"Well, what do you expect? You just come rushing in and telling me without ever having said a word that you were going. And for that matter you seem to forget the extraordinary way in which you went off this morning. I haven't."
"I had forgotten. I was upset. I went off, I know; but I don't remember—"
"No, you only swore at me; that's all."
"Mabel, I'm sure I didn't."
"You bawled out, 'For God's sake.' I call that swearing. I don't mind. It's not particularly nice for the servants to hear, but I'm not saying anything about that."
His brows were puckered up. "What is it you are saying?"
"I'm simply saying that, behaving like that, it's not quite fair to pretend that I'm not enthusiastic enough for you about this Lord Derby thing. It isn't as if you were really in the Army—"
He wished not to speak, but he could not let this go. "But I am in."
"Yes, but not properly in—yet. And perhaps you won't ever be. It doesn't seem like being in to me. That's all I'm saying. Surely there's no harm in that?"
He was at the window staring out into the garden. "No, there's no harm in it."