“Dicky,” he said, stopping with his hand on the door, “don’t say anything about Ivor when you write. I would rather not hear. But do what you can for him—and if you marry, have him with you sometimes, will you?” He gave her a kiss and went out, and she watched him call a cab from the rank across the road and drive off. She was standing there still when Strickland came to shut the door.
“I don’t like the Captain going off like that,” Strickland said, when they were back in the dining-room and she was clearing away the plates and cup. “It doesn’t seem right somehow.”
“I wonder what there is about marriage that is so difficult,” said Teresa sadly. “People nearly always behave queerly after a bit. Even if they don’t actually quarrel they call each other ‘dear’—rather short—and say ‘it doesn’t matter, thank you,’ and dreary things like that.”
“I think, myself, better have a quarrel and have done with it,” said Strickland. “It is a mistake to think over things too much. If a woman is busy all day working she’s no time to bother about the man till it comes to getting his wages off him, and then it’s best to be civil.”
“But, my dear, it is worse in working men’s houses,” said Teresa. “If you counted up the quarrels between husbands and wives in some of those small streets!”
“Quarrels, yes, Miss, that’s what I said,” Strickland replied. “But I thought you were speaking of Captain Hatton going off so cold this morning, and no one able to say exactly what has happened.”
Susie came in at that moment and dismissed Strickland with a rather reproving request for breakfast at once. When the door was shut she said to Teresa, “I do hope the maids haven’t begun gossiping about Evangeline already. What was Strickland saying?”
“We were talking about marriage and wondering why it is so difficult,” said Teresa. “She was sorry Evan had gone off so drearily.”
“Oh, has he gone!” Susie exclaimed. “Really he ought not to have done that. They will think all sorts of absurd things, and now there is that nurse to gossip with. You really encourage them sometimes, dear Dicky, by talking about a thing instead of pretending there is nothing to notice.”
“But I didn’t know there was anything the matter, except that Chips was ill,” said Teresa in astonishment. “I was talking to Strickland about married people’s manner to each other. What has happened?”