I knew you before she did, and I'll keep you, or else I'll make such a row that you will be sorry that you ever put my back up. It's all very fine to sit there and preach, but it won't do, Frankie. You can't slip out of things as easily as all that.'
'Why should you turn nasty like this, Violet? What do you think you will gain by it?'
'I mean to gain YOU. I like you, Frankie. I'm not sure that I don't really love you--real, real love, you know. Any way, I don't intend to let you go, and if you go against my will I give you my word that I shall make it pretty sultry for you down at Woking.'
He stared moodily into his teacup.
'Besides, what rot it all is!' she continued, laying her hand upon his shoulder. 'When did you begin to ride the high moral horse? You were just as cheerful as the rest of them when last I saw you. You speak as if a man ceased to live just because he is married. What has changed you?'
'I'll tell you what has changed me,' said he, looking up. 'My wife has changed me.'
'Oh, bother your wife!'
A look which was new to her came over his face.
'Stop that!' said he sharply.
'Oh, no harm! How has your wife made this wonderful change?'
His mood softened as his thoughts flew back to Woking.
'By her own goodness--the atmosphere that she makes round her. If you knew how wholesome she was, how delicate in her most intimate thoughts, how fresh and how sweet and how pure, you would understand that the thought of being false to her is horrible. When I think of her as she sat at breakfast this morning, so loving and so innocent-- '
He would have been more discreet if he had been less eloquent. The lady's temper suddenly overflowed.
'Innocent!' she cried. 'As innocent as I am.'
He sprang to his feet with eyes which were more angry than her own.
'Hold your tongue! How dare you talk against my wife! You are not fit to mention her name.'
'I'll go to Woking,' she gasped.
'You can go to the devil!' said he, and rang the bell for his bill. She stared at him with a surprise which had eclipsed her anger, while she pulled on her gloves with little sharp twitches. This was a new Frank Crosse to her. As long as a woman gets on very well with a man, she is apt, at the back of her soul, to suspect him of weakness. It is only when she differs from him that she can see the other side, and it always comes as a surprise. She liked him better than ever for the revelation.
'I'm not joking,' she whispered, as they went down the stair. 'I'll go, as sure as fate.'
He took no notice, but passed on down the street without a word of farewell. When he came to the turning he looked back. She was standing by the curb, with her proud head high in the air, while the manager screamed loudly upon a whistle. A cab swung round a distant corner. Crosse reached her before it did.
'I hope I haven't hurt your feelings,' said he. 'I spoke too roughly.'
'Trying to coax me away from Woking,' she sneered. 'I'm coming all the same.'
'That's your affair,' said he, as he handed her into the cab.
CHAPTER XIX--DANGER
Again the bright little dining-room, with the morning sun gleaming upon the high silver coffee pot and the electro-plated toast-rack-- everything the same, down to the plates which Jemima had once again forgotten to warm. Maude, with the golden light playing upon the fringes of her curls, and throwing two little epaulettes of the daintiest pink across her shoulders, sat in silence, glancing across from time to time with interrogative eyes at her husband. He ate his breakfast moodily, for he was very ill at ease. There was a struggle within him, for his conscience was pulling him one way and his instincts the other. Instincts are a fine old conservative force, while conscience is a thing of yesterday, so it is usually safe to prophesy which will sway the other.
The matter at issue was whether he should tell Maude about Violet Wright. If she were going to carry out her threat, then certainly it would be better to prepare her.