up your establishment abroad, and came to England on your father's
death. With the exception of myself, and one or two other friends of
former days, you have presented your wife to nobody. Your new position
has smoothed the way for you into the best society. You never take your
wife with you. You go out as if you were a single man. I have reason to
know that you are actually believed to be a single man, among these
new acquaintances of yours, in more than one quarter. Forgive me for
speaking my mind bluntly--I say what I think. It's unworthy of you to
keep your wife buried here, as if you were ashamed of her."

"I _am_ ashamed of her."

"Vanborough!"

"Wait a little! you are not to have it all your own way, my good fellow.
What are the facts? Thirteen years ago I fell in love with a handsome
public singer, and married her. My father was angry with me; and I had
to go and live with her abroad. It didn't matter, abroad. My father
forgave me on his death-bed, and I had to bring her home again. It does
matter, at home. I find myself, with a great career opening before me,
tied to a woman whose relations are (as you well know) the lowest of
the low. A woman without the slightest distinction of manner, or the
slightest aspiration beyond her nursery and her kitchen, her piano
and her books. Is _that_ a wife who can help me to make my place in
society?--who can smooth my way through social obstacles and political
obstacles, to the House of Lords? By Jupiter! if ever there was a woman
to be 'buried' (as you call it), that woman is my wife. And, what's
more, if you want the truth, it's because I _can't_ bury her here that
I'm going to leave this house. She has got a cursed knack of making
acquaintances wherever she goes. She'll have a circle of friends