“The law of nature is this. Between a wife and a husband there never must be a secret, except when the lady keeps one. Now, your husband is, to some extent, a rather superior man——”
“Oh yes, to the very greatest extent. No one of any perception can help perceiving that.”
“Then he is quite sure to attempt it; to reserve himself, upon some point, in an unsympathetic attitude. This is just what you must not allow. You have no idea how it grows upon them, and how soon it supplants affection, and makes a married man a bachelor.”
“Oh, how dreadful! But I really do think, dear, that you must be wrong this once. My husband has never kept anything from me; anything, I mean, which I ought to know.”
“Then he told you about that poor wild Polly? How very good and kind of him!”
“Polly! What Polly? You donʼt mean to say——”
“No, no, dear, nothing of that sort! Only the mare running away with him at night through the thickest part of the forest.”
“My Polly that eats from my hand! Run away with Rufus!”
“Yes, your Polly. A perfect miracle that both of them were not killed. But, of course, he must have told you.”
Then, after sundry ejaculations, Rosa learned all about that matter, and was shocked first, and then thankful, and then hurt.