"Oh, Leonard, you surely would not call Mount Royal gloomy!"
"But I do: I hate a house that smells of one's ancestors."
"Just now you objected to the scent of the flowers."
"You are always catching me up--there was never such a woman to argue--but I mean what I say. The smell is a combination of stephanotis and old bones. I wish you would let me build you a villa at Torquay or Dartmouth. I think I should prefer Dartmouth: it's a better place for yachting."
"You are very kind, but I would rather live at Mount Royal than anywhere else. Remember I was brought up here."
"A reason for your being heartily sick of the house--as I am. But I suppose in your case there are associations--sentimental associations."
"The house is filled with memories of my second mother!"
"Yes--and there are other memories--associations which you love to nurse and brood upon. I think I know all about it--can read up your feelings to a nicety."
"You can think and say what you please, Leonard," she answered, looking at him with unaltered calmness, "but you will never make me disown my love of this place, and its surroundings. You will never make me ashamed of being fond of the home in which I have spent my life."
"I begin to think there is very little shame in you," Leonard muttered to himself, as he walked away.
He had said many bitter words to his wife--had aimed many a venomed arrow at her breast--but he had never made her blush, and he had never made her cry. There were times when a dull hopeless anger consumed him--anger against her--against Nature--against Fate--and when his only relief was to be found in harsh and bitter speech, in dark and sullen looks. It would have been a greater relief to him if his shots had gone home--if his brutality had elicited any sign of distress. But in this respect Christabel was heroic. She who had never harboured an ungenerous thought was moved only to a cold calm scorn by the unjust and ungenerous conduct of her husband. Her contempt was too thorough for the possibility of resentment. Once, and once only, she attempted to reason with a fool in his folly.
"Why do you make these unkind speeches, Leonard?" she asked, looking at him with those calm eyes before which his were apt to waver and look downward, hardly able to endure that steady gaze. "Why are you always harping upon the past--as if it were an offence against you? Is there anything that you have to complain of in my conduct--have I given you any cause for anger?"