“What is the matter with you?” he said one day.
“Why do you ask? Don’t you like my dress?”
“I like it too well—I should not know you in it.”
Clara smiled. Tarbot went on gazing at her critically.
“You have a good figure,” he said; “a very good figure. I had no idea of it when I married you. I did not know you were so tall, or that you had such a small waist. Your hips are well developed, too, and your shoulders are good—you are a finely proportioned woman. If you were not so thin you might even be handsome.”
While he paid her these compliments she longed passionately for him to give her one affectionate glance; but this he had never considered in the bargain, and certainly did not intend to bestow.
When Clara had purchased her wardrobe, finally buying an evening dress from Worth, who studied her good figure and peculiar face, and made her a robe which was afterwards talked about in more than one London drawing-room, she told her husband that it was time to return home.
“But the fortnight is not up yet,” he said.
“Never mind. You are anxious to get back to your patients. I don’t care a fig for fine scenery or picture galleries, or old palaces, or anything of that sort. I came to Paris to get my trousseau. I have got it, and now I wish to return to England.”
“All right, Clara,” said Tarbot. “I am abundantly willing.”
The pair crossed to Dover by the night boat that evening, and early on the following morning arrived at Tarbot’s house in Harley Street. The servants expected them, and were up. The weather was getting chilly, and Clara was glad to see fires in the rooms and the whole place looking fresh and clean. She looked round with approbation, gave her orders to the footman in a haughty tone, which made him secretly incline to the belief that his master had married a duchess in disguise, and then swept up-stairs to her own room.
This room, by Tarbot’s orders, had been newly furnished. It was bare, cold, and correct, but Clara was pleased with it. She liked the sense of space which it gave, and she thought that the pale blue and white furniture would suit her complexion.
“By the way,” she said, turning to Tarbot, who followed her, “you intend to give me _carte blanche_ to do what I like in the re-arranging of the house?”
