"That's a poor reason. What were you to gain by my death?"
"Dr. Twelves told me that I should have twenty thousand pounds."
"Did he? I see. That was the bait. You're a ready-witted young woman."
"You mean that you think I'm a fool."
"Not at all; no more than the rest of your sex, or, for the matter of that, of mine. We're all fools; only some of us are fools of a special brand. Who are you?"
"I'm your wife."
"You've told me that already. I mean who were you before you were my wife?"
She moved her hand to and fro, restlessly, upon the window sill.
"I've half a mind to tell you."
"Make it a whole one. Yours should be a story not without features of interest. Besides, a husband ought to know something about his wife."
She stood up straighter, her back to the window, looking towards the bed with gleaming eyes. It was evidently easier to provoke her to an exhibition of temper than him.
"I'll tell you nothing. I'm your wife; that's all I'll tell you; and that ought to be enough."
"It is--more than enough. You're an embodied epigram. I think I can guess at part of your story." The indifferent, almost assured tone in which he said it brought her near to wincing. "My eyes are not so bright as they were--no, not so bright--but they're bright enough to enable me to perceive that you're young, and not bad-looking--after a sufficiently common type. You appear to be one of those big, bouncing, blusterous, bonny--four b's--young females who spring out of the gutter by the mere force of their own vitality; who push and elbow themselves through life with but one thing continually in view--self. You're probably ill-bred, ignorant, impudent and imbecile--four i's--four which are apt to go together--and, in consequence, blundering along rather than advancing by any reasonable method of progression, you'll keep tumbling into ditches and scrambling out again, until you tumble into one which will be too deep for you to scramble out of, and in that you'll lie for ever."
To hear him, in his dim, distant, uninterested tones, mapping out, as it were, a chart of her life and conduct, affected her unpleasantly. When he had finished she had to pull herself together before she could deliver a retort which she was conscious was sufficiently futile.
"I daresay you think yourself clever."
"I'm afraid you're disappointed. If I'm not altogether to be congratulated on having you for a wife, neither are you to be altogether congratulated on having me for a husband."
"Congratulated! My stars!"
"Exactly--your lucky stars. Come, I've drawn a little fancy sketch of the kind of wife you appear to me to be; tell me, what kind of husband do you think I am?"
"Think! I don't think; I'm sure you're a monster. You ought to be in Barnum's show--that's where you ought to be."
"That is your candid opinion? Your tone has the ring of genuine candour. It's an illustration of how one changes. Would you believe that once--not so long ago--I was remarkable for my good looks as well as my figure?"
"Tell that for a tale!"
"I'm telling it for a tale that is told--and over. It must have been a disappointment when you learned that I was not dead."
"It was. I could have shook old Twelves when he told me. Perhaps I'll do it yet."
"Will you? That will be nice for Twelves. I should like to be present at the shaking. You look as if you could shake him."
"I should think I could--shake the bones right out of his body. I'm as strong as a horse--stronger than most men. I once thought of coming out as a strong woman, only I didn't fancy the training."
"Didn't you? By training do you mean clean and healthy living? Is that what you disliked?"
She had already repented her lapse into the autobiographical.
"Never you mind what I mean."
"We won't; why should we? May I take it that you have got over the disappointment of not finding me dead, and have become reconciled to the idea of my living?"
"You don't look to me as if you would live long, considering that you're as good as dead already."
"You think so. We've not been long at arriving at that stage of perfect candour which, I fancy, marks the career of the average husband and wife. I think you're wrong. I am one of those beings who are very tenacious of life. I'm only fifty, whatever I may look. There's no real reason--your friend Dr. Twelves will tell you--why I shouldn't live another five-and-twenty years."
"I don't care what he says after what he told me. I'll bet you don't."
"Suppose I do, would you propose to spend them with me?"
"I should do as I like."
"I begin to suspect you'd try to. Let me put the case in another way. What would you want to leave this house and never re-enter it again?"
"Twenty thousand pounds."
"Is that your lowest figure?"
"It is."
"Thank you. I will give the matter my careful consideration. In the meanwhile may I ask you to leave me for a time? My conversational powers soon become exhausted; with them I am apt to become exhausted too. A little rest might do you good."
"Listen to me. I came here so that you and I might understand each other."
"We have gone some distance in that direction, haven't we?"
"I don't think you have, or you wouldn't talk to me like that. It may be clever, and cutting, and that kind of thing, but I don't like it. I'm your wife, your equal, more than your equal, since you're lying there like a log, already more than three parts dead. I'm the mistress of this house; this room is as much mine as yours."
"Is it?"
"It is. That's what you've got to understand. When I choose to leave it I will, but not a moment before. So don't you order me about, because I don't intend to let you, and there'll be trouble if you try."
"Am I to understand when I ask you to leave the room, my bedroom, in spite of your courteous hint of a moment back, that you refuse?"
"You are; you bet you are. And you're to understand more than that; you're to understand that if you're not careful what airs and graces you take on with me, I'll stuff a handkerchief into your mouth. Then we'll see what you'll do next. A helpless lump like you to talk to me--your lawful wife!--as if I were nothing and no one. I'll soon show you."
"Will you? Maybe you'll first be shown a thing or two yourself, my lady!"
The tones were familiar. They were not those of the man in the bed. Looking round Isabel found that Nannie was glaring at her from the other side of the room.
CHAPTER VII
A TUG OF WAR
Perceiving that Isabel made no reply, Nannie addressed her again, with both in her manner and her words perhaps a superfluity of truculence.
"What for have you left your room and come here disturbing Mr. Grahame, you bold-faced hussy?"
Nannie's appearance and the vigour of her speech, both of which were probably a trifle unexpected, seemed to take Isabel somewhat aback. It was not unlikely that a rapid debate was taking place in her mind as to what