Sir. W: And yet I believe that with a little tact, a little gentleness, you would be able to manage Kitty, just as I have managed your aunt all these long years. There is no doubting the dear girl's affection for you. Remember her joy when her mother's scruples as to the length of your engagement were overcome.
Jem: That's true enough. Kitty was very fond of me three months ago. But it isn't only fondness I require of a wife. She must be bored when I'm bored, and keen when I'm keen, and that sort of thing, you know.
Sir W.: Yes! I see. In fact, lose her identity, as your dear good aunt has lost hers!
Jem (aside): Or, rather, as you have lost yours!
Sir W.: Well, I'll try and view things in your light, my good fellow. At the same time, you must have great patience—very great patience, Jem, and then all may come right in the end. It is true I never needed patience with your aunt. But had there been the necessity, I should have been equal to the demand. Now, I daresay your little quarrels have been but short lived; and that after having caused Kitty any vexation, you have always been ready to come forward with kind words to make up your differences?
Jem: Yes, ready! But not too ready, as I feared too much indulgence might not be advisable. Now, one morning, after having been out early, I determined to give up fishing for the rest of the day to please Kitty. On my way home—remember, it was before eight o'clock—I met her betaking herself to what she calls "matins." Now, I like a girl to be good and strict, and all that sort of thing. But imagine going to church at eight o'clock on a Monday morning!
Sir W.: A slight error in judgment; you might easily forgive the dear child.
Jem: I didn't find it easy. I said so. And Kitty refused her breakfast in consequence—only to aggravate me.
Sir W.: No! No! Perhaps she fasted only to soften your heart!
Jem: Far from it. In fact, to sum up the whole matter, we have no common sympathies. Kitty has not even any ambition, for instance, as to my future. You know I wish to stand for Portborough one day?
Sir W.: You!!
Jem: Why not?
Sir W.: Oh, no! Of course! Why not, as you say?
Jem: Yet if I begin to discuss it all with her, she begins to yawn; and ner yawning drives me nearly mad, when I am talking on a matter of vital interest.
Sir W.: Dear! Dear! I begin to find all this more serious than I thought. For it does seem to me as if you differed on most subjects.
Jem (moodily): So we do.
Sir W.: Ah! I am afraid it may be pretty serious! And after listening to all your story I can't help feeling, my dear fellow, that there is not the chance of things bettering themselves, as I had hoped in the first instance.
Jem: You feel that?
Sir W.: I do! I do! This divergence of taste and sympathies is no laughing matter. It rather alarms me when I think that the abyss between you and your wife as time goes on may only widen. (He indicates an imaginary abyss, which Jem stares at dubiously.) Yes! widen—and widen!
Jem (after a moment's pause of half surprise, half pain): What you say is not consoling.
Sir W.: At first I thought differently; but now I hesitate to mislead you, and I admit my heart sinks when I think of your future, after hearing all you have to say. Indeed, I hope I may be mistaken. I have, as you know, but little experience in these matters. Your aunt and I have lived in undisturbed harmony these fifteen years. Never has an angry word been heard within our walls.
Jem: Whilst Kitty and I squabbled as soon as we had left the rice and slippers behind us! And since then scarcely an hour has passed without some sort of difference. I declare, when I think over it, that it would be best for us to plunge into the ice at once. A separation is the only hope for us. But, hush! I think I hear Aunt Flo's and Kitty's footsteps! (Lowers his voice, speaking rapidly) For Heaven's sake, don't breathe a word of what I have said! Fool that I've been! Worse than a fool—disloyal! Not a word to my aunt!
Sir W.: Oh! I promise you! (Mysteriously into Jem's ear) Women are so indiscreet. Now, I wouldn't tell your aunt for the wide world!
(Enter Lady Flo and Kitty, who have overheard the last words.)
Lady Flo (icily): I beg pardon! We interrupt!
Jem: Not at all! We were merely discussing the relations of man and wife! Uncle Will has been telling me that a wife—you, under the circumstances—has everything in her own hands.
