Reader, I went to Turkistan, and was married there, and lived there and in Anatolia for many happy years. But that is another story. I did not start on that voyage of discovery till several months after that conversation. I had battered myself to pieces against the prison bars of my misery, and health ruthlessly driven away was slow to return.
As I lived with Ted and Essie I became aware that he was becoming enormously successful in money matters. There were mysterious expeditions, buyings and sellings of properties, which necessitated sudden journeys. Immense transactions passed through his competent hands, and presently the possibility of a country house was spoken of. He talked mysteriously of a wonderful old manor house in Essex, which he had come upon entirely by chance, which would presently come into the market, and which might be acquired much below its value, so anxious was the owner—a foreign bigwig—to part with it at once.
Ted prosed away about this house from teatime till bedtime. Essie listened dutifully, but it was I who asked all the questions.
Ted hurried away next morning, not to return for several days, one of which he hoped to spend in Essex.
“You don’t seem much interested about the country house,” I said at tea time. I was slightly irritated by the indifference which seemed to enwrap Essie’s whole existence.
“Don’t you care about it? It must be beautiful from Ted’s account.”
“If he likes it I shall like it.”
“What a model wife you are. Have you no wishes of your own, no tastes of your own, Essie?”
She looked at me with tranquil eyes.
“I think Ted is happy,” she said, “and I am so glad the children are both exactly like him.”