I bit my lip. She nauseated me when she used that affectionate term. The only woman I loved was Mabel Anson, but whether she were still alive, or whether married, I knew not. The very thought that I was bound in matrimony to this woman sitting in the high-backed chair of carved oak was disgusting. I loathed her.
How I continued to eat the dishes Gill handed me I know not, nor do I remember what conversation passed between my pseudo-wife and myself as we sat there. Many were the abrupt and painful silences which fell between us.
She struck me as an ascetic, strong-minded woman, who, before others, fawned upon me with an affected devotion which in one of her age was ludicrous; yet when we were alone she was rigid and overbearing, with the positive air of one who believed me far beneath her alike in social station and in intellect. When Gill was absent she spoke in a hard, patronising tone, which so angered me that with great difficulty I retained my temper.
Yet it was my policy, I knew, to conceal my thoughts, and to lead her to believe that the words I had uttered, and my failure to recognise her, were owing to the blow I accidentally received, and that I was now, just as I had been before, her husband.
What a hollow sham that meal was! Now that I think of it I cannot refrain from smiling at my extraordinary position, and how I showed her delicate attention in order to the more impress her of my solicitude for her welfare.
When at last she rose it was with a hope that I would go to my room and rest.
I seized that opportunity.
“I shall,” I answered. “But don’t let them call me for dinner. I will have something when I awake. Britten has ordered perfect quiet.”
“Very well,” she answered. Then, turning to Gill, she said, “You hear. Mr Heaton is not to be aroused at dinner.”
“Yes, madam,” answered the man, bowing as we both passed out.