Jealousy rose in Osborn; jealousy of he knew not what.  Something or someone had brought colour and smiles to her, and it was not himself.  As he began to suggest that fact to himself, before he could do more than begin:  “How, do you mean—?” the door opened, and the maid announced:  “Dinner is served, ma’am.”

Marie sprang up and put her hand kindly in his arm.

“Come along,” she said.  “We have all your favourite things, so I hope you’re hungry.”

CHAPTER XXII

PLAIN DEALING

Re-entering the dining-room Osborn was struck by its comfort and charm.  It was a room humanised by the hand of a kind and clever woman.  And how well-ordered his table was!  How nice his silver looked!  How well his wife looked!  What good cooking he could command!  And in what attractively comfortable circumstances he now found himself after that year which had ended by palling; that year in which he had done as other men—­free men!

There was no place like home, for permanence; no woman like the wife of one’s choice, for permanence.  These were the things which mattered.

He was moved to speak to her in some measure of this thought during dinner.  They were not separated from one another by the whole breadth of the table.  He sat on his wife’s right hand, and the maid served them from the sideboard, an arrangement which pleased him because it saved him the trouble of carving, and also because it was rather smart, he thought, for home, where things generally tended to be dowdy.

“I’ve had an awf’ly good time, this last year,” he confided, “but I’m glad to be back.  There’s nothing like one’s own home and one’s own girl.”  The maid having gone to the kitchen, he reached for and squeezed his wife’s hand.  “I’m going to be an awf’ly good boy now you’ve got me again,” he assured her.

“Don’t bore yourself,” she said with gentle politeness.

“What—­what queer things women say!” he observed, after a pause, in which he had regarded her with some surprise.

“Not so queer as the things men do,” she replied thoughtfully.

He started and felt a flush creeping from his collar to the roots of his hair.  She spoke almost as if she knew of the folly and fun—­but even as the idea came to him he knew it to be impossible.  It was just one of the half-bitter remarks which wives made.  Bitterness in a woman was horrible.  The flush on his face had been imperceptible to her in the roseate light of the pink candle-shades, he was glad to think; but he waited until it had subsided before he spoke with a hint of reproof.

“I say, don’t try sarcasm.  Sarcasm in a woman jars, somehow.”

“I wasn’t sarcastic, really.”  Her tone was of raillery and somehow he didn’t like that she should speak so lightly.

“Besides,” he said, with an inconsequent effort, “as to the queer things men do, men are natural animals all the world over.”