It was so difficult to tell. “You don't understand, dear—”
“No, I'm damned if I do. I'm sorry, Mary, but you are so funny, you women. It's so exasperating after the—the devil of a day I've had. Just when I've fixed up everything you turn round and”—he threw out an angry hand—“Why isn't it right?”
This poor little Mary clung to her little principles. “Don't you see? we're engaged, dear; and being engaged, we oughtn't to live alone like this. People would—”
He began to rave. Certainly he had had a devil of a day; and this was a maddening buffet.
“People!” he cried. “People! People! You're always thinking of people, you women! Who's to know? Who on earth's to know?”
The instinct of generations of training gave her the instinctive reply in the instinctive sweet little tone: “We should know, Georgie,” she said.
He flung up his arms: “Oh, good God!”
He swallowed his boiling irritation; laughed 'spite himself; went to his Mary. “Mary, don't be such an utter, utter goose. It's too, too ridiculous.”
She took his kiss; but she held her stupid little ground.
“It wouldn't be right, Georgie, really!”