“You really should,” repeated Bollington, “you ought to, really. But I remember we went from Killarney to Belfast, and there something dreadful happened. I don’t know, it had been growing on her I suppose, but she took a dislike to me there, had strange fancies, thought I was unfaithful to her. You see she was popular wherever we went, a lively little woman, in fact she wasn’t merely a woman, she was a little magnet, men congregated and clung to her like so many tacks and nails and pins. I didn’t object at all—on the contrary, ‘Enjoy yourself, Phoebe,’ I said, ‘I don’t expect you always to hang around an old fogey like me.’ Fogey was the very word I used; I didn’t mean it, of course, but that was the line I took, for she was so charming until she began to get so bad tempered. And believe me, that made her angry, furious. No, not the fogey, but the idea that I did not object to her philandering. It was fatal, it gave colour to her suspicions of me—Turner, I was as innocent as any lamb—tremendous colour. And she had such a sharp tongue! If you ventured to differ from her—and you couldn’t help differing sometimes—she’d positively bludgeon you, and you couldn’t help being bludgeoned. And she had a passion for putting me right, and I always seemed to be so very wrong, always. She would not be satisfied until she had proved it, and it was so monstrous to be made feel that because you were rather different from other people you were an impertinent fool. Yes, I seemed at last to gain only the pangs and none of the prizes of marriage. Now there was a lady we met in Belfast to whom I paid some attention....” “O, good lord!” groaned Turner. “No, but listen,” pleaded Bollington, “it was a very innocent friendship—nothing was further from my mind—and she was very much like my wife, very much, it was noticeable, everybody spoke of it— I mean the resemblance. A Mrs. Macarthy, a delightful woman, and Phoebe simply loathed her. I confess that my wife’s innuendoes were so mean and persistent that at last I hadn’t the strength to deny them, in fact at times I wished they were true. Love is idolatry if you like, but it cannot be complete immolation—there’s no such bird as the phœnix, is there, Turner?” “What, what?” “No such bird as the phœnix.” “No, there is no such bird, I believe.” “And sometimes I had to ask myself quite seriously if I really hadn’t been up to some infidelity! Nonsense, of course, but I assure you that was the effect it was having upon me. I had doubts of myself, frenzied doubts! And it came to a head between Phoebe and me in our room one day. We quarrelled, O dear, how we quarrelled! She said I was sly, two-faced, unfaithful, I was a scoundrel, and so on. Awfully untrue, all of it. She accused me of dreadful things with Mrs. Macarthy and she screamed out: ‘I hope you will treat her better than you have treated me.’ Now what did she mean by that, Turner?”