“Since de disgrace ob Edna dat scarcely s’prisin’,” Mr. Mouth made answer, easing a little the napkin at his neck.
“She is her own woman, me deah sah, an’ I cannot prevent it!”
In the convival ground-floor dining-room of an imprecise style, it was hard, at times, to endure such second-rate company, as that of a querulous husband.
Yes, marriage had its dull side, and its drawbacks; still, where would society be (and where morality!) without the married women?
Mrs. Mouth fetched a sigh.
Just at her husband’s back, above the ebony sideboard, hung a Biblical engraving after Rembrandt, Woman Taken in Adultery, the conception of which seemed to her exaggerated and overdone, knowing full well, from previous experience, that there need not, really, be so much fuss.... Indeed, there need not be any: but to be Taken like that! A couple of idiots.
“W’en I look at our chillen’s chairs, an’ all ob dem empty, in my opinion, we both betteh deaded,” Mr. Mouth brokenly said.
“I dare say dair are dose dat may t’ink so,” Mrs. Mouth returned, refilling her glass; “but, Prancing Nigger, I am not like dat; no, sah!”
“Where’s Charlie?”
“I s’poge he choose to dine at de lil Cantonese restaurant on de quay,” she murmured, setting down her glass with a slight grimace: how ordinaire this cheap red wine! Doubtless Edna was lapping the wines of paradise! Respectability had its trials....