"Then I'll see to it," she said, escaping quickly, for she felt as yet unequal to retaining her composure before both of them.
The supper, to her relief, passed easily. She dissociated herself from the conversation, resisting all the lawyer's attempts to drag her into it and evading obstinately a dozen openings which he gave her to criticise her home. Keeping a stubborn silence, then, she began anxiously to study his game. Seeing that she had no intention of obeying him, he shifted his tactics. He began a tirade against the extravagance of the modern woman, asserting that she put on her back one fourth of the family income. Sheila smiled, but guarded herself against a retort. Fargus applauded in his taciturn way.
Receiving no answer, Bofinger developed his thesis, to the point of declaring that the nation was becoming effeminate, due to the fact that the wife instead of the husband was the dominating influence in the home. He even ascribed to this cause the increase of domestic infelicity.
"Is he, by any chance, trying to force me to quarrel with him?" Sheila thought in amused perplexity. "Is that his game, I wonder?"
Acting on this assumption, she avoided all expression so skilfully that the lawyer on his leaving immediately after supper shot her a glance full of anger and irritation.
"Come again—come soon," Fargus said cordially. "Sheila, ask Mr. Bofinger to run in and see you some afternoon."
"Why," she stammered, overcome by this new surprise, "I hope he will."
When Fargus returned from ushering out the lawyer, he found Sheila in the parlor, an elbow on the mantelpiece, resting her chin pensively in her palm.
"I thought you had no friends," she said immediately.