"Who are you?"
There was a significant pause before she answered. In her tone was significance of another kind.
"I'm your wife."
Either her words took him by surprise, or he did not gather what she meant, or disliked what he did gather. He was still again, as if ruminating on what she had said. When he did speak the remark he made was a little startling.
"Damn you!"
The unparliamentary utterance, especially as addressed to a lady, was accentuated by the matter-of-fact stolidity which marked it. It was not impossible that for a moment or two she was moved to give him back as good as he sent--and better. Possibly, however, the impulse was changed, as regards form, in the making. Instead of imitating the vigour of his epithet, she cut at him with a lash of her own.
"You're my husband." It would have been difficult for the strongest language to have been more scathing than her plain pronouncement of a simple fact. As if desirous of driving her dart still further home, she repeated her own words, with an even added bitterness--"You're my husband!--you!"
It would appear that the man, object as he was, was not without some sense of humour, and, also, that his feelings were not of the kind which are unduly sensitive. After what seemed to be due consideration of her words, he endorsed their correctness with a brevity which in itself was eloquent.
"I am."
There was something in the two little monosyllables which seemed to sting her more than his curse had done. She gave a movement, as if she were disposed to let her resentment take some active and visible form. But, again, maybe, her impulse changed in the making; she endeavoured to put a meaning into her repetition of a simple statement, which should make it strike him with greater force than a blow could have done.