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how absurd, of course she was married, and so was the driver, though he didn’t seem to like it. She glanced at him. She saw the shadows of fatigue beneath the natural healthiness of his complexion, the pallor on his cheekbones, the hollows in his cheeks, and the smudges under his gun-metal eyes; and she remembered how irresistibly sleep had overtaken him.
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, ‘I’m so sorry! What is she like, your wife?’
    Again Leadbitter hesitated, but this time he knew that it was safe to hesitate: she couldn’t expect him to have a description of his wife on the tip of his tongue.
    ‘My wife she is dying, hurray
    My wife she is dying, hurray
    My wife she is dying
    I laugh till I’m crying, I wish I was single again.’
    Supposing he said that? But of course he couldn’t; he had spoken out of turn even by suggesting that marriage wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. He tried to think of the kind of wife that Lady Franklin would like him to have, and to endow her with an appearance and characteristics. Appearance - Lady Franklin would want to know what she looked like: women always wanted to know that. But no image came into his mind; all women suddenly seemed faceless, he couldn’t even recall the face of the one he had last lived with, it was as blank as the photograph frame from which he had banished her image. All that he could see when he evoked it was his list of engagements. Why did women always want to mess one about with their feelings? He stole a look at Lady Franklin and suddenly had an idea. He liked it all the better for being mischievous.
    ‘Why, she’s a little like you, my lady, if I may say so,’ he said slyly.
    ‘Like me?’ said Lady Franklin. ‘Oh, I hope not!’
    Leadbitter was not ignorant of the emotions; he was in flight from them, and he realized that Lady Franklin was sincere when she said she hoped that the fictitious Mrs Leadbitter was not like her. All the same she was fishing, the crafty Clara, like any other woman, and he would take his cue from that.
    ‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘She might be like a lot of worse people,’
    Lady Franklin considered.
    ‘Worse people? I don’t know, I suppose she might,’ No doubt, thought Lady Franklin, there were worse women than she was, but were there many more unhappy? She shook her head impatiently; the idea of being in competition with other unhappy people was distasteful to her. It was an argument that her friends sometimes used, very delicately of course - that other people had more reason for grief than she had. As if grief could be measured by its causes, and not by the victim’s capacity for suffering! And all this publicizing of her feelings, how was she the better for it? It went against her nature to speak of them. Why had she embarked on this shaming revelation?
    ‘I didn’t really mean that,’ she said. ‘I am glad you think your wife is like me. To look at, I expect you mean?’
    ‘Well, yes,’ said Leadbitter, feeling his way. ‘But people who look alike generally are alike, in my experience, making allowances for the way they are brought up, of course,’
    Lady Franklin took the point. ‘Well, she is lucky to have you,’ she said.
    ‘Lucky?’ said Leadbitter, slowly. ‘Yes, perhaps. I’m not sure if she thinks so, though, my lady,’
    ‘Oh come,’ said Lady Franklin. ‘Every woman is happier with a husband,’
    Leadbitter thought about this. ‘And is every husband happier with a wife?’ he asked.
    Lady Franklin smiled. ‘I couldn’t tell you. I hope you are,’
    ‘Oh yes, my lady,’ he answered enthusiastically. ‘I couldn’t carry on without one. She … she makes all the difference,’
    ‘What difference?’ asked Lady Franklin. ‘What difference does a wife make?’
    Again Leadbitter was flummoxed. His grievance against all women was so deep-seated, and supported by so many arguments in his mind that he couldn’t, off-hand, think of a single redeeming feature that a wife