“Certainly she’ll be very conscientious.”
“Will be? She has been! It’s only because she thinks it’s her duty that she goes with me. There’s a conception of duty for you.”
“Yes, it’s a generous one,” said Isabel, “and it makes me deeply ashamed. I ought to go with you, you know.”
“Your husband wouldn’t like that.”
“No, he wouldn’t like it. But I might go, all the same.”
“I’m startled by the boldness of your imagination. Fancy my being a cause of disagreement between a lady and her husband!”
“That’s why I don’t go,” said Isabel simply—yet not very lucidly.
Ralph understood well enough, however. “I should think so, with all those occupations you speak of.”
“It isn’t that. I’m afraid,” said Isabel. After a pause she repeated, as if to make herself, rather than him, hear the words: “I’m afraid.”
Ralph could hardly tell what her tone meant; it was so strangely deliberate—apparently so void of emotion. Did she wish to do public penance for a fault of which she had not been convicted? or were her words simply an attempt at enlightened self-analysis? However this might be, Ralph could not resist so easy an opportunity. “Afraid of your husband?”