“What have you said to Mr. Dunstan to make him go away so soon, Geoffrey?” asked his wife.

“Said to him? oh, I don’t know.  He offered to give me a pair of guns, and I told him that I did not accept presents from my acquaintances.  Really, Honoria, I don’t want to interfere with your way of life, but I do not understand how you can associate with such people as this Mr. Dunstan.”

“Associate with him!” answered Lady Honoria.  “Do you suppose I want to associate with him?  Do you suppose that I don’t know what the man is?  But beggars cannot be choosers; he may be a cad, but he has thirty thousand a year, and we simply cannot afford to throw away an acquaintance with thirty thousand a year.  It is too bad of you, Geoffrey,” she went on with rising temper, “when you know all that I must put up with in our miserable poverty-stricken life, to take every opportunity of making yourself disagreeable to the people I think it wise to ask to come and see us.  Here I return from comfort to this wretched place, and the first thing that you do is make a fuss.  Mr. Dunstan has got boxes at several of the best theaters, and he offered to let me have one whenever I liked—­and now of course there is an end of it.  It is too bad, I say!”

“It is really curious, Honoria,” said her husband, “to see what obligations you are ready to put yourself under in search of pleasure.  It is not dignified of you to accept boxes at theatres from this gentleman.”

“Nonsense.  There is no obligation about it.  If he gave us a box, of course he would make a point of looking in during the evening, and then telling his friends that it was Lady Honoria Bingham he was speaking to—­that is the exchange.  I want to go to the theatre; he wants to get into good society—­there you have the thing in a nutshell.  It is done every day.  The fact of the matter is, Geoffrey,” she went on, looking very much as though she were about to burst into a flood of angry tears, “as I said just now, beggars cannot be choosers—­I cannot live like the wife of a banker’s clerk.  I must have some amusement, and some comfort, before I become an old woman.  If you don’t like it, why did you entrap me into this wretched marriage, before I was old enough to know better, or why do you not make enough money to keep me in a way suitable to my position?”

“We have argued that question before, Honoria,” said Geoffrey, keeping his temper with difficulty, “and now there is another thing I wish to say to you.  Do you know that detestable woman Anne stopped for more than half an hour at Paddington Station this evening, flirting with a ticket collector, instead of bringing Effie home at once, as I told her to do.  I am very angry about it.  She is not to be relied on; we shall have some accident with the child before we have done.  Cannot you discharge her and get another nurse?”

“No, I cannot.  She is the one comfort I have.  Where am I going to find another woman who can make dresses like Anne—­she saves me a hundred a year—­I don’t care if she flirted with fifty ticket collectors.  I suppose you got this story from Effie; the child ought to be whipped for tale-bearing, and I daresay that it is not true.”