The wife quickly informed him of her attitude in regard to my visit. So soon as he opened the front door of his house with his latch key, and immediately that she heard my voice, she ordered the two maids to go upstairs. Herself conducted us into the drawing-room.
"I've been anticipating this," she said, tearfully, "and I fully recognise, David, that I'm partly responsible. I've got a jealous disposition, and I expect it will be my curse and companion to the very end of my life."
"Miss Weston has come here—" he began.
"I know!" interrupted his wife, finding her handkerchief. "I quite understand, and the fewer words we exchange on the subject, the better. Perhaps if there had been children, it might have been different. Very likely if I had been more tactful in speech, this terrible business could have been put off for a while. Think as kindly of me as you can, David."
"I always do, my dear, and—"
"No," she contradicted, with a show of truculence. "I'm not going to allow you to say that. I am ready to take my just share of the blame, but not more. You know as well as I do that I stand very low in your estimation, compared for instance with that Oliver Cromwell chair you picked up somewhere in Essex three years ago. I needn't tell you that you love that gate table in the next room with a devotion you never gave to me, even in the early days of our acquaintance. It's been a hideous blunder, David, this marriage of ours, and now that you have taken a definite proceeding by bringing another woman into the house—"
"What a foolish person you are!" I exclaimed.
"Don't you dare speak to me," she ordered. "David I am sorry for, but you I consider beneath my estimation. Heaven knows by what tricks and dodges you have succeeded in weaving your mesh around him."
"My dear," said her husband, "this lady and I have met this evening for the first time."
"That makes it worse, David. But I always suspected you were really fond of tall women, and I cannot be blind to the fact that I am short and stout. I only hope—"