“Well, aren’t they?” she repeated, yawning; “when is Charles going to pass his examination and relieve us of his presence? I did not bargain for Charles as a permanent lodger when I married you, nor Aunt Poynder indeed, for that matter, but I suppose all is for the worst, in this dreariest of all possible households!”
She expected no answer. These two always wrangled at cross purposes. There was very seldom a positive engagement between them. Mrs. Elles knew that Charles could not leave just yet, knew, too, that Mrs. Poynder would never go, was not positively sure that she wanted her to go, but just now, when her normal state of discontent was quadrupled by the new influences that had lately come into her life, she could not resist a repetition of an oft-repeated complaint.
She went on in a soft but irritating voice.
“I have no objection to Aunt Poynder’s engaging all the servants and managing them, but I must say I wish she would let Jane alone. I have reserved the right of choosing my own parlour-maid, and when I have succeeded in getting one that suits me, I don’t want her bullied and the place made impossible for her.”
“Who bullies her? An idle, good-for-nothing trollop of a creature.”
“There, you see, you don’t like her.”
“No, I don’t,” he replied brutally. “I don’t like her style. She copies you, and you’re not a particularly good model.”
“Ah, how miserable I am!” she exclaimed, irrelevantly. “Mortimer, tell me, why can’t we get on? It is not my fault, is it?”
“Oh! no,” he replied ironically. “You are always in the right. There is nothing more tiresome in a woman.”
“You are frank, Mortimer, and almost epigrammatic!”