“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” she answered. “Why d’you treat him as if he was a dog?”
“My dear child, I don’t. I’m very fond of dogs.”
“Isn’t he as good as I am? And you condescended to marry me.”
“I really can’t see that because I married you I must necessarily take the whole of your amiable family to my bosom.”
“Why don’t you like them? They’re honest and respectable.”
Basil gave a little sigh of fatigue. They had discussed the matter often during the last month, and though he did his best to curb his tongue, his patience was nearly exhausted.
“My dear Jenny,” he said, “we don’t choose our friends because they’re honest and respectable, any more than we choose them because they change their linen daily. But I’m willing to acknowledge that they have every grace and every virtue, only they rather bore me.”
“They wouldn’t if they were swells.”
He looked at her curiously, wondering why she imputed to him such despicable motives, and reflected that he could have been very good friends with his wife’s relations if they had been simple country folk, unassuming and honest; but the family of Bush joined the most vulgar pretentiousness to a code of honour which could only in charity be called eccentric. Jenny brooded over his words, and after a silence of some minutes burst out impatiently.
“After all, we’re not in such a bad position as all that. My mother’s father was a gentleman.”