Tom colored at this, having just joined a yachting club, composed of some of the most expensive young men in town, and looked very angry, but said nothing—what could he?
However, if he was angry, so was Emily—and Lucy looked fairly frightened between the two. She turned the conversation as quickly as she could, and the subject dropped.
He said to her afterward,
“Lucy, if you would like to go the Opera, I’ll take a season ticket for you with your family. When I want to go, I can buy a ticket at the door, as I don’t care about going every night.”
“Oh, no, Tom, I don’t care about going at all; and you know I never wish to go without you.”
He looked very much perplexed and worried.
“I can’t bear to have you give up a pleasure you are so fond of,” he pursued. “And then it seems so selfish. I wish to heavens I had not joined that confounded club. I’ll give it up as soon as the year is out.”
“Oh, I am sure, Tom,” said his sweet wife, “you require relaxation and exercise. I think you’ve been a great deal better this summer in consequence of having joined the club.”
Still he did not seem at ease. In fact, Emily’s fling at his being able to gratify his own tastes while he found fault with Lucy’s, nettled him. And, moreover, he was honest and generous enough to feel its truth. Besides, no man likes the insinuation of selfishness—if there is any truth in the charge, so much the worse. So, though it was inconvenient, Tom made a point of Lucy’s having a season ticket—whether he took some money he had meant to appropriate to house expenses, I don’t know, but I should not be surprised; at any rate they were much behind hand this year.
They had a bill now at the grocer’s—butcher’s ditto—and “paid on account” what they did pay.