Page:The Semi-attached Couple.djvu/174

 "Well, then, I shall go with Lady Portmore; she will be the more glad of my company." He got up, and walked moodily up and down the room. "You must have had a wonderful foreknowledge of my prospects, for you seem to have arranged all your plans with the certainty that I should not be here to interfere with them."

"Indeed, I have arranged nothing. I have not even asked Mary if she will go with me; and I never could have guessed or believed that you would go off to Lisbon in this sudden way."

"I have surpassed your fondest expectations, evidently, and given you a most agreeable surprise; but another time you shall have a longer notice of my departure, that you may be able to get up a little show of feeling on the occasion. You know it is usual, it is considered to be really almost indispensable to affect—only to affect—nobody would be so unreasonable as to expect you to feel; but you should affect some slight regret that your husband is going to leave you."

"I need not affect it," she said in a low, broken voice. "I am very sorry you will go."

"How flattering! it is a pity you did not think of mentioning it sooner."

"I did say so," she whispered through her tears. "I told you from the first I disliked your going."

"I had not the good fortune to hear you; you hardly think it worth while to raise your voice upon such an immaterial point as my coming or going. And moreover, I might have thought that you did not approve of the expedition on your own account; not that I did think so for a moment. I am cured of that, but many husbands would have expected that their wives would insist on accompanying them."

"Do you wish me to go with you?" and Helen felt that she ought to have offered to do so. "If you do, I can be ready in time."