y time of life.
But, as I was saying, we listened and heard The Dowd drawl worse
than ever. She drops her final g's like a barmaid or a blue-blooded
Aide-de-Camp. "Look he-ere, you're gettin' too fond o' me," she said,
and The Dancing Master owned it was so in language that nearly made
me ill. The Dowd reflected for a while. Then we heard her say, "Look
he-ere, Mister Bent, why are you such an aw-ful liar?" I nearly exploded
while The Dancing Master denied the charge. It seems that he never told
her he was a married man.'

'I said he wouldn't.'

'And she had taken this to heart, on personal grounds, I suppose. She
drawled along for five minutes, reproaching him with his perfidy, and
grew quite motherly. "Now you've got a nice little wife of your own you
have," she said. "She's ten times too good for a fat old man like you,
and, look he-ere, you never told me a word about her, and I've been
thinkin' about it a good deal, and I think you're a liar." Wasn't that
delicious? The Dancing Master maundered and raved till the Hawley Boy
suggested that he should burst in and beat him. His voice runs up
into an impassioned squeak when he is afraid. The Dowd must be an
extraordinary woman. She explained that had he been a bachelor she might
not have objected to his devotion; but since he was a married man and
the father of a very nice baby, she considered him a hypocrite, and this
she repeated twice. She wound up her drawl with: "An' I'm tellin' you
this because your wife is angry with me, an' I hate quarrellin' with any
other woman, an' I like your wife. You know how you have behaved for the
last six weeks. You shouldn't have done it, indeed you shouldn't. You're
too old an' too fat." Can't you imagine how The Dancing Master would
wince at that! "Now go away," she said. "I don't want to tell you what
I think of you, because I think you are not nice. I'll stay he-ere till
the next dance begins." Did you think that the creature had so much in
her?'

'I never studied her as closely as you did. It sounds unnatural. What
happened?'

'The Dancing Master attempted blandishment, reproof, jocularity, and the
style of the Lord High Warden, and I had almost to pinch the Hawley Boy
to make him keep quiet. She grunted at the end of each sentence and, in
the end, he went away swearing to himself, quite like a man in a novel.
He looked more objectionable than ever. I laughed. I love that woman
in spite of her clothes. And now I'm going to b