one.

Lady Grenellen left just before us. She did not take the least notice
of me, but she talked in a caressing way to Augustus, and I heard him
say:

"Now, you won't forget! It is a bargain!" in the most _empresse_
voice, as he pulled his head out of the carriage-window.

For the first mile or two of our journey neither of us spoke. Augustus
lit a cigarette and smoked in a nervous way, and kept opening and
shutting the window.

Then he swore at me. I will not say the words he used, but the
sentence ended with a demand why I sat there looking like a "stuck
pig."

I told him quietly that if he spoke to me like that I would not reply
at all.

He got very angry and said he would have none of that nonsense; that
I seemed to forget that I was his wife, and that he could do as he
pleased with me.

"No, you cannot," I said. "I will not be spoken to like that."

"You'll be spoken to just as I jolly well please," was his refined
reply. "Sitting there like a white wax doll, and giving yourself the
airs of a duchess!"

I did not answer.

"A deaf and dumb doll, too," he said, with an oath.

He then asked where I had been all night, and what I had meant by
daring to stay away from him.

I remained perfectly silent, which, I fear, was infinitely provoking,
but I could not stoop to bandy words with him.

He began to bluster, and loaded me with every coarse abuse and a
tremendous justification of himself and his behavior of the night
before. I had not mentioned the subject or accused him of anything,
but he assured me he had not been the least drunk and that my
haughtiness was enough to drive any man mad.

When at least ten minutes of this torrent had spent itself a little, I
said the whole subject was so disagreeable to me and discreditable to
him that he had better not talk of it and I would try and forget it.

Grandmamma often told me how her grandfather, the husband of Ambrosine
Eustasie, had refused to fight with a man of low birth who had
insulted him, but had sent one of his valets to throw the creature
into the street, because in those days a gentleman only crossed swords
with his equals. I now understood his feelings. I could not quarrel
with Augustus, the whole situation was so impossible.

I tried to tell myself that it did not in the least matter what he
said and did. Then, as he continued abusing me, I repeated a bit of
Beranger to myself, and so grew unconscious, at last, of the words
he was saying