“I told you before we were married that I never should, but I would be civil to you,” I said to him at last, exasperated beyond all endurance.  “You agreed to the bargain, and I do my best to keep it.  I never disobey you or cross you in a single thing.  What have you to complain of?”

“Everything!” he said, in a fury, thumping the table so hard that a little Dresden-china figure fell down and broke into pieces on the parquet floor.  “Everything!  Your great eyes are always sad.  You never take the least interest in anything about any of us.  You are docile—­yes; and obedient—­yes; and when I hold you in my arms I might be holding a stuffed doll for all the response you make.  And when I kiss you, you shudder!”

He walked up and down the room excitedly.

“Oh, we have all noticed it!” he continued.  “You are polite, and quiet, and—­and—­damned cold!  Does Amelia ever let herself go before you?  Never!  The mater herself feels it.  You are as different to any of us as if you came from Mars!”

“But you knew that always.  You used to tell me that was what you liked about me,” I said, wearily.  “I cannot change my nature any more than—­than Amelia can hers.”

“Why not, pray?”

“Have you never thought,” I said, driven at last to defend myself, “that there may be a side in the question for me also?  I feel it as badly as you do—­your all being different to me.”

He stopped in his angry walk and looked at me.  This idea was one of complete newness to him.

“Well, you’d better get out of it and change, for we sha’n’t,” he said, at last.  “You owe everything to me.  You would have been in the gutter now if I had not had the generosity to marry you.”

I did not answer, but I suppose my eyes spoke, for he came close up to me and shook his fist in my face.

“I’ll break that proud spirit of yours—­see if I don’t!” he roared—­“daring to look at me like that!  What good are you to me, I should like to know?  You do not have a child, and, of all things, I want an heir!”

A low growl came from the hearth-rug, where Roy had been lying, and the dear dog rose and came to my side.  I was afraid he would fly at Augustus, shaking his fist as if he was going to strike me.  I put my hand on Roy’s soft, black head and held his collar.

In a moment Augustus turned round and rushed to the door.

“I’ll have that dog poisoned,” he said, as he fled from the room.

I took up a volume of La Rochefoucauld, which was lying on the table near—­grandmamma’s copy—­and I chanced to open it at this maxim: 

“On n’est jamais si heureux ni si malheureux qu’on s’imagine.”

About happiness I do not know, but for the rest—­well, I must tell myself that to feel miserable is only foolish imagination, when I have a fire, and food, and a diamond necklace, and three yards of pearls, and a carriage with prune-and-scarlet servants, and a boudoir with mustard-silk walls, and—­and numbers of other things.