Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/405

 “Do you really want a straight talking?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I can only speak for myself—but—to tell the truth, old boy—I think you've been rather hard on poor little Clare.”

For the first time since his marriage Peter resented Cards' words. “Poor little Clare”—wasn't that a little too intimate?

“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice a little harder.

“Well—I don't think you understand her, Peter.”

“Explain.”

“She's a happy, merry person if ever there was one in this world. She wants all the happiness you can give her—”

“Well?”

“Well, you don't seem to see that. Of course young Stephen's death—”

“Let's leave that—” Peter's voice was harder again.

“Oh, all right—just as you please. But most men would have seen what a shock it must be to a girl, so young, who knew so little about the cruelty of life. You didn't—you don't mind, Peter, do you?—you didn't seem to think of that. Never tried to cheer her up, take her about, take her out of herself. You just wrapped yourself up—”

“You don't understand,” muttered Peter, his eyes lowered. “If I'd thought that she'd really minded Stephen's death—”

“Oh! come Peter—that's grossly unfair. Why, she felt it all most horribly. That shows how little you've understood her, how little you've appreciated her. You've always been a gloomy, morbid devil and—”

“All right. Cards—that'll do.”

Cards stood back from the table, his mouth smiling, his eyes hard and cold.

“Oh! no, it won't. You asked for it and now you're going to get it. You've not only been gloomy and morbid all your life, you've been selfish as well—always thinking of yourself and the books you were going to write, and then when they did come they weren't such great shakes. You oughtn't to have married at all—you've never considered Clare at all—your treatment of her—”