When first he suggested she should add Mellersh she had objected
for the above reason, and after a pause--Mellersh was much too prudent
to speak except after a pause, during which presumably he was taking a
careful mental copy of his coming observation--he said, much
displeased, "But I am not a villa," and looked at her as he looks who
hopes, for perhaps the hundredth time, that he may not have married a
fool.

Of course he was not a villa, Mrs. Wilkins assured him; she had
never supposed he was; she had not dreamed of meaning . . . she was
only just thinking . . .

The more she explained the more earnest became Mellersh's hope,
familiar to him by this time, for he had then been a husband for two
years, that he might not by any chance have married a fool; and they
had a prolonged quarrel, if that can be called a quarrel which is
conducted with dignified silence on one side and earnest apology on the
other, as to whether or no Mrs. Wilkins had intended to suggest that
Mr. Wilkins was a villa.

"I believe," she had thought when it was at last over--it took a
long while--"that anybody would quarrel about anything when they've not
left off being together for a single day for two whole years. What we
both need is a holiday."

"My husband," went on Mrs. Wilkins to Mrs. Arbuthnot, trying to
throw some light on herself, "is a solicitor. He--" She cast about for
something she could say elucidatory of Mellersh, and found: "He's very
handsome."