“Jenny, Jenny, what’s the matter?” he exclaimed.
“Oh, nothing,” she answered, drying her eyes and doing her best to smile. “Only I’ve been having such a good time down here; I only wanted you to make it perfect. I did look forward so to your coming, and now you’ve upset everything.”
“I’m very sorry,” he sighed, with complete discouragement.
He did not know what to say nor how to comfort her, for he realized, too, that his appearance had disturbed her enjoyment, and for all his goodwill he appeared able to bring her only unhappiness. She was most herself in the company of such as Mr. Higgins; her greatest pleasure was to walk on the parade, staring at the people, or to listen to nigger-minstrels’ sentimental ditties; she wanted gaiety and noise and garish colour. On the other hand, things which affected him painfully left her unmoved, and she was perfectly content in the sordid, vulgar lodging which overwhelmed him with disgust. It seemed that he was in a labyrinth of cross-purposes wherefrom was no issue.
Next morning occurred a trifling incident which showed Basil how his wife regarded him. Annie, dressed for church, came downstairs in a costume which was positively outrageous, so that one wondered at the perverse ingenuity with which the colours were blended; and she wore much cheap finery.
“Well, my dear, you’re never going out like that!” she cried, seeing that Jenny was no differently attired from the day before. (An antipathy to Sunday clothes was to his wife one of Basil’s most incomprehensible fads.) “Aren’t you going to put on your new hat?”
Mrs. Kent looked somewhat uneasily at her husband.
“I saw such a smart hat in a shop, Basil, and Annie simply made me buy it. And I must say it was dirt cheap—only six and eleven.”
“This is evidently an occasion to put it on,” he smiled. In a few minutes she came back, radiant and flushed, but Basil could not persuade himself that her headgear was cheap at the price.
“D’you like it?” she asked anxiously.