“Mine was also double!” Mrs Lorton said with distinct tartness, condemning privately his arrogance, and noticing the boots with a strange feeling of sudden and unutterable despair.
“It is all so much worse for a woman,” she added vaguely, with some idea of out-doing him, such as she had felt once or twice at dinner parties, when her epigrams had been smarter than his.
“The strong possess a greater capacity for suffering than the weak,” Burnham retorted. “Medical science tells us that—”
“Please spare me the revelations of the dissecting-room,” she cried bitterly; “I am in no condition to bear them.”
She glanced at him with pathetic eyes, and added, “I ought to have gone to Margate.”
“I ought to have gone there too,” he said.
“Really, you make the conversation sound like one of Maeterlinck's plays,” she rejoined. “Do be more original.”
The reproach cut him to the heart. He never knew why, but he felt so much injured that he with great difficulty restrained his tears.
“Women can be very brutal,” he said moodily, biting his lips, and wondering how many authors it was necessary to read in order never to be at a disadvantage with a clever woman.