He has given up business now, so he knows he will be usually at hand to guard his beautiful wife from the impudent swells—idle, good-for-nothing specimens of the genus homo—to whom morality is an unknown word, and whom he dislikes thoroughly, though he is deferential to their faces.
So that on the whole his matrimonial scheme bears a remarkably smooth aspect.
“There are one or two other little things on which I should like your opinion before I write my directions.”
Hearing which she brightens up at once into an attitude of interest.
“Did’nt you say the other day that you preferred a brougham to a clarence?”
“A brougham by all means, and it must be by Peters.”
“Have you a particular fancy for Peters?”
“Yes, yes. He is the only maker who is chic. Most of the others turn out heavy lumbering vehicles, with not the style about them that would suit me; but then you see, we have always been considered to be so very difficile in our tastes, and the brougham must be green.”
“With scarlet under carriage, and body well picked out with broad scarlet lines?”
“No, no! Picked out with black,” she says very decidedly, wondering at the awful taste of the man. And there is not a doubt but that his taste is showy, he wears at this identical moment a miniature yacht in full sail, in gold and enamel, as a scarf pin, and a tie of violet satin, with orange stripes; orange is in fact his pet colour, from rhubarb down to the primrose of his gloves.