She said in a changed voice: "You're going out?"
"I promised a man to look in and see the show at The Happy with him to-night. Just in the prom, you know. We haven't got stalls like giddy bachelors!"
"Osborn, can't you stay in? It—it's lonely all day, and I look forward to your coming home."
"You didn't seem to look forward very kindly last night."
She cried with hot resentment: "I thought you didn't want that mentioned again!"
"Oh, very well! And I shall be in to-morrow night; won't that do? A man can't be always tied up to the kitchen table, you know. Besides, I promised Dicky Vendo I'd go; his wife's away, and he's free."
"Yours isn't away."
"But she's been a damned little shrew, and doesn't deserve me to stay in for her. There! that's what you get by arguing." He laughed a laugh of vexation as much at his own ill-temper as at her pertinacity.
"Very well," she said, drawing back.
The light in the room was subdued, for the candles had not yet given place to the incandescent glare. He cast a glance at her face, but she had withdrawn to the shadow.