain’t!” said his lordship, pouncing on this. “In fact, there was never anyone less discreet! And as for letting you do precisely as you choose, yes, a pretty piece of business you would make of that, my girl! With no more sense than that damned canary Gil was fool enough to give you, and no more notion of how to behave in society than Jason has!”
“I don’t steal!” hotly exclaimed his wife.
“I never said you did!”
“Yes, you did, because you said I was like Jason, and of all the odious things to say — ”
“I did not say you were like Jason! All I said was that you had no more idea — ”
“It is just the same, and it is just like you, Sherry, to say it is all my fault, when it was you who told me about bits of muslin and opera dancers!”
“How the deuce was I to know that you would blurt it out like a regular hoyden?” demanded his lordship.
“Well, you ought to have known I might very likely do so,’ Hero said candidly. “You have been acquainted with me for a long time, and I have made you as m-mad as fire with me times out of m-mind, through s-saying things I ought not. And Gil says you have no business to talk as you do in front of me, so it is just as much your fault as mine!”