I managed to induce her to cease talking after a while, and, in a few sharp words, described the reason of my visit. The strange thing was that so soon as I had forced her to comprehend this, her annoyance with her husband knew no bounds. Why had he mis-led her in this preposterous manner? Why was he never so happy as when inducing his poor wife to make herself a laughing stock? As to the furniture, she felt by no means inclined to allow it to go. Any allusions she had made in the past were given, she declared, more for the purpose of keeping up genial conversation than anything else. Certainly, she did not propose to have the house emptied of half its contents, bought mainly with her cash, in order to gratify a man who rarely thought of any plan or scheme likely to make her existence cheerful.
"Nothing can be done," I remarked to the husband. "It isn't your fault. I must see about making my way back to Greenwich."
"I'd like you just to look at my collection," he said. "You're a bit of an expert, I can tell, and it would be interesting to know what you think of the purchases I have made during the past ten years. I may have been taken in over some of them."
"I can give you fifteen minutes."
In the list of eccentric people I have met, the lady of this house well deserves a first place. During the quarter of an hour, her mind went to every point of the compass. When I said a word in praise of the half-dozen Hepplewhite chairs, she announced that she would sooner die than permit anything to be taken out of the house: when I commented strongly on a faked Sheraton sideboard, she said disconsolately that a van had better be sent for the rubbish on the following morning. Her husband was described alternately, as the wisest and shrewdest darling in the world, and, a moment later, as a drivelling idiot.
"Don't you think so yourself, ma'am?" she inquired, at one moment.
"Undoubtedly," I answered.
It appeared I had carelessly agreed with one of her condemnatory remarks, and, swirling around, she ordered me to leave the house. Who was I, she would like to know, to venture to criticise her David? What did I mean by coming there, a perfect stranger, simply in order to hold her dear one up to ridicule? The dear one conducted me to the front door, muttering apologies on the way.
"Never marry anyone who's got money," he counselled.
"There doesn't seem to be much of a catch in it."