It was apparently as the result of meditation that he said, "I suppose it is a bit crude, if you come to think of it. Only why couldn't she say so at the time?"
I said I supposed she was afraid of hurting his feelings.
"My feelings? How could I have any feelings about a blanketty drawing-room suite? Does she really think I'm such a fool that I can't live without lions on my staircase? I stuck the beastly things there because I thought she'd like 'em. If I thought she'd like a tame rhinoceros in her boudoir I'd have got her one, if I'd 'ad to go out and catch 'im and train 'im myself. If I thought now that the only way to preserve her affection was to wear that suit of armour every night at dinner I'd wear it and glory in wearing it. There isn't any damned silly thing I wouldn't do and glory in."
And then—"Her nerves must be in an awful state."
He meditated again.
"Tell you what—I'll get rid of this place. I'll let it go furnished for what it'll fetch. I'll only keep the things we had before—the things she liked. They are prettier."
He looked round him with his disenchanted eyes.
"I can see it's all wrong, this sort of thing. It's in bad taste. Rotten bad taste. I suppose I must have been a bit excited about it at the time—I must have thought it was all right or I couldn't have stood it.
"It's a phase I've gone through.
"I can understand perfectly well how she feels about it.