Mr. Harden was dark, thin, meditative, and romantically inclined. She was loquacity personified; he rarely spoke, save in answer to a question. She was brusque, frank, and communicative; he was a walking handbook of deportment, and mysteriously secretive. She appeared to say everything that came into her head, and was withal as deep as a well; he weighed his words as if they had been precious stones, and was the most transparent of men. She took life, her husband, men, women, eternity, and the present moment, as a series of jokes; he took his wife, his business, his pleasures, his politics, his gout, his dinner, and the welfare of his immortal soul with the same literal seriousness.
Mrs. Harden never spoke with gravity to her husband; Mr. Harden never jested with his wife. Unobservant people were apt to commiserate one or other of this strongly contrasted pair; but among their intimates their household was quoted as an exceptionally happy one. It was a fashion of Mrs. Harden's—one of those bad fashions which she had picked up in Europe—to speak of her husband as if he were a necessary evil, to be endured on all social occasions. In reality, no party of pleasure was complete to her without the presence of that grave and handsome man.
Dinner was announced; and as Mrs. Harden
