“You would apologize for the devil,” said the little old woman, frowning.
“I would try to give him his due, at all events,” said Ingram, with a laugh. “I know Frank Lavender very well—I have known him for years—and I know there is good stuff in him, which may be developed in proper circumstances. After all, what is there more common than for a married man to neglect his wife? He only did unconsciously and thoughtlessly what heaps of men do deliberately.”
“You are making me angry,” said Mrs. Lavender, in a severe voice.
“I don’t think it fair to expect men to be demigods,” Ingram said, carelessly. “I never met any demigods myself; they don’t live in my neighborhood. Perhaps if I had had some experience of a batch of them, I should be more censorious of other people. If you set up Frank for a Bayard, is it his fault or yours?”
“I am not going to be talked out of my common sense, and me on my death-bed,” said the old lady, impatiently, and yet with some secret hope that Ingram would go on talking and amuse her. “I won’t have you say he is anything but a stupid and ungrateful boy, who married a wife far too good for him. He is worse than that—he is much worse than that; but as this may be my death-bed, I will keep a civil tongue in my head.”
“I thought you didn’t like his wife very much?” said Ingram.
“I am not bound to like her because I think badly of him, am I? She was not a bad sort of a girl, after all—temper a little stiff, perhaps; but she was honest. It did one’s eyes good to look at her bright face. Yes, she was a good sort of a creature in her way. But when she ran off from him, why didn’t she come to me?”
“Perhaps you never encouraged her.”
“Encouragement! Where ought a married woman go to but to her husband’s relatives? If she cannot stay with him, let her take the next best substitute. It was her duty to come to me.”
“If Sheila had fancied it to be her duty, she would have come here at any cost.”