"My wife's house."

"Your wife's house is yours, is it not? You owe yourself something
from this marriage. You will ask me there now and then?"

"She will ask her own guests, I suppose."

"She will ask whom _you_ choose. Pah! what is she but a child in
your hands?"

"Tita is not the cipher you describe her," says Rylton coldly.

"No, no; I spoke wrongly--I am always wrong, it seems to me," says
she, with such sweet contrition that she disarms him again. "I
cannot live if I cannot see you sometimes, and, besides, you _know_
what my life is here, and how few are the houses I can go to,
and"--she slips her arms suddenly round his neck--"you _will_ ask me
sometimes, Maurice?"

"Yes."

"You promise that?"

"I promise that, as far as it lies in my power, I will always
befriend you."

"Ah, that is not enough," says she, laughing and sobbing in the same
breath. "I am losing you for ever. Give me something to dwell upon,
to hope for. Swear you will make me your guest sometimes."