It had all passed through his mind while he turned from the door and the servants were withdrawing noiselessly, and in his impulsive way he stopped and laid his hand on Ambrose’s shoulder.
“You and I are old friends, my boy—let me say one word. I don’t know what tales you may have heard when you rushed off to Bombay, but believe me, they were lies. Your wife is a good woman—if ever I have met one—and she adores you.”
Ambrose laughed, not very pleasantly. “You are agitating yourself unnecessarily,” with some stiffness. “I am quite aware my wife adores me—worse luck! I mean she makes me a laughing-stock in company,” he added hastily.
“Many a man would give a good deal to be made a laughing-stock in that way,” a little sternly. “But why, then——?”
“Money, my good sir—nothing but money! She was ruining me. I swear to you, I should have been broke in another year of it.”
“The ladies must always be buying pretty clothes, bless ’em! And a fine creature like that——! But if you explained——”
“It was not clothes,” resentfully. “The difficulty with Mrs Ambrose is to induce her to wear clothes suited to her position. But what do you say to her paying the debts of the young scamp of a brother she mentioned, who is playing the fool with the best in an Irish regiment?”
“That I should have a word to say to the brother before visiting his sins on the sister.”
“I should like you to try it, and see how much Mrs Ambrose would allow you to say! And what do you think of her rebuilding the stables of the bungalow—a hired bungalow, mind you—I took for her? and saying that in Ireland they kept the horses warm and dry, however poorly they themselves were lodged?”
“An amiable weakness, surely?”