Harry, seeing this, and having been throughout the interview haunted by a latent consciousness that he was in the wrong, was strongly tempted to yield, and, dispatching a messenger to Tom Rattleworth furnished with some good and sufficient social white lie to account for his non-appearance, to stay quietly at home till the time should have arrived to accompany his wife to visit their aristocratic neighbours; but, unhappily, Colonel Crossman’s caution, “You’ve married a nice gal and a pretty gal, take care you don’t go and spoil her,” flashed across him: “women are all alike, more or less; it’s the nature of ’em to choose to have their own way; if you indulge ’em at first, they will be your masters ever after; show your wife she has met her match,” &c. &c.--these, and such like precepts, rang in Harry’s ears. Alice was angry and unreasonable, striving for the upper hand, in fact; he must not permit this: for her sake, as much as for his own, he was called upon to assert himself, and vindicate his marital authority. Yes, painful as it was to his feelings to speak or act harshly to his young wife, whom, even at that moment, he cared for more than any other created being, he would give her a lesson which should cure the evil at once and for ever. So putting on a very grave look he began: “My dear Alice, you are forgetting yourself, forgetting our relative positions; but there is a quiet way of settling such affairs; verbose discussions of this nature do not suit me--I am essentially a man of action. It is the husband’s right to command, the wife’s duty to obey. I had hoped your own proper feeling would have saved me the pain of being forced to remind you of this. I must now add, that I consider myself bound to fulfil my engagement to my friend, and intend to do so: during my absence, it is my wish and desire that you should drive and call on the Duchess of Brentwood; if, which I can scarcely conceive possible, you still refuse to do as I have pointed out, I shall, before I leave this room, write a note to Lady Allerton, informing her that we are unable to dine with her to-morrow, without assigning any cause whatsoever for this change of intention--which, as I cannot give the true reason, and will not stoop to invent a false one, is the only course left open to me.”