“That cup which does not inebriate. I wish to Heaven it would or could inebriate you. You might be less cold, less—”
“You speak as though you expected this—as though this phase of ours is not new to you. Is it a phase?”
“I do not know. I fear—oh, Jack, why is it?”
This cry for information was at least human.
“It is this detestable flat system. Let us go and live in a house—with stairs,” said Jack.
“How amusing. The stairs would not make me—or you—different.”
“I thought you were going to say of being married. Loneliness is the philosopher’s joy.”
“I will. I do feel cheered. Perhaps if I stayed here all day, and you made tea for me, I should feel contented.”
“Hans Breitmann gib ein barty. Where is that barty now?”
“I am always good. I am not always happy.”
“And the pious books say, if you were the one you would be the other. Bertie’s play is to come off on the 16th. He has got me a box. You want to see it?”
“He did not write it, Miss Fisher did. She will get half the profits. But who are the ‘barty’?”
“You and I, Sylvia, George, Wainbridge, and Launa.”
“Too respectable, married and dull. We are to do wedded felicity, while they seek to imitate us. They are known to be desirous of so doing.”
“Sir Ralph, Lady Hastings. Leave out Launa and Mr. Wainbridge. Sylvia and Mr. George will do, if she can come. She is still moon-struck, or lord-struck, or virtue-struck. Why did she send him away? She will never marry Mr. George.”
“I do not advise anyone to marry, do you? It is an uncertain, disquieting bondage, even our way.”
Jack thought he detected a sign of disappointment in her acquiescence. It is all very well to abuse oneself while seeking contradiction, but to have one’s husband call the joy of matrimony uncertain—that brings uneasiness into the mind of the wife.
Lily ate some toast, and felt disappointed. He did not love her more because of her inaccessibility.
“You will come to see the play with me? We shall have supper at the Savoy.”
“Very well. You will ask Sir Ralph and Lady Hastings?”
“Are you? I want to sit next to him at supper.”
“Why not call me ‘my love’? That is what a husband usually calls his wife, ‘my love’—it is a sort of mockery—‘my love’ when it is dead and gone.”
“Yet you will not please me about Sir Ralph. If we gave up this detestable flat system, the inviting and arranging of parties would be left to me, my lord.”