Well,
just take the hint, love. It comes best, don't it, from one of the
family?"
But Mary left the house in a sad flurry; and even forgot for a street
length to open her parasol.
Her first impulse was to go straight to Richard. But she had not covered
half a dozen yards before she saw that this would never do. At the best
of times Richard abominated gossip; and the fact of it having, in the
present case, dared to fasten its fangs in some one belonging to him
would make him doubly wroth. He might even try to find out who had
started the talk; and get himself into hot water over it. Or he might
want to lay all the blame on his own shoulders--make himself the
reproaches Ned's Polly had not spared him. Worse still, he would perhaps
accuse Purdy of inconsiderateness towards her, and fly into a rage with
him; and then the two of them would quarrel, which would be a thousand
pities. For though he often railed at Purdy, yet that was only Richard's
way: he was genuinely fond of him, and unbent to him as to nobody else.
But these were just so many pretexts put forward to herself by Mary for
keeping silence; the real reason lay deeper. Eight years of married life
had left her, where certain subjects were concerned, with all the
modesty of her girlhood intact. There were things, indelicate things,
which COULD not be spoken out, even between husband and wife. For her to
have to step before Richard and say: some one else feels for me in the
same way as you, my husband, do, would make her ever after unable
frankly to meet his eyes.
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