“Why, you can take me with you. What could be easier?”
“That is true,” admitted Helen, meditatively. “Why not?”
“I don’t see any ‘why not,’” Emory asserted.
The contessa welcomed Helen with open arms. “But this is not your husband!” she exclaimed, turning to Emory before Helen had an opportunity to explain. “I had the pleasure of meeting you at the Londi reception, did I not?”
“Mr. Emory came to call just as I was starting out,” Helen hastened to say, “and he begged so hard to be allowed to see you again that I could not refuse him.”
“So you could not pull your learned husband away from his books?” the contessa queried, after smilingly accepting Emory’s presence.
“I did not try, contessa,” Helen answered, promptly. “He has reached a crisis in his work, and I was unwilling to suggest anything which might divert his mind.”
“What an exemplary wife you are! If we all treated our husbands with such consideration they would become even more uncontrollable than at present. Don’t you think so, Mr. Emory?”
“The suggestion is so impossible that I can think of no reply,” Emory answered. “Mrs. Armstrong is such an unusual wife as to warrant considering her as an isolated exception.”