To his surprise, Prudence also rose.
"Wait a moment, dear," she said, sweetly, "and I'll go with you."
And of course Meramble rose, and refrained from accompanying them.
"I wish you were not quite such a donkey, Rodney," said Prudence, as the two walked away.
"Thanks for your good wish." Lawrence had a sense of suffocation upon him. This sense was caused by his now having fully decided in his own mind that his wife used just such tones and just such glances with other men as she had used—nay, as she still used—with him. This conviction, he felt, was reached rather soon after his marriage, and he was in the first acute suffering of the full discovery which had been slowly, like a dull pain, coming to his consciousness.
"I don't mean that you are habitually a donkey," she went on, as they strolled through the Plaza, "but only occasionally, and, of course, just when you particularly ought not to be."
Here the speaker bowed to an acquaintance, and Lawrence hurriedly raised his hat without seeing whom they had met.
"Just now," she continued, "you ought to have been especially sweet to Mr. Meramble."
"Why? Because the creature is a blackguard and a male flirt?"
Prudence raised her brows again. But she touched her husband's sleeve, and her glance tried to meet his.