Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/135

 Rh you go, you go alone. Of course people think you're a bachelor. What do you say?

"You well know you're not?

"That's nothing to do with it—I only ask, What must people think, when I'm never seen with you? Other women go out with their husbands: but, as I've often said, I'm not like any other woman. What are you sneering at, Mr. Caudle?

"Don't tell me: I know well enough, by the movement of the pillow.

"No; you never take me out—and you know it. No; and it's not my own fault. How can you lie there and say that? Oh, all a poor excuse! That's what you always say. You're tired of asking me, indeed, because I always start some objection? Of course I can't go out a figure. And when you ask me to go, you know very well that my bonnet isn't as it should be—or that my gown hasn't come home—or that I can't leave the children—or that something keeps me indoors. You know all this well enough before you ask me. And that's your art. And when I do go out with you, I'm sure to suffer for it. Yes, you needn't repeat my