“Your money ought to be in proper hands and properly managed,” he went on with cold precision.  “If you were an English woman, your husband would control it.”

“Would he?” The simple, sweet-tempered obtuseness of her tone was an infuriating thing to him.  There was the usual shade of troubled surprise in her eyes as they met his.  “I don’t think men in America ever do that.  I don’t believe the nice ones want to.  You see they have such a pride about always giving things to women, and taking care of them.  I believe a nice American man would break stones in the street rather than take money from a woman—­even his wife.  I mean while he could work.  Of course if he was ill or had ill luck or anything like that, he wouldn’t be so proud as not to take it from the person who loved him most and wanted to help him.  You do sometimes hear of a man who won’t work and lets his wife support him, but it’s very seldom, and they are always the low kind that other men look down on.”

“Wanted to help him.”  Sir Nigel selected the phrase and quoted it between puffs of the cigar he held in his fine, rather cruel-looking hands, and his voice expressed a not too subtle sneer.  “A woman is not ‘helping’ her husband when she gives him control of her fortune.  She is only doing her duty and accepting her proper position with regard to him.  The law used to settle the thing definitely.”

“Did-did it?” Rosy faltered weakly.  She knew he was offended again and that she was once more somehow in the wrong.  So many things about her seemed to displease him, and when he was displeased he always reminded her that she was stupidly, objectionably guilty of not being an English woman.

Whatsoever it happened to be, the fault she had committed out of her depth of ignorance, he did not forget it.  It was no habit of his to endeavour to dismiss offences.  He preferred to hold them in possession as if they were treasures and to turn them over and over, in the mental seclusion which nourishes the growth of injuries, since within its barriers there is no chance of their being palliated by the apologies or explanations of the offender.

During their journey to Stornham Court the next day he was in one of his black moods.  Once in the railway carriage he paid small attention to his wife, but sat rigidly reading his Times, until about midway to their destination he descended at a station and paid a visit to the buffet in the small refreshment room, after which he settled himself to doze in an exceedingly unbecoming attitude, his travelling cap pulled down, his rather heavy face congested with the dark flush Rosalie had not yet learned was due to the fact that he had hastily tossed off two or three whiskies and sodas.  Though he was never either thick of utterance or unsteady on his feet, whisky and soda formed an important factor in his existence.  When he was annoyed or dull he at once took the necessary precautions against being overcome by these feelings,