He looked towards the windows, across which dark blue silk curtains were drawn, as if he could see the passing-bell swinging in the old square tower. Then he turned to me.
“You know how mad I was about Vere. It’s always like that with me. Unless I’m stone I’m fire. After we were married I got even madder. Having her all to myself was like enchantment, and in Italy, too, my other native land.”
I thought of Lady Inley’s eyes.
“I can understand,” I said.
“Of course, when we got back it had to be different. Friends came in, and she was run after and admired and written about. You know the publicity of life in modern London.”
“City of public-houses and society spies.”
“I bore it, because it’s supposed to be the thing. And Vere rather likes it, somehow. So I let her have her fun, as long as it was fun. I didn’t intend it should ever be anything else.”
He frowned. When he did that, and his thick eyebrows nearly met, he looked all Italian.
“We did the usual things—Paris, Ascot, Scotland, and so on—till Vere had to lie up.”
“Your boy?”