"No," said Rendel decidedly. "Quite impossible."
"I should have thought," said Wentworth, "that in these enlightened days a husband who could not do without his wife was rather a mistake."
"That may be," said Rendel. "But I think on the whole that the husband who can do without her is a greater mistake still."
"It is a great pity you were not born five hundred years ago," said Wentworth.
"I should have disliked it particularly," said Rendel. "I should have been fighting at Flodden, or Crécy, or somewhere, and I should have been too old to marry Rachel, even in these days of well-preserved centenarians. It is no good, Jack; I am afraid you must leave me to my folly."
"Well, well," said Wentworth, agreeing with the word, and thinking to himself that even the wisest of men looks foolish at times when he has the yoke of matrimony across his shoulders; "after all there is to be said—if we are going to have another war on our hands in Africa, which Heaven forfend, the time of the statesmen over there is hardly come yet."
At this moment the door opened and the two men turned round quickly as Rachel came in.
"Frank," said Rachel. "Should you mind——" Then she stopped as she saw Wentworth. "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Wentworth? I didn't know you were here. Don't let me interrupt you."
"On the contrary," said Wentworth, "it is I who am interrupting your husband."
"I only came to see, Frank, if you were very busy," she said.