Page:Confidence (London, Macmillan & Co., 1921).djvu/240

 come and see you, only that he had nineteen letters to write, and that he couldn't possibly stir from his fireside. I suppose a good wife ought to invent excuses for her husband—ought to throw herself into the breach; isn't that what they call it? But I am afraid I am not a good wife. Do you think I am a good wife, Mr. Longueville? You once stayed three months with us, and you had a chance to see. I don't ask you that seriously, because you never tell the truth. I always do; so I will say I am not a good wife. And then the breach is too big and I am too little. Oh, I am too little, Mrs. Vivian; I know I am too little. I am the smallest woman living; Gordon can scarcely see me with a microscope, and I believe he has the most powerful one in America. He is going to get another here; that is one of the things he came abroad for; perhaps it will do better. I do tell the truth, don't I, Mrs. Vivian? I have that merit, if I haven't any other. You once told me so at Baden; you said you could say one thing for me, at any rate—that I didn't tell fibs. You were very nice to me at Baden," Blanche went on, with her little intent smile, laying her hand in that of her hostess. "You see, I have never forgotten it. So, to keep up my reputation, I must tell the truth about Gordon. He simply said he wouldn't come—voilà! He gave no reason, and he didn't send you any pretty message. He simply declined, and he went out somewhere else. So you see he isn't writing letters. I don't know where he can have gone; perhaps he has gone to the theatre. I know it isn't proper to go to the theatre on Sunday evening; but they say charity begins at home, and as Gordon's doesn't begin at home, perhaps it doesn't begin anywhere. I told him that if he wouldn't come with me I would come alone, and he said I might do as I chose—that he was not in a humour for making visits. I wanted to come to you very much; I had 232