“I can’t.”
She could have given a guess. She had a thought, but she kept it in her own heart, as about the same man she had kept other thoughts before. Had she spoken it, she would have said, “Maynard.”
She said nothing, leaving her husband to explain. He did so, at once undeceiving her.
“Well, it was Lucas. That thick-skulled brute we met in Newport, and afterwards in New York.”
“Ay; better you had never seen him in either place. He proved a useless companion, Dick.”
“I know all that. Perhaps I shall get square with him yet.”
“So they’ve gone; and that, I suppose, will be the end of it. Well, let it be; I don’t care. I’m contented enough to be once more in dear old England!”
“In cheap lodgings like this?”
“In anything. A hovel here is preferable to a palace in America! I’d rather live in a London garret, in these mean lodgings, if you like, than be mistress of that Fifth Avenue house you were so delighted to dine in. I hate their republican country?”
The sentiment was appropriate to the woman who uttered it.