She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m dressing for dinner—you’d better wait until another time,” she remarked with a yawn.
“There’s no time like the present,” he said harshly; “your manners were detestable to-day; you treated people like dogs!”
She laughed bitterly. “For instance?” she said, “Lily Osborne?”
“Mrs. Osborne knows better than to care!”
“She should!” Margaret mocked, “she should expect it; I congratulate you on her admirable humility.”
He gnawed his lip, the veins swelling in his forehead. “I warn you!” he cried fiercely, “I will not permit such behavior—your dance at the musicale is the talk of the town, and now you receive people who come here with indifference—and I’m a Cabinet minister!”
“Which is a miracle!” his wife replied, laughing softly and provokingly; “you made a mistake in your marriage, Wicklow; you should have chosen a more popular person.”
“I’m aware of my mistake!” he retorted, still walking, and picking up first one knick-knack and then another and setting them down again; “I was a damned fool! I thought you witty and fond of society; I fancied you a success and you can be one if you choose, but everything’s upside down with your whims. You keep Fox hanging around here—you know that he and I are at sword’s points in politics, you know that he—”
“Leave him out please!” Margaret interposed in a cold, hard voice. She had risen and her eyes glowed with passion.
White turned a lowering look on her. “Fox didn’t marry you!” he said cuttingly, “he was too wise!”