But Henriette was a sharp young person. The tone did not sound like Gustave’s. She asked in bewilderment, “What?” and then again, “What?”
So, at last, George, afraid that his trick might be suspected, had to burst out laughing, and turn it into a joke. But when he came home and teased his wife about it, the laugh was not all on his side. Henriette had guessed the real meaning of his joke! She did not really mind—she took his jealousy as a sign of love, and was pleased with it. It is not until a third party come upon the scene that jealousy begins to be annoying.
So she had a merry time teasing George. “You are a great fellow! You have no idea how well I understand you—and after only a year of marriage!”
“You know me?” said the husband, curiously. (It is always so fascinating when anybody thinks she know us better than we know ourselves!) “Tell me, what do you think about me?”
“You are restless,” said Henriette. “You are suspicious. You pass your time putting flies in your milk, and inventing wise schemes to get them out.”
“Oh, you think that, do you?” said George, pleased to be talked about.
“I am not annoyed,” she answered. “You have always been that way—and I know that it’s because at bottom you are timid and disposed to suffer. And then, too, perhaps you have reasons for not having confidence in a wife’s intimate friends—lady-killer that you are!”
George found this rather embarrassing; but he dared not show it, so he laughed gayly. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said—“upon my word I don’t. But it is a trick I would not advise everybody to try.”
There were other embarrassing moments, caused by George’s having things to conceal. There was, for instance, the matter of the six months’ delay in the marriage—about which Henriette would never stop talking. She begrudged the time, because she had got the idea that little Gervaise was six months younger than she otherwise would have been. “That shows your timidity again,” she would say. “The idea of your having imagined yourself a consumptive!”
Poor George had to defend himself. “I didn’t tell you half the truth, because I was afraid of upsetting you. It seemed I had the beginning of chronic bronchitis. I felt it quite keenly whenever I took a breath, a deep breath—look, like this. Yes—I felt—here and there, on each side of the chest, a heaviness—a difficulty—”