"Not more than usual."
"How absurd you are! Then we'll go to the Empire. And after that we'll go somewhere else, and have supper where the people are still smarter and still shadier; and then we'll go to Covent Garden Ball. Oh, you don't know how I long to go on the rampage sometimes! I get so tired of propriety."
"And what will P. W. say to all this?"
"Oh, I'll write and tell him that I spent the evening with some of his poor relations, and give eight pages of corroborative evidence."
James thought of Pritchard-Wallace, gentlest and best-humoured of men. He was a great big fellow, with a heavy moustache and kind eyes; always ready to stand by anyone in difficulties, always ready with comfort or with cheery advice; whoever wanted help went to him as though it were the most natural thing in the world. And it was touching to see the dog-like devotion to his wife; he had such confidence in her that he never noticed her numerous flirtations. Pritchard-Wallace thought himself rather a dull stick, and he wanted her to amuse herself. So brilliant a creature could not be expected to find sufficient entertainment in a quiet man of easy-going habits.
"Go your own way, my girl," he said; "I know you're all right. And so long as you keep a place for me in the bottom of your heart, you can do whatever you like."
"Of course, I don't care two straws for anyone but you, silly old thing!"
And she pulled his moustache and kissed his lips; and he went off on his business, his heart swelling with gratitude, because Providence had given him the enduring love of so beautiful and enchanting a little woman.
"P. W. is worth ten of you," James told her indignantly one day, when he had been witness to some audacious deception.
"Well, he doesn't think so. And that's the chief thing."