Edward had never seen his wife so angry, and this time he was forced to pay her attention. She stood before him, at the end of her speech, with teeth clenched, her cheeks flaming.
“It’s about the other day, I suppose. I saw at the time you were in a passion.”
“And didn’t care two straws.”
“You’re too silly,” he said, with a laugh. “We couldn’t play together when we had people here. They laugh at us as it is for being so devoted to one another.”
“If they only knew how little you cared for me!”
“I might have managed a set with you later on, if you hadn’t sulked and refused to play at all.”
“It would never have occurred to you, I know you better than that. You’re absolutely selfish.”
“Come, come, Bertha,” he cried good-humouredly, “that’s a thing I’ve not been accused of before. No one has ever called me selfish.”
“Oh no, they think you charming. They think because you’re cheerful and even-tempered, because you’re hail-fellow-well-met with every one you know, that you’ve got such a nice character. If they knew you as well as I do, they’d understand it was merely because you’re perfectly indifferent to them. You treat people as if they were your bosom friends, and then, five minutes after they’ve gone, you’ve forgotten all about them.... And the worst of it is, that I’m no more to you than anybody else.”
“Oh, come, I don’t think you can really find such awful things wrong with me.”