_He_ (_aside_). I have never heard her talk like this before. I don’t understand it.--(_Aloud._) Why, Jenny, you speak as if I were a cloud over your life.
_He._ I try to be a good husband, don’t I?
_She_ (_indifferently_). As well as you know how, I suppose.
_He._ Do I deprive you of anything you want?
_She_ (_impatiently_). Of course you do not.
_He._ I work hard, I know, but when I go out in the evening now and then--
_She_ (_aside_). Six nights every week. (_Sighing._)
_He._ I really work. There are husbands who say they are at work when they are at the club playing poker: now I am really working.
_She_ (_impatiently_). You have no small vices. (_Rising._) Is there no work calling you away to-night? Why are you not off?
_He_ (_looking at watch_). I am a little late, that’s a fact: still, I can do what I have to do if I work like a horse.
_She._ Have you to draw a conveyance? That is the old joke.
_He._ This is no joke. It’s a divorce suit.
_She_ (_quickly_). Is it that Lightfoot person again?
_He._ It is Mrs. Lightfoot’s case. She is a very fine woman, and her husband has treated her shamefully.
_She._ Better than the creature deserved, I dare say. You will win her case for her?
_She_ (_sarcastically_). No doubt.--(_Aside._) I hate that woman! (_Crosses the room and sits on sofa on the right of the fireplace._)
_He._ But the result of a lawsuit is generally a toss-up; and heads do not always win.
_She._ I wish you luck this time--for her husband’s sake: he’ll be glad to be rid of her. But I doubt it: you can’t get up any sympathy by exhibiting her to the jury: she isn’t good-looking enough.
_He_ (_quickly_). She’s a very fine woman indeed.
_She_ (_aside_). How eagerly he defends her!--(_Aloud._) She’s a great big, tall, giantess creature, with a face like a wax doll and a head of hair like a Circassian Girl. No juryman will fall in love with her.
_He._ How often have I told you that Justice does not consider persons! Now, in the eye of the law--
_She_ (_interrupting_). Do you acknowledge that the law has but one eye and can see only one side?
_He._ Are you jealous? (_Crossing and standing in front of her._)
_She._ Jealous of this Mrs. Lightfoot? (_Laughs._) Ridiculous!
_He._ I am glad of it, for I think a jealous woman has a very poor opinion of herself.