And I laughed—laughed while speaking thus—though the keen pang was writhing at that moment like a burning arrow through my brain.
“I have no wish to make you jealous, Clifford, and I very much admire your superiority and strength. I congratulate you on your singular freedom from this unhappy passion. But you may become too confident. You may lose your wife's affections by your neglect, when you might not lose them by treachery.”
“You are grown a croaker, Kingsley, and I will leave you. I will go home. I will show you what a good husband I am, or can become.”
“That's right; but smoke another cigar before you go.”
“There it is!” I exclaimed, laughingly. “You blow hot and cold. You would have me go and stay.”
“Take the cigar, at least, and smoke it as you go. My advice is good, and that it is honest you may infer from my reluctance to part with you. I will see you at the office at nine in the morning. There is some prospect of a compromise with Jeffords about the tract in Dallas, and he is to meet Wharton and myself at your law-shop to-morrow. It is important to make an arrangement with Jeffords—his example will be felt by Brownsell and Gibbon. We may escape a long-winded lawsuit, after all, to your great discomfiture and my gain. But you do not hear me!”
“Yes, yes, every word—you spoke of Jeffords, and Wharton, and Gibbon—yes, I heard you.”
“Now I know that you did not hear me—not understandingly, at least. I should not be surprised if I have made you jealous. You look wild, mon ami!”
“Jealous, indeed! what nonsense!” and I prepared to depart when I had thus spoken.
“Well, at nine you must meet us at the office. My business must not suffer because you are jealous.”