"'The greatest miracle of all would have to happen then, Richard,' I quoted coldly. Then, rejecting his proffered assistance, I alighted from the vehicle, passed majestically across the threshold and mounted the stairs with stately step, not a sign, not the slightest tremor of a muscle betraying what I felt. Only when I was safe in my own little room, with its lavender-scented sheets and its thousand childish associations did my pent-up emotions overpower me. I threw myself upon my little white bed in a paroxysm of laughter. I had come out of a disagreeable situation agreeably, leaving Dick in the wrong, and I felt sure I could whistle him back as easily as the hansom."
"And what became of Richard?" asked Lillie.
"I left him to settle with the cabman. I have never seen him since."
Lillie gave a little shudder. "You speak as if the cabman had settled with him. But are you sure you are willing to renounce all mankind because you find one man unsatisfactory?"
"All. I was very young when I got engaged. I did not want to be a burden on my brother. But now his firework factory is a brilliant success. He lives in a golden rain. Having only myself to please now, I don't see why I should have to please a husband. The more I think of marriage the less I think of it. I have not kept my eyes open for nothing. I am sure it wouldn't suit me. Husbands are anything but the creatures a young girl's romantic fancy pictures. They have a way of disarranging the most careful toilettes. They ruffle your hair and your temper. They disorder the furniture—and put their feet on the mantelpiece. They scratch the fenders, read books and stretch themselves on the most valuable sofas. If they help in the household they only make more work. The trail of tobacco is over all you prize. All day long the smoke gets into your eyes. Filthy pipes clog your cabinets, your window-curtains reek of stale cigars. You have bartered your liberty for a mess of cigar-ash. There is an odor of bar saloons about the house and boon companions come to welter in whiskey and water. Their talk is of science and art and politics and it makes them guffaw noisily and dig one another in the ribs. There is not a man in the world to whom I would trust my sensitive fragility—they are all coarse, clumsy creatures with a code of morals that they don't profess and a creed of chivalry that they never practise. Falsehood abides permanently in their mouth like artificial teeth and corruption lurks beneath the whited sepulchres of their shirt-fronts. They adore us in secret and deride us when they are together. They feign a contempt for us which we feel for them." These sentiments re-instated Miss Linbridge in the good opinion of the President, conscious heretofore of a jarring chord. She ordered in some refreshments to get an opportunity of whispering to Turple the magnificent that the Honorary Trier might return.
"Oh, by the way," said Miss Linbridge, "I hunted out that copy of Threepenny Bits before coming out. I've kept it in a drawer as a curiosity. Here it is!"
Lillie took the paper and examined it anxiously.
"What's that? You reading Threepenny Bits?" said Silverdale coming in.
"It is only an old number," said Lillie, "whereby hangs a tale. Miss Linbridge was in a railway accident with it."
"Miss Linbridge, Lord Silverdale."