A clatter on the stairs betrayed that he had gone down the
first few steps in a wholesale and irregular manner, though he had just
managed to keep his feet.
As for Staines, he stood there still lowering like thunder, and his
eyes like hot coals; but his wife threw her tender arms around him, and
begged him consolingly not to mind.
She was trembling like an aspen.
"Dear me," said Christopher, with a ludicrous change to marked
politeness and respect, "I forgot YOU, in my righteous indignation."
Next he became uxorious. "Did they frighten her, a duck? Sit on my
knee, darling, and pull my hair, for not being more considerate--there!
there!"
This was followed by the whole absurd soothing process, as practised by
manly husbands upon quivering and somewhat hysterical wives, and ended
with a formal apology. "You must not think that I am passionate; on the
contrary, I am always practising self-government. My maxim is, Animum
rege qui nisi paret imperat, and that means, Make your temper your
servant, or else it will be your master. But to ill-use my dear little
wife--it is unnatural, it is monstrous, it makes my blood boil."
"Oh, dear! don't go into another. It is all over. I can't bear to see
you in a passion; you are so terrible, so beautiful.
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