Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/174

 138 But that's always the way with you—always. I'm sure we should be the happiest couple alive, only you do so like to have all the talk to yourself. We're out upon pleasure, and therefore let's be comfortable. Still, I must say it: when you like, you're an aggravating man, Caudle, and you know it.

"What have you done now?

"There, now; we won't talk of it. No; let's go to sleep: otherwise we shall quarrel—I know we shall. What have you done, indeed! That I can't leave my home for a few days, but I must be insulted! Everybody upon the pier saw it.

"Saw what?

"How can you lie there in the bed and ask me? Saw what, indeed! Of course it was a planned thing!—regularly settled before you left London. Oh yes! I like your innocence, Mr. Caudle; not knowing what I'm talking about. It's a heart-breaking thing for a woman to say of her own husband; but you've been a wicked man to me. Yes: and all your tossing and tumbling about in the bed won't make it any better.

"Oh, it's easy enough to call a woman 'a dear soul.' I must be very dear, indeed, to you, when you bring down Miss Prettyman to—there now; you needn't shout like a wild savage. Do you know that you're not in your own house—do you know that we're in lodgings? What do you suppose the people will think of us? You needn't call out in that manner, for they can hear every word that's said. What do you say?

"Why don't I hold my tongue then?

"To be sure; anything for an excuse with you. Anything to stop my mouth. Miss Prettyman's to follow you here, and I'm to say nothing. I know she has