Mrs. Colonibel reluctantly mentioned the name of the story.
“Been crying over it, haven’t you?” he asked. “Wasting tears over a silly jade that never existed, and over a nice girl that does exist and does suffer you’ll bestow not a word of sympathy. You women are queer creatures.”
“Not a bit queerer than men,” said Mrs. Colonibel, goaded into a response.
“Yes, you are,” he retorted. “For double-twistedness and mixed motives and general incomprehensibility, commend me to women; and you’re unbusinesslike, the most of you. You, Flora Colonibel, are now acting dead against your own interests. What makes you so hateful to that little French girl?”
Mrs. Colonibel moved uneasily about on her cushions. “She isn’t little,” she said; “she is as tall as I am.”
“What makes you so hateful to her?” he said relentlessly.
“You should not talk in that way to me, Brian,” said Mrs. Colonibel in an aggrieved tone of voice. “I’m not hateful to her.”
“Yes, you are; you know you are,—hateful and spiteful in little feminine ways. You think people don’t notice it; they do.”
Mrs. Colonibel was a little frightened. “What do you mean, Brian?”
“Simply this. You have a young and fascinating girl under your roof. You suppress her in spite of the fact that she will soon be a married woman and in a position to lord it over you. People are talking about it already.”