find time to talk to him.

"She kept him waiting there for three-quarters of an hour, just
sufficient time to take the side out of him; and then she walks in and
closes the door behind her.

"'I'd say you hadn't changed hardly a day, Susan,' says he, 'if it wasn't
that you'd grown handsomer than ever.'

"I guess he'd been turning that over in his mind during the
three-quarters of an hour. It was his fancy that he knew a bit about
women.

"'My name's Mrs. Wrench,' says she; 'and if you take your hat off and
stand up while I'm talking to you it will be more what I'm accustomed
to.'

"Well, that staggered him a bit; but there didn't seem anything else to
be done, so he just made as if he thought it funny, though I doubt if at
the time he saw the full humour of it.

"'And now, what do you want?" says she, seating herself in front of her
desk, and leaving him standing, first on one leg and then on the other,
twiddling his hat in his hands.

"'I've been a bad husband to you, Susan,' begins he.

"'I could have told you that,' she answers. 'What I asked you was what
you wanted.'