“When I think,” she sobbed, “of what I’ve lost——”
“Lost!” cried Sir Isaac. “Lost! Oh come now, Elly, I like that. What!—lost. Hang it! You got to look facts in the face. You can’t deny——Marrying like this,—you made a jolly good thing of it.”
“But the beautiful things, the noble things!”
“What’s beautiful?” cried Sir Isaac in protesting scorn. “What’s noble? ROT! Doing your duty if you like and being sensible, that’s noble and beautiful, but not fretting about and running yourself into danger. You’ve got to have a sense of humour, Elly, in this life——” He created a quotation. “As you make your bed—so shall you lie.”
For an interval neither of them spoke. They crested the hill, and came into view of that advertisement board she had first seen in Mr. Brumley’s company. She halted, and he went a step further and halted too. He recalled his ideas about the board. He had meant to have them all altered but other things had driven it from his mind....
“Then you mean to imprison me here,” said Lady Harman to his back. He turned about.
“It isn’t much like a prison. I’m asking you to stay here—and be what a wife should be.”
“I’m to have no money.”
“That’s—that depends entirely on yourself. You know that well enough.”
She looked at him gravely.