A waiter came in for orders, and early as it was my husband asked for dinner to be served immediately. My heart was fluttering excitedly by this time and I was glad of the relief which the presence of other people gave me.
While the table was being laid my husband talked of the doings of the day. He asked who was "the seedy old priest" who had given us "the sermon" at the wedding breakfast—he had evidently forgotten that he had seen the Father before.
I told him the "seedy old priest" was Father Dan, and he was a saint if ever there was one.
"A saint, is he?" said my husband. "Wish saint were not synonymous with simpleton, though."
Then he gave me his own views of "the holy state of matrimony." By holding people together who ought to be apart it often caused more misery and degradation of character than a dozen entirely natural adulteries and desertions, which a man had sometimes to repair by marriage or else allow himself to be regarded as a seducer and a scoundrel.
I do not think my husband was conscious of the naive coarseness of all this, as spoken to a young girl who had only just become his wife. I am sure he was not aware that he was betraying himself to me in every word he uttered and making the repugnance I had begun to feel for him deepen into horror.
My palms became moist, and again and again I had to dry them with my handkerchief. I was feeling more frightened and more ashamed than I had ever felt before, but nevertheless when we sat down to dinner I tried to compose myself. Partly for the sake of appearance before the servants, and partly because I was taking myself to task for the repugnance I felt towards my husband, I found something to say, though my voice shook.
My husband ate ravenously and drank a good deal. Once or twice, when he insisted on pouring out champagne for me, I clinked glasses with him. Although every moment at table was increasing my fear and disgust, I sometimes allowed myself to laugh.
Encouraged by this he renewed his endearments even before the waiters had left the room, and when they had gone, with orders not to return until he rang, and the door was closed behind them, he switched off the lights, pushed a sofa in front of the fire, put me to sit on it, sat down beside me and redoubled his tenderness.
"How's my demure little nun now?" he said. "Frightened, wasn't she? They're all frightened at first, bless them!"