Page:Georgie by Dorothea Deakin, 1906.djvu/78

"Georgie" three guineas a week, but genuine, disinterested affection."

I was silent.

"A wife seemed the most likely thing," he went on, calmly disregarding my amazed and horrified stare. "A quiet, loving, dutiful, obedient, tactful little woman with a cool hand and a light step. A woman who doesn't slam doors and who always shuts 'em. A woman who listens without interrupting and finishing your sentences for you, and doesn't want to be taken to theatres and those cursed German band restaurants three times a week."

Still I was speechless. His selfishness appalled me.

"With my head full of this, the only comfort I can ever hope for now, you brought me down to this confounded hole, and left me alone and defenceless, almost on the rectory doorstep."

"Yes," I said faintly.

"Well." Muggeridge rose heavily to shut the window. "You know what Anne is." 62