"Why?"
"I am afraid, my dear (speaking of course in strictest confidence), that she is not quite a straightforward person."
"I hardly know any one I consider quite straightforward, myself," answered Mrs. Jones calmly. "What has she done?"
"I think you are making rather a sweeping assertion, my dear," he said, eyeing with a momentary misgiving a roast duck; it looked overdone.
"Never mind my assertions, but tell me what that poor thing has done?"
"Why do you say that poor thing? I really do not see why she is to be pitied."
"Don't you? well I do. Do you call the life she leads a proper life for a young creature accustomed probably to all the freedom of a country life in Scotland? I often think of her, and I declare sometimes I should like to force my way into that dismal house, and take her and her child out of it." Mrs. Jones spoke with a vehemence quite surprising to her husband.
"Really, my dear," he said, "the rapid conclusions you arrive at are ... bewildering to my slower mode of thought. You have seen Mrs. Drayton once, and you are ready immediately to credit her with weariness, and the house is a substantial house and very well furnished, and...."
"Do you suppose curtains and carpets can make a woman happy?" asked Mrs. Jones, severely.
"They do something towards it, I think, judging from your own great anxiety upon the subject."