Page:Shirley (1849 Volume 3).djvu/291

 Leading and improving! teaching and tutoring! bearing and forbearing! Pah! My husband is not to be my baby. I am not to set him his daily lesson and see that he learns it, and give him a sugar-plum if he is good, and a patient, pensive, pathetic lecture if he is bad. But it is like a tutor to talk of the "satisfaction of teaching"—I suppose you think it the finest employment in the world. I don't—I reject it. Improving a husband! No. I shall insist upon my husband improving me, or else we part.'

God knows it is needed!'

What do you mean by that, Mr. Moore?'

What I say. Improvement is imperatively needed.'

If you were a woman you would school Monsieur, votre mari, charmingly: it would just suit you; schooling is your vocation.'

May I ask whether, in your present just and gentle mood, you mean to taunt me with being a tutor?'

Yes—bitterly; and with anything else you please: any defect of which you are painfully conscious.'

With being poor, for instance?'

Of course; that will sting you; you are sore about your poverty: you brood over that.'

With having nothing but a very plain person to offer the woman who may master my heart?'

Exactly. You have a habit of calling yourself plain. You are sensitive about the cut of your features, because they are not quite on an