Part Two Paradise Regained Chapter 23 My Mother-In-Law Surprises Me

This way of speaking of Eustace was more than I could suffer, even from his mother. I recovered the use of my tongue in my husband's defense.

"I am sincerely proud of your good opinion, dear Mrs. Macallan," I said. "But you distress me--forgive me if I own it plainly--when I hear you speak so disparagingly of Eustace. I cannot agree with you that my husband is the weakest of living mortals."

"Of course not!" retorted the old lady. "You are like all good women--you make a hero of the man you love,--whether he deserve it or not. Your husband has hosts of good qualities, child--and perhaps I know them better than you do. But his whole conduct, from the moment when he first entered your uncle's house to the present time, has been, I say again, the conduct of an essentially weak man. What do you think he has done now by way of climax? He has joined a charitable brotherhood; and he is off to the war in Spain with a red cross on his arm, when he ought to be here on his knees, asking his wife to forgive him. I say that is the conduct of a weak man. Some people might call it by a harder name."

This news startled and distressed me. I might be resigned to his leaving me for a time; but all my instincts as a woman revolted at his placing himself in a position of danger during his separation from his wife. He had now deliberately added to my anxieties. I thought it cruel of him--but I would not confess what I thought to his mother. I affected to be as cool as she was; and I disputed her conclusions with all the firmness that I could summon to help me. The terrible old woman only went on abusing him more vehemently than ever.