“I’ve had to tell him; and he says it’s none of your business.”
“I wish he’d say that,” I remarked, “to my face.”
“He’ll do so perfectly if you give him a chance. That’s where you can help me. Quarrel with him—he’s rather good at a quarrel; and that will divert him and draw him off.”
“Then I’m ready,” I returned, “to discuss the matter with him for the rest of the voyage.”
“Very well; I count on you. But he’ll ask you, as he asks me, what the deuce you want him to do.”
“To go to bed!”—and I’m afraid I laughed.
“Oh it isn’t a joke.”
I didn’t want to be irritating, but I made my point. “That’s exactly what I told you at first.”
“Yes, but don’t exult; I hate people who exult. Jasper asks of me,” she went on, “why he should mind her being talked about if she doesn’t mind it herself.”
“I’ll tell him why,” I replied; and Mrs. Nettlepoint said she should be exceedingly obliged to me and repeated that she would indeed take the field.