One action of hers, however, brought him to full cognition. Her face being reflected towards him as she sat, he could perceive that she was amusing herself by artificially producing in each cheek the dimple before alluded to, a curious accomplishment of which she was mistress, effecting it by a momentary suction. It seemed to him for the first time that the dimples were far oftener absent from her face during his intercourse with her nowadays than they had been in the earlier weeks of their acquaintance.
“Don’t do that, Arabella!” he said suddenly. “There is no harm in it, but—I don’t like to see you.”
She turned and laughed. “Lord, I didn’t know you were awake!” she said. “How countrified you are! That’s nothing.”
“Where did you learn it?”
“Nowhere that I know of. They used to stay without any trouble when I was at the public-house; but now they won’t. My face was fatter then.”
“I don’t care about dimples. I don’t think they improve a woman—particularly a married woman, and of full-sized figure like you.”
“Most men think otherwise.”
“I don’t care what most men think, if they do. How do you know?”
“I used to be told so when I was serving in the tap-room.”
“Ah—that public-house experience accounts for your knowing about the adulteration of the ale when we went and had some that Sunday evening. I thought when I married you that you had always lived in your father’s house.”