She glanced very slightly towards Richard, and Richard flung away his book, remarked “Psh!” very loudly, and rose and stalked towards his wife and her brother.
“Always glad to see you, Delany,” he remarked, with forced geniality, “but I should be uncommonly obliged if you would help me in putting a stop to this nonsense. You can’t think it’s particularly gratifying for a man to know that such tales are going about the bazar with respect to his wife.”
“But sure no one that matters regards ’em as anything but a joke!” said Brian in surprise.
“Ah, but Ambrose can never see a joke, don’t you know?” said Eveleen plaintively.
“Perhaps not, but I can see defiance when I am treated to it——” Richard was not apt at epigram, and his return was deplorably lame. He went on to seek sympathy from Brian, who did not look encouraging: he disliked matrimonial differences which went deeper than mere surface squabbling. “I desired your sister particularly not to show herself at to-day’s ceremony, yet where should I find her but on horseback within the square, close to the General—thus giving confirmation to all these foolish reports?”
“As if I’d have let anything or anybody in the whole wide world keep me away!” Eveleen broke in indignantly. “To see the colours go up on the round tower, and the guns firing, and the soldiers cheering and cheering as if they would never stop—would anything make me miss such a sight, I ask you?”
“Not my wishes, evidently. You have no regard for them.”
“And why would I, when you gave me no slightest, tiniest hint of a reason? Was there any, will you tell me?”
“I had a reason, certainly, but I didn’t want to alarm you. Perhaps I was foolish to be so careful.”
“Will you never learn that when anything is really, truly interesting, there ain’t the smallest possibility of its being alarming? Don’t y’agree with me, Brian?”