Wonderful! "Not now; but perhaps later, when the time comes"—he remembered her words. "I must do things my own way." Yes, her own way was right—because her way is the way of genius. A veritable stroke of genius—no lesser term will do,—seeming so simple to look back at, although so impenetrable till it was explained! She had seen the only means by which she could successfully extricate herself from an impossible situation. Only she could have escaped the imminent disaster. Only she could have turned an overwhelming defeat into a transcendent victory.
"Talk about giving women the vote," cried Mr. Prentice noisily. "That woman ought to be prime minister."
Mrs. Prentice, rejoicing at the good news, wished that her husband could have told it less vociferously. It happened that this evening she was the victim of a bilious headache, and she lay supine on a sofa, unable to sit up for dinner. The slightest noise made her headache worse, and the mere smell of food was distressing.
Mr. Prentice, banging in and out of the room, let savoury odours reach her; and his exultant voice set up a painful throbbing. "I told you so all along.... What did I say from the beginning?... Colossal brain power! No one like her!"
This really was the substance of all that he had to say, and he had already said it; yet he kept running in from the dinner table to say it again.
A bottle of the very best champagne was opened; and he brought the invalid a glass of it, to drink Mrs. Marsden's health. Mrs. Prentice, staunchly obeying, drank the old, still wine, and immediately felt as if she had stepped from an ocean-going liner into a dancing row-boat.
In the exuberance of his rapture, Mr. Prentice also invited the parlourmaid to drink Mrs. Marsden's health.
"There, toss that off—to the most remarkable lady you've ever seen."