She rose, and began to put the tea-things together.
“You are unreasonable,” she began, coldly, after a slight pause. “First you grumble because your book doesn’t suit the public, and then when I suggest something that probably will, you turn upon me.”
He did not immediately reply, and when he spoke, Philippa recognized with a flash of anger that he had not been attending to her words.
“Do you know that Cecily’s been writing a book?” he asked, suddenly. “It’s to be out to-morrow.”
“Oh?” she returned, coldly. “What a lot of scribblers there are in the world, to be sure.”
Robert felt annoyed. He parted coldly from Philippa, and taking a hansom in the Brompton road, drove to his club. On the stairs he met Travers, a friend of his. Travers looked perturbed and angry.
“Women are the very deuce!” he exclaimed, in reply to an interrogation.
“I agree,” said Robert, with fervor.
CHAPTER XVI
LATE in the afternoon of the following Tuesday, Robert sat over the fire in his study, reading his wife’s book.