"Well, why shouldn"t he look after the children? Was there anything strange in her suggestion?"
He thought the matter over and found nothing strange in it. Henceforth he took the children for a walk every day.
One morning, when he was ready to go out, the children were not dressed. The lawyer felt angry and went grumbling to his wife; of the servants he was afraid.
"Why aren"t the children dressed?" he asked.
"Because Mary is busy with other things. Why don"t you dress them?
You"ve nothing else to do. Do you consider it degrading to dress your own children?"
He considered the matter for a while, but could see nothing degrading in it. He dressed them.
One day he felt inclined to take his gun and go out by himself, although he never shot anything.
His wife met him on his return.
"Why didn"t you take the children for a walk this morning?" she asked sharply and reproachfully.
"Because I didn"t feel inclined to do so."
"You didn"t feel inclined? Do you think I want to work all day long in stable and barn? One ought to do _something_ useful during the day, even if it does go against one"s inclination."
"So as to pay for one"s dinner, you mean?"
"If you like to put it that way! If I were a big man like you, I should be ashamed to be lying all day long on a sofa, doing nothing."
He really felt ashamed, and henceforth he established himself the children"s nurse. He never failed in his duties. He saw no disgrace in it, yet he was unhappy. Something was wrong, somewhere, he thought, but his wife always managed to carry her point.
She sat in the office and interviewed inspector and overseer; she stood in the store-room and weighed out stores for the cottagers.
Everybody who came on the estate asked for the mistress, n.o.body ever wanted to see the master.
One day he took the children past a field in which cattle were grazing. He wanted to show them the cows and cautiously took them up to the grazing herd. All at once a black head, raised above the backs of the other animals, stared at the visitors, bellowing softly.
The lawyer picked up the children and ran back to the fence as hard as he could. He threw them over and tried to jump it himself, but was caught on the top. Noticing some women on the other side, he shouted:
"The bull! the bull!"
But the women merely laughed, and went to pull the children, whose clothes were covered with mud, out of the ditch.
"Don"t you see the bull?" he screamed.
"It"s no bull, sir," replied the eldest of the women, "the bull was killed a fortnight ago."
He came home, angry and ashamed and complained of the women to his wife. But she only laughed.
In the afternoon, as husband and wife were together in the drawing-room, there was a knock at the door.
"Come in!" she called out.
One of the women who had witnessed the adventure with the bull came in, holding in her hand the lawyer"s gold chain.
"I believe this belongs to you, M"m," she said hesitatingly.
Adeline looked first at the woman and then at her husband, who stared at the chain with wide-open eyes.
"No, it belongs to your master," she said, taking the proffered chain.
"Thank you! Your master will give you something for finding it."
He was sitting there, pale and motionless.
"I have no money, ask my wife to give you something," he said, taking the necklet.
Adeline took a crown out of her big purse and handed it to the woman, who went away, apparently without understanding the scene.
"You might have spared me this humiliation!" he said, and his voice plainly betrayed the pain he felt.
"Are you not man enough to take the responsibility for your words and actions on your own shoulders? Are you ashamed to wear a present I gave you, while you expect me to wear yours? You"re a coward! And you imagine yourself to be a man!"
Henceforth the poor lawyer had no peace. Wherever he went, he met grinning faces, and farm-labourers and maid-servants from the safe retreat of sheltered nooks, shouted "the bull! the bull!" whenever he went past.
Adeline had resolved to attend an auction and stay away for a week.
She asked her husband to look after the servants in her absence.
On the first day the cook came and asked him for money for sugar and coffee. He gave it to her. Three days later she came again and asked him for the same thing. He expressed surprise at her having already spent what he had given her.
"I don"t want it all for myself," she replied, "and mistress doesn"t mind."
He gave her the money. But, wondering whether he had made a mistake, he opened his wife"s account book and began to add up the columns.
He arrived at a strange result. When he had added up all the pounds for a month, he found it came to a lispound.
He continued checking her figures, and the result was everywhere the same. He took the princ.i.p.al ledger and found that, leaving the high figures out of the question, very stupid mistakes in the additions had been made. Evidently his wife knew nothing of denominate quant.i.ties or decimal fractions. This unheard of cheating of the servants must certainly lead to ruin.
His wife came home. After having listened to a detailed account of the auction, he cleared his throat, intending to tell his tale, but his wife antic.i.p.ated his report:
"Well, and how did you get on with the servants?"
"Oh! very well, but I am certain that they cheat you."
"Cheat me!"
"Yes; for instance the amount spent on coffee and sugar is too large."
"How do you know?"
"I saw it in your account book."
"Indeed! You poked your nose into my books?"