Trailey yawned cavernously. It was oppressively warm.
"No, my dear," he returned, "I've made up my mind to go back to England," and with this sudden declaration, he quietly relapsed into his usual drowsy calm. Martha Trailey was totally deprived of speech for a minute, then she recovered.
"It's no more than I expected," she retorted scornfully; "didn't I say so in England? Didn't I tell you that time when you were sitting in the chair, planting a tree in the front garden, that you were making a mistake in coming to Canada? And do you think I'm going back to be laughed at by all the chapel-folks?—after them making us a present of an illuminated hymn book? And after the speech you made at the insurance superintendents' banquet, when you drank too much of that teetotal port wine, and then told them that you felt the pioneering blood surging through your veins? No! You aren't going to drag me back over all those thousands of miles of fire and flood; let me tell you that. You've had your own way far too long. I've given in to you too much. Your mother always said so. But I'll have my way for once; remember that. And, another thing, Esther will never go back. She's going to marry that Bert Tressider, or else I'm blind."
"Marry Bert Tressider!" exclaimed Trailey with a slight show of interest.
"Yes, Bert Tressider. That's news for you, I'll be bound. He's an educated fool, of course; but, when I look back at what you were when I married you, it seems to me she might go farther and fare worse."
Trailey scratched his wrist. "God bless my soul! How long has all this been going on?"
Martha Trailey turned away from her husband with a gesture of disgust. Such blindness was inconceivable to her.
"Why, it's been going on ever since we left Saskatoon. Look! there they are, over yonder; giggling and cuddling, you may depend. Said they were going to pick a place to build a bungalow."
Mrs. Trailey was silent for a little while. She gazed pensively after the youthful lovers, who meandered about the prairie some distance off. At length she continued philosophically: "Life's a very funny thing, I'm thinking. Look at those two—only known each other three weeks and as happy as two dead birds; yet here we've been together getting on for thirty years and squabbling all the time—and all because you won't control your ungovernable temper."
"Mr. Tressider's a good match for Esther, isn't he, my dear?" observed Trailey meekly. "I know I've often watched them and thought how nice they looked together. And he's a gentleman."