“Thank you, Mrs. Hazelrigg,” said Martin Disney, and then going over to his wife, he said gravely, “Forgive me, Isola, I was wrong.”
He held out his hands to her with a pleading look, and she rose slowly from her chair, and let her head fall upon his breast as he put his arms round her, soothing and caressing her.
“My poor girl, I was wrong—wrong—wrong—a sinner against your truth and purity,” he murmured low in her ear; and then he added laughingly, to Gwendolen, “Were we not fools to dispute about such a trifle?”
“All married people are fools on occasion,” answered Mrs. Hazelrigg. “I have often quarrelled desperately with Daniel about a mere nothing—not because he was wrong, but because I wanted to quarrel. That kind of thing clears the air—like a thunderstorm. One feels so dutiful and affectionate afterwards. Dan gave me this sapphire ring after one of our biggest rows,” she added, holding up a sparkling finger.
Daniel Hazelrigg came into the room while she was talking of him, a large man, with a bald head and sandy beard, a genial-looking man, pleased with a world in which he had been permitted always to foresee the rise and fall of stocks. The Hazelriggs were the very type of a comfortable couple, so steeped in prosperity and the good things of this world as to be hardly aware of any keener air outside the gardenia-scented atmosphere of their own house; hardly aware of men who dined badly or women who made their own gowns; much less of men who never dined at all, or women who flung themselves despairing from the parapets of the London bridges.
Mr. Hazelrigg came into the room beaming, looked at his wife and smiled, as he held out his hand to Colonel Disney, looked at his sister-in-law and smiled again, and held out his hand to her, the smile broadening a little, as if with really affectionate interest.
“I’m very glad to see you, my dear Mrs. Disney; but I can’t compliment you upon looking as well as you did when we last met.”
“She is tired after her long journey,” said Gwendolen, quickly. “That’s all there is amiss.”
“The sooner we get to our hotel the better for both of us,” said Disney. “We are dusty and weather-beaten, and altogether bad company. Good night, Mrs. Hazelrigg.”
“But surely you’ll stop and dine; it’s close upon eight,” remonstrated Hazelrigg, who was the essence of hospitality. “You can send on your luggage, and go to your hotel later.”