A pause; then a thick voice said, in an emphatic undertone:

"Damn the carriage!--go away!"

"But, Robert, you know we _promised_ to look in at Lady Tuam's on the
way home."

The thick voice dropped a note lower.

"Damn Lady Tuam! I shall come when it suits me."

Lady Cathedine fell back, and George saw her cross the landing, and drop
into a chair beside an old general, who was snoozing in a peaceful corner
till his daughters should see fit to take him home. The old general took
no notice of her, and she sat there, playing with her fan, her rather
prominent grey eyes staring out of her white face.

Both George and his friend, as it happened, had heard the conversation.
The friend raised his eyebrows in disgust.

"What a brute that fellow is! They have been married four months.
However, she was amply warned."

"Who was she?"

"The daughter of old Wickens, the banker. He married her for her money,
and lives upon it religiously. By now, I should think, he has dragged her
through every torture that marriage admits of."