‘Oh, thank you, no.’
How could he laugh? How could he speak pleasantly of these intimate details of his bondage? How could he conceive that she would accept—
‘Already she has arranged four dinner-parties! It will be a relief not to have to think of that sort of thing—to be able to leave it to her.’
‘Mrs. Innes must have great energy. To drive all the way up from Kalka by noon and appear at a dinner-party at night—wonderful!’
‘Oh, great energy,’ Horace said.
‘She will take you everywhere—to all the functions. She will insist on your duty to society.’
Madeline felt that she must get him somehow back into his slough of despond. His freedom paralyzed her. And he returned with a pathetic change of tone.
‘I suppose there is no alternative. Violet is very good about being willing to go alone, or with somebody else; but I never think it quite fair on one’s wife to impose on her the necessity of going about with other men.’
‘Mrs. Worsley introduced us after dinner,’ said Madeline.
She kept disparagement out of her mind, but he could not help perceiving aloofness.