“I had no quarrel with Mrs. Farrell,” said Gilbert, choosing to ignore the other points.
“No? I thought there seemed to be a little coldness at one time.”
“Perhaps the shyness of comparative strangers, Mrs. Gilbert.”
“William,” said Mrs. Gilbert, “I wish you would talk seriously with me a moment.”
“Then you must start a serious subject. You can’t expect me to be very earnest about genteel comedy, or even melodrama.”
“Do you mean that she’s always playing a part? Why, don’t you believe—”
“Excuse me, Susan,” said Gilbert, “I haven’t formulated any creed on that subject, and I’d rather you’d make your conversation a little less Socratic, this morning, if it’s quite the same to you.”
“I beg your pardon, William; I know that with your notions to loyalty to your friend, you wouldn’t allow yourself to speculate about the nature of the woman he hoped to make his wife, and I honor you for your delicacy, though she’s only another woman to me. Easton would deal the same with himself, if the case were yours.”
Gilbert listened with a stolid but rather a haggard air, and his sister-in-law continued:
“I suppose she must make it difficult to treat her at times with the lofty respect that you’d like to use, and that you have to keep him in mind pretty constantly. And yet, I don’t know, after all. It seems to me that if you interpret her behavior generously”—Gilbert winced a little at the words, used almost as Easton had once used them—“and make due allowance for his histrionic temperament, it can’t be so very hard for an honorable man.”