“Well, she is a nice little thing, sweet tempered, and pretty, although of course her mental calibre is limited. She may make a good wife, though. A man doesn't expect his wife always to set the river on fire as you have done, sweetheart.”
Then Wilbur fished from his pockets a lot of samples. “Thought I must order a new suit, to live up to my wife,” he said. “See which you prefer, Margaret.”
“I should think your own political outlook would make the new suit necessary,” said Margaret tartly.
“Not a bit of it. Get more votes if you look a bit shabby from the sort who I expect may get me the office,” laughed Wilbur. “This new suit is simply to enable me to look worthy, as far as my clothes are concerned, of my famous wife.”
“I think you have already clothes enough,” said Margaret coldly.
Wilbur looked hurt. “Doesn't make much difference how the old man looks, does it, dear?” said he.
“Let me see the samples,” Margaret returned with an effort. There were depths beyond depths; there were bottomless quicksands in a lie. How could she have known?
That night Wilbur looked into his wife's bedroom at midnight. “Awake?” he asked in his monosyllabic fashion.
“Yes.”
“Say, old girl, Von Rosen has just this minute gone. Guess it's a match fast enough.”