Finding her stifled sobs unregarded, Lucy began again, in the same complaining voice—
"I thought a gentleman's wife was fit company even for dukes and duchesses; and if it comes to fathers, I have less need to be ashamed of mine, though he starved and beat me, than Lady Kilrush has of hers, who was in jail for running away with a farmer's cash-box. 'Twas all in the evening paper when his lordship married her."
"Good God!" cried George, "are women by nature mean and petty? The first desire of a gentleman's wife, madam, should be to think and act like a lady, and to-day you do neither. I wish we had never seen Lady Kilrush, since an hour of her company has made you dissatisfied with a life for which I thought Heaven designed you. To sigh for balls and drums—you, who never danced a step in your life! And do you think when I left the army—the calling I loved—I meant to hang upon the skirts of fashion, stand in doorways, or elbow and shove in supper-rooms? I renounced all such idle pleasures when I left His Majesty's service and took up arms for Christ, whose soldier and servant I am."
Lucy, now entirely repentant, looked up at him with streaming eyes, shivering at his indignation, but admiring him.
"How handsome you are when you are angry!" she cried. "You are so good and noble, and I am so vile a sinner. 'Tis Satan tempting me. He makes me forget what a worm I am. He makes me proud and ungrateful—ungrateful to you, my dear, my honoured husband; ungrateful to God who gave me your love."
She slipped from her chair to the ground, and knelt there, weeping passionately, her pretty auburn hair falling over her face and neck, whose delicate whiteness showed like ivory between loose locks of burnished gold.
Her husband had recovered his self-command, lifted her tenderly from the ground, and held her against his breast. How pretty she was, how artless and childlike, and how brutal it was in him to be so angry at her poor little frivolous yearnings for fine clothes and fine company, music and candlelight! He kissed her on the forehead and lips in a gentle silence, led her to her chair, and then resumed his book.
"'Tis I am the sinner, Lucy," he said after a pause, during which her needle travelled slowly along the seam of the shirt she was making for him. "I did very ill to be so hot and impatient about a trifle. But these long empty days vex me. I hope I may be of the proper stuff for a Christian; but sure I should never have done for a hermit. I want to be up and doing."
"Indeed, George, you work too hard as it is. A long day at home should be a rest for you."
"I am not one of those who relish rest. Come, I will read to you, if you choose."