“Well,” said Letitia, “if a man begins to say A in that line, he must say B.”
“Of course,” said Grace; “and also C and D, and so on, down to X, Y, Z. A woman, armed with sick-headaches, nervousness, debility, presentiments, fears, horrors, and all sorts of imaginary and real diseases, has an eternal armory of weapons of subjugation. What can a man do? Can he tell her that she is lying and shamming? Half the time she isn’t; she can actually work herself into about any physical state she chooses. The fortnight before Lillie went to Newport, she really looked pale, and ate next to nothing; and she managed admirably to seem to be trying to keep up, and not to complain,—yet you see how she can go on at Newport.”
“It seems a pity John couldn’t understand her.”
“My dear, I wouldn’t have him for the world. Whenever he does, he will despise her; and then he will be wretched. For John is no hypocrite, any more than I am. No, I earnestly pray that his soap-bubble may not break.”
“Well, then,” said Letitia, “at least, he might go down to Newport for a day or two; and his presence there might set some things right: it might at least check reports. You might just suggest to him that unfriendly things were being said.”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” said Grace.
So, by a little feminine tact in suggestion, Grace despatched her brother to spend a day or two in Newport.
His coming and presence interrupted the lounging hours in Lillie’s room; the introduction to “my husband” shortened the interviews. John was courteous and affable; but he neither smoked nor drank, and there was a mutual repulsion between him and many of Lillie’s habitués.
“I say, Dan,” said Bill Sanders to Danforth, as they were smoking on one end of the veranda, “you are driven out of your lodgings since Seymour came.”