wish you wouldn't talk like that," said Hilda, pouting amiably.
"Why not?"
"Well, I wish you wouldn't."
"Anyhow, the rent has to be paid, I suppose."
"And I wish it hadn't. I wish we didn't live in Maggie's house."
"Why?"
"I don't like the idea of it."
"You're sentimental."
"You can call it what you like. I don't like the idea of us living in Maggie's house. I never feel as if I was at home. No, I don't feel as if I was at home."
"What a kid you are!"
"You won't change me," she persisted stoutly.
He knew that she was not sympathetic towards the good Maggie. And he knew the reasons for her attitude, though they had never been mentioned. One was mere vague jealousy of Maggie as her predecessor in the house. The other was that Maggie was always very tepid towards George. George had annoyed her on his visits previous to his mother's marriage, and moreover Maggie had dimly resented Edwin's interest in the son of a mysterious woman. If she had encountered George after the proclamation of Edwin's engagement she would have accepted the child with her customary cheerful blandness. But she had encountered him too soon, and her puzzled gaze had said to George: "Why is my brother so taken up with you? There must be an explanation, and your strange mother is the explanation." Edwin did not deny Maggie's attitude to George, but he defended Maggie as a human being. Though dull, "she was absolutely the right sort," and the very slave of duty and loyalty. He would have liked to make Hilda see all Maggie's excellences.
"Do you know what I've been thinking?" Hilda went on. "Suppose you were to buy the house from Maggie? Then it would be ours."
He answered with a smile:
"What price 'the mania for owning things'? … Would you like me to?" There was promise in his roguish voice.
"Oh! I should. I've often thought of it," she said eagerly. And at the same time all her gestures and glances seemed to be saying: "Humour me! I appeal to you as a girl pouting and capricious. But humour me. You know it gives you pleasure to humour me. You know you like me not to be too reasonable. We both know it. I want you to do this."
It was not the fact that she had often thought of the plan. But in her eagerness she imagined it to be the fact. She had never seriously thought of the plan until that moment, and it appeared doubly favourable to her now, because the execution of it, by absorbing capital, ought to divert Edwin from his lithographic project, and perhaps render the lithographic project impossible for years.
She added, aloud:
"Then you wouldn't have any rent to pay."
"How true!" said Edwin, rallying her. "But it would stand me in a loss, because I should have to pay too much for the place."
"Why?" she cried, in arms. "Why should Maggie ask too much just because you want it? And think of all the money you've spent on it!"
"The money spent on it only increases its value to Maggie. You don't seem to understand landlordism, my child. But that's not the point at all. Maggie won't ask any price. Only I couldn't decently pay her less than the value she took the house over at when we divided up. To wit, £1,800. It ain't worth that. I only pay £60 rent."
"If she took it over at too high a value that's her look-out," said the harsh and unjust Hilda.
"Not at all. She was a fool. Albert and Clara persuaded her. It was a jolly good thing for them. I couldn't very well interfere."
"It seems a great shame you should have to pay for what Albert and Clara did."
"I needn't unless I want to. Only, if I buy the house, £1,800 will have to be the price."
"Well," said Hilda. "I wish you'd buy it."
"Would she feel more at home if he did?" he seductively chaffed her.
"Yes, she would." Hilda straightened her shoulders, and smiled with bravado.
"And suppose Mag won't sell?"
"Will you allow me to mention it to her?" Hilda's submissive tone implied that Edwin was a tyrant who ruled with a nod.
"I don't mind," he said negligently.
"Well, one of these days I just will."
Edwin departed, leaving the book behind. Hilda was flushed. She thought: "It is marvellous. I can do what I like with him. When I use a particular tone, and look at him in a particular way, I can do what I like with him."
She was ecstatically conscious of an incomprehensible power. What a rôle, that of the capricious, pouting queen, reclining luxuriously on her lounge, and subduing a tyrant to a slave! It surpassed that of the world-renowned pianist!..
But soon she became more serious. She had a delicious glow of seriousness. She overflowed with gratitude to Edwin. His good-nature was exquisite. He was not perfect. She could see all his faults just as plainly as when she was angry with him. But he was perfect in lovableness. She adored every aspect of him, every manifestation of his character. She felt her responsibility to him and to George. It was hers to bring grace into their lives. Without her, how miserable, how uncared for, those two would be! They would be like lost children. Nobody could do for them what she did. Money could not buy what she gave naturally, and mere invention could not devise it. She looked up to Edwin, but at the same time she was mysteriously above both him and George. She had a strange soft wisdom for them. It was agreeable, and it was proper, and it was even prudent, to be capricious on occasion and to win by pouting and wiles and seductions; but beneath all that lay the tremendous sternness of the wife's duty, everlasting and intricate, a heavy obligation that demanded all her noblest powers for its fulfilment. She rose heroically to the thought of duty, conceiving it as she had never conceived it before. She desired intensely to be the most wonderful wife in the whole history of marriage. And she believed strongly in her capabilities.
She went upstairs to put on another and a finer dress; for since the disastrous sequel to the At Home she had somewhat wearied in the pursuit of elegance. She had thought: "What is the use of me putting myself to such a lot of trouble for a husband who is insensible enough to risk my welfare unnecessarily?" She was now ashamed of this backsliding. Ada was in the bedroom finicking with something on the dressing-table. Ada sprang to help as soon as she knew that her mistress had to go out. And she openly admired the new afternoon dress and seemed as pleased as though she was to wear it herself. And Ada buttoned her boots and found her gloves and her parasol, and remembered her purse and her bag and her handkerchief.
"I don't quite know what time I shall be back, Ada."
"No'm," said Ada eagerly, as though saying: "Of course you don't, m'm. You have many engagements. But no matter when you come back we shall be delighted to see you because the house is nothing without you."
"Of course I shall be back for tea."
"Oh, yes'm!" Ada agreed, as though saying: "Need you tell me that, m'm? I know you would never leave the master to have his tea alone."
Hilda walked regally down the stairs and glanced round about her at the house, which belonged to Maggie and which Edwin had practically promised to buy. Yes, it was a fine house, a truly splendid abode. And it seemed all the finer because
