“No; but one hears everything, you know, in town—especially, I think, at this time of the year, when there are few men about, and they talk of everything.”
“Yes,” said Lucy, “I have heard often of the gossip in your clubs, that it is worse and more unkind than any other gossip.”
“Do not be too hard upon us! It is as petty and miserable as gossip is everywhere. But I have seen Mrs. Curtis, and heard it from herself. It is nothing, a misunderstanding between women—”
“Which, of course, you consider the merest trifle,” cried Lucy, much more piqued by this countershot than he had been by the assault on the clubs. Women are certainly on this point more ready to take offence than men, who have the calm confidence of their own superiority to fall back upon.
“I do not, indeed; but the women in question are not of the highest order. Mrs. Curtis most likely was fussy and interfering; and Nancy—”
“Do you call her Nancy?” cried Lucy, opening wide eyes.
“I beg your pardon. I got used to the name before she was Mrs. Arthur; and there is such a wonderful incongruity in the idea that she is Mrs. Arthur,” he said, doing his best to conciliate by this remark; but this slip of the name had evidently had a bad effect, he could not tell why. He thought that Lucy (in whom he had never before seen any indication of such foolish family pride) was offended by such a familiarity; and yet what could he say to excuse it? “Mrs. Curtis was intrusive, probably,” he went on, “and Mrs. Arthur resented it.”
“Oh, do not change the name you are accustomed to for me, Mr. Durant!”
“I am not accustomed to it,” he answered meekly, feeling that something was wrong, but not knowing what it was. “She resented it, I suppose. I do not wish to be disagreeable, but you know that a lady like Mrs. Curtis can be very officious and interfering; and she resented it, I suppose.”
Poor Durant! if he thought he was mending matters by calling Arthur’s wife she, with that little emphasis, how mistaken he was! Lucy’s heart was conscious of a thrill and jar, such as one’s foot or hand might experience if suddenly striking against some sharp angle in the dark. She had no right to feel so unreasonably offended with Durant, so unreasonably disdainful of Arthur’s wife. Lucy was angry with herself for the force of her sentiments, which seemed so utterly out of proportion with the matter on hand. She thought it more dignified and befitting to retire from any further question of it. But her aspect changed unawares, her very form grew stiffer and more erect, and she said, icily, “You said you saw Arthur. Is he looking better than when we saw him last?”