Part 8 (2/2)
”I'll tell you nothing. I'm your wife; that's all I'll tell you; and that ought to be enough.”
”It is--more than enough. You're an embodied epigram. I think I can guess at part of your story.” The indifferent, almost a.s.sured tone in which he said it brought her near to wincing.
”My eyes are not so bright as they were--no, not so bright--but they're bright enough to enable me to perceive that you're young, and not bad-looking--after a sufficiently common type.
You appear to be one of those big, bouncing, bl.u.s.terous, bonny--four b's--young females who spring out of the gutter by the mere force of their own vitality; who push and elbow themselves through life with but one thing continually in view--self. You're probably ill-bred, ignorant, impudent and imbecile--four i's--four which are apt to go together--and, in consequence, blundering along rather than advancing by any reasonable method of progression, you'll keep tumbling into ditches and scrambling out again, until you tumble into one which will be too deep for you to scramble out of, and in that you'll lie for ever.”
To hear him, in his dim, distant, uninterested tones, mapping out, as it were, a chart of her life and conduct, affected her unpleasantly. When he had finished she had to pull herself together before she could deliver a retort which she was conscious was sufficiently futile.
”I daresay you think yourself clever.”
”I'm afraid you're disappointed. If I'm not altogether to be congratulated on having you for a wife, neither are you to be altogether congratulated on having me for a husband.”
”Congratulated! My stars!”
”Exactly--your lucky stars. Come, I've drawn a little fancy sketch of the kind of wife you appear to me to be; tell me, what kind of husband do you think I am?”
”Think! I don't think; I'm sure you're a monster. You ought to be in Barnum's show--that's where you ought to be.”
”That is your candid opinion? Your tone has the ring of genuine candour. It's an ill.u.s.tration of how one changes. Would you believe that once--not so long ago--I was remarkable for my good looks as well as my figure?”
”Tell that for a tale!”
”I'm telling it for a tale that is told--and over. It must have been a disappointment when you learned that I was not dead.”
”It was. I could have shook old Twelves when he told me. Perhaps I'll do it yet.”
”Will you? That will be nice for Twelves. I should like to be present at the shaking. You look as if you could shake him.”
”I should think I could--shake the bones right out of his body.
I'm as strong as a horse--stronger than most men. I once thought of coming out as a strong woman, only I didn't fancy the training.”
”Didn't you? By training do you mean clean and healthy living?
Is that what you disliked?”
She had already repented her lapse into the autobiographical.
”Never you mind what I mean.”
”We won't; why should we? May I take it that you have got over the disappointment of not finding me dead, and have become reconciled to the idea of my living?”
”You don't look to me as if you would live long, considering that you're as good as dead already.”
”You think so. We've not been long at arriving at that stage of perfect candour which, I fancy, marks the career of the average husband and wife. I think you're wrong. I am one of those beings who are very tenacious of life. I'm only fifty, whatever I may look. There's no real reason--your friend Dr. Twelves will tell you--why I shouldn't live another five-and-twenty years.”
”I don't care what he says after what he told me. I'll bet you don't.”
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