His wife objected; she said it
seemed hardly decent, but there was no keeping her out.
She turned up with him at picnics and Christmas parties. Nobody
heard her speak to him, but it seemed necessary for him to reply to
her aloud, and to see him suddenly get up from his chair and slip
away to talk earnestly to nothing in a corner disturbed the
festivities.
"I should really be glad," he once confessed to me, "to get a
little time to myself. She means kindly, but it IS a strain. And
then the others don't like it. It makes them nervous. I can see
it does."
One evening she caused quite a scene at the club. Whibley had been
playing whist, with the Major for a partner. At the end of the
game the Major, leaning across the table toward him, asked, in a
tone of deadly calm, "May I inquire, sir, whether there was any
earthly reason" (he emphasised "earthly") "for your following my
lead of spades with your only trump?"
"I--I--am very sorry, Major," replied Whibley apologetically. "I--
I--somehow felt I--I ought to play that queen."
"Entirely your own inspiration, or suggested?" persisted the Major,
who had, of course, heard of "Maria.
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