Now and again the husband’s voice rose to a pretty high pitch, and his fine mouth was touched with a sneer, and the wife’s eyes flashed and flamed and shot out indignant wrath. Her hat had fallen off far down the drive, and her rings of yellow fluffy hair fell wildly over her forehead, one small hand was clenched in eager protest, but the other was clasped tight in her husband’s.
They always went like this, these two; they had got into the foolish way very early in their acquaintance and had never been able to get out of it.
Suddenly some common hypothesis struck them both at once, and Mrs. Waring cried out with a gasp,
“If we can prove it, I am right.”
“Yes, if you can prove it, darling, that’s the point, and I hope that you never will. Have you any idea, dear love, what the proving of this will undo, what it must upset?”
“I think I have,” she said slowly, her blue eyes gleaming eagerly, “but it seems to me whenever a great hubbub is made about the upsetting of some theory, that it generally ends in being much ado about nothing, and that the new thing that springs from the ashes of the old dead, is infinitely more beautiful than ever its predecessor was, for it is one step nearer the truth.”
“Dearest, we must end our talk,” groaned Mr. Waring, peering with terrified looks through his eyeglasses. “Here is Gwen, most slightly clad and of a bright blue tint, pursued by Mary. I fear very much that story of Boadicea you told her has instigated her to this action. I think, dearest, I will go to the study and work out this question of date.”
Mr. Waring turned nervously and made a gentle effort to disengage his hand from his wife’s, but she clutched him firmly. “Henry,” she cried, “you would not desert me?”
“Oh, my dear,” he gasped, “what can I do? The child must be cleansed and, I presume, punished. I can be of no use,” and he still showed signs of flight, but the horror-stricken eyes of his wife, fixed pleadingly on him, made him waver and wait.
By a superhuman effort Mary got up first.