"But don't let's try to be clever. Cleverness is
always a tax, but before luncheon it is an extortion. Personally, it
makes me feel as if I had attended a welsh-rabbit supper the night
before. Your wife must be very patient."
"My wife," cried Charteris, in turn resolved to screen an unappreciative
mate, "is the most dear and most kind-hearted among the Philistines. And
yet, at times, I grant you--"
"Oh, but, of course!" Patricia said impatiently. "I don't for a moment
question that your wife is an angel."
"And why?" His eyebrows lifted, and he smiled.
"Why, wasn't it an angel," Patricia queried, all impishness now, "who
kept the first man and woman out of paradise?"
"If--if I thought you meant that----!" he cried; and then he shrugged
his shoulders. "My wife's virtues merit a better husband than Fate has
accorded her. Anne is the best woman I have ever known."
Patricia was not unnaturally irritated. After all, one does not take the
trouble to meet a man accidentally in a plantation of young beech-trees
in order to hear him discourse of his wife's good qualities; and
besides, Mr.
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