There was a silence.
'It's no good talking of her domestic matters,' thought Cecilia; 'not that I don't care!' But the silence getting on her nerves, she said quickly: “Is your husband behaving himself better?”
There was no answer; Cecilia saw a tear trickle slowly down the woman's cheek.
'Oh dear, oh dear,' she thought; 'poor thing! I'm in for it!'
Mrs. Hughs' whispering voice began: “He's behaving himself dreadful, m'm. I was going to speak to you. It's ever since that young girl”—her face hardened—“come to live down in my room there; he seem to—he seem to—just do nothing but neglect me.”
Cecilia's heart gave the little pleasurable flutter which the heart must feel at the love dramas of other people, however painful.
“You mean the little model?” she said.
The seamstress answered in an agitated voice: “I don't want to speak against her, but she's put a spell on him, that's what she has; he don't seem able to do nothing but talk of her, and hang about her room. It was that troubling me when I saw you the other day. And ever since yesterday midday, when Mr. Hilary came—he's been talking that wild—and he pushed me—and—and—-” Her lips ceased to form articulate words, but, since it was not etiquette to cry before her superiors, she used them to swallow down her tears, and something in her lean throat moved up and down.
At the mention of Hilary's name the pleasurable sensation in Cecilia had undergone a change. She felt curiosity, fear, offence.
“I don't quite understand you,” she said.