‘Just the same,’ Crewe replied at once,
though with less than his usual directness; the question
seemed to make him meditative. ’Just the
same. Every man looks at it in his own way, of
course. I’m not the sort of chap to knuckle
under to my wife; and there isn’t one woman
in a thousand, if she gave her husband a start, could
help reminding him of it. It’s the wrong
way about. Let women be as independent as they
like as long as they’re not married. I never
think the worse of them, whatever they do that’s
honest. But a wife must play second fiddle, and
think her husband a small god almighty —that’s
my way of looking at the question.’
Beatrice laughed scornfully.
‘All right. We shall see.—When
do you start business?’
‘This side Christmas. End of September,
perhaps.’
‘You think to snatch a good deal from B. & F.,
I daresay?’
Crewe nodded and smiled.
‘Then you’ll look after this affair for
me?’ said Beatrice, with a return to the tone
of strict business.
’Without loss of time. You shall be advised
of progress. Of course I must debit you with
exes.’
‘All right. Mind you charge for all the
penny stamps.’
‘Every one—don’t you forget
it.’
He stood up, tilted forward on his toes, and stretched
himself.
’I’ll be trotting homewards. It’ll
be time for by-by when I get to Kennington.’
Nancy was undisturbed by the promotion of Mary Woodruff.
A short time ago it would have offended her; she would
have thought her dignity, her social prospects, imperilled.
She was now careless on that score, and felt it a
relief to cast off the show of domestic authority.
Henceforth her position would be like that of Horace.
All she now desired was perfect freedom from responsibility,—to
be, as it were, a mere lodger in the house, to come
and go unquestioned and unrestrained by duties.
Thus, by aid of circumstance, had she put herself
into complete accord with the spirit of her time.
Abundant privilege; no obligation. A reference
of all things to her sovereign will and pleasure.
Withal, a defiant rather than a hopeful mood; resentment
of the undisguisable fact that her will was sovereign
only in a poor little sphere which she would gladly
have transcended.
Now-a-days she never went in the direction of Champion
Hill, formerly her favourite walk. If Jessica
Morgan spoke of her acquaintances there, she turned
abruptly to another subject. She thought of the
place as an abode of arrogance and snobbery. She
recalled with malicious satisfaction her ill-mannered
remark to Lionel Tarrant. Let him think of her
as he would; at all events he could no longer imagine
her overawed by his social prestige. The probability
was that she had hurt him in a sensitive spot; it might
be hoped that the wound would rankle for a long time.
