Page:Aaron's Rod, Lawrence, New York 1922.djvu/176

 "Oh, no, indeed. I should only be too sorry. But I feel it will, unless you are careful."

"I'll be careful, then."

"Yes, and you can't be too careful."

"You make me frightened."

"I would like to make you very frightened indeed, so that you went back humbly to your wife and family."

"It would have to be a big fright then, I assure you."

"Ah, you are really heartless. It makes me angry."

She turned angrily aside.

"Well, well! Well, well! Life! Life! Young men are a new thing to me!" said Sir William, shaking his head. "Well, well! What do you say to whiskey and soda, Colonel?"

"Why, delighted, Sir William," said the Colonel, bouncing up.

"A night-cap, and then we retire," said Lady Franks.

Aaron sat thinking. He knew Sir William liked him: and that Lady Franks didn't. One day he might have to seek help from Sir William. So he had better placate milady. Wrinkling the fine, half mischievous smile on his face, and trading on his charm, he turned to his hostess.

"You wouldn't mind, Lady Franks, if I said nasty things about my wife and found a lot of fault with her. What makes you angry is that I know it is not a bit more her fault than mine, that we come apart. It can't be helped."

"Oh, yes, indeed. I disapprove of your way of looking at things altogether. It seems to me altogether cold and unmanly and inhuman. Thank goodness my experience of a man has been different."

"We can't all be alike, can we? And if I don't choose to let you see me crying, that doesn't prove I've never had a bad half hour, does it? I've had many—ay, and a many."

"Then why, are you so wrong, so wrong in your behaviour?"

"I suppose I've got to have my bout out: and when it's out, I can alter."

"Then I hope you've almost had your bout out," she said.

"So do I," said he, with a half-repentant, half-depressed