“And, oh, how you did smell of beer, you naughty fellow, when you came in!”
“Did I? Well, not without reason, neither,” said Gervase, with his loud laugh; “a set of jolly old cocks when you set them going. We only wanted you there in your old blue dress and your apron.”
“That you will never see again, I can tell you; and it isn’t very nice of you, Gervase, wishing your wife in such a place.”
“It’s a good enough place, and it’s where you came from,” said Gervase. “But I told ’em,” he said, nodding his head, “what an awful swell you have grown—nothing good enough for you. Didn’t the old fellows laugh and nod their old heads. Ho, ho! He, he!”
“Gervase, dear,” said his wife, “you won’t go there again? you won’t go and leave me all by myself, longing and wondering when you’d come back? I thought you’d gone and fallen asleep somewhere. I thought every minute you’d come into the room. You won’t go again, Gervase, dear, and leave your poor Patty alone?”
“Why, you had father,” Gervase said.
“Oh, papa; yes, dear, and I kept on playing to amuse him, dear old gentleman, and to keep it from him that you had gone out. If he had known where you were, it would have vexed him sadly, you know it would.”
“It vexed them both,” said Gervase, “when I went there after you; but I didn’t mind—nor you either, Patty.”
“A young single man has to have his liberty,” said Patty, “but when he’s married—— You wouldn’t have gone off and left me—your Patty, whom you said you were so fond of—in those days?”
“Ah,” said the Softy, with the wisdom of his kind, “but I’ve got you now fast, Patty, at home waiting for me; so I can take my pleasure a bit, and have you all the same.” He looked at her with a cynical light in his dull eyes. He, and she also, felt the strength of the argument. No need to please her now, and conciliate her in her own ideas about beer and the parlour of the Seven Thorns. She could no longer cast him off, or leave him in the lurch. Consequently, Gervase felt himself free to indulge his tastes in his own way, whatever Patty might think. She was struck silent by that new light in his eyes. He was not capable of argument, or of anything but sticking to what he had once said, with all the force of his folly. She looked at him, and, for the first time, saw what was before her. It had never occurred to her before that he had the strength to resist her, or that she could not call him to her like a dog when her better sense saw it to be necessary. A docile fool is sometimes contemptible enough; but a fool resistant, a being whom reason cannot teach, who has no power of being convinced! Patty felt a cold dew come over her forehead. She saw what was before her with momentary giddiness, as if she had looked over the edge of a precipice. But she did not lose hope. She sent next day an imperative note to her father requiring his attendance: that he either should resist or refuse her call did not come into her mind. “Come up to Greyshott,” she wrote, “at once, for I have something to say to you;” as she might have written to one of her servants. But Richard Hewitt was not a man who could be defied with impunity. He never appeared in obedience to her summons; he took no notice of it. He replied only by that silence which is the most terrible of all kinds of resistance. And it was not long before Gervase disappeared again. After the second catastrophe, Patty swept down upon the Seven Thorns in her carriage—an imposing figure in her silk and crape. But Hewitt was not impressed even by the sight of her grandeur. “I’ll not refuse no customer for you—there! and you needn’t think you can come over me,” he cried. “By George! to order me about—what I’m to do and whom I’m to have in this house. It’s like your impudence; but I tell you, Miss, I’ll see you d——d first,” the angry man roared, bringing his clenched fist down upon the table, and making all the glasses ring. Patty was cowed, and had not a word to say.