Harry’s colour rose as he took a turn up and down the room to compose his feelings ere he would trust himself to reply. “You want to make me angry,” he said, “but I do not intend to afford you that satisfaction. Listen to me,” he continued, seeing that his wife was again about to interrupt him, “listen to me, and when you have heard what I am about to say, you can reply as you please. I made this engagement to oblige my friend, without at the moment recollecting that to-day was the time appointed for calling on the Duchess; but when I reflected that one was business of importance, and the other a mere visit of ceremony, I hoped and believed you would be reasonable enough, when I should have explained the matter to you, not even to wish me to give up my engagement, and would exercise sufficient common sense and self-control, to go and pay the visit alone.” “Then you thought wrongly,” returned Alice, with vehemence; “if you required a wife who could go about by herself and visit a set of proud, stiff people, who are strangers to her, and keep up your position in the county, while you are out hunting and shooting all day, for your own selfish amusement, you should have chosen some fashionable woman of the world, and not a poor simple country girl like myself, who relied on your affection to protect and encourage her;” and here Alice showed strong symptoms of a disposition to bring that “young wife’s last resource” of a flood of tears to bear upon her disobedient and refractory spouse.