be quoted--was an astonishingly mild man in his own house.

He said brightly, noting with a shiver the gusty stress of his wife's
deportment: "You _drove_ up, my dear?--And quite right, too," he
hastily added, upon a sudden fear that his remark might be interpreted
as reproach.

"How do you know?" Mrs. Chater's nose went into the brandy-and-soda.

"I saw you from the window," her husband beamed. He repeated, "The
window," and nervously pointed at it. There was a strained atmosphere
in the room, and he was a little frightened.

"_Oh!_" Out from the brandy-and-soda came the nose; down went the
glass with an emphasising bang: "_Oh!_"

Mr. Chater gave a startled little jump. He saw, immediately he had
spoken, the misfortune into which his admission had plunged him; the
bang of the glass twanged his already apprehensive nerves, and he
jerked out, "Certainly, my dear," without any clear grasp as to what
he was affirming.

"If you had been a _man_," said Mrs. Chater, speaking with a slow and
extraordinary bitterness--"if you had been a _man_, you would have
come out and helped me."

"But you had got out when I came to the window, my dear."

"With the _cabman_, I mean." Mrs. Chater fired the word with alarming
ferocity. "With the _cabman_. Did you not see that violent brute