'"
"But she was very fond of you. She must have been."
"She was, in her way. But she always liked talking to the singers and the
painters that we met out there. Nothing wrong, you know. That was after we
had been married about three years."
"What was that?"
"That I caught her out."
"How do you know there was anything wrong? Men always think bad of women."
"No, it was right enough! she had got dead sick of me, and I had got dead
sick of her. It never did seem natural like. There was no 'omeliness in
it, and a marriage that ain't 'omely is no marriage for me. Her friends
weren't my friends; and as for my friends, she never left off insulting me
about them. If I was to ask a chap in she wouldn't sit in the same room
with him. That's what it got to at last. And I was always thinking of you,
and your name used to come up when we was talking. One day she said, 'I
suppose you are sorry you didn't marry a servant?' and I said, 'I suppose
you are sorry you did?'"
"That was a good one for her. Did she say she was?"
"She put her arms round my neck and said she loved none but her big Bill.
But all her flummery didn't take me in. And I says to myself, 'Keep an eye
on her.' For there was a young fellow hanging about in a manner I didn't
particularly like. He was too anxious to be polite to me, he talked to me
about 'orses, and I could see he knew nothing about them.
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