"There you're at it again, you know—pretendin'. You go on as if it was the most horrible thing that could happen to any one, her boltin', when you know the most horrible thing would be her comin' back again. To look at you and Uncle and Aunt there, any one would think that Virelet was the best wife and mother that ever lived, and that she'd only left me to go to heaven."
"Well, there's no good my saying any more, I can see," said Mr. Randall. And he rose, buttoning his coat with dignity that struggled in vain against his deep depression. He was profoundly troubled by his nephew's outburst. It was as if peace and honesty and honor, the solid, steadfast tradition by which he lived, had been first outraged, then destroyed in sheer brutality. He didn't know himself. He had been charged with untruthfulness and dishonesty; he, who had been held the soul of honesty and truth; who had always held himself at least sincere.
And he didn't know his nephew Randall. He had always supposed that Randall was refined and that he had a good heart. And to think that he could break out like this, and be coarse and cruel, and say things before ladies that were downright immoral—
"Well," he said, as he shook hands with him, "I can't understand you, my boy."
"Sorry, Uncle."
"There—leave it alone. I don't ask you to apologize to me. But there's your mother. You've done your best to hurt her. Good-by."
"He's upset, John," said Ranny's mother, "and no wonder. You should have let him be."
"I'm not upset," said Ranny, wearily. "What beats me is the rotten humbug of it all."
And no sooner did Mr. Randall find himself in the High Street with his wife than he took her by the arm in confidence.
"He was quite right about that wife of his. Only I thought—if he could have patched it up—"