He did not wish to quarrel with her if he could help it. Lady
Kirton raised her voice.
"Staying away, as you have, in London, and leaving Maude here to pine
alone."
"Business kept me in London."
"I dare say it did!" cried the wrathful dowager. "If Maude died of ennui,
you wouldn't care. She can't go about much herself just now, poor thing!
I do wish Edward had lived."
"I wish he had, with all my heart!" came the answer; and the tone struck
surprise on the dowager's ear--it was so full of pain. "Maude's coming to
Hartledon without me was her own doing," he remarked. "I wished her not
to come."
"I dare say you did, as her heart was set upon it. The fact of her
wishing to do a thing would be the signal for your opposing it; I've
gathered that much. My advice to Maude is, to assert her own will,
irrespective of yours."
"Don't you think, Lady Kirton, that it may be as well if you let me and
my wife alone? We shall get along, no doubt, without interference; _with_
interference we might not do so."
What with one thing and another, the dowager's temper was inflammable
that morning; and when it reached that undesirable state she was apt to
say pretty free things, even for her.
"Edward would have made her the better husband."
"But she didn't like him, you know!" he returned, his eyes flashing with
the remembrance of an old thought; and the countess-dowager took the
sentence literally, and not ironically.
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