Jane agreed. Ah, yes, if that was peace, they had it.
Well, wasn't it? After that infernal row he made? You couldn't say anything when the poor little chap was ill and couldn't help it, but you couldn't have let him cultivate screaming as a habit. It was wonderful the effect that woman had on him. He couldn't think how she did it. It was as if her mere presence in a room——
He thought that Jane was going to admit that as she had admitted everything, but as he looked at her he saw that her mouth had lifted at its winged corners, and her eyes were darting their ominous light.
"It's awful of me, I know," she said, "but her presence in a room—in the house, Hugh—makes me feel as if I could scream the roof off."
(He glanced uneasily at her.)
"She makes me want to do things."
"What things?" he inquired mildly.
"The things I mustn't—to break loose—to kick over the traces——"
"You don't surprise me." He smoothed his face to the expression proper to a person unsurprised, dealing imperturbably with what he had long ago foreseen.
"Sometimes I think that if Gertrude were not so good, I might be more so. You're all so good," she said. "You are so good, so very, very good."