"I won't have it, Letitia," I interrupted furiously; "I don't see the fun. I positively refuse to be belittled in my own house."
"Archie, you're almost too silly to kiss," she said, kissing me, "and I don't think you deserve to be kissed, either. Here have I been cudgeling my brains all day to devise means to retain a cook that will please you! I have been bullied, and humiliated, and forced to lie, and falsify, and perjure my soul. And, after I have been through it all, and emerged safely on the other side, weak, but victorious, you sulk, because—because—you don't see the fun! There is no fun to see. Nobody knows that better than I do. Come, sir, apologize at once, to your lawful wife, or I shall immediately go and tell Madame that you are of noble birth, and that I've been guying her—that you are really quite obstreperously decent. Come, Archie, your apology, please."
I was slightly mollified, but—"Remember, Letitia," I insisted, "I decline to be low."
She laughed tantalizingly. "You needn't be too low," she said, "just a little bit 'off' will do. Even if you only promise to tuck your table-napkin under your chin and look greedy, I shall be satisfied. Apologize to me, or off I trot to Madame—" and she rose to go.
"Come back, Letitia," I cried. "You are really intolerable. I apologize. I apologize. You're a martyr, and I—I—"
"You're a respectable coal-heaver, dear," she said with malice and a kiss.
[CHAPTER XVIII]
"And they lived happily ever after!" If the advent of Madame de Lyrolle had only been the cue for that sweet, old-fashioned culmination—that dulcet, though generally inartistic surcease from trouble! But, of course, it was not. My readers will probably say that sheer dramatic justice cries out for our speedy chastisement. Alas! Sheer dramatic justice did not have to cry long. It pursued us relentlessly, raveningly. We were innocent as Pompeii confidingly couched beside the dread Vesuvius. This is not the place to say that we deserved it. Surely, if Letitia and I have made one solitary friend during the progress of this "sad, eventful history," he, or she, will refrain from the luxurious "I told you so!"