"'Wife of member of Parliament.' Haven't you read 'Our Mutual Friend'? No? Then you ought to do so; it's a capital book."
"If you went into Parliament," she says slowly, "you would have to spend a couple of months in town, would you not--would have to tear yourself away from the bosom of your family for nearly a quarter of a year at a time? That would be a--a trial you ought to consider, I think."
"I will consider all the drawbacks and advantages of the position carefully, before I commit myself, you may be sure. I will not--"
"Do anything in a hurry again," she puts in quickly, her eyes smoldering. "You are right. It would be a mistake."
He takes not the slightest notice of the taunt; she, looking defiantly, wistfully into his strong swarthy face, lit up with that smile of genial indifference it always wears when by rare chance they find themselves alone together, acknowledges to herself with a pang that she is bruising herself in vain, that no movement of her restless, petulant little hand will move him from the position he has taken, that no frown, no laugh, no tear, no sigh, will soften the granite of his face or nature, or bring his life nearer to hers again.
"What is your programme for the afternoon?" he asks, in a tone of polite interest. "It is a pity not to avail yourselves of this pleasant weather, with bleak November within a week of our heels."
"We were thinking of riding over to Beeton Hall--Robert, Polly, and I--to see Mrs. Morgan's apiary, I think she called it; it ought to be amusing. I know I always enjoyed the monkey-house at the Zoo better than anything else."
Armstrong's shield is lowered for a minute; he looks up into his wife's childish face with a smile that brings back to her the short warm fortnight by the sea, and makes her mutter to herself:
"How almost nice-looking he would be if he always smiled in that way! I suppose I must have said something startlingly idiotic to make him look natural all of a moment like that."
"'Apiary'?" he repeats. "Did you expect to see monkeys in Mrs. Morgan's apiary, Addie?"
"Apes?" she answers stoutly. "Of course we did--Polly, Robert, all of us. We expected to see monkeys, apes, chimpanzees, gorillas even; she said it was a splendid one. What are we to see, Tom?"