"There, I'm sorry, Louis. I ought not to have said a thing like that. It was unforgivable. But you do talk like an idiot. How on earth can one make mistakes in breeding? Oh, you and I talk different languages, that's all, and it's not any use at all trying to think and talk the same."
"Well, I know more of the world than you do, and you must let me teach you, Marcella. Oh, I know you're—you're braver and stronger morally than I. But, you know, when we get to Sydney and are married we'll have to stay in hotels and—and—I don't want my wife making faux pas. It'd be just like you—you're such a dear, really—to go doing things servants ought to do—in public, I mean, and make a fool of me."
She looked at him and smiled reminiscently and rather cruelly. But he looked so solemn, so serious that, in sheer mischief, she told him that she would be very careful not to make him conspicuous by her blunders. And then she asked him an unexpected question.
"Louis, did you write and tell your father you didn't want any more money?"
He took out his packet of cigarettes—he never possessed a cigarette case, such things were to be turned into money too easily. His hands were trembling as he struck a match.
"Yes—I—t-told him," he said jerkily.
"What did you say about me?" she asked curiously.
He pondered for a moment. At last he decided to be honest.
"I didn't tell him."
"Didn't you, Louis?" she said, looking hurt. "Why?"